What’s the difference between a TV screen and a computer screen?
I see vast screens for TVs at x price. And the same size but in the computer section for 2 x x. What’s the difference?
What’s the difference between a TV screen and a computer screen?
I see vast screens for TVs at x price. And the same size but in the computer section for 2 x x. What’s the difference?
Higher resolution and faster image processing to reduce input lag
Bigger computer monitors are more for gaming than word processing so they have faster refresh rates than TVs which are driven by the broadcast.
So I would imagine the TV screen represents a good bargain for you Tim; it did me.
The premium for not being able to receive the BBC?
Unless you play games, or do other graphically intense stuff like animations, increasingly nothing. Part of the markup is just that some people are prepared to part with more money for a PC monitor, it’s a memory of times when there were significant differences.
The serious gamers are after very high frame rates for responsiveness and at 4K resolutions that requires special monitor hardware to get those pixels to flip about rapidly enough to avoid weird artifacts while running, jumping or looking around. 30hz is considered the baseline, 60hz normally a decent minimum, and 120hz for envy.
I have wondered exactly that especially now you can buy smart TVs .We run Netflix U tube and whatnot from a a lap top by the main TV but its a bit awkward
Same question about anything that says cycling on it –
Same thing but 3 times the Price
Foreign plot probably
It is worth noting that cheap tvs have lo res panels even when they claim hd. Cheap 32 inchers are invariably 1360×768 and down scale hd, 1920*1080, to fit. You have to read the specs quite carefully to find the panel resolution, as they usually focus on the highest res the device will accept, before down scaling. The hd computer monitor should actually be 1920*1080.
What Roué says above. Avoid any that say “HD Ready” (720p) as opposed to “Full HD” (1080p) or higher. It’s hard to find a TV under 32” which is Full HD.
Nearly all TV screens are glossy, whereas a lot of monitors are matte. Matte is easier for reading text; glossy is better if you’re doing photo- or video-editing and need accurate colour reproduction.
Chesterton’s fence applies: very few people use a TV for their computer work: why?
It’s, sort of, all of the above, but with a reason behind it – eye fatigue. Try sitting 2 feet from your TV screen. All you’ll see is pixels and fuzz. TVs are designed for plenty of people to see a not particularly detailed image from a fair distance away, and competition has ensured that 60Hz is plenty, 4K is probably too much, 1080p is pretty much where the benefits end for all but the people who think vinyl sounds better than an Amazon Echo strongly enough to go and tell people about it. A computer monitor has a higher refresh rate, more pixels per inch, a smaller screen size so you don’t have to keep turning your head and much better colour reproduction.
Computer screens with high res (above 1080p) also generally have clever hardware to vary the refresh rate in line with the framerate of the game being played to eliminate tearing and other bad visual effects. The hardware mostly has to be matched to the graphics card maker – one version (linked with AMD graphics cards) is cheaper than then other (for NVIDIA graphics cards), hence my 28 inch computer screen matched with an NVIDIA card being much smaller and lower res, but the same cost as my 55 inch 4K TV screen.
…glossy is better if you’re doing photo- or video-editing and need accurate colour reproduction.
Nearly all (if not all) professional monitors for image editing have matte / anti-glare screens. They often come with substantial hoods to even further minimize the impact of ambient light on the screen. Glossy screens can be nice to view pictures on but they are an impediment to accurate creation / manipulation.
In regard to Tim’s question, it’s these types of computer monitors that will be furthest in technology and price from TVs.
Btw, CRT is still the dog’s bollocks for zero latency, beautifully rich colour, blacks so black Diane Abbott would say “damn… that’s black”, and somewhere for your cat to sleep.
LEDs were a mistake.
Steve, I still have a CGI 21″ monitor. Happy to donate it if your cat wants a novel kip.
Usually higher resolutions, higher refresh rates (no, that 120hz tv isn’t really a 120hz tv) at a given resolution, DisplayPort connections (instead of just HDMI), zoned backlighting, better color reproduction, and no post-processing (which tv’s use to ‘improve’ image quality) which adds to input lag.
