A few questions about using a TV as a monitor.

[F9thRet]

Tonight, I had my old faithful hanspree monitor die on me, and I just don't have the steady hands to replace the capacitors in it , like I used to do when they went out. Now my wife, has been on me for a year or two now, to also replace our TV's in the house, as we still have those 36" 40,000 lb beasts from the 80's. (I'm the cheapest guy on Earth) , but now that I need a monitor, well hell, That changes everything. :P

So, I've pretty much made up my mind, on the Brand, It will be an Element TV, as I found out they are manufactured here in the US, and the reviews on them seem to be pretty good. But here lies my questions.

Since my set up will have 4 accounts on one screen, and my Main on the old 24", should I push to make sure the TV is 1080p @ 1920x1080 , and still be able to read the text , or should I go lower @ 1366x768 720p?

I'm no spring chicken anymore to say the least, so any savings on the eyes are a good thing. This is why I want to find out ahead of time, as Problems with hearing also mean, the TV must be large enough for me to read closed captions.

If there is anything I may be missing, Or if there is another brand that has obvious advantages, please let me know. It's been years since I bought such a thing, and back then it was those old huge things. The one time I hooked my PC up to an old 50" plasma, it looked like crap, with a resolution of like 640x480.

Thanks Oh grand and wonderful Forum denizens. Your help is greatly appreciated.

Stephen

[JohnGabriel]

You didn't mention the size of the new TV you will be getting. But with my experience of testing on a big 50", I can say don't do it, stick with monitors.

You will need the 1080p, even large text looks blocky on a 720p. And even with the higher resolution you will spend hours tweaking the settings and magnification trying to get it to look good reading small text. Even then its never going to be as good as a monitor.

TVs also do things like blur the edges and stuff to make TV look better, you have to make sure the one you buy also has a PC setting.

[F9thRet]

Thanks John. at most, I was thinking a 40", but now If I can find a 32" one with 1080P, I may go that way. I did go and grab that addon Chatter, to make text larger, but as you said, it could still be very blocky.

So 1080P it is. And too be honest, I think the wife will be fine with a 32" as it's not much smaller then the big ole 36" we have.

Stephen

[Starbuck_Jones]

I have an old Dell 30in LCD monitor/tv that is 720p It worked nice in 2005 when I bought it. But today the low resolution is really starting to show. There just isn't enough pixel real estate for multi-boxing or even loading up a handful of ui mods. Even websites get crammed and pushed off the sides now and those old slider bars start to show up on the bottom of pages like the old html frame days of the early 90's.

You will be better off with a smaller tv at a higher rez than a larger tv at a lower rez for the same price.

[F9thRet]

Wonderful advice Starbuck, I may just go around 32" If I can find one with 1080p. Or If I'm lucky, I'll grab two TV's. One for me and then one for the wife that is a bit larger. I was doing some pricing today, and they are a lot cheaper then I thought. I was expecting 2-4k each, but was shocked to see them around $200-500.

Once again, thanks guys. Oh one more question, Is Samsung still doing that panel lottery thingie? I heard they had like 3 suppliers now, and wasn't sure If they where still the goto guys. I saw some nice things about LG and Sony also.

Stephen

[roddo]

I've had a 37" lg with 1080p for 2 years, and its really nice. Does HD and all of that as well, and has closed captions and even can change the language of the closed captions. Its not the loudest, but thats what surround sound is for. (its loud enough at max volume, but its not like some tv's I've owned that are way to loud at max volume, and i only turn it all the way up for movies.)

[F9thRet]

I'll take a look then at LG again this weekend. Have you used yours, Roddo, as a pc monitor also, and if so, how was the text?

I suppose, I could always run my 4 slaves , on my old monitor I still have running, and use the big one for the main.

Stephen

[JohnGabriel]

[..snip..]

I suppose, I could always run my 4 slaves , on my old monitor I still have running, and use the big one for the main.

Stephen

That might work well for a TV. When I was testing on the 50" it looked great playing solo.

[MiRai]

Something interesting I came across while briefly looking around at this subject which may be of use to you.

If you start with this thread:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2223669

You'll notice they mention something about 4:4:4 Chroma Subsampling and link back to avsforum.com:

4:4:4 Chroma Subsampling

“Chroma subsampling” is a video compression technique used to reduce the bandwidth required for transmitting digital imagery data. This is accomplished by “merging” the colors of neighboring pixels into one. In terms of actual TV picture quality, areas with two neighboring colors (especially red) will seem blurry and fuzzy without proper 4:4:4.

4:4:4 support is better described in pictures than in words, so check out these 4:4:4 test results: link1 (http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy352/floatpoo/444_test/444-test_LG_32LD450.png) and link2 (http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy352/floatpoo/444_test/sony_32EX500_444.jpg). The first one is the LG 32LD450 and the second is the Sony 32EX500. On the LG, all the vertical red lines are perfectly represented as a single column of red pixels. But on the Sony, the vertical red lines are represented as alternating columns of pure red (correct) and “faded” red (incorrect).

There are *very* few LCD TVs that can fully support 4:4:4 chroma. Colmino did an extensive search for 4:4:4 capable TVs, and hardly any were found. You can see his results here: link (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=19356993#post19356993). Since most people have never seen full 4:4:4, they don’t know any better. But once you’ve seen 4:4:4 with you own eyes, you won’t accept anything less.

Note1: 4:4:4 support is generally only important for PC connections and game consoles. Pretty much all HD media (including bluray) is already subsampled down to 4:2:2 or lower.

Note2: For clearer and bigger 4:4:4 test results, see zoran0909's results (link (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=19611435#post19611435))Source (http://www.avsforum.com/t/1257131/official-lg-xxld450-thread/630#post_19723268)

I would also check out this other thread to learn more about the 4:4:4 Chroma Subsampling. It actually seems to be a major player on whether your PC is going to look good on your TV when being used as a monitor or not. There is also a list of televisions (second post -- last updated March 2012) in this thread which may be of use to you.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1381724/official-4-4-4-chroma-subsampling-thread

I didn't read much of the thread myself because I'm not looking to purchase a television and use it as a PC monitor at this time, but I did learn about the importance of the 4:4:4 Chroma Subsampling test. ;)

[F9thRet]

Now that is very interesting MiRai, and While Aandtech is down for maintenence, I'm running through the other links right now. I had never heard of any such thing before , SO I am very happy you brought this up man. IT sounds like I have a lot more reasearch to do on this now.

@ JohnGabriel See, it is good to hear , it did look good going solo on the big screen.

Thanks guys for the invaluable information here.

Stephen

[Bollwerk]

Absolutely love my LG TV. Amazing picture.

[roddo]

Haven't used mine as a pc monitor. It would work, it has the right connections and all of that, but really no need on my part as I have a nice 21" I use to 5 box.

[F9thRet]

That's the size of my single Asus ,Roddo, I have been using for a few years. I saw where newegg had quite a few cheap 1440x900 monitors last night, for 65 bucks, and free shipping, so I snagged 8 of them. Still looking for the right TV, but what I don't use , I can sell to the college kids in Stillwater and Norman.

BTW, I was curious about LG myself, and hearing you like yours Bullwerk, I may add it to the list of possibles.

Stephen