32" 1080p TV as a monitor?

[8bit]

Hi all,

My beloved Dell 24" TFT monitor expired recently and I'm thinking about getting a 32" 1080p TV as a replacement. I was thinking of trading the Dell in for something a bit bigger anyway. TBH I don't really need any bigger resolution than the 1920x1200 that the Dell had and 1920x1080 would do fine, only 120 lines smaller. The PC is both a desktop and acts as a Freeview PVR using Vista Media Center.

The 27" Dells are about £500 and that's a lot more than I was hoping to spend. Amazon have an LG and a Toshiba, both 32" 1080p for about £380 just now. What I'm wondering is, for the time that I spend sat at the desk in front of the thing, can anyone tell me what using such a setup is like? Does the desktop appear "blocky" or blurred due to the bigger screen size but same resolution? Is it simply a case of attaching the TV to my GeForce 8800GTX using a DVI to HDMI cable/converter?

Thanks in advance,
8bit

[handscombmp]

I've got mine on a 32" 1080p and it's fine.

You attach it like said and make usre the resolution is set correctly and your away.

Not all TV's though cope fine with things like text so you may went to test it out before hand.

[Doanh]

I've got a 'media' PC connected via DVI to HDMI on an LG 47" TV and its fantastic!
The LG has 1:1 pixel scanning, so you don't have to mess with overscan. Worth checking if the TV you want has this.
But like handscombmp mentioned, text on some TV's can be 'off' ie fuzzy and odd coloured. Had a Samsung 32" TV before the LG and I think the Samsung did text slightly better than the LG.
You will also find that TV's will not support some resolutions. Shouldn't be a problem as you'll most likely just use the native resolution. (think old games).

[tanka1234567]

I'd think it'd be ok, but in saying that I've never experienced a TV as a monitor. It must be weird having such a big screen!

[8bit]

Well I took the plunge and ordered myself a LG 32LH3000, 1080p unit which just arrived at my work today. I'll post tonight or tomorrow once I've had a chance to set it up with the PC and see what it's like. Couldn't find anything for this one saying it did 1:1 pixel ratio but hopefully it's like Doanh's LG and does that. From the user reviews I read it sounds like a few folks quite happily use this one as a monitor so should be ok.

@tanka - I used to use a 30" Dell monitor at work so I guess it'll be much like that only lower resolution... watch this space

[PeteSmith]

Personally i don't like using my 32" as a monitor, its great quality for media, but not so good for office use. And its too big for my desk setup, (as i imagine it would be for all but a boardroom desk) it can't go back far enough.

[Moriarty]

As already said...

TVs can be ok but some can be poor with text.

So fine for Media and gaming but poor for office apps.

I tried with LG 37" HDTV but office work ws poor quality.

Mart

[sadbuttrue]

Well I took the plunge and ordered myself a LG 32LH3000, 1080p unit which just arrived at my work today. I'll post tonight or tomorrow once I've had a chance to set it up with the PC and see what it's like. Couldn't find anything for this one saying it did 1:1 pixel ratio but hopefully it's like Doanh's LG and does that. From the user reviews I read it sounds like a few folks quite happily use this one as a monitor so should be ok.

@tanka - I used to use a 30" Dell monitor at work so I guess it'll be much like that only lower resolution... watch this space

I'm looking forward to a mini review on this from a UK PC user. It's the exact model I plan to buy next week, so some reassurance on the PC performance would be welcome.

The only real issue I'm concerned about is red/blue text on dark backgrounds. A previous LG I had (32LG7000) and all Panasonic LCDs suffer from this, but no-one on the avsforum thread has been able to confirm or deny the problem.

[Champman99]

I recently bought a LG 26LU5000 for use as my primary display. I couldve got much better value and choice if i'd moved up to 32", as there arent many Full HD 26" panels available at the moment. (At least TV focussed ones)

However the 26" is really taking some getting use to having previously been using a 21" 1680x1050 panel. I think 32" would just be too big for my viewing distance, and also I dont think there would be enough pixel density. I have been very impressed with the LU5000's performance so far though, especially as its monitor potential isnt pushed at all by LG, (they have a series of 'Montiors with Tuners' that I dont think are anywhere near the quality of what I got)

The key thing, at least on LG displays in my own experience, is to rename the HDMI input label, "PC" - this turns off something with the picture processing, and makes text appear properly sharp and everything appear as normal.

I can do a mini-review of this screen if anyone is interested. It has bizzare styling (white and orange) but £350 for a 26" Full HD TV/Monitor I think is pretty good. Incidentally the tuner is very good as well, and scales up freeview to a decent level even at monitor viewing distances.

[8bit]

Well I just got the thing home and set up, thoughts so far...

The whole thing can be out the box, on the stand, cabled and powered on in about 10 minutes easily.

The autotune got 78 Freeview channels, some radio channels and five analogue channels easy.

The PC connected using a DVI to HDMI cable no problem, in fact I have my Vista desktop on it right now. I had to use the NVidia control panel to resize the desktop a little, it seems that all 1920 x 1080 pixels are not visible as most of my taskbar and about the same area round the sides and top of the screen were hidden behind the bezel. I'm running at 1842 x 1036 which isn't a huge loss, will investigate this to see if it's something to do with the TV set up (some sort of scaling maybe? Is this normal?)

The colours are a little strong in normal mode on the Windows desktop so will take a bit of fiddling to get it right. There's a fair bit of control over the picture (like sharpness, contrast, colour, backlight etc.) and the settings can be applied to different inputs, so you can have different setups for your PC, Blu-Ray player, Xbox etc. etc.

The text is a little less clear than on a monitor and lines do look a little fuzzier so if you're into graphics, Photoshop etc. then you won't want to use one of these for that. I use this PC almost entirely as a media center and games machine and the quality of the picture on the desktop is perfectly good for me for all the time I use it for web, email etc.

I'm pretty chuffed with it so far I'll follow up to this thread over the weekend once I've had some time to see how to get the best out of it. I got mine for about £380 from Amazon, ordered on Wednesday evening, here this morning.

[8bit]

The key thing, at least on LG displays in my own experience, is to rename the HDMI input label, "PC" - this turns off something with the picture processing, and makes text appear properly sharp and everything appear as normal.

Just read this after posting my own "half-hour view" above - that's sorted my resolution and text sharpness issues right out - thanks!

Now it's *MUCH* better than before - full 1920x1080 and text and fine detail on the PC desktop is much better too. +1 more vote for relabling the HDMI input as PC, top tip.

[Jedziah]

I would say that from experience, it is manageable, but I would advise against sitting too near the thing.

1920 x 1200 is generally the format you would expect from a 23-24" screen. You are therefore almost being undercharged on resolution if you get what I mean. It all depends on your common uses in my opinion.

If you plan to sit it on a desk not 2ft from you, it will probably give you a headache pretty rapidly. If you are looking to watch some movies on it or maybe play some games which will not require you to be sitting real close to it, I'm sure you can get on fine.

The key thing is to ensure that your eyes are sitting in line with the top of the screen. Sitting dramatically below this line on a big screen is proven to cause RSI in the neck and eye muscles.

[TacticalPelican]

Thanks so much, I've had this T.V. for some time now and could never find a reason as to why I couldn't use the full resolution but after changing the label I now use 1920x1080.