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TV as Monitor? (not a deal - yet)

mibby

By mibby
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mibby

mibby

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With all of the year end sales and an "upgrade" in progress for my basement studio, I am wondering about this.

Is anyone using a TV as a monitor?

Any Pros/Cons in doing so? 

Is a particular type or size better - or should I just stick with a PC Monitor and upgrade that?

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Larry Shelby

Larry Shelby

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Posted
20 minutes ago, mibby said:

With all of the year end sales and an "upgrade" in progress for my basement studio, I am wondering about this.

Is anyone using a TV as a monitor?

Any Pros/Cons in doing so? 

Is a particular type or size better - or should I just stick with a PC Monitor and upgrade that?

I use a 43" 4K LG and it works great...

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Grem

Grem

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51 minutes ago, mibby said:

Any Pros/Cons in doing so? 

Some of your better monitors with the 4K are getting better to deliver a good experience. 

I got a Acer 27" that serves me well. It's default resolution is 1440x900. This works extremely well with CW and the plugins. Nothing is too small, and most is large enough so that I don't have a problem seeing stuff.

I am not going with a larger monitor because I will be sitting too close to a large 43" model like Larry has. I have thought about getting another Acer with the same resolution, but the 27" really gives me all I want. So I just have a small Dell 19" on the side that I been having for years!!

I am essentially a cheap guy!! : ) 

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mibby

mibby

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13 minutes ago, Grem said:

I am essentially a cheap guy!!

Me too! I've got two 23" monitors which were cast-offs from an office upgrade that work great.  But now, I'm finishing my basement this year and looking to "upgrade" my studio and am interested in what works (and doesn't) for others. Up to now I have been mixing and making music in an unfinished basement that can get down to 45 degrees in the winter.  ?

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Jesse Screed

Jesse Screed

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Posted
1 hour ago, mibby said:

With all of the year end sales and an "upgrade" in progress for my basement studio, I am wondering about this.

Is anyone using a TV as a monitor?

Any Pros/Cons in doing so? 

Is a particular type or size better - or should I just stick with a PC Monitor and upgrade that?

I use a 40 inch Samsung for the last 4 years.  I got it on one of those post christmas sales for under $150.   I had to buy an adapter to get it to work with my pc, but I love it.  Best thing is CbB looks great at 1920x1080, no squinting.  I really want to get another one for an alternate location.

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antler

antler

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Depending on the type of TV, you might have to watch out for screen burn if you leave a static image/UI on there for too long. Also (and this might just be the one that I've tried), there might be slight (but noticeable) refresh rate/lag issues when moving your mouse around.

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Jacques Boileau

Jacques Boileau

Posted
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6 hours ago, mibby said:

With all of the year end sales and an "upgrade" in progress for my basement studio, I am wondering about this.

Is anyone using a TV as a monitor?

Any Pros/Cons in doing so? 

Is a particular type or size better - or should I just stick with a PC Monitor and upgrade that?

A few years ago I would have said be carefull because some led TVs where fuzzy when used as monitors, but I doubt this would happen today. I personnaly still have a 23" LG TV in our bedroom that is unbearable as monitor.

The problem you may find with a not large enough 4k TV is that things will be too small on the screen. You'll have to go into settings to make text larger, etc. Depends on your eyesight I guess. I have a 32" monitor that is 2k and would not want any higher resolution at that size.

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Jacques Boileau

Jacques Boileau

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5 hours ago, mibby said:

Me too! I've got two 23" monitors which were cast-offs from an office upgrade that work great.  But now, I'm finishing my basement this year and looking to "upgrade" my studio and am interested in what works (and doesn't) for others. Up to now I have been mixing and making music in an unfinished basement that can get down to 45 degrees in the winter.  ?

45 degrees!!! Man, that's hot!!! Oh... you mean... Fahrenheit... nevermind. ?

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fitzroy

fitzroy

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6 hours ago, mibby said:

Any Pros/Cons in doing so? 

I use my 65'' 4k TV as monitor often when I'm not sitting at my desk, and I'm thinkin of replacing my desk monitor with a 43'' TV as well. If you choose the right TV, it can be awesome. rtings are the best review site that I found to cover the topic; they test TV's pretty extensively and have a dedicated section in which they explain why each would work well (or not) as monitor. See here.

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Amicus717

Amicus717

Posted
Posted (edited)
19 hours ago, mibby said:

With all of the year end sales and an "upgrade" in progress for my basement studio, I am wondering about this.

Is anyone using a TV as a monitor?

Any Pros/Cons in doing so? 

Is a particular type or size better - or should I just stick with a PC Monitor and upgrade that?

