

Ask HN: experience using big LCD TV (42"+) as monitor? - menloparkbum

In an attempt to create the ultimate ergonomic workspace, I'm considering mounting a 42" or larger 1080p LCD panel to the wall about 4 feet from my desk. I'd use this as a 2nd monitor for my 17" macbook. Has anyone tried this and were you happy with the results? Is there any reason to get a panel better than what is available at Costco?<p>I make projected software generated art as my job, so this is also a way to have a demo environment.
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brk
It all depends on what you expect from the display.

A 42" plasma/lcd/etc doesn't have as much resolution/pixels as even a standard
22" monitor these days. So while your image is larger, it's also going to be
less crisp. Text will generally be less readable as well.

If your use is primarily graphical, then it may work very well for you. If you
think it's going to function as a true second monitor for day-to-day stuff,
you'll probably be disappointed.

FWIW, I have 2 42" displays and a 60" display, all with Mac Mini's attached to
them (along with various other devices) at my house. They work great for
watching movies, general/occasional web surfing, weather, etc. They do NOT
work well (IMO) for reading emails, reading text-heavy sites (like HN), doing
heavy photoshop work, etc. YMMV.

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menloparkbum
My plan was to develop on laptop screen then run the art on the TV. However, I
was hoping that the TV would be usable for reading email, etc, if I bumped up
the font size. Maybe I can find a friend with said TV and try it out for a
while.

~~~
brk
It might work if you bump up the font size, but then when your email app is on
your regular screen the fonts will seem HUGE.

You might be able to use the TV for "skimming" email.

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spydez
I have a 42" plasma TV hooked up to a Windows computer and Mac Mini. I use it
for playing games and watching movies.

At 'couch distance' (~10 feet), normal size (10-12 pt) text is pretty much too
small to read. I have 20-20 vision. 16-18 is readable, but my eyes get tired
of it after a few hours of following chat on WoW.

I had no problems with crispness of image or anything of that nature.

Granted, I'm talking 10 feet and you're asking about 4, so... grain of salt.

Also, in my not so honest opinion, things you stare at all day are not things
you want to go cheap on. Buy a decent TV if you buy one. If you have the time,
find a model you like then set up alerts on FatWallet.com to tell you when
one's on sale. I did that for my TV and got it (new) for $1000 (it's $1700
normally).

If you want an actual data point at 4 feet away from a 42" TV, I can pull a
chair up to 4' away tonight and use the TV instead of my laptop. Just ask.

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pmjordan
In my experience, TVs are terrible for displaying anything but video. Driving
a TV from a computer can be problematic for a variety of reasons: signal
timings, available resolutions, overscan, etc.

You'd think that with HDMI being essentially the same as DVI (leaving aside
audio and such) we'd be rid of this issue, but no, it's been dragged into the
HD era too.

Personally, I've had the best results with the _VGA_ (analog! gasp!) inputs on
TVs that have them. Basically nothing apart from computers provide VGA
signals, so the TV knows what to expect. This avoids overscan, running at the
native panel resolution, etc. I realise that for something as high as
1920x1080 this might not give decent results, but I would check in the specs
if your TV's panel REALLY has that resolution. I've seen all sorts of weird
resolutions in TVs.

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thehickmans
You've got to look at the native resolution of the LCD, which for a 1080p TV
would is 1920x1080. For a comparison, a 30" Apple Cinema Display is capable of
2560X1600. So, fewer pixels over a greater screen area = kinda chunky!

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radley
At home I use my old Mac workstation as a media/internet server and have it
plugged straight into my HDTV as the monitor. I use Teleport for controlling
mouse / keyboard on the workstation from my laptop instead of running cables.

I don't think I'd want to run my HDTV as often or as long as I have my laptop
open (which is 18-24 hrs/day). I still prefer a dedicated 2nd monitor (which I
have at the studio).

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SwellJoe
My girlfriend bought a 46" Sharp Aquos LCD 1080p TV a few weeks ago, and I
built her an HTPC to drive it. It's a tolerable monitor, but only for games
(for which it rules) and movies (also awesome). Since it's the only Windows
machine in the house, I use it for testing our UI with IE, and even briefly
using it for development it is apparent that this is not the ideal workstation
monitor.

And on the Costco front, we checked out their stock, and they didn't have any
of the models we liked. We were mainly shopping for the high end Sharp models,
as most of the rest of the LCDs we looked at were a bit blocky in high
movement scenes. The Sharp also had a better contrast ratio, 10000:1, than
almost all of the other LCDs, which leads to clearly deeper blacks. We found a
great deal on the model we wanted at BeachAudio.com (we'd intended to buy the
42", but the 46" was gonna be about the same price). Even shipped, it was
about $250 cheaper than buying locally.

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paulhart
Quick observation. Your eyes will need to make a dramatic focus change between
a monitor on your desk and another on your wall, or it's really close to your
face, in which case you'll be scanning all over the place looking for stuff).
Either way you're probably going to tire them out faster.

My boss (day job) has a flat screen TV on his wall that he uses as a third
monitor. Some observations:

* He doesn't use it very frequently for himself. * It's somewhat useful if he wants to show you some content online without you squinting at his on-desk displays * The resolution isn't that fantastic. * My boss is a Costco freak, so I'm sure the Aquos display he has is from there.

So, in my research with a sample space of one, I'd say that it's an okay thing
to do, but if you were intending to use the display as a day-to-day second
monitor, you'd probably be better off getting something that'll sit next to
your laptop.

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jsjenkins168
A 42" screen 4 feet away will only appear the same size as a 21" monitor 2
feet away. Remember its all about view distance. Any distance at least 1.2x
screen width is usually considered acceptable but if you want the screen
further away for being able to show more people thats fine. It will just
diminish the perceived size.

If you use it frequently you might strain your eyes though, focusing between
near and far all the time. If you start to get a headache you could just try
moving it closer.

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cconstantine
This sounds less like a second monitor, and more like a test environment that
is meant to mimic real life usage.

I've found TVs to not be very effective second monitors.

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ojbyrne
Sorry for the thread hijack, but I'm curious about people's use of monitors as
tv replacements. I don't have a tv - instead my second monitor has hdmi input,
and I use that for my very infrequent tv watching. I think that the quality of
the image isn't all that it should or could be, and wondering if other people
have found ways to get better quality HD on a computer monitor.

~~~
cconstantine
The draw is that there is an assumption that 'large monitor' == good, and tv
== 'large monitor'.

The problem is that what people really want is more pixels, and HDTVs actually
have fewer than most monitors.

Monitors as TVs don't work for me because I want more than just me to be able
to watch and that means moving the viewing device further back. After moving
the viewing device further back it doesn't really matter how much fine-grained
detail there is. Whalla! That's a TV! :)

'course I haven't "watched tv" in a couple weeks... but this is beside the
point.

~~~
ojbyrne
I have a small enough room that my 27" monitor works nicely. However I read
about HD features - "advanced signal processing, comb filter, blah, blah,
blah" - that suggest that my monitor might not be as good quality as a TV just
because it isn't optimized for that. I don't have a tv to compare it to
unfortunately, but I see things like motion blur, crappy blacks, that make me
think it could be better.

