I've never had a chance to to try using a TV as a computer monitor, and I'm wondering if some people here have done it and can share their experience, especially for 3D CAD and productivity work rather than gaming.
I expect that image clarity will be more important than response time for such applications. I'm interested in a comparison between entry-level products for both monitor and TV, not high-end models. For example, how does a ~US$250 32-inch TV compare to a ~$150 24-inch monitor?
A few months ago, I fixed a TV for my elderly father. It was a 4K (3840 x 2160 pixels) Samsung with a 43" screen. To test it, I tried it on my PC.
Absolutely wonderful, and much, much better than my twin 24" LCDs.
So I bought one for myself, a 46" 4K LG and it's pin sharp, bright and just marvellous. Two negatives - you need to not lose the remote control because it will switch off after a few hours unless you prod it, and (presumably) the extra memory used pushed the PC into periodically coming up with spurious low memory warnings. AIUI, this is a Windows bug and I just ignored it to no effect. Since then a new PC and that problem's gone.
However, this is not an entry level TV, it was about GBP350, so about USD450.
Cheers
-- Clive
Thanks. Things tend to be a bit more expensive here, so perhaps I should have said USD200-ish at prices in the West. Still, your info gives me a good starting point. A 42-inch 2K TV goes for around $600 here.
On a sunny day (Tue, 6 Jun 2017 14:47:53 +0530) it happened Pimpom wrote in :
One thing, my Samsung big teefee has a very strong reflecting screen, for a monitor you absolutely want a non-refective screen, unless you want to admire yourself in a mirror all day long, and watch what is happeing behind you (lights especially).
And does it change resolution? (Linux xfree ctrl alt + and -, modelines). No, would not use a teefee for monitor. Monitor for teefee works great though.
A 4K TV is four times that, 3840x2160. I need a longer DVI cable before I try that with my laptop and new TV.
During the last few years, the number of Full-HD (1920x1080) display panels produced has been huge due to TV industry. Thus the prices of monitors with that resolution has come down.
However, panels with even slightly higher resolution are very expensive.
This situation may change when 3840 x 2160 will become commonplace in the TV industry, the price of those monitors will drop significantly.
However any resolution between 1920x1080 and 3840 x 2160 will still remain expensive.
Of course, there are other aspects of a CAD monitor (as well as image processing and video editing) than resolution, such as color depth etc. but these features can often be emulated by loosing some of the plentiful resolution.
Screen reflectivity is certainly something I'll watch out for when I get a chance to test a TV with a computer. Thanks for pointing that out.
Re the resolution, practically all modern graphics cards are able to do 1920x1080, so I don't think that will be a problem.
Some users of curved UHD displays have complained is that you get reflections from external light sources (as windows) falling at some part of your screen where ever you it.
With flat panels, you can always move your head to avoid reflections from a _single_ light source.
Correction "where ever you sit."
On a sunny day (Tue, 6 Jun 2017 15:19:46 +0530) it happened Pimpom wrote in :
On one PC I have the tendency / habit of switching back and forth from lower resolution with ctrl alt + / - to enlarge things.
Very useful feature, X11 modelines.
640x480 no problem.
That was an ergonomic pain (literally, sometimes) with curved CRT monitors. Flat CRTs were a significant improvement.
The CRTs were convex whereas curved LCDs are concave, but that makes no difference.
I know, but I'm not aiming for that. 4K is not yet commonplace here and only some channels are distributed in FHD.
I've seen it done. The main differences to watch for are lower resolution and problematic chroma subsampling
NT
There are a couple of pitfalls you need to watch out for:
- 1080 pixels vertical height really isn't enough (for me, at least). I always use 1920x1200 as a computer monitor vs 1920x1080.
- some TVs have a nonconfigurable "overscan" (a relic from the CRT days), i.e. they take the input material, crop about 16 pixels around all edges, and re-scale the remainder to the full panel resolution. this means the extreme edges of the computer screen will be invisible and the remainder is not pixel-perfect but has some scaling artifacts. you won't notice that when viewing movies but it is extremely noticable when viewing small fonts.
- the RGB value ranges used on TVs is different from monitors. monitors use values 0..255 for darkest..lightest while TVs use values 16-240 for the same thing. this is a relic from the analog days, where there had to be some headroom for overshoot and undershoot. the result is poor detail in very dark and very light areas, as the TV is effectively driven into saturation. sometimes this behaviour can be configured in the TV or is automatically disabled when the TV is used with a computer. or, the computer notices the behaviour and adjusts its output accordingly, however that results in conversion artifacts and poorer color detail.
