Using the TV as a moniter?

[V6viper]

I have been thinking for a long time about getting one of those video cards so you can use your TV as a moniter. (like they have in highschools and colleges)

I spoke with an employee at Fry's and he told me the resolution would be bad and I wouldn't be able to make out the words on the screen.

I have a 27" Sharp TV and the school TVs are the same size (bigger in some rooms)

Has anyone done this or possibly have any info on it? All I use my computer for is surfing (which includes some flash games from addictinggames.com) and AIM.

[Xious]

The TV outputs on most video cards are terrible. I don't know why either. It's been like that for awhile. The image is real fuzzy. I've tried that numerous times and have been very unsatisfied every time. My latest attempt was using my home theater projector with my computer to play games, but it was so fuzzy, it just drove me up a wall. I couldn't read anything on the screen.

[95Batmobile]

It's not that bad when you watch a movie, but with anything else it will only hurt your eyes trying to use it every day.

There are newer TVs that can be used at monitors though, but I think they're all HD TVs at the least.

[Alt space n]

A normal TV operates on a 640x480 res if I remember correctly. The HD's and stuff should have a res number on them somewhere, either a tag or a spec with the TV, hope that helps.

[99V6Camaro]

Yea, i have a nice video card in my laptop and in my desktop and have never liked the quality when hooked up to the tv, however seeing as they both have dvd drives i do use it to watch dvds.

[Dojo2000]

ditto on what they all said

The S-video out on my laptop is okay for watching dvd's on the tv, but anything else is unbearable.

[Pig General]

Unless you have a Bad-*** tv, it will be terrible.

[Big Tymer]

ul have to have an HD tv, the resolution on tvs is so poor... i have a computer hooked up to my tv in my game room, i play music videos in a playlist or just play mp3s on winamp and have a plugin going at parties.....

to read anything i would have to make the text like 30 , lol , u cant read anything..

[camaro_speedemon]

Basically what everyone else has said, if you don't have an HDTV it will suck ***. Good for movies, bad for everyday computing.

<AV Nerd>
BTW, NTSC TV (regular ol TV) resolution is actually 720x525(If you ever wondered what that means 525 lines, 720 pixels per line). But due to signal loss, it comes out to about 640x480. HDTV is 1920x1080 (1080i sound familiar?)

Also, computer monitors are progressive scan, meaning they display all the video information in one pass or 'scan'. All NTSC and most HDTV's are interlaced, meaning there are two passes. The first pass displays odd lines, while the second one displays even lines. In reality you only see half the picture at a time, but since it scans so fast, your brain tricks you into seeing a whole picture.

</AV Nerd>

[TheGreenPunisher]

Yeah, i have a flat-screen in my room....and hooking my computer up to it is a terrible picture.

However....Flat screen HDTV in sunroom = tits.

Yum.

[Dojo2000]

Originally posted by TheGreenPunisher:
However....Flat screen HDTV in sunroom = tits.

We've got a 17" LCD HD TV/monitor hooked up to one of our computers at home. The computer display has black bars on each side, and basically makes it so we only have 14" or 15" viewable :( That's ****ty compared to the $500+ we spent on it. The regular TV signal is the same. We can, however, watch TV picture-in-picture when working on the comp :D

[camaro_speedemon]

Originally posted by Dojo2000:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TheGreenPunisher:
However....Flat screen HDTV in sunroom = tits.

We've got a 17" LCD HD TV/monitor hooked up to one of our computers at home. The computer display has black bars on each side, and basically makes it so we only have 14" or 15" viewable :( That's ****ty compared to the $500+ we spent on it. The regular TV signal is the same. We can, however, watch TV picture-in-picture when working on the comp :D </font>[/QUOTE]Sounds like you need to change the aspect ratio from 4:3 and set it to 16:9.

We have an HD plasma monitor here at work, and if it's set to 4:3, you get black bars on the side like what you described.

[Pig General]

Yes.. set Aspect ratio to 16:9.. or the resolution to a widescreen resolution. Then it will be clutch. Otherwise.. I have a really nice 17" samsung lcd.. Runs 1280x1024. I'll do an even trade. :cool:

[Dojo2000]

Hmm, I've never looked for a setting for that. I thought it was kind of weird that my sister recently bought a wide-screen laptop, and the display actually takes up the whole screen evenly.