RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes

I have a silly question.

My monitor-to-be is a 32" 720p LCD HDTV. I'll be connecting it via HDMI, so it'll be just like hooking up a Playstation in that regard.

What I don't know is how HDTVs work as monitors. I know that LCD monitors have a "native resolution" (like 1280x1024 for my current screen). Since 720p is 1280x720, would I be best served running in 1280x720 regardless of what higher-resolution video modes might be available? Would my TV try to "help" by down-scaling any higher resolution that I tried to send it into 720p?

This just made me want to hook up my computer to my 50' HDTV

That depends entirely on the TV itself.
Be very careful and get all the infos about the TV before you do anything!

My TV for example, has a PC Monitor input and ONLY when it's plugged through that does it work. If I use the HDMI input, the TV behaves like a TV that doesn't recognize the HDMI device plugged in it.

I still get pretty nice graphics, and since its in my bedroom, it doubles as a bedroom TV so I'm happy. But I wish I had known that before.

Also! Be sure you know the available resolutions on the TV. Mine for example can only accept a certain number of specific resolutions. Anything else results in a black screen, making it pretty annoying when a game defaults with a resolution not in the list. Forces me to borrow my roomie's monitor and adjust. >.>

EDIT cause I missed something: I don't think your TV will do anything by itself regarding resolution, you just need to make sure it works yourself, as I was saying right above.

DAISHI Wrote:This just made me want to hook up my computer to my 50' HDTV

I had a coworker who did that to play WoW. Got a wireless keyboard/mouse and played from the couch.

He'll stop with that once the batteries die during a arena-match. *giggle*

That's what I'll be doing, though I won't be using wireless keyboard/mouse. I got an adapter for my PS2 Netplay controller and it's working perfectly.

Asyria Wrote:That depends entirely on the TV itself.

I'm currently using a (much smaller) TV as my monitor, and though it will usually behave itself and run at 1440x900 like I want it to, it will sometimes reset the resolution itself on start up. The TV my roommate uses, however, has never once done so. So I think the above quotation is probably the best answer you'll get... unless someone has first-hand knowledge with the TV you're planning to use >.>

Out of curiosity, what's the TV's response time?

I didn't realize that TVs needed to have the same resolution setting as your computer. I guess I didn't really think about that. My monitor is running at 1680x1050 @60hz. So if I want it to display correctly on a TV with 1080p, do I need to make sure that it can display that resolution, or should I just change my configuration in the first place?

Display speed is a concern for me. My brother bought a bigscreen HDTV, and then couldn't play SSBB online with it because the TV lag put him at a huge disadvantage. Unfortunately, I don't know where I can find this information. I'm going to be getting a 50in+ Plasma from Best Buy most likely, and I'd like to do my research thoroughly beforehand.

Right, generally speaking most monitors/TVs/whatevers are going to have a set of resolutions that they are capable of displaying. If you have your heart set on a particular resolution, you'll have to make sure that it's capable first... though I've personally never been so set on a particular resolution that it's ever been a deal-breaker. It's probably easier just to set it to whatever's available.

As for response times, Bestbuy doesn't always list them... you'll either have to look it up online or check the product's packaging. I'd recommend a response time of 5ms or less.

IIRC Plasma's have a quicker response than LCDs as it is?

*looks on the TigerDirect.com site*

the plasma's have a refresh rate listed as 600Hz
and the LCD's are anywhere from 60 to 240Hz, LED's as well.

People will warn you about "plasma burn in" and they had a valid point several years ago but when I was researching TV's last year I couldn't find anything about burn in issues on any newer model plasma screen.

The companies all claim they fixed the plasma burn issue in their newer models but I've sold HDTV's for a year or so and I learned a lot about them during that time. It might be true they fixed it, but my instincts would tell me to go LCD. I'm suspicious like that.

For response time, 5ms sounds good for a mmorpg, but might still be a little slow for a shooter. Good LCD compy monitors have a response time of 2ms, so that gives you an idea.

Anyways! The OP said he was going for a 32" and those don't come in Plasma, for most companies. (Plasma technology is expensive so only worth the monies on bigger models).

