Alrighty, let's see if we can scope out some use cases.

If it were just photos and media, you really wouldn't need to hook any of the PCs up technically, but files and internet means a physical PC to TV connection.

My initial thought is to connect the PCs that reside in that room physically to the television. The best way to do that would be to use a KVM (keyboard/video/mouse) switch, which means you connect the KVM monitor connection to the TV, then hook the computers up to that. One is a lot easier than three. You use the switch to flip between computers using a keyboard command.

File browsing the remote computers can be done through the network. If you have everything in shares, one pc can browse the shares of another. However, if you need to get to the desktop of everything to browse all files or use the internet, then you could use remote desktop or VNC. Have you heard of those before.

What are your thoughts thus far? Questions? If I've already lost you let me know and I'll go one step at a time.

Also, if any of you fabulous community members have a different idea or solution, I'm sure Valentina would appreciate all options.

-Matt

Mind Over Matt'er - Technology musings, opinion, and more straight from TechLore's head geek.

Sure, I'd be happy to elaborate more on what a KVM does and how you use one.

First, a KVM is like a big electronic switch that connects multiple computers to a single monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Each KVM has its own method of switching between computers, but the majority of them have a hard button on the switch itself as well as a pre-programmed keyboard combination that will switch between the different computers. For example, on my KVM that I use in my home office, I can either hit the button on the switch or press CTRL+SHIFT+ALT, then press a number 1 through four (representing the four inputs), then pressing enter. Seems tough, but it's pretty quick. On my other 2-port KVM, I press scroll, scroll, and then the up or down arrow.

In order to keep PCs happy, the KVMs I've worked with emulate the keyboard and mouse on the PS/2 ports so computers boot up happy and think the peripherals are always present. USB based KVMs probably operate in a similar way, otherwise there'll be a delay between the switch and when your keyboard and mouse work again... though even if not, most PCs pick up keyboards and mice on USB pretty quickly.

I think I've hit questions 1 and 2 above, but now it's just about making a recommendation.

There are plenty of options for 4-port KVMs, but to recommend one, I'd need to know more about your computers. The most important questions, what kind of monitor connections do they all support (VGA or DVI), what OS each runs, and what connections your keyboard and mouse use.

Mind Over Matt'er - Technology musings, opinion, and more straight from TechLore's head geek.