Oh, Steve. Not even the console peasants consider 30FPS to be acceptable anymore. 60 is now the bare minimum, 120 and 144hz for the PCMR.
All the comments above are a bit off the mark. The real reason why there is such a big difference is volume because:
* Most computer monitors are 32in, 27in, 24in, with resolutions 1920×1080, 2560×1440.
* Most TVs are 40in and above, with resolutions wither 1920×1080, or 3840×2160.
* TVs over 40in with 1920×1080 resolutions are unsuitable as computer monitors being too big for a desk and too low resolution to be viewed at less than 2m distance.
Plus:
* The market for TVs is much bigger than that for computer monitors.
* Most computer monitors are bought by companies and most TVs by consumers.
* Most LCD panel production lines are optimized for the sizes that TVs come in, basically 40in and above in 1920×1080.
There is now some overlap in the 3840×2160 category at the 32in panel size, and indeed there are now some very cheap computer monitors in that size that obviously use TV mass-produced panels. A 27in or 32in TV with an HDMI socket is pretty much a monitor with an embedded tuner, and one with 3840×2160 resolution makes for a quite nice monitor (minus the adjustable stand).
BTW for computer monitors except for gaming one should always buy one with a nice IPS/VA/MVA panel, they are much better than standard TFT ones (and nowadays most TVs also have IPS/VA/MVA panels because of the much better viewing angles).
I am still waiting for reasonably priced computer monitors with OLED panels; most current OLED productions lines are optimized for high end TVs, 48in and larger, or for cellphones and tablets.
I am still waiting for reasonably priced computer monitors with OLED panels…
Normal computer use is going to result in screen burn on an OLED. Good fun for well heeled gamers.
Am I alone in suspecting a contradiction here?
@Newmania,
I have wondered exactly that especially now you can buy smart TVs .We run Netflix U tube and whatnot from a a lap top by the main TV but its a bit awkward
Go and buy a Google Chromecast, a small gadget which plugs into an HDMI socket on your TV and allows you to stream from laptop/phone over wifi from anywhere else in the house. They’re about £25.
I can definitely vouch that it works with Youtube, Netflix, Amazon, Prime, NowTV, Chrome Browser, etc. There are competing products (eg Amazon Firestick) if you hate Google.
You can also buy smart boxes which do the same job, streaming directly from Netflix etc and come with a remote. I have several, but no longer use them.
| The market for TVs is much bigger than that for computer monitors.
| * Most computer monitors are bought by companies and most TVs by consumers
Am I alone in suspecting a contradiction here?
Consider the likelihood that most everyone who sits at a computer at work also owns a TV.
Consider the likelihood that most everyone else also owns a TV.
Consider the likelihood that most everyone nowadays doesn’t own a desktop computer.
As @Roué le Jour & @Rob Moss say
Monitors have much higher pixels per square inch – needed as one is 1ft not 6ft from screen. Also, as others said high refresh rate
TVs mostly same panel, but more expensive have better electronics – think Panasonic vs Technics in past
@Steve
+1 But, CRT TV now shows a digital picture, infinite analogue binned by Gov. Thank God the demands to end analogue radio seem to be gone
@Diogenes April 30, 2020 at 7:09 pm
NO, not alone. Stopped reading at that fail
Why is it a fail?
@Pcar: Analogue TV was never infinite in any sense. It had a bandwidth of something like 6MHz allocated to it and there’s only so much you could do with that. The visible noise came at no added cost.
Digital audio is of course the work of the devil.
‘And the same size but in the computer section for 2 x x. What’s the difference?’
A pricing question? We can start with what people are willing to pay. Production cost for either is way below selling price.
PJF – Mrs Fluffybottom is intrigued by your generous offer, and will get back to you after her mid afternoon beauty sleep, or possibly after her four hour self-grooming session, or maybe after she’s finished hiding in the hedge, making clicking noises at birds
Yours in Purr, etc.
Full disclosure: the local tip isn’t open.
(I think it’ll still work, though. Just remembered all that wanking about with beam adjustment, etc. Not going back from my flat panel)