I use a Samsung 43" 4K television, and it's great - tons of monitor space, you can pack a lot of tracks onto the screen. 

There was a time when you had to be careful which model TV you bought if you wanted to use it as a computer monitor: you needed one with 4:4:4 chroma subsampling in order to prevent text blurriness, and had a game input setting to reduce mouse lag, etc, but I think pretty much all 4K tv's cover those bases, these days.  

The RTings site linked above by fitzroy is a great resource, and I used them when I bought my TV. 

I've had mine for a year, and for me it's mostly pros rather than cons:  love the image quality and the screen-space, and it all works just great.

The only  downside is more related to my video card: I have a low-end Asus graphics card with no fan and four HDMI outputs, which works great for everything except video in 4K. If I try to watch a YouTube video in fullscreen on the 4K monitor, it chugs like crazy. My smaller side monitors work fine, in that regard, so if I'm watching something on YouTube, I leave it there.

Rob 

Edited by Amicus717
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Carl Ewing

Carl Ewing

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Not sure why people are concerned about text size, etc. on high res monitors. Modern OS's are fully capable of scaling - resolution was a concern maybe 5 years ago, since many apps / OSs struggled with scaling.

I use 3 monitors. Main monitor is a Dell 38" Ultrawide. Its resolution is 3840 x 1600. Other two monitors are LG 27" 4Ks with resolution of 3840 x 2160. All look amazing. I could not even imagine working on 1920 x 1080 - even my mobile laptop rig is 3840 x 2400. Never had a single issue with text readability or UI scaling.

Edited by Carl Ewing
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Spice3d

Spice3d

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I used a 49" TCL 4K monitor. I chose that size because the DPI is close to the twin 1920 x 1200 Samsung monitors I'd been using. I could never go back. Probably, the only con is that sometimes you will have to move your head more and even stand up to read things. If you wear prescription glasses, definitely get some computer glasses. RTings site mentioned above is a must-read. 

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Doug Steinschneider

Doug Steinschneider

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I bought a Vizio V405-H9 two years ago for $210. I upgraded my video card with a Gigabyte 1030 that cost about $90.  I also mounted it to my desk with a Vivo gas assist arm. As long as the display supports chroma 4:4:4 it should look ok for computer use. I was surprised how good it looks. I have scaling set at 125%. It has a remote with very easy to cycle through display modes. For normal computer use like spreadsheets I have it less bright. For music applications I have it set slightly brighter.  Go to rtings.com to check if a display is ok for computer use. 

Many gamers have gone to 27" 1440 monitors, they're not too expensive and correctly display color and framerate. Not sure about how TV displays do on those fronts but for mixing/recording it certainly doesn't matter. 

Edited by Doug Steinschneider
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RobertWS

RobertWS

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Posted (edited)
On 12/30/2022 at 5:21 PM, antler said:

Depending on the type of TV, you might have to watch out for screen burn if you leave a static image/UI on there for too long.

Screen burn is only a problem with CRT monitors/TVs (and OLED I've been told).    It's not an issue for LED devices.

Edited by RobertWS
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Billy86

Billy86

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Posted (edited)
21 hours ago, mibby said:

With all of the year end sales and an "upgrade" in progress for my basement studio, I am wondering about this.

Is anyone using a TV as a monitor?

Any Pros/Cons in doing so? 

Is a particular type or size better - or should I just stick with a PC Monitor and upgrade that?

I’m pairing a 32” Sony TV with a 27” Dell and it’s fine. I think these days you can get a TV monitor for less than a computer monitor in terms of screen size. Both mine are 1920x1080. 

Edited by Billy86
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Tezza

Tezza

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4 hours ago, Billy86 said:

I’m pairing a 32” Sony TV with a 27” Dell and it’s fine. I think these days you can get a TV monitor for less than a computer monitor in terms of screen size. Both mine are 1920x1080. 

Similar set up to mine. I am low on space though. I have a 24" monitor and an old 32" Panasonic TV, both 1080 x 1920. they are connected to both the DAW and the laptop (via a docking station) for music, i just use the 24" monitor. when using the DAW for video editing, I use the TV as a second full screen monitor of the footage. The colors on the old Panasonic are great as is the blacks and whites.  I can get a really nice picture from it, it has very deep colors. The newer TV's don't look as good to me. I can simultaneously play  tutorial videos on it as well, Whether i'm using the DAW or the laptop. It's been a great system.

The only thing i was thinking of changing was getting a 27" qhd monitor, i'm looking at that at the moment. It would be better for the music and video editing, but a bit overkill for browsing the internet. But since I am doing some website work, i might be able to justify it.

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