If you want to go with BestBuy a quick look at their available 32", along with my general (yet slightly outdated) knowledge of the companies that make them tell me the following:

Insignia and Dynex: I haven't ever heard of those until now. Their websites are strangely similar and both of them are exclusively available at BestBuy and FutureShop (which is essentially the same thing as it's all owned by the same guy). Sounds like it is to TV's what President's Choice is to groceries. I wouldn't touch those TV's with a ten foot pole. >.>

LG: Our store doubled up as a Service Center. It was full of LG's waiting to be repaired. Bad Chinese TV's!

Toshiba: That's the affordable decent level of Japanese TV. What that means is it's Good (but maybe not as good as other Japanese models), Affordable (the only thing we had that was cheaper was Samsung) and Reliable (it -is- Japanese, that means it's not made out of crap).

Sony: Possibly better image than Toshiba but equivalent models will usually be significantly more expensive on the Sony side. Usually for no real good reason. It does have the usual Japanese reliability.

Panasonic: On equivalent models, more expensive except that unlike Sony, they actually have a reason for that. The reason is superior service if something breaks. This may or may not matter to you cause it has the Japanese reliability.



Disclaimer: Speaking from my own experience and trying to help, not seeking to start a TV quality debate.

Refresh rates are actually NOT the display speed. That had me confused for a bit too. Refresh rates, I think, can display the signal better by updating the image more often, but they don't actually affect the lag on how fast that signal is displayed. My aforementioned brother had got the LCD TV with the best refresh rate available, and he still can't play Brawl online.

As for plasmas, I have it on multiple very good authorities that the burn-in and lifespan are no longer really issues. And at least at Best Buy, it seemed that getting a big screen plasma was on the order 2/3's the price of an LCD, and half that of an LED.

Insignia and Dynex are Best Buy exclusive brands, like Vizio is to Walmart. They're fine TVs for their price, but generally these TVs aren't all made in-house-- the parts are shipped in from various places, so of course they're not really made to work together. Of course, that's almost how the entire PC industry operates and that doesn't prevent us from having good ones.

Generally Samsung performs the best on consumer reports. Their products tend to be of very good quality.

In my old apartment, my computer and 40" lcd were crammed into my bedroom. I've never trusted wireless keyboards, so I paired a wireless mouse up with my USB-extended G15 (old skool, not that new crap) and chill in bed while doing Dynamis or longwinded xp parties. Had to run a 30' VGA cable around the perimeter of the room, and used an audio A-B switch to switch the sound back and forth between the computer speakers and the TV, but it worked pretty well.

(apologizes if any of this has been said discussed, read through most of the first page and just posting my experience)

I actually ultimately opted for a smaller HD monitor for my computer instead of my HDTV. I found that the monitor a much nicer range of picture and color range than my HDTV had. I was also happy with the new monitor since it would do 1080p whereas my TV was 720p.

Perhaps the biggest issue I had was with overscan. My TV had very noticeable overscan. For those who don't know its where you screen is, I guess, displaying wider than your monitor's physical size. The overscan is also a hardware issue and the only way to fix it is to have considerable knowledge on what you are doing otherwise you can break the TV. I know nVidia has a tool in their drivers to help correct it, but I always found it to be a hassle, since my screen wouldn't ever be displaying in true 720p (since I effectively was telling it to crop pixels from the sides). Then for game resolutions that you set you always have to be careful since you are working with an unusual resolution and... well, I decided that I A. wanted a 1080p display anyways and B. didn't like the hassle of the TV. Plus I use this computer for a lot of actual work and whatnot and actually prefer a smaller 24 inch screen than that for the TV.

It really depends on what you are going for and what is important to you. If you don't mind some setup and really want a huge screen for your gaming experience a HDTV is going to deliver that best. But again there will be some setup and some hassles (at least, in my case) that you will have to go through. I found that my monitor had a lot higher picture quality, which is more important to me than raw size, than my TV, plus it required virtually no setup, so it was a win for me there.

A monitor is definitely the most efficient expense to make, since from far enough away you can barely tell the difference between 720 and 1080. Being close to a small screen in 1080 is going to be the better picture. For me it's just a matter of comfort. I'd rather sit on a recliner/couch.