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I want a big monitor!

I'm looking into getting a 32" flat screen TV to use as my monitor, it will make digital painting easier than on this 15". I've been working a lot in Photoshop lately and I've been getting eyestrain on this little monitor, almost emptied a year old dropper of Visine in the last couple weeks of reacquainting myself with Photoshop.

Is anyone else here using one of these bigger TVs as their monitor? If so, can you answer some questions I've got?

Most of these TVs come with a PC monitor plug, do they also come with a monitor cord as well? My Monitor's cord is built in (old Compaq monitor from who knows when).

Do these TVs usually come with some sort of driver software to make it work with the PC or do you just set it to channel 3 like a VCR?

Is a Plasma or LCD version the better choice if a brand makes both types?

Anything else I should think about when looking at these TVs when planning to use it as a monitor?
 
No cord built-in; you've got to buy one. No drivers necessary - all you have to do is set it to the PC input. It's usually on the dial next to the VCR/DVD inputs. Not sure on LCD vs Plasma. I thought that they were the same thing.
Once I saw this setup where a guy had a big 40" LCD as his main monitor and two 32" displays oriented vertically on either side, for displaying page-sized documents. It looked really cool.
~Joe
 
I use a 26" Flat TV as my monitor on my desktop machine. It did not come with a monitor cable I had to buy one (male to male).

There were no drivers required for my monitor....

My television is an old one so I have no input about LCD or Plasma.
 
Eh, in general, I give a thumbs down to using a TV as a monitor. I know a few people who do it (I set it up for them.)

One friend uses is on a forty-something inch plasma screen. It's just one man's opinion, but I think it sucks. There may be ways to get around the following problems, but in the short time that I took to set it up for him, I couldn't find a quick fix. With the first cable we used (uh... HDMI?) the image would overscan (go "beyond the boarders of the TV"), never found a solution. So we moved on to component cables which underscan (slightly.) That's not a big deal considering the size of the screen. But he has never since been able to text text looking right. To get small text readable you need to blow up sizes which result in normal-size text being super-huge. Even just setting the minimum text size up, we've never been able to get a good ratio. This not only leads to eyestrain, but some text boxes will be unusable because you wont be able to see the text, so you're left with the option to click one of two options... neither of which you can read...

Next, I have a friend using a... 32 inch(?) LCD tv as a monitor for his computer. He's doing digital media(ish) major, so his experiences may be pertinent. There are a few minor issues (namely with brightness,) but it works better than the other setup. He uses VGA and all text is, according to him, readable, and there are no over/underscanning issues. As for the brightness, that's an issue for all screens (is my screen bright or is yours just dark? etc, etc.) This person is mode computer literate, so he's been able to work through any little kinks. So, I guess that's a positive case.

So, two cases, one good, one (in my opinion) bad.

I myself upgraded from an old ~14 inch CRT (I kid you not, it said "low radiation" on the frame) to a ~21 inch (it's just off of 16:9 so it's 20.9 or 21.9 or something silly like that) LCD a while back. I've been perfectly content with the screen and the price I payed (less than 200 bucks!) I still like CRTs for a number of reasons, but in terms of practicality LCDs win hands down...

Another thing to keep in mind about TVs is that the resolution will most likely be lower than a considerably smaller computer monitor. EG my friend's LCD tv setup is 1280x720 native, while mine is 1680x1050 native. Might be worth keeping in mind.
 
There's two VGA monitor jacks on this PC I had built. I could use the big one just for photoshop and the old one for everything else if text is bad on them. Though I'm not sure how you assign a program to a specific monitor?

Yeah, the TVs are all 720 pixels no matter the brand or price range. Since you guys say no drivers are used I'm tempted to haul my desktop to someone's house who has one of these TVs and plug it in and see what it's like before I buy one. Since I gotta buy the cord anyway...
 
I hear Komodo Island produces some big ones up to 10 Ft. Sorry, couldn't resist. :-D

My old computer had a monitor that was 15". A few yrs ago I got a 17". Even just that little step up seemed like a huge difference. I couldn't imagine a 32". That would be unreal. Seems like some detail may be lost though?
 
