Yes and there are no risks a tv is just a screen like any other and most are LCD. Televisions normally are of much lower resolution then a computer monitor and imo inferior but they can be easily connected.
HD stands for High Definition which is a picture of higher resolution then 1280 x 720 as a standard definition in the TV world is 640 pixels × 480 lines which is the resolution. So the lowest for HD is 1280 x 720 which is known as 720p or 720i the difference being that one is progressive picture (720p) the other is interlaced picture (720i). The next step up is a 1080i or 1080p tv which is also known as full hd which has a resolution of 1920x1080. My 24" computer monitor on the other hand has a resolution of 1920x1200 and standard retail computer monitors go to 2560 x 1600 for a 30" monitors with professional monitors going higher. Therefore you could have a 100 inch hd tv and my monitor would have more pixels and therefore better colour definition even though its only 24".
HDMI is the port on the back of the and the cable used to send the signal. HDMI carries a digital signal so are DVI and coaxial (digital). Digital is superior to previous cables as it doesn't degrade as rapidly so the picture is more accurately displayed on a screen. Analogue uses a wave which can be easily disrupted and change shape leading to discrepencies in the picture. In contrast digital uses for arguments sake binary so 10101110000111 with checksums to make sure all previous numbers are correct this degrades at a much slower rate as for it to become disturbed and magically transform from 101110 to 101100 does happen but over a lot longer distance. In short at short distances e.g. under 1 metre cable choice on analogue or digital doesn't matter as that is not a suffecient distance for sufficient signal disruption to effect the image. For longer differences digital is superior.
The simplest way to connect your computer up would be a dvi to hdmi cable.
