Why can't I use a TV as a monitor?

[chaoticdonkey]

I have been trying to figure out why I can't go buy a TV for a monitor. They're cheaper than the dell 2405FPW, even the flat-panel ones. For the price of one of those dell monitors, I could go get 2 20 inch TV's for the price of one of these, and have the most awesome computing experience ever.

Is there something hardware-wise that would limit me from doing this?

[Nexus Realized]

You can use a TV...but the resolution won't be a high as a computer monitor.

[Captain Slug]

Standard TVs generally display around 320x240. The larger models use hardware sharpening filters, but you're still not going to have anywhere near the clarity of even the smallest cheapest CRT or LCD monitors.

[mcoleg]

sure you can. just need to get one of the hd lcds with dvi connector. search for 30" syntax olevia (1280x1024 resolution) or, if you got the money, 37" westinghouse for 1920x1080 resolution. still, won't be as sharp as dell for text but would sure beat those puny 24"-ers in games :P .

[Seven7Thirty30]

I couldn't imagine sitting 3 feet from a 37" screen, that's rediculous. The 2405 has a ton of other features too, like a plethora of available connections and a built in 7-in-1 flash card reader. It also performs well in games without ghosting or other visual artifacts that cheaper LCDs or LCD TVs have.

[chaoticdonkey]

Would a regular non-HDTV LCD tv be better than a standard CRT one?

[mcoleg]

I couldn't imagine sitting 3 feet from a 37" screen, that's rediculous. The 2405 has a ton of other features too, like a plethora of available connections and a built in 7-in-1 flash card reader. It also performs well in games without ghosting or other visual artifacts that cheaper LCDs or LCD TVs have.

well, you gotta see it. no ghosting. more connections than 2405. but no flash card reader. so i guess you win :P .

Would a regular non-HDTV LCD tv be better than a standard CRT one?

i doubt it. do they make "non-HDTV LCD"? really?

[Sleepy_Steve]

Yeah, i vote for a good 37'' HD LCD... and if you cant picture youreself gaming in front of one... you simply are not thinking about the reclining chair and uber gaming setup that is required ;-)

[chaoticdonkey]

Heh, that's the funny thing. I don't even game. Outside of 4-year-old web-based games.

[Enablingwolf]

I use a TV for a seconady monitor. Videos and a quick peek at things. The quality sucks for other than movies and videos. Text is unreadable. Regular images are not as bad, but you can get a fuzzy look on them. There is some nice things having a TV, as a monitor, for general computer use. If your a surfer get a monitor. Leave the TV for the tv shows, music videos and movies.

I took a shot of your first post. Now you can see why they are not the best for surfing. Games are not as bad. For any text ingame or precision, your not going to be happy.


If you get a Quality HD tv your still going to be on a S-Video plug, which is inferior to the D-sub or DVI setups.


http://img487.imageshack.us/img487/4362/pict07446wx.jpg

[mcoleg]

wolf, why s-video? most modern hdtvs have dvi and d-sub connections.

chaoticdonkey, if you are not planning to play games, go with a regular lcd monitor. whole bunch of 19" ones are pretty good or better yet a 21" dell... no reason to go for a size if it's not for games or you are doing something that needs a very large screen, whatever that may be.

[Enablingwolf]

wolf, why s-video? most modern hdtvs have dvi and d-sub connections.



My bad, I am still in the old school thought of mind that most will use the TV out on video cards. That be the S-Video I was mentioning.

[mcoleg]

ah, s-video; suffered through that myself :P

[noxqzs]

get something like this and you can get HD quality if TV supports it.

http://www.ramelectronics.net/assets/images/video/55-873-RCA-6.jpg


search for VGA to RGB converter

[habbajabba]

All I know is that a monitor uses square pixels & a tv set does not. I have only a sony 24" 4:3 tv with no hdtv support (but my tv tuner card has hdtv!). I do not like it because it has only inputs & absolutely no outputs at all. I was just thinking of getting a longer s-video cable for my x800 pro to stream videos to my tv but the vga to composite may give better results, though I am completely unsure of just what will happen if I do either one.
I thought you were looking for a budget alternative to a second monitor. Why is everyone talking huge flat panels with hdtv? For watching video we are now talking a minimum of a grand. Last time I checked a ws lcd of about 30" was about $1500.
While we are on the subject can anyone say what the dif would be if I ran an svideo cable to my 4:3 nonhdtv sony as compared to the vga-composite cable. And will their be probs if the video is not in ntsc format?

[Enablingwolf]

I have an old crappy 19" set. It is hooked up via a breakout box. It is S_Video converted to Composite.

For videos and other things it will work. Just dont expect to get great results in games and text.

For videos and peeks on what your computer is doing on the desktop. It will do the job.

