TV as a PC display

[philehidiot]

Eh up,

We're part converting the spare room into an office and I've suggested that we mount a monitor on the wall so the missus can plug her laptop into it for large screen goodness and also better posture. This is also a guest room and as a result we'd ideally like a telly in there so in order to combine the two we have two options:

1) Buy a TV with two HDMI inputs, one for PC and one for some streaming stick
2) Buy a monitor with two inputs

The monitor is most likely to be used the most but it will lack a remote for volume control, etc as well as potentially being a pain to change inputs. Therefore, I prefer the TV option. The problem I have is that I remember back in the day when sending a PC signal to a TV resulted in visual pain with poor image quality, contrast resolution, colours, etc. Given we are in the days of HDMI, etc, is this still an issue? The only other problem I have is finding a TV small enough for close up use at 1080P but I'm sure I can work around that one.

Any input on the image quality/suitability issue would be appreciated. Ta.

[DanceswithUnix]

I did that with the kids when they were small, but they were cheap TVs and the hdmi input only worked in overscan where the TV zooms the image about 5% which is enough in Windows to not quite see the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Adjusting in the gpu drivers gives a horrible jagged display, so I ended up using the VGA input which was usable but not great for image quality.
My son still uses a TV for a display, but these days uses a 43" 4K LG smart TV. That means he can use HDMI as an input as you can turn the overscan off, but we didn't realise when we bought it the left and right edges of the image have an odd curl to them which I find distracting but he says he is OK with. 43" is rather big for a monitor, but the 32" ones all seemed to be budget 720p panels and the old panel was a 24" 1080p TN with washed out colour before you use a VGA port and it was hard to find anything better.

So it can be done, but there are hazards to watch out for. Monitors tend to be cheaper too.

[kompukare]

43" is rather big for a monitor, but the 32" ones all seemed to be budget 720p panels and the old panel was a 24" 1080p TN with washed out colour before you use a VGA port and it was hard to find anything better.

Rtings are pretty good at doing reviews but some of the models seem to be unavailable in the UK:
https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/be...age/pc-monitor
Had a look there a while back looking if any of the 4K TVs would be suitable as a 4x1080 monitors (or PC monitor in general). And yes, the best rating for monitor usage and TV were always the bigger panels.
I would have though that WRGB would a big no-no for monitor use, but surprisingly there are some LG's in there (add the Sub-Type column to see this) although they are OLED WRGB not LCD WRGB.

[philehidiot]

Cheers, both.

Think I'm leaning towards a monitor and sod the guests....

[DanceswithUnix]

Cheers, both.

Think I'm leaning towards a monitor and sod the guests....

I think I would tbh.

I actually had a look on Ebuyer which years ago is where I bought the 24" TVs that the kids used (with built in DVD player). There used to be loads on there, now a choice of one. Boggled I looked on the PC World site, where looking by size the smallest group was "less than 40 inch" or somesuch, with a tiny selection of what I would usually class as a bedroom TV. I guess these days a 24" TV is in the impulse buy electrical goods displays on the ends of the supermarket isles, not a real product.

Mind you, you didn't specify an expected size or budget.

[Zak33]

I have never managed to get a TV to work utterly perfectly as a monitor on Windows Desktop. There are always task bar sections missing

[DanceswithUnix]

I have never managed to get a TV to work utterly perfectly as a monitor on Windows Desktop. There are always task bar sections missing

I presume that's on HDMI and would be overscan. On a decent TV you can switch it off so the image isn't scaled.

On my old Samsung that meant using one specific HDMI input and naming the input "PC" I think it was. Not something you could stumble into anyway, but the all knowing Google provides. On the newer LG sets we have I think it was just a setup option and rather more obvious.

Cheap TVs though, the 24" bedroom sets we have had costing under £150 I have yet to find such an option. Older ones had VGA inputs for tax purposes (monitors didn't have import duty) and that was unscaled. I always meant to get an HDMI to VGA converter dongle for such things now that VGA is pretty much gone from video cards (and no, I won't miss it ).

[philehidiot]

I've discussed it with the missus and it's a wall mounted monitor jobbie. Going to get one with speakers and hopefully the Amazon stick will send audio through HDMI and play through the monitor speakers... hopefully.... any ideas as to whether this will work?

[the_weegie]

This not work for you?

https://www.maketecheasier.com/fix-overscan-on-tv/

[the_weegie]

This not help? https://www.maketecheasier.com/fix-overscan-on-tv/

[Croupier]

I'm planning on using my 55" 4K Samsung TV as a monitor for my new build, at least for now. Sound shouldn't be an issue as I'll be using an external sound card and monitors with the pc.
I'll report back once I've actually built my pc and used it with my TV.

[philehidiot]

Just in case it helps anyone, I've tested the Amazon stick on my monitor via HDMI. It works solo and the monitor also runs through the audio to the internal speakers and pipes it through the integrated 3.5mm jack to supply speakers.

So, I'll be selling my monitor to the missus as we know it does everything she wants and I'm now looking for a new monitor....

[markih]

I have used my trusty old Samsung TV as a monitor on a few occasion when showing family and friends photos. I still prefer my monitor for gaming as the refresh is much quicker. But for everyday use the TV is fine when connect by HDMI cable.

[smurfm]

The key is the refresh time (lower on TV's) and also there may be an image processing chip trying to improve your image on TV - not desirable for the computer content.

[VykkuF]

I have tried using a new LG 43" UHD TV as a monitor (LG 43UK6300PLB). I was very disappointed with it. The brightness of the whole display was changing by itself depending on the content, and there was no way to turn that off. I even tried using the Service Menu using an app on my phone with an IR blaster, and still none of the relevant settings made a difference. The colours were also weird, especially the yellow colour. Calibrating with a Spyder 5 did not help much. The delay in PC mode was great though.

I ended up returning it and spent a bit more on a proper monitor, 40" curved Philips UHD VA for about £150 more, but it was worth every penny as it is pretty much perfect.

There are people who have great experiences using TVs, so I think it would be a good idea to buy a model that has been confirmed to be good for this use.