Do all TVs make crappy monitors?

December 3, 2008 2:25 PM

Dual use TV and second macbook monitor (with as little compromise as possible on both uses)?

I have a small room that I want to double as a guest bedroom and a home office. I'd like to have a flat panel in there that I can use as an external monitor for my macbook that guests can also watch TV on.

I know TV pixels and computer pixels are much different, and I currently can hook the MB up to the living room plasma via HDMI, with expectedly crappy results.

Are there any products out there for just this purpose? Or can I buy something relatively simple that will run TV on an LCD monitor?

posted by muscat to Technology (6 answers total)

In response to this AskMe a friend bought the El Gato TV tuner for macs and it works great.

Basically you could setup whatever type of monitor or LCD you wanted, hook up the mac, and use the tv tuner to watch television.

You'd probably want a monitor with built in speakers...
posted by wfrgms at 2:36 PM on December 3, 2008

Most LCD and plasma TVs with HDMI make great monitors. You just need to make sure you're running the computer at the proper resolution.
posted by zsazsa at 2:38 PM on December 3, 2008

I have this setup currently. I found the best results were to go VGA into the TV.
posted by DrDreidel at 3:14 PM on December 3, 2008

I have a TV LCD and plasma, they both look crappy hooked up to a PC.

I'd just get a computer LCD w/ HDMI in and hook up the cable/satellite box to it or buy an extermal OTA HD TV Tuner.
posted by wongcorgi at 3:17 PM on December 3, 2008

Actual computer monitors will always be better for computer use -- and probably the only kind you'd want to look at on a desk. Much better results ("no compromise") than trying to do that in reverse.

The downside is that you're limited to expensive 30 inch or reasonable 24 inch "television", but that might be enough for your guest room.

I have an elgato tuner, works well, nice product.
posted by rokusan at 9:48 PM on December 3, 2008

my LCD tv works fine as an external for my macbook or PC desktop thru a DVI connection. CRT TVs never made good monitors for me, and I don't know about plasma TVs, but like zsazsa said, the main thing is to make sure that your computer's output resolution is no higher than the screen's native resolution. I do not recommend VGA, but HDMI should work well, so I'm surprised that it's not working for you. DVI + LCD screen has always worked for me, so give it a try.
posted by Chris4d at 10:33 AM on December 5, 2008