Hey guys.

I wanna get a TV to play my PC games on. I've been thinking a lot about options. First I was convinced I needed a three monitor setup. But there are some disadvantages to that setup. Yesterday I took a 32 inch HD ready TV from the bedroom and plugged it into my PC. I think it was awesome. The added immersion is amazing to say the least (currently using single 24 inch). So now I know for sure, I want a TV for my PC.
It's hard looking for one though. First of all, input lag is important ofcourse. And for most models, you can't find those numbers... Also, I'm in doubt about screen size. I sit around 90-100cm / 3ft from the screen. 32 inch is very nice, but I think 40/42 inch would be awesome. But then again, maybe it's too big to have in front of your nose...

Anyone have a good setup with a TV, who can give some advice or share experience?

Grizzly I did a search on this the other day as I am to toying with the idea of just a big screen instead of my current triple monitor set up.
It seems from my searching that the Sony Bravia range is said to have the least amount of input latency these days not that I am an expert on this but just my findings.

How big a screen are you thinking about, and what's your viewing distance? I found the Samsung UE39F5000 today, looks like a good candidate to me.

I am 3 ft away from the screen and I was thinking about a 42 inch

Same here! Just worried it might be just big enough to see the pixels...

Maybe a dumb question, but doesn't looking at a 42 inch screen at 90cm equal looking at a 21 inch screen at 45cm?

I guess that's a way of seeing it's acceptable.

I suppose so but I seem to remember being told back in the day before the flat screens we have now that for every inch of screen size you needed to sit 12inches away for each inch so for a 42 inch screen that would be 42 feet away which really defeats the point of having a screen that big cause at 42 feet you would need a good set of bi-noculars just to see anything.

I think that was just an old wives tale that my mum use to tell me and my brother when we sat with our faces stuck on the screen as kids, or my favourite you'll get square eyes siting that close.

My mom always told me you would grow hair on your palms...oh wait that was something else...never mind... 

(A/229) flyer wrote:My mom always told me you would grow hair on your palms...oh wait that was something else...never mind... 

Ha Ha my mum told me I would go blind doing that then she bought me and my bro boxing gloves to stop us but we just beat the c**p out of each other with them and then the old man took them off us and tied us to the washing line but as a child you learn very quickly to adapt and over come so we resorted to kicking each other instead whilst still tied up.
Ah what a wonderful childhood I had I could go on but we're going off topic here sorry Grizzly.

lol NP.

I disagree with those advised viewing distances you see online. I have a 55" TV in the living room, it first was at around 4 meters distance, still less than advised. I thought it looked small. Rearranged the living room, now it's at almost 3 meters distance, it's a lot better!
Not nearly close enough to see pixels, and also not too tiring for your eyes that have to move a little more.

So anyway, right now I have that HD Ready 32" TV plugged in again. Gotta be honest... It really shouldn't get much more bigger than this... Even though I want the 42 inch badly... Decisions decisions... There's also an inbetween version of the Samsung F5000, 39 inch, maybe that'll work for me.

I fly with a 55 inch flat screen hooked up to the video card with a HDMI cable. Sit in what would be the middle area of the screen about 4-5 feet back. No problems here.

Isn't that going to result into some pretty bad pixelation? The native resolution of most TV's are typically much lower than the average monitor. Sure the picture will be bigger but the dpi will be so low that trying to spot things at a distance would become very difficult.

At 1080p you wouldnt notice it much. Its when you start going down to 480p that you start seeing things.

Haven't had time to go to a store yet. 42 inch is as big as I'll go when sitting at 3 feet. Maybe 39 inch is better, but I'll have to compare this in a store. At some point I guess it's not only seeing the pixels that can be annoying, the screen can also get so big you might start missing things on the edges of the screen, like in FPS games.

I started noticing that on a 27 inch screen too. When I sit about a 75-50 cm away from it, it will sometime get difficult to find your mouse again.
For me at least, that's definatelly to close.

(D/229) Hitman wrote:At 1080p you wouldnt notice it much. Its when you start going down to 480p that you start seeing things.

I don't know...the difference between 1920x1200 down to 1080x768 (actually the vertical is lower I think but I can't remember what it is) is quite significant and makes the difference between seeing the Shilka between the two buildings or not seeing it. For racing games I never really noticed an issue and it was really fun to play on a big screen, but the one time I tried Black Shark on a big flat screen I played for an hour and then had to move back because it was too frustrating having to zoom in to read the dials and Abris.

