New place new pc/tv setup - advice?

Ola.

Seeing as I'll hopefully be moving soon I'm thinking ahead. I'm moving into a 1 bedroom flat from a 3 bedroom house so space will obviously be an issue. I'm thinking of combining my pc (and sky+) with a flatscreen tv or monitor that'll be fixed on the wall with my pc tower base unit tucked neatly out of the way.

Ideally the monitor will be as big as possible (and widescreen) for tv without losing the resolution for pc games. What would be perfect is to have a smaller screen offset to the side of the main screen for watching tv while I'm gaming...

Have had a quick look round but without seeing the actual screen quality for myself I've got no ideas of a good quality one from a big but rubbish one.

Can anyone recomend the biggest and bestest one possible?

[Luckypants]

Most modern flat screen TVs work well as PC monitors in native mode, via RGB or DVI signals. My 42" plasma (LG) works as a monitor with resolution up 1278x1024. It has a picture in picture feature so you can watch TV in one window and PC in the other.

There is a thread about LCD TVs on here, might be worht looking?

Thanks Lucky

I had a whizz through that thread but didn't know if it had to be specifically a pc monitor or could be a tv screen. These be things I is knowing not much aboot.

Thanks again.

[Viney]

Make sure its a HD screen no matter what. You will get better res that way. Refresh rate is the only other thing to look for <5ms is good. However, cant seem to find that on any of the screens specs.

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by Viney

Make sure its a HD screen no matter what. You will get better res that way. Refresh rate is the only other thing to look for <5ms is good. However, cant seem to find that on any of the screens specs.

Refresh rate is specified in MHz (better than 72 is good) Better than 5ms is a good response time (how quickly the pixel changes).

Buying tellys is getting to be hard work!

Originally Posted by Luckypants

Refresh rate is specified in MHz (better than 72 is good)

Hehe I'd say as much as 1 MHz would be bloody amazing!!

Shame my monitor only hits a measly 85Hz.

[Viney]

Originally Posted by Luckypants

Refresh rate is specified in MHz (better than 72 is good) Better than 5ms is a good response time (how quickly the pixel changes).

Buying tellys is getting to be hard work!

OOPS thats what i meant, response time, not refresh rate...sorry Ping for the false info

Originally Posted by sinbad

Hehe I'd say as much as 1 MHz would be bloody amazing!!

Originally Posted by sinbad

Shame my monitor only hits a measly 85Hz.

My TV has a 100Hz refresh-rate and the difference between that and the standard CRT tube rate (50Hz, I think) is remarkable.

Originally Posted by Jabba

My TV has a 100Hz refresh-rate and the difference between that and the standard CRT tube rate (50Hz, I think) is remarkable.

Yes it is, in fact you can test the difference with a good computer CRT, just try and set it at a low resolution with the lowest refresh rate you can get (something around 60 Hz, I guess). Open up a spreadsheet and look at it for a while, you're almost sure to get a major headache if you stare at it for too long. Now, keep the resolution and up the refresh rate (lower resolutions will generally yield higher refresh rates) to the max your monitor will support and look at that spreadsheet again...

As a rule of thumb, anything below 75 Hz in CRTs (when staring too hard at a close distance) is a sure fire way to get a headache. Our eyes are a bit more tolerant on LCDs, 60 Hz is usually enough to deal with the flicker.

Originally Posted by Filipe M.

As a rule of thumb, anything below 75 Hz in CRTs (when staring too hard at a close distance) is a sure fire way to get a headache. Our eyes are a bit more tolerant on LCDs, 60 Hz is usually enough to deal with the flicker.

LCDs don't flicker at all. I believe that they refresh at their own speed and ignore the refresh rate that the PC is set to.