Home Theatre Advice and Planning pt. II

[Sir Og]

LCD Monitor vs LCD TV?

Does anybody have an idea how the two are different.

I would like to get an LCD monitor/TV and use it both for watching TV and as pc monitor (for gaming, work). I can't figure out however what is better. To get a monitor and use it for TV or to get a TV and use it as a monitor?

[Dinner]

Get a TV and use it as a monitor as you will have a much larger screen.

[Sir Og]

My room is smallish and even a 40" is too big IMO.

Is there any other difference between the two apart from size? There must be more than that.

[LordShiva]

LCD Monitor means there's no tuner, so you'll need a cable box or HTPC or something in order to watch TV on it.

[Nostromo]

- In general, they have no tuners, although some do.

- No remote. Although you probably can add one.

- Generally, they have limited imputs : probably no HDMI, no composite or component. You're stuck with VGA and DVI. I don't know if you can plug a DVD into one of those.

If you opt for a monitor, be sure to buy a widescreen with, preferably, a native resolution of 720p or 1080p. Or something close to that. The picture will look the best at the native resolution.

And if you ever opt for a LCD TV, the picture will look like sh!te when you'll use it as a monitor. LCD TV's are meant to be watched at a certain distance, not close-up like you would do with a monitor. You probably won't have that problem with a 1080p TV, but they're very expensive.

[snoopy369]

Most PCTV cards have an s-video input, which the DVD player could come through. Or just play DVDs on your PC...

There are some good remotes out there, BeyondTV comes with a free Firefly remote (Radio, not IR) that works quite well. ( www.snapstream.com )

Are you using a cable box? That might be the biggest potential problem - cable boxes are picky about HDCP ... so you'd have to either have a XP Media Center PC or a HDCP compliant tuner card, and some other complications... Asher?

[LordShiva]

I'm not sure if Bulgarian cable companies necessarily pay much attention to HDCP

[Asher]

LCD monitors usually have a 1:1 pixel mapping. This is great and sucks, depending -- its obviously optimal for PC/Xbox 360 kind of viewing, as well as HD-DVD/Bluray/DVD.

The problem is many satellite/cable/digicable feeds have "noise" in the edge pixels -- either "snow" or various solid colors which get displayed on an LCD Monitor. LCD TVs have a tiny bit of overscan so they never show the true edges of the picture.

The main difference is LCD TVs have tuners and LCD Monitors usually don't. The higher end LCD monitors do come with remotes.

Don't know much about using HDCP with a PC, never used it.

[snoopy369]

HDCP from what I recall on a PC has to be installed by a 'trusted system builder' or some $#% like that, no? I know that's an issue with cable cards in the states ... or am I getting it confused with something else?

[snoopy369]

As an aside, my EDTV isn't playing with HDCP over DVI. If i get a HDMI->DVI cable, will it still not play well with HDCP? (I have the following choices for input: S-Video, DVI, RGB; and for output, HDMI, DVI, S-Video, Component) S-Video is acceptable for 320x200 but when I go over to the HD channels, it gets really lossy ...

(ie, if I hook up the DVI-DVI connection, the cable box says 'no' due to HDCP issues.)

[Asher]

I think all you need is a video card with HDCP support -- like Nvidia "Purevideo HD" cards.

[snoopy369]

Wouldn't the TV Tuner have to have the support? Or ... hmm, you're presuming it connects from Cable Box to Video Card as there's no real need to 'tune' anything, aren't you. :doh:

[Asher]

I was thinking more along the lines of HD-DVD/Blurays. Suppose the tuners would need it also.

[snoopy369]

Ah, indeed.

Any idea on the HDMI->DVI question?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by snoopy369
HDCP from what I recall on a PC has to be installed by a 'trusted system builder' or some $#% like that, no? I know that's an issue with cable cards in the states ... or am I getting it confused with something else?

You need an HDCP-compliant video card (any of the ATI cards that have HDMI ports, or any nVidia 7950 card, or the MSI 7600GT HD, or some of the new eVGA ones). Since there are no QAM or CableCard tuners available for PCs yet, that's not an issue; the ATSC tuners will work with your TV if your video card is compliant. If you use a cable box, that would need to be compliant (most with HDMI are, I think).