480p isnt high def by any definition. IIRC, 1440x900 is what 720p should be, and anything lower than that resolution is low definition. Technically speaking though, high definition is anything above 640x480 (which is what old school tvs were). The bottom portion of the aspect ratio is just the field of view, while the top part of that is the level of zoom. Having a high aspect ratio doesnt really mean anything, it all comes down to how much detail the picture provides - how small the pixel is. You can get a very good quality picture from a 720p television with LED monitors, comparible to plasma 1080p or better. Its just the aspect ratio thats going to be the main difference between pictures.

Sorry to say Hitman, but what you say makes absolutely no sense at all. 720p means 720 vertical lines. So with a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is the most common these days, the 720p resolution would be 1280x720.
That's a pretty low resolution. 1080p means 1920x1080, which is a lot better.
I have no clue what you mean with bottom and top part of aspect ratio. An aspect ratio is simply a ratio, can't make it any more simple. The resolution decides how many pixels there are. No matter what the aspect ratio, it's the combination between (highest possible) resolution and screen size that make up how big the pixels are, in other words, how sharp the image is.
Anyway, I bought a nice 39", and I think it's PERFECT. 42 inch would've been just a tad too big I think, when you sit at 3 feet. The 39" and 42" were exactly the same price though. Glad I made the right decision by going one step smaller. It is simple awesome to play on a big screen.

top part = 1920 - height of screen
bottom part = 1080 - width of screen

You can also get a plasma tv with 1080p, and have an inferior picture compared to a 720p LED tv. Go compare and report back, k?

lol... top and bottom part still make no sense... There's no top and no bottom. It's simply 1920x1080. And that's the resolution, not an aspect ratio having a 'top and bottom' of which you spoke earlier.

Why would a 720p LED have a better picture than a 1080p anything? LED or plasma, doesn't matter. The 720p or 1080p just shows the resolution. The higher the resolution, the better the sharpness. Your request to compare makes no sense at all. LED has it's advantages and disadvantages. So does plasma. 1080p is always better than 720p. No matter if it's LED or plasma...

oh yeah, and by the way: 1920 is the width, 1080 is the height.

Use your imagination. Top, bottom, does it really fucking matter? You dont get it? Great. Move on.

And no, just because a picture can be 1080p doesnt mean its sharp. Its quality of picture is dependant solely on how good the monitor displays it. 1920x1080 is how the image is stretched. You can stretch a 640x480 picture to 1920x1080. What matters is the size of the pixel in the monitor. You can stretch a 640x480 picture across 2 monitors in the same aspect ratio. Doesnt make the picture sharper, does it? I have a security camera that supposedly displays 1280x740 resolution. Yes, the screen is 1280x720, but the actual resolution quality of the camera is 640x480. Just because its advertised at a certain resolution doesnt make it great.

Hmmm... Getting a flashback to the discussion about jet engines... You don't read or just don't understand what I'm saying and you keep on clinging on to your own false statements without making anything clear. But oh well.

Ofcourse you can stretch a 640x480 picture to 1920x1080. You can also throw a couple of bricks at your monitor, the picture will also be worse.

Like I said before, the pixel (physical pixel) size depends simply on the hardware's max resolution and screen size. It's a combination. Pretty simple.

The problem with your security camera is not the screen. If the screen is 1280x720, the screen can deliver that resolution. The problem is the camera itself. Maybe the software. Maybe you've thrown a brick at it. I dunno. But 1080p input and output is always sharper than 720p. And whether that's LCD or plasma or whatever, doesn't matter. Shouldn't even have to explain...

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Anyone else?

Yeah well, I'm just going to ignore his posts from now on. The fact that he bought a cheap Chinese security cam and he now thinks that everything depends on the top and bottom aspect ratio which is why LED's 720p are better than plasma's 1080p is offtopic anyway.

Back on-topic: I'm very happy with my 39 inch TV. To be precise, it's a Samsung UE39F5000. It has minimal input lag. I'm sitting about 3 feet from it, it's not as sharp and crisp as my monitor ofcourse at 1080p, but it's very acceptable, however, on the edge. A 42 inch would probably have been too big for me, so this is perfect.

The factory default settings are terrible, to say the least. If you get a TV for your PC, look up a website with a guide to setup your picture, did wonders for me!

I can recommend anyone doing an upgrade like this. I can't imagine playing on a single tiny 24 inch monitor anymore.

You can also get a fucking clue, as if you are one who knows what they are talking about. Get lost.