TV as PC monitor

[tigersaw]

Any used a TV as a PC monitor?
I've got a 32" 1080p telly I bought for the playstation some time ago but never used. I notice that a lot of new PC's have HDMI output.
Now my current 22" monitor runs at 1680x1060, I notice the spec for 1080p is 1920x1080, pretty much the same.
So, could I use it as a big monitor, or would it look rubbish due to other considerations like pixel size or brightness etc.
Anyone tried it, anyone confirm the resolution of a PC HDMI?

they look good i use mine sometime's.

yeh ive a 42" tv i use with my macbook it looks fantastic

pm -ralph- he's just recently set up an old pc to be his media centre so should be able to talk you through all the necessary cards cables etc.

I've used my 37" 1080p TV as a monitor and it looked great. I'm currently using a smaller LCD TV as a second monitor on my work laptop and that's fine too (though that's using the VGA connectors on laptop and TV, rather than DVI->HDMI)

You don't even need HDMI on the PC. Most PCs these days have DVI and all you need is a cheap adapter. (DVI and HDMI video signals are the same, HDMI just carries sound too).

As long as you're not doing work that requires really precise colour (like professional photo editing) you should be fine.

Until I got my PS3 just recently, I had my desktop PC set up with dual monitors, the 2nd of which was my LCD TV, connected via a DVI>HDMI cable (it's an old PC so no HDMI on board, just DVI headers on the gfx card) and that worked fine. I used to watch movies/TV that I'd downloaded and the picture was ok, just as good as the standard-def stuff from my V+ box in fact, so I imagine if you have a gfx card with proper HDMI on it & HD support it should be even better.

It's fine - watching tinternet footie on it right now.

Originally Posted by El Saxo

I imagine if you have a gfx card with proper HDMI on it & HD support it should be even better.

Nope, because the video signal in DVI and HDMI is (for the purposes of this discussion) the same. There will be no difference at all in picture quality. The only difference is that HDMI carries audio as well.

Should work very well. 1080p is very high res 1900x1200 (off top of my head) so will look great from anything over about a foot away...

HTH

Originally Posted by wyrdness

Nope, because the video signal in DVI and HDMI is (for the purposes of this discussion) the same. There will be no difference at all in picture quality. The only difference is that HDMI carries audio as well.

Ah ok, didn't realise that - my setup wasn't quite as low-tech as I thought then!