[Cheator]

For the most part, on CRTs and non digital LCDs (Yes they exist, but are often the small cheap kind) you will only get a max of 1024x768 out of the TV out of your video card. There are boxes that you can buy that will clear up the image and allow better resolutions, but for the most part, it isn't worth it.

As everyone else has said, they are great for movies (I love it for my HTPC) and the text is illegible.

[SuperFarStucker]

First off, a tv atypically has either a 640x480(interlaced, sdtv), 640x480 (480p), 1280x720(720p, hdtv), or 1920x1080(1080i, interlaced, hdtv). Basically, the amount of bandwidth a tv has available for the picture geometry is much smaller than what a monitor can do. The aperture grill has much larger holes and in general the signal isn't as fine detailed, this is why games kind of suck on tvs. Your framerate is locked at ~30 fps for a tv to (unless it is pal, then less) which is terrible for computer displays. About the only thing they are truly useful for is video playback and it takes quite a bit of configurating to make it work. The component video connection actually works better than a DVI -> Hdmi cable does [in my experience] because the video card expects composite connections to hook to a tv , as where dvi is expected to go to a monitor. typically tvs only take ~20-30mhz pixel clocks which are nowhere near the 200mhz clocks for monitors (10 times + the information density). I guess lcd tvs are better than hdtvs but keep in mind the lcd is much lower 'quality' than a computer screen in many aspects, hence the price differential.

[doublejack]

Building on the above post:

Most 42" plasma televisions and many smaller LCD TVs have a 1024x768 (EDTV) resolution. Additionally, Texas Instruments devised a method called "wobbulation" that they use to get a true 1080p signal from their DLP chips. So one can buy a DLP set that will do 1920x1080 non-interlaced.

The refresh rate concept can be a little confusing. It's true that the NTSC standard calls for 30fps. However, that doesn't mean the refresh rate is locked at 30Hz. All TVs actually operate at 60Hz. It's just that they all used to be interlaced, so you'd only get a complete screen redraw every 1/30th of a second. Thus the 30fps criterion. However, TVs that can display a progressive signal - which includes HDTV and EDTV units along with many newer standard def TVs - will do a full 60fps (an LCD requires a <16ms panel for this rate).

My opinion is that an EDTV or HDTV is quite suitable for gaming and displaying video. 60fps and 1024x768 (or better) is satisfactory imo. A TV's picture wont' be as shart as a monitor's but the tradeoff is a bigger screen. And as they say, size matters. I wouldn't use a standard def. TV though, nor would I try to use any TV for web surfing or windoze apps.

As far as the connection - component, DVI and HDMI are all good. Any of the 3 is going to give a good picture and possibly push your TV to it's performance limits. What works best is likely to vary based on the TV itself.

Finally, on "quality" and price - Computer monitors all have squre pixels vs. the generally retangular ones used with TVs, and monitors have a higher pixel density - partly due to their square shape, but also a monitor's pixels are generally smaller. So, a 24" LCD monitor is going to have a lot more pixels than a 27" LCD TV. That will make the monitor cost more because the panel is far more complex to manufacture, and the monitor can display a higher resolution because of it's greater number of pixels.

But if you look at the low end of the LCD market, say a 15" monitor vs. a 15" TV - the TV is going to cost twice as much. In this size the pixel count is either going to be very close or exaxtly the same, so the monitor's panel won't cost more to produce. The TV also needs components, such as a tuner, various inputs, etc. and that's why it costs more.

In the CRT world the pixel count is limited by the geometry of the set, with the same basic principles applying as with LCDs and plasmas. i.e. if a TV only has 500 scan lines you're not going to display a 1024x768 image on it without converting it first.

[noxqzs]

Building on the above post:

Most 42" plasma televisions and many smaller LCD TVs have a 1024x768 (EDTV) resolution.


1024x768 is HDTV not EDTV. They support 480p, 720p, and 1080i(downconverted). The price difference in these displays compared to the 853X480 EDTV alone is a giveaway when looking for a display.

[doublejack]

1024x768 is HDTV not EDTV. They support 480p, 720p, and 1080i(downconverted). The price difference in these displays compared to the 853X480 EDTV alone is a giveaway when looking for a display.

You're correct. My post went though several edits before I submitted it and it was getting long, so I chopped out some info. The end result had this error. What I meant to say was:

Most 42" plasma and small LCD televisions have a 853x480 (EDTV) resolution. There are some with 1024x768 (HTDV) resolution but as you pointed out they are more expensive.

Interestingly, current DVDs tend to look better on EDTV sets than HDTV because the signal doesn't require as much scaling / interpolation. Of course, as content switches over to HD the advantage of the HDTV units becomes clear.