For those wanting to view content on your computer (like Hulu, torrents or YouTube) on your television without the cost of purchasing an Apple TV, you may be in luck; that is if you’re a Cablevision customer.

During the second quarter Cablevision will start a trial service that will allow customers of their digital cable service to “instantly relay any content on their computer screen to a dedicated channel on their TV set without any additional equipment or advanced configurations.”

Cablevision is calling the service “PC to TV Media Relay.” Users will have to download software onto each PC they want to mirror on a television, which they’ll watch on a dedicated TV channel. Customers will have control of everything including pictures, Internet radio, widgets, streaming video sites, email, and more; from the computer upon which they’re beaming the content, which suggests this will be more viable with a laptop than a desktop PC. Mac user? Don’t worry. Cablevision is reportedly developing a version to run on OS X as well.

“We are putting an end to the need for families to huddle around their laptops or PCs to watch content together,” COO Tom Rutledge said. “This new service will make it easy for our television customers to take broadband services, including Internet video, as well as family photos or anything else displayed on a computer screen and move it to the television with the click of the mouse.”

PC-to-TV may help Cablevision preserve its cable-TV revenue stream, which is threatened by the proliferation of free videos on the Internet.

Comcast Corp. launched a service called On Demand Online last year that offers cable programming on its own website to subscribers to both its digital cable and Internet service.

Cablevision plans to begin a technical trial of the new service by June in an undisclosed market. No pricing has been set. The company says the technology may ultimately be extended to handheld devices.