HDTV as monitor vs. "monitor" as monitor

November 30, 2014 9:34 PM

I have long used a Samsung LCD TV as a monitor. It works for me, with adjustment of the settings (backlight, sharpness, special display compensations turned off, etc.) as well as the graphic system's. So is there a good reason to buy a computer display that bills itself as a monitor over an HDTV? I've done a short search and the reasons given don't convince me, since they don't mention display quality differences. (Reasons, some old, include: can't go higher than x resolution, connectors, speakers...)

But I'm mainly concerned with display quality. Are regular consumer monitors technologically specialized/calibrated for computer display in a way that HDTV's aren't? And a subsidiary question: would an LED HDTV-as-monitor be any better or worse than an LCD one? (Since HDTVs seem to be all "LED" now...) Would proposing to run a 4K HDTV as a monitor change your answer at all? Do monitors support lower resolutions with better quality than HDTVs? Many thanks

posted by sylvanshine to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Response by poster: (I should mention that I sit a fair distance away from the HDTV -- it works for my idiosyncratic, ergocrummic setup -- in case the mention of 4K and the implicit size of a 4K TV makes me seem loony.)
posted by sylvanshine at 9:43 PM on November 30, 2014

I used a HDTV as a computer monitor for a while - it worked but I realized that the dynamic range of the HDTV I was using had nowhere near the same range as my good quality IPS computer monitor. Compare a photograph that has a lot of shadow detail and you may see that the HDTV will look completely black (or if you can see the shadow detail, the whites will all be washed out).
posted by ajackson at 9:54 PM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Depending on the TV, you can get issues with baked-in overscan compensation when you use it as a monitor -- or, at least, that was still a problem the last time I worked with an HDTV. Also, dynamic range, color reproduction, persistence, and refresh rate tend not to be as good in HDTVs as they are in monitors. (Although there are of course exceptions - a good many HDTVs these days are effectively just monitors with built-in TV tuners.)
posted by fifthrider at 11:21 PM on November 30, 2014

It depends on the TV and how much you care about color rendition &c. My super cheap seiki 4k TV for instance has really poor color rendition and dynamic range, and will only support 4k at 30hz refresh rate (half the usual minimum of 60hz). But it works fine for me, since I only care about mashing a lot of text windows onto the screen.

There are monitors on the other hand that are very carefully calibrated for professional use, but those are somewhat expensive. And there's a whole range between the nasty looking Seiki, crisp, calibrated IPS displays and cheap TN monitors.

For color, the professionals seem to have hung on to fluorescent lit LCD panels instead of LED lit panels for a long time (no idea about the current state of things), as the fluorescent panels have more uniform lighting.
posted by wotsac at 12:08 AM on December 1, 2014

Most common reason for disappointing results with TV as computer monitor, in my experience, is the inability to turn off the TV's resolution converter. I've seen TVs with really nice 720p widescreen panels refuse to believe that any computer driving them via VGA could possibly be supplying any resolution other than 1024x768, even after going to considerable lengths to convince them otherwise with custom modelines in the display driver and so forth.

If you've already got an HDTV whose color performance you're happy with, arranged in a manner whose ergonomics work for you, and capable of accepting a panel-native-resolution signal from your computer's graphics card, I can think of no good reason why you'd spend money on a separate computer monitor.
posted by flabdablet at 4:35 AM on December 1, 2014

BTW, the "LED" displays are still LCD displays; they just use LEDs for backlighting rather than cold cathode fluorescent tubes. Most new monitors use LEDs for backlighting as well these days.
posted by Aleyn at 5:32 PM on December 1, 2014

Are regular consumer monitors technologically specialized/calibrated for computer display in a way that HDTV's aren't?

input lag.

tvs generally don't bother with caring about this, especially plasmas. this is why tvs have "game mode", or why renaming an input to PC or computer sometimes disables postprocessing to reduce it. But still, even in that mode, most tvs suck compared to even the cheapest monitors.

the comments above about dynamic range and color are also a good point. a lot of media has really crushed dynamic range, so a lot of tvs just don't bother with that or exaggerate colors to look good in a store. A lot of times you can turn most of this off, but i've absolutely noticed differences between my semi-calibrated and tweaked high end samsung tv and my 7 year old imac screen... and especially my retina macbook pro screen. even my cheapo older samsung computer monitor at work looks a bit better than my tv.

and once again, the input lag thing. even at it's best if i have the displays set to "mirrored" there's noticeable lag between my laptops screen and my tv. this lag doesn't exist if i go plug it in to a regular monitor.

Would proposing to run a 4K HDTV as a monitor change your answer at all?

Yes, if the tv you're getting has hdmi 2.0 or displayport, supports 60hz, is cheaper than a comparable "monitor", and you don't plan to game on it. A lot of people were doing this even with the cheapo 30hz tvs

if that's what you want to do, go for it. especially if you just want a super high res screen to preview stuff on and don't give a crap about the lag.
posted by emptythought at 6:39 PM on December 1, 2014