We are looking at eliminating the big bulky TV from our bedroom and using my PC with (bigger) flat panel monitor for late night TV watching. I know that there are a lot of remotes that work, but has anyone ever tried to control the brightness/contrast of their monitor using a remote? Is there a software option for such a crazy thing? You see, in a darkened room, the screen is horribly bright, so for late night TV watching, we would want to dim the screen, but during the day it needs to be cranked up for PC usage.

Any ideas?

My monitor has some presets including a custom one that I could set all the way dim, but it would be nice to run everything from the remote.

Oh, we would also need a TV tuner, so maybe there would be a function of that too. Not looking to turn my PC into a PVR as we have Dish DVRs all over the house, just want playback on a single specified channel...

I have a hauppauge pvr-150 pci tuner with mce remote I'll send you for free if you want it. I was dissapointed in the picture quality and replaced it with an avermedia card.