Hi definition TV?

By: Anonymous - 26th March 2008 at 00:20 Permalink - Edited 17th October 2019 at 04:21

TVs and Computer monitors are seen by most people as being much the same thing. This belief is increased because very early home computers were plugged into the home TV because monitors were and still are quite expensive. Look at the price of your average 19 inch CRT monitor and compare it with TV prices and you will probably get a good 29 inch TV for the same price.
TVs and monitors are very different. When TV came out it first came out in the US and some asian countries. The earlier tv standards were SECAM (ASIAN) and NTSC (US). Most of the rest of the world adopted the later PAL system. The PAL system being later was designed to have more lines in its display and is basically a 640 x 480 resolution system. Computer Screens have been able to display at better resolutions for many years... my Amiga 500 had a 640 x 480 screen resolution in the 1980s. Since the mid to late 1990s screen resolutions have increased for computers to where most will be using 1024 x 768 now at the very least. TV signals on the other hand have not changed. HDTV is just TV trying to catch up by increasing screen resolution.
Modern LCD type TVs can be used as computer monitors and TVs but you have to be careful when buying. For standard TV pictures the quality is not improved by having a high resolution TV and you might find if you have an awesome and expensive computer graphics card that the screen cant display at 1280 x 1024 or higher... or it might go that high but the refresh rate is so low it flickers and gives you headaches...

Regarding your original question... really big monitor screens means you need to move your head more to see everything on the screen. If you think this might make some games easier because it will let you see more then I would suggest you think about multiple monitors rather than a large one, which will not likely show you more in a game than a standard monitor... a 50 inch monitor at 1280 x 1024 resolution will not show you more screen area than a 21 inch monitor at 1280 x 1024 resolution... it is just that on the 50 inch the pixels will be bigger and will be easier to see from further away.

By: Anonymous - 26th March 2008 at 04:46 Permalink - Edited 17th October 2019 at 04:21

A mate of mine is a graphics artist and he has spent a small fortune on his monitors. He buys only CRTs because LCDs are a bit more limited as to the screen resolution they can display well. He has a huge 29 inch monitor for his main screen and two 20 inch screens. The 29 inch is his canvas screen, while on one of the 20 inch screens he opens out all his toolboxes, and on the other 20 inch screen he has his colour palates. He has it set up so that when his mouse pointer goes off the main screen it goes to his tools on one side and his palate screen off the other.
Personally I'd like a similar setup for flight simulators and first person shootemups like Shadows of Chernobyl etc...

By: Anonymous - 27th March 2008 at 05:03 Permalink - Edited 17th October 2019 at 04:21

My mate not only has a special bench designed to hold the three screens he has a seperate room especially for the whole setup. Not exactly loaded he justifies it as a work expense.

Had a go of one of his games and actually found the big screen too big. It makes you move your head a lot more when you play than a smaller screen and my neck got quite sore.

Garry.