32" HD flatscreen TV as a monitor, thoughts?

[Karl Williams]

Rob,
I have a customer who has gone the same route for the same reasons.
On first impressions sounds and looks good. But he now suffers with severe eye strain. My advice…..Get some specs…..stop blaming it on the monitor and accept you are getting old mate! :lol1: :lol1:

[Roy Roffey]

claiming the vat back eh ! 😉 😉

crafty git,

i had a customer do this and found it a bit overpowering – sending him straight to spec savers if you know what i mean !!

roffs

[Nicola McIntosh]

as far as i know you can rob using the dvi cable…but i have heard people have had problems with adjusting the display resolutions 😀

nik

[Marcella Ross]

wouldn’t you need to sit a bit further back from it though ………. kinda defeats the purpose? No?
I agree ………… get some specs ………. might make you look intellectual anyway! 😉

[Robert Lambie]

thanks for the feedback so far folks… i know what you mean about over powering etc your probably right but am i not correct in saying the LCD is like plasma screen .e. doesnt flicker to cause the strain a TV would normally?
I planned on wall mounting this and sits back at least another 18inches behind where my monitor sits just now.

my current monitor i use when on the boards is a 21.5 inch viewsonic flat screen and my other comp for video editing is a mac pro 24inch wide monitor, this new 32" TV/monitor would replace a 17 inch samsung one with. so im thinking its big but not huge in comparison to the other two in the office?

Nik, is the resolution setting a big deal? do you mean the res is naff or not in sinq with whats needed or something?

quote :

might make you look intellectual anyway!

i already have glasses… doesnt work 😕

.

[David Rogers]

You’ll maybe have problems driving the correct resolution as it’s fairly limited as to what the ‘TV’ can take. Usually about 1366×768 ish and not many vid cards can output direct to an HD

Also – you’ll HAVE to sit at least 5′ away from it or suffer eye strain as a result of being too close / look round the screen instead of AT it!!

I’d always opt for a proper monitor!!

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/117386/rb/0 – Quite nice.
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/128303/rb/0 – Ouch!

Dave

[Robert Lambie]

hi dave, i know bugger all about compatibility and comps in general mate… had a look and the one on the comp its going has a nVIDEA GeForce 6600 video card, whatever that means… is this sort of thing suitable for this TV/Monitor.

im probably sitting about 3.5ft away from where it would be wall mounted.

as i said, my other two monitors are big and at the high end of the monitor market, its just the special offer available "only tomorrow" at £250 seems a really good deal for 32" wide.

i am questioning buying now… :lol1:

[Nicola McIntosh]

quote Robert Lambie:

Nik, is the resolution setting a big deal? do you mean the res is naff or not in sinq with whats needed or something?

all i remember was its all down to the tv settings…..some are set to a minimum….and the graphics card wont change it, and the person i know who bought one like yourself….had to re-set his display settings everytime he booted up 😕

nik

[David Rogers]

quote Robert Lambie:

….as i said, my other two monitors are big and at the high end of the monitor market, its just the special offer available “only tomorrow” at £250 seems a really good deal for 32″ wide.

i am questioning buying now… :lol1:

Worst that can happen is you end up with a big cheap telly!!

[Robert Lambie]

i guess i could buy and take it back if it doesnt work?
either that or my wee girl gets a new TV for her room 😕 :lol1:

[Nicola McIntosh]

quote Robert Lambie:

either that or my wee girl gets a new TV for her room 😕 :lol1:

go for it…. 😉

nik

[Martin Pearson]

Like Dave I would always opt for a proper monitor as well but as you have already said Robert if it doesn’t work you can always take it back or use it else where.
I would have thought it was a bit to big myself though, even compared to the two other monitors you have its quite a bit bigger. I have a 22" monitor and don’t think I would really want anything bigger. My eye sight is naff as well but thats just down to old age so a bigger monitor wouldn’t help.

Marcella glasses dont always make you look more intellectual, well mine don’t anyway.

[David Rowland]

OMG… You got an Apple monitor sat in your room which is one of the best monitors on the planet… The apple will beat the bush any day of the week for resolution/quality/experience…
why dont you just do the sensible thing and stick all your computers under one desk and plug the monitor in to a splitter so you can run between monitors/keyboards and mice. Some splitters allow you to press a button or F10 twice or something to switch between them.

You end up saving space as I bet you dont sit in front of both monitors all the time.

In the office I have loads of 21" apples… at home I have a 17" flat screen, quite like the 17" as it condenses and makes it quite readable, hard to explain.

