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Using a TV as a monitor

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Shaft
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PostPosted: 00:27 - 25 Sep 2021    Post subject: Using a TV as a monitor Reply with quote

I know back in the good old days of CRTs, for reasons that I can't remember you couldn't just plug a telly into the back of your desktop and expect it to ever work.

But these days, it would seem running your laptop into your cinema screen sized gogglebox is a possibility.

In another thread, I was bemoaning the fact I had a perfectly good LED TV that was too small as a telly, but it occurs to me it would make a handy size monitor.

So can I and, if so, what do I need to make it happen?

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WD Forte
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PostPosted: 02:07 - 25 Sep 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not had a telly for years so not up to date on them
but some off hand thoughts

I reckon the telly would need to have the onboard circuitry to handle the display and audio signals from the PC
I recall seeing a telly with a vga port and seperate audio connectors waaaay back
But nowadays you'd probably need at least that or more likely
DVI, HDMI or a display port, some of which handle audio and video
(cant recall which does which off hand)

Quality will depend on the tellys resolution and refresh rate
and how 'smart' the telly is

If it doesn't have the above ports you might find a convertor
to port PC AV signals into a scart or composite video and audio sockets on that Ebay
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xX-Alex-Xx
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PostPosted: 04:40 - 25 Sep 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

Easily doable as most computers have hdmi outputs now. Ideally your TV would be at least 1080p but 720p will be “ok”.
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UncleFester
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PostPosted: 07:21 - 25 Sep 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

Been using a 4k 40" Lliyama 'TV' as my main monitor for years. It's only 60Hz at 4k but that's fine for me.

HDMI will carry audio and video so if the TV has decent speakers then you can route your audio to it. I don't - i send Audio via HDMI to a 7.1 AV amp. But it will work.

So in theory all you need is the relevant connecting cable from your 'TV' to your computer.

Whether you find it ok to use or not is a personal thing but i'd reckon a max of 15 quid of cable is going to let you discover that for yourself.
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doggone
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PostPosted: 07:55 - 25 Sep 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

It is probably easy enough to get it to work but a TV is intended to make images look good whereas a good PC monitor will be better for fine text and probably has better refresh rate for gaming type action.
If doing anything like photo and video editing you might want a screen calibrated out of box or by using software, most Tvs will be poor at this.
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Ste
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PostPosted: 07:55 - 25 Sep 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

Plug a HDMI cable in and try it.
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GettinBetter
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PostPosted: 10:36 - 25 Sep 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

doggone wrote:
It is probably easy enough to get it to work but a TV is intended to make images look good whereas a good PC monitor will be better for fine text and probably has better refresh rate for gaming type action.
If doing anything like photo and video editing you might want a screen calibrated out of box or by using software, most Tvs will be poor at this.


As 'doggone' says above, TV's traditionally had a lower resolution than monitors, TV's you watched from across the room, and monitors you would be close to. So monitors had the dots closer together to create clearer text etc.

The difference is still there although much less, you'll have to suck it and see, if you can accept the resolution/quality.

One thing I did notice when viewing films on my 55" TV fed from my PC was that if the film wasn't in HD the enlarged picture was crap, and low res films were unwatchable.
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Easy-X
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PostPosted: 22:07 - 25 Sep 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have an old 42" LCD TV and the only issue I had plugging a PC into it was "overscan" - the Windows desktop had a big black border around it. However in the settings you could label all your source inputs and LG's solution was for you to explicitly label, for example, HDMI2 as "PC" and the border magically disappeared.
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Ayrton
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PostPosted: 17:32 - 26 Sep 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

Every TV I've ever tried has ended up slightly too blurry when reading text, I think because the pixel density is worse on TV's. Looks fine for movies though.
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Fat Angry Scotsman
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PostPosted: 11:33 - 27 Sep 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

I run my PC and my PS4 through my TV which is 4K HDR @ 60 FPS. Works perfectly well.

My exact TV:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B089NDJD9C
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notabikeranym...
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meef



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PostPosted: 17:09 - 27 Sep 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you aren't doing fast-paced shit it's fine. Otherwise you're going to get massive input lag, even with high refresh rates, in comparison to a purpose-built monitor.
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Fat Angry Scotsman
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PostPosted: 10:07 - 28 Sep 2021    Post subject: Reply with quote

Meef wrote:
If you aren't doing fast-paced shit it's fine. Otherwise you're going to get massive input lag, even with high refresh rates, in comparison to a purpose-built monitor.


Personally I don't find it that way at all. In fact I am pretty sure the latency due to my wireless gaming mouse sensing, processing and sending movements is greater than the latency in the TV I game on. I doubt that anyone but the most hardcore of high-FPS e-sports games will perceive any drop in their play due to using a TV over a monitor. Then at that point you're comparing apples to oranges as esports titles are played mostly at 1080p (68.42% of gamers) or 1440p (9.27% of gamers). Only 1.99% of gamers play in 4K resolution.

SOURCE:

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

LinusTechTips is a big fan of using TVs for games and has no real concerns over input lag, etc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9n8Hz_RLqw

Personally, the weirdest thing about using a 75" TV for a monitor is having to sit so far away from the screen. People seem to think you can't sit close to TVs but you can. I am typing this up on a 55" TV that is the monitor of my work PC and I can literally tap the screen as I am only about 50cm away from it, but the annoying thing is that the screen isn't fully in my field of view, if I look at something in the bottom left, I need to actually move my head to see top right so if I was to address this I would need to sit further back: much further than if I was using even three 1080p monitors side-by-side.

It's also something LinusTechTips addressed in this video, where they find people comfortably sit much closer to the TV than they realise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnhv3WFnmH8
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