Using TV as a monitor

[Shockwave]

Heh, my monitor went bang last night, I picked up a cheap LCD television from Tescos today and it has better picture quality than my old monitor and the only drawback I can find so far is that it only supports modes up to 75hz which isn't really all that bad.

My desktop never looked so good and I can play my Xbox on it too.

Anybody else here using their telly instead of a monitor?

[Stonemonkey]

Funny you should mention that, I got tired of the desktop and have an eeepc sitting behind and plugged into my 32" hd telly and use a wireless kb and mouse (or did until the kb stopped working and now using the kb I got for yab on the ps2 until i get a new wireless one) The only problem is that the tv doesn't have an audio input for PC mode.

One concern I have is do lcd tv's suffer from any sort of burn in and am I going to end up with a ghost of windows when I'm watching tv?

EDIT: good news, just looked it up and no burn in on LCDs.

[Jim]

You only need rates over 60Hz for CRTs, so the fact your screen only goes up to 75Hz is irrelevant.  My 22" LCD only does 59.9 and 60Hz.  LCDs don't flicker like CRTs.

LCDs don't suffer from the same burn-in trouble as plasma screens.  In normal usage you'll never see any problems.  If you run the same image over and over again 24/7/365 you'll get some problems, with slow or stuck or dead pixels.  But the newer the technology you have the less the problems.  Monitors from 2004 are bad, today's ones are marvellous.

Jim

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I wanted to, but I consider the prices for flatscreen TVs absurd. I know they have much better resolution but that does not change the fact that I can get a decent sized CRT for about 1/6 the price. Also CRT TVs do not suffer from going black at certain viewing angles. Another problem is that many flatscreen TVs simply cannot refresh to keep up with games, the ones that offer a "game mode" work fine. I remember trying to play Ikaruga on my dad's TV and it was really unresponsive. I don't really care about hi def much, so the flatscreen does nothing for me and is a step backward in some ways. Just my two cents.

[Shockwave]

Also CRT TVs do not suffer from going black at certain viewing angles.

I was concerned about this too, if anything I really have to say that the picture quality is better and this just doesnt happen on this tv, I remember the old ones doing it but this seems perfectly ok.

It's a lot easier on the eyes too, even after a few hours my eyes still feel fresh, the old monitor used to give me a headache.

[Jim]

Back in 2004 a 'good' viewing angle would have been 160 horizontal and as little as 90 vertical.  Most screens nowadays have 175+ in both directions.  I think they tend to discolour a bit towards those extremes, and a CRT definitely doesn't do that at all, but again, things have improved immensely.  The black-to-white or grey-to-grey times that caused all that blurring and lag are pretty much gone these days too.

Jim

[Pixel_Outlaw]

That sounds much better, the ones I've had experience with were pretty poor. I didn't know they fixed the viewing angle problems and drawing speed. When I'm old, I'll probably be the old geezer shaking his fist at young whippersnappers driving their bikes on my lawn.

[Shockwave]

When I'm old, I'll probably be the old geezer shaking his fist at young whippersnappers driving their bikes on my lawn.

Hehe, I am there already mate.

[Hotshot]

if I got the moneys then I will get FULL HD Monitor 22 inches just for PS 3! 

[slinks]

I have a HD monitor that also doubles as a pretty decent TV. You can even watch picture in picture (or you know, play games while reading a neoseeker guide). In the living room, we have a large HD widescreen TV hooked upto the spare computer, and that seems to work fine for us. Would be a pain to use all the time though.

[Clyde]

Im still using my iiyama - Vision Master Pro 410, which I've had from day one of owning my very first PC ( Round-about whenever Blitz Basic 2D came out for PC ). The trapezium is a bit out a little on the sides ( I can never get on with that adjuster ), and touch wood, it still works. Makes me feel old thinking of that.

I havent ever tried hooking a TV upto the PC; I used to allways use a small colour tellie connected via RF in the C64 hay days, bit hard too as my 28inch is in my living room, and the PC is in me bedroom.

[benny!]

Never thought about hooking my PC to a LCD TV - at least
not constantly. Interesting. Might be a good solution for
my "computer room" at home ...

[Shockwave]

Never thought about hooking my PC to a LCD TV - at least
not constantly. Interesting. Might be a good solution for
my "computer room" at home ...

Most of them have several HDMI ports, vga input and multiple scarts so you can potentially hook loads of stuff into them.
At the moment I have pc, xbox and satelite tv on this set

[benny!]

And how is working with it ? I mean does it feel strange somehow
to watch your lines of code on the TV ?

[Pixel_Outlaw]

And how is working with it ? I mean does it feel strange somehow
to watch your lines of code on the TV ?

One might feel like a super star programmer!
Look ma! My coding is so good I'm on television.

[benny!]

lol

[va!n]

@nick:
do you sitll work with the TV as temp monitor? or do you have a PC monitor in the meanwhile?

[Shockwave]

I'm still using the TV Vain with no problems whatsoever, in fact I find it better than my old CRT monitor ever was