BTW you can get the apple up to a very good usable res on the PC 😛

[Nicola McIntosh]

quote Dave Rowland:

OMG… You got an Apple monitor sat in your room which is one of the best monitors on the planet… The apple will beat the bush any day of the week for resolution/quality/experience…
why dont you just do the sensible thing and stick all your computers under one desk and plug the monitor in to a splitter so you can run between monitors/keyboards and mice. Some splitters allow you to press a button or F10 twice or something to switch between them.

You end up saving space as I bet you dont sit in front of both monitors all the time.

In the office I have loads of 21″ apples… at home I have a 17″ flat screen, quite like the 17″ as it condenses and makes it quite readable, hard to explain.

BTW you can get the apple up to a very good usable res on the PC 😛

rob doesnt want an apple dave………just a telly 😉

nik

[Nancy O]

You will probably have to get a different video card, but their not too expensive, and that way you can set your resolution way higher, so instead putting the monitor further away, you can set the resolution to keep everything to the size you want it and you’ll have a lot more screen area.

I actually had the same idea with a 30" Sony LCD TV that I found at an auction, but it went too high.

[Robert Lambie]

thanks for all the feedback everyone, i went ahead and now have the TV sitting in its box at side of my desk at work. once i get it up and running ill keep you posted on how it well it does/doesnt work. 😕 :lol1:
i think at £250 for a 32" HD flat screen i cant grumble even if i dont end up using it for a extra monitor. 😀

[David Rowland]

14999 post rob!
anyway… TV’s at work.. thats a no no!

[John Childs]

quote Dave Rowland:

anyway… TV’s at work.. thats a no no!

That’s a good point Dave.

We get enough harrassment from the TV Licensing folks as it is.

[Robert Lambie]

:lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

its not for work, its for my office at home. i dont have time to watch tv… im lucky if i get a view hours tv in a week. 😕 :lol1:

[Rodney Gold]

Dots are gonna be real big and the screen wont be clear , you need dot pitches of .26 or less to have nice crisp output on your monitor. Even if the screen will approach a monitors resolution , that resolution is spread over a bigger area and thus to get more or less the same effect as a monitor , your viewing distance will have to be a lot greater. You will have colour and gamma adjustment issues and so forth, If it were so simple , no one would be paying the big bucks for large monitors
Use it as a TV:)
Your graphics card supports dual monitors , rather do that , you have no idea how convenient it is to have 2 monitors , you can drag stuff to one and work on the other , of like photoshop , have one mon as your full screen and the other contains your tools and so forth, your mouse works between both and you can drag and drop form one app on one monitor to the other.
Look at the back of the card , you will see 2 outputs , both are live simultaneously. I use an Apple cinema display as my primary monitor and some other make as a secondary , both arent the same size and i can set resolutions independantly on both. I set one mon to be less than the other and if something is too small on my cinema display , I drag it to the other mon with lesser resolution and it becomes "bigger"

[Nicola McIntosh]

quote Robert Lambie:

i think at £250 for a 32″ HD flat screen i cant grumble even if i dont end up using it for a extra monitor. 😀

where did you buy it rob? 😀

nik

[Robert Lambie]

i bought it from macro its there main promotion product for this months magazine. promotion started this morning at 7.30am so i had one of our guys pick two up this morning early bells. i bought one and andrew bought one… ive tried doing things like this before but by midday the main items are all gone!
i havent tried the tv on my computer at home yet but i hooked it upto andrews to get an idea of how it looked.
to be honest, it couldnt have been easier. worked first time, just changed a setting to AVG i think, from a list of about 6 settings. that was it!
on comes the screen, everything was as i see it on my own monitor but SUPERSIZED. however, small text was a little fuzzy… i went into my monitor settings and altered the setting, saved setting on exit and the text was now sharp as a tack…
the only thing i could see as an alteration of what i have now is that because its wide screen… on some settings, "not all" the images stretch a little. but no more than people on TV on my wide screen in my living room
and you know how little that is?
i only messed around with it for about 20 minutes viewing the net and even working signlab.

my thoughts on it just now, is that the size although i really liked it… is that it is a bit overwelming… a bit like having a keyboard whilst at the pictures :lol1: i will have to see how i feel when i get it home from work as i left it there… once on my wall at the distance i will be working from it ill be able to see if i like it or not… also if there are any flows in having it.
which i guess i will only find once having it for a while…

nik i tried turning it off and on again but it seemed to save the screen settings so that was a bonus.

anyway, time will tell i guess… im kinda 50-50 on using it due to it maybe being overkill.

jodie may still have a new tv for her bedroom… then again, she may prefer to keep her bratz tv? 😕 :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

[Nicola McIntosh]

nice one glad your all sorted 😉

nik