TV as my monitor??

[Robert Bencomo]

I saw some nice 50'' inch Sony or Phillips flat screen TV's at Walmart.
I was wondering, can I use such a TV as my computer monitor as
well?? I mean, instead of buying a separate LCD for my computer,
wouldn't it just be better to buy one big TV which I can use for
both my computer and general TV watching purposes?? Anybody
got an opinion about this??

Thanks!

RB

 

[Frank McCoy]

In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt "Robert Bencomo"

I saw some nice 50'' inch Sony or Phillips flat screen TV's at Walmart.
I was wondering, can I use such a TV as my computer monitor as
well?? I mean, instead of buying a separate LCD for my computer,
wouldn't it just be better to buy one big TV which I can use for
both my computer and general TV watching purposes?? Anybody
got an opinion about this??

Thanks!

RB

If you can get one capable of displaying 1080p (Not many do) then it'll
do OK as a monitor. 720p (Most of them) is pretty crappy.
1080i is hard on the eyes.

Remember to sit back from the monitor if you get one that huge.
It's made for veiwing from a chair across the room, NOT sitting up-close
and personal like a similar-rated Computer Monitor would be.

If you're going to sit right up next to the thing, get one of the newer,
faster-acting LCD monitors with 1080x1050 resolution. (That's actually
the resolution needed to accept a 1080p input signal from TV.) Then use
the screen as a TV monitor as well as for the computer. You can then
either buy a converter for the monitor, or better-yet get an HDTV
compatible video-card for the computer.

 

[Dawid Michalczyk]

I saw some nice 50'' inch Sony or Phillips flat screen TV's at Walmart.
I was wondering, can I use such a TV as my computer monitor as
well?? I mean, instead of buying a separate LCD for my computer,
wouldn't it just be better to buy one big TV which I can use for
both my computer and general TV watching purposes?? Anybody
got an opinion about this??

I think TV's run at fixed resolution, just like LCD's. So you would be
stuck with one resolution which is pretty low compared CRT monitors. I
think NTSC is 720×480 and PAL is 640x400. You can change resolution on
LCD but the result will be a bit blurry.

 

[Paul]

I saw some nice 50'' inch Sony or Phillips flat screen TV's at Walmart.
I was wondering, can I use such a TV as my computer monitor as
well?? I mean, instead of buying a separate LCD for my computer,
wouldn't it just be better to buy one big TV which I can use for
both my computer and general TV watching purposes?? Anybody
got an opinion about this??

Thanks!

RB

TV sets have many options for input. Some of the traditional input
options are bandwidth limited, and make text blurry. If I output
640x480 to composite video to my TV set, the text is unreadable.
(I tried using it for a boot screen for a headless FreeBSD box,
but couldn't really use it.)

A CRT based TV traditionally would have had composite ot S-video
inputs. But modern TV sets, like ones based on LCD technology,
can also have other forms of input, like VGA or DVI connectors,
or component input. Depending on your video card, some video cards
have an adapter cable for the DIN connector, that has component
output of some sort. At least some of these interfaces, allow a
higher bandwidth signal to be delivered to the monitor.

There is some kind of relationship, between screen size, and
preferred distance from the viewer. From that perspective,
you may not be getting much advantage from using it. Another
thing, is power consumption. My 17" LCD computer monitor, uses
no more than 36W. A 50" TV set needs to illuminate a lot more
square inches of screen, and could easily use a couple hundred
watts, even if it was an LCD. My old 20" CRT monitor, the one
I had before the LCD, used 200W while running. So in that sense,
the TV is not such a bargain, if you use it for many hours a
day. Besides, you may want to watch TV occasionally

Paul

 

[DaveW]

The quality of the picture on the TV will be inferior.