There's two VGA monitor jacks on this PC I had built. I could use the big one just for photoshop and the old one for everything else if text is bad on them. Though I'm not sure how you assign a program to a specific monitor?



On my computer I built a year and a half ago (and amazingly is still good and no need to upgrade this year!) has 2 dvi-d plugs on it. I run dual 22" dell lcd monitors at 1680x1050 each. The monitors are linked in such a manor that you just drag and move everything around the two monitors as if it is one big monitor. (excuse the wire mess... I was just setting up the second monitor when I took this pic to show a friend of mine.)

Andrew

P1010313.JPG



And here is the game Crysis going on in one monitor and "work" going on in the other :p

p1010315.jpg


You can also notice in the lower left of the right screen I have picture in picture set up with my security system.
 
Cool setup Andrew!
So once you plug in a second monitor, the PC automatically senses there's "extra desktop" available? Or are there settings that have to be played with somewhere in the control panel?

How does two monitors effect the mouse / pen tablets? Does small movements of the mouse translate to huge movements onscreen due to the increased screen area?

I do see the security system squares, do you live inside a bank? lol! :D

Indy,
Yeah, 32" is large and in charge but I thought it would be cool cos I would be able to paint/sketch in the same size as the printout but if things are blurry that's uncool so I'm gonna haul the desktop on a field trip this weekend and see if photoshop & MS Word looks good on my mom's TV. I set an LCD one up for her a while back (as a TV) and I recall it had the PC input which is what got the idea in my head in the first place. A 22" monitor was the size I was looking at before I set up her TV.
 
Thanks :) I love it!

When you get 2 monitors installed you just configure the software for the vid card (mine is a Nvidia 8800GT with 512mb DDR2) so you set it up to extend the desktop (rather than duplicate), set up which is on the left and right, all that.

The mouse settings do not change... but if you want to move from one monitor to the other quickly- you just up the acceleration of your mouse. Which makes it so small movements are small.. but fast movements are much faster so you can zoom all the way across quickly.

...living in a bank :p Actually I'm the groundskeeper/night manager of this apt complex and we have security systems all around the property. I live right by our "shop" where most the tools are kept and also by the pool. So it made sense to just set it up here. I have it on my computer as well as recording just because it covers out my gate (where you can see my truck and the shop is on the left) so- my monitor could do it so I did it. I don't know what they're gonna do when I move this coming year though :p This particular system is mine and they liked it so I purchased more for laundry rooms etc.

Just for fun I just played around with my set up and took some vid with my phone.. kinda give an idea of how it translates back and forth. The black bar in the middle of the two screens (edges of the monitors) may look like it's annoying... but it doesn't take long to forget it's even there :p and most the time you pick a monitor for all the applications and don't have anything between the two.

Hope it helps!
Andrew

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  • #10
my wife did a setup like that Andrew, when she bought a new laptop instead of a desk top to replace her work computer, she used both the laptop screen and a flat panel to have 2 screens going.......she decided it was more hassle than it was worth for what she does at the paper but i think it would have worked better had she had 2 monitors side by side like yours so that there wasnt a huge jump like she had going on.......if i used a desktop at home rather than sitting on the couch with my laptop i would likely set up two monitors like you have.....

swords.....i havent seen very good results using a TV screen for a computer monitor but at the moment the wife has a monitor hooked to her laptop at work thats great.....its bigger than the TV in our bedroom and she uses it with photoshop all the time....forget how much she paid but it was cheaper than most the TV's out there right now.......will get the model number and such for yah later today or tomorrow.......
 
  • #12
I was out looking at monitors and TVs today and I noticed there are some higher resolution LCD TVs that have the same 1098p rating of PC monitors. The cheaper LCDs are all 720p resolution but the ones that are bit pricier have the same resolution (on paper) as the monitors. Would these pricer models be simply the same as a huge monitor?

Of course the kids at the stores wanted to get me taking one home today saying "You can just bring it back tomorrow if it's not what you want." but I just went to the used bookshop across the street instead! :)
 
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