Bigger isn't always better.
I run 3840x2400 (on a set of four 24" 16:10 screens). Most of the time, I prune that down to 3840x1200 (i.e., two screens powered off) simply because of the 'front-row-of-the-movie-theater' effect.
Or, I'll display the output of a different workstation on the top two (or right two) screens for ease of viewing.
I used to run 4800x1200 (three 1600x1200 4:3 screens) and found that to be more comfortable (it was easy to keep focus on the center screen and glance to one side or the other for reference materials)
Something else I'll watch out for. Thanks.
Using a TV for detail work is a bad idea. This article covers the issues: "How to pick and tune a TV to use as a PC monitor" The problem that I'm seeing are TV's stuck at 1920x1080 and are unable to do higher resolutions, and 4:2:2 compression causing blurred images. The 4K and double resolution PC monitors 3840x2160 (4K UHD) are truly impressive for showing fine detail but are not available as a TV. If you haven't run CAD or tried to read tiny text on a 4K monitor, you're in for a surprise. With 4K you don't need a huge monitor to see detail. All a huge monitor does is expand small blurry pixels into large blurry pixels. With 4K you can see far more detail. You won't see much of that in a TV, even if it's a 4K TV because with TV, what you want is the widest possible range of colors (color gamut) and not so much detail, which is useless at the distances that a TV is normally watched.
Gaming is a different problem. What you want is very fast screen updates (frame rate) and response times. The frame rate is a function of your computah and video card. It's not unusual to spend more money on a gamers video card than on the computah. Here's a discussion of the issues in involved: Look for 144Hz monitors with 5msec or less response time.
If you can't afford a 4K monitor at this time, buy the cheapest monitor you can afford, and buy a 4K when your savings and retail prices coincide. Look for "refurbished" IPS 4K monitors such as: Click on LCD/LED Monitors.
If image clarity is what you want, I would be shopping for a 4K monitor and video card and forget about using a TV. TV on a PC (Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Plex, Kodi, etc) looks good enough on a PC monitor.
-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
As I wrote earlier, my 4K 46" TV makes an excellent monitor, pin sharp and bright. I wouldn't go back.
I tend to have several programs running, maybe simulations, an IDE or two, several terminal emulators and email. I can see them all at a glance. PCB layout using the full screen allows a great view, even if you're only really using the centre portion for routing.
The only qualm I have is how long will it last - it's on over 8 hours a day five or six days a week.
It probably makes a good TV as well, but I've never tried that.
Cheers
-- Clive
On a sunny day (Tue, 6 Jun 2017 16:55:57 +0100) it happened Clive Arthur wrote in :
You can get the same full screen effect with 9 virtual desktops, I run an old version of fvwm, and just switch with ctlr cursor between those, always full screen. On all my (Linux of course) computers, even this laptop. After all you can only look at one thing at the time anyways, I do not see the point of being close to huge screens.
Out of morbid curiosity, how far away from your 46" screen do you view your 4K monitor when doing PCB layout? I tried it with 50" Samsung something (don't recall resolution) and found that even though everything was in focus, my eyes started to hurt from constantly changing focal length from about 2ft at the center of the screen, to almost 3ft at the left and right edges. A smaller screen with less resolution doesn't do the same thing to my eyes.
So do I, but I have multiple monitors. I inherit them from my customers who are buying 4K screens. Currently, I have two 24"
1920x1200 screens in the office. At home, a 24" 1920x1080 and a 27" 1920x1200 screen. I also have multiple computers and can switch monitors around to whichever computer needs my attention. Eventually, 4K will come down in price, and 8K or OLED will probably be in next big thing, so I'll inherit a 4K screen.
Well, you have a choice. The LED backlighting might fade causing the white backlighting to be off color. Or, the under-rated electrolytics will bulge and leak. If that doesn't kill you monitor, a new interface specification (such as for holographic 3D) will arrive, making it incompatible with the latest short lifetime (5-7 years) PC. Progress blunders onward.
Is it true that TV screens are measured in inches in the UK? What happened to metric sizes?
I have, but I don't recall the result. I was busy trying to make everything work and didn't have time for an evaluation. Besides, I would have preferred to have a side by side comparison with a "real"
4K TV. I tried to get the local store, Best Buy, to setup such a comparison, but they refused.-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
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