HDTV as a PC monitor

[Anonymously Submitted]

I'm considering buying an HDTV to use as a PC monitor, which will be connected to a laptop computer (Max res.= 1280 x 800). Will a 1080p flatscreen TV work better (resolution, etc.) than a 720p TV? Thank you.

[Richard]

While the benefits of 1:1 pixel mapping, 1920x1080 source into a 1920x1080 native pixel matrix, is debatable for watching TV, for PC applications I suggest it is required or you will find your text, icons and other stuff fuzzy as if it is out of focus. You will also want no overscan so that pretty puts you in flat panel land, LCD or plasma. You will also have to select the correct aspect setting on the display to get the 1:1 pixel mapping and no overscan.

You don't have a choice with HDTV either, 1080p only, unless you can pull a rabbit out of your hat and find a flat panel that is native 1280x720... have not seen one of those for a long time. You can't go by the simple 720p expression - it has to have a native 1280x720 pixel matrix. You will find 1024x768 but that won't work because the pixels are not square, they are rectangular, and PC is designed for a square pixel matrix. A 1368x768 would qualify yet easily just as tough to find.

[ionosphere]

My 17" Dell monitor recently went on the fritz. Got a 22" Vizio 1080p tv as a replacement. Works great.

[eliwhitney]

Hi ionosphere & "welcome" -

BUT - the question may be how long will that "VIZIO" last ?

Many seem to develop the " electrical " click or pop or snap of death !

eli

[ionosphere]

Man, I hope not!!!

[eliwhitney]

ionosphere -

Vizio may well be the current " #1 " selling of the new HDTVs - but - there are a TON of complaints regarding the apparent " issues " concerning Customer Service {-lack of-} plus annoying, less than stellar endurance ....

Not that long ago, it had LITTLE chance of economically-viable servicing / repairs the very day after warranty + yours STILL needs to be shipped (by you) to a Service Center during warranty , which may or may not be available in your town.

eli

[jimmo]

Some of the Toshiba's HDTV'S have great resolution choices on their PC input jack. The 46XV540u model is is outstanding in that regard, if you can find on in your size. Sears may still be selling the 42" I saw a couple months ago. Check the specs on Toshiba site, or others.

My Lenovo thinkpad T60 outputs 1050p from the docking station and coax 5.1 audio so I considered that model. So far I have not made the choice yet. I am not sure how 1050p will display on 1080p. Maybe I will have to do bit for bit.

Jim

[Roger Halstead]

Even neglecting the native resolution, IF you had a video card that would provide that many pixels it takes a LOT of horsepower to run it. I'm using a 24" wide screen monitor with 2 ms response time. It takes an expensive video card and a top of the line CPU to provide fast gaming action. Movies and AVIs are not quite so bad.

In the case of the laptop I think you are looking at two negatives toward using the HDTV as a monitor. The one is the inability to reach the native resolution of the screen and the other is lack of power in the computer. I have no problem scaling back to less than native resolution and getting crisp images, but I have more in the video card than many put in their whole computer.


Although what you propose should work, I'd recommend against it unless you are planning on a major computer upgrade in the near future.

BTW, that 24" wide screen monitor makes one whale of a TV display when used with the computer's internal TV receiver, but it also has a native resolution of 1920 X 1080
OTOH I'd go with something a bit ... well... less wide and keep the aspect ratio of the HDTV. It's also annoying to watch an image with the typical aspect ratio.

One other difference you will likely notice is *most* (but certainly not all) *current* TV monitors have a much wider viewing angle than do computer monitors.

[jimmo]

I would not be doing any gaming, just outputting my laptop video of what ever I am surfing or doing. I have components like a 7.1 onkyo sr705 receiver, a 1080P Panni dvd recorder with ATSC tuner, and eventually a Blue Ray player. That will work for movies. I figure the laptop ( even thought it is core 2 duo 1.83 mhz with 2 gb ram) does not have the horses to connect a blue ray to it. It does play DVD'S ok though at 1050p screen resolution even though they are not upconverted. My laptop screen is 1050p, but I think the ATI 1400 128MG graphics board displays highter on an external monitor. That is my next purchase. I am waiting on the Toshiba 52xv648u that comes out in August with my component setup.

I also have a older desktop AMD64 1800 with a 128mg graphics board which I know does not have the power, and the cpu is probably too slow also with 2gb of ram. I only have a 17"Princton dvi monitor, but I need 16:9 aspect ratio, not what I have now. You are right that I need more horsepower. Even if I got a new computer, or better graphics board, the HDMI run would be about 25", and I heard that degrades the signal on long runs. I guess I could get an amp booster for the HDMI cable. It would be nice to stream video movies though.

Thanks for the info.

[Richard]

It does play DVD'S ok though at 1050p screen resolution even though they are not upconverted.

It has to be converted somewhere; there is no other way unless you mean a pixel mapped centered output and for 16:9 DVD, centered will also be an error because that format is based on rectangular rather than square pixels.