I bought a TV and use it as monitor - Things you should know before buying

Next episode: Connecting your 4K TV to a Windows 98 machine.

Some older Dell Ultrasharp Monitors were "Hybrids". My Ultrasharp from 2008 for example has normal monitor stuff, but also TV stuff. It has displayport, HDMI and VGA inputs, but it also has S-Video, component and cinch video like a TV. For Audio there is a soundbar add on and it has picture in picture with one button. And it all comes in a 1920x1200 16:10 Format with a nice stand.

I agree, I am about 80% happy with my 50" 4K TV as a monitor. I love the picture quality and the price I paid (got it used for only $200 USD several years ago). But I am jealous of the silky-smooth gameplay people get from high refresh rate monitors. I will probably upgrade to another 50" 4K TV in the next few years, this time making sure to get one that is 120Hz.

With Custom Resolution Utility you don't need to restart the PC everytime. You can use the restart exe they provide which will restart your GPU drivers. This is especially useful if you're using a CRT monitor and you're trying to find the proper resolution and refresh rate combo.

If you are considering using a TV as a 4K monitor, verify that it can accept YUV4:4:4 or RGB. Many years ago my employer got a good deal on 4K TVs. Only later did we realize that the most they could do at 4K was YUV 4:1:1 and the color fringing on terminal text was quite noticeable.

Given all the cruft they add to modern TVs, I'm far more likely to use a monitor as a TV than a TV as a monitor. Last time I bought a TV, it took me (no joke) two hours to turn all that crap off and set things up to look like it all should-- this had to be done once for every input AND every app! :/

I have done a lot of research about getting a new TV as a monitor as I want features that really only high end TVs have.. At least for moment. The one thing that comes up time and time again, is that a lot of high end TVs use a non-standard pixel layout, Normal is RGB, but things like OLED is WRGB, meaning an extra colour in the pixel and therefore the displayed text on screen may not be displayed in a crisp way as ClearType / Cleartext hasn't been updated to take this into account. This is even worse on Quantum Dot display, Neo QD or OLED QD for example, they are very different layout of colours in a triangle, with one large Green and a smaller Red and Blue underneath, this leads to a visible green outline on text, you can hide this to a degree with text scaling, but not ideal. I would strongly suggest anyone getting a TV for anything outside Pure Gaming to make sure and test them first, it is not a simple 1 for 1 replacement to a monitor. All that being said, I have a cheaper 4k Samsung as my 2nd display and has worked well as my "media" monitor, while my work monitor is a proper monitor.

Something extremely important to consider, is to avoid still bright images like the plague. Switch your theme to dark on Windoze or Linux, install Dark Reader (Static mode) or Midnight Lizard for your internet browser, change your desktop wallpaper to a dark one, if you are watching a movie and need to pause it, pause it during a dark frame. If you need to leave the room for more than five minutes, use a screensaver or just turn the TV off. Also, don't forget to set your TV backlight setting to 50 or at least 65. You will have a huge monitor that will live forever and without any bright spots. Been using my old LG 3DTV as a monitor since 2014, still working like a champ in 2023.

I've been using a very cheap (~$100) 32 inch TV with 720p resolution for retro gaming and arcade play. Works lovely with most Win98 games and there has not been a lot of negatives with the active adapting of VGA to HDMI (connected to sound output). TV speakers are decent, so I completely agree with your assessment. These cheap TVs seem to also like having composite connectors too. Great video!

I’ve been using a 32” 1080p TV as a monitor for years simply because I had it spare & it’s served me fine. Sure a proper monitor would be better but it’s doing fine for my purposes.

Thank you for this video! I started using a 4K TV as a monitor about a year ago, replacing a dual monitor setup. But the fringes on text made me think the TV didn't really use 3840 pixels across, like how a '720p' projector I bought two years ago turned out to really be 1024 pixels across and this really showed up on text. But your explanation of the ClearType issue matched the problem I was seeing, and trying Better ClearType Tuner myself confirmed the use of BGR pixels and finally fixed it.

It's logical to reduce the size of the gaming window since you sit so close to it, and using the full resolution for desktop applications gives you much more space to work with, so it's the best of both worlds. And thank you for the 2 applications, I didn't know about them and they will certainly be useful.

12:08 VRR was also a must-have for me when I got a "TV as a monitor" 1.5 years ago, because I just hate tearing. In the end I got an LG C1, because the HDR presentation and the 120 Hz support in combination are just insanely good and I doubt there was a better monitor at that time, maybe even today.

I do have a TCL 55" 4K TV. It looks decent for the price, which was less than $300. That said, it doesn't have a very good backlight I can easily tell. Depending on the image, you can easily see the bleed around the edges. Most of the time, no, but on occasion, yeah.

I've been using a tv as a monitor since about 2008 with an old 47LG70. They're great in that you don't have to sit next to them. I use mine with my recliner and a piece of shelving board as a keyboard/mouse tray. I've had a few others but I picked up a 49nano85una most recently about two years ago. It's gsync compatible. Supports HDMI 2.1 and can display 4k at 120Hz. Lastly it has rudimentary HDR which can really brighten things up if your settings are right. I paid 600usd for it. I mounted it to the wall with a set of arms that gives me everything but pivot and height adjustment.

One nice thing about TCL is the image quality of the analog inputs, if your model has them. The component inputs are one of the best I've ever seen (32" TCL TV from 2019 with 1080p panel), even better to my taste when I compared against a couple of Panasonic and LG TVs. The PlayStation 2 looks fantastic on component signal, AND TCL supports 240p over component! So PS1 games also run and look great. Very compatible and scales nicely to a 1080p panel. One bad commonly known issue with TCL is that the backlit and/or related circuitry goes haywire quite easily. It is usually the led strips themselves, a resistor in the motherboard or finally but rarely the motherboard. If your TV goes black then it's easy to tell if it's the backlit by using a flashlight. I'm seriously thinking to use a 3rd party externally powered led strip just grafted into the TV.

windows has a built in 'adjust cleartype text' utility too that shows you different texts for you to choose if you're not technically oriented, you just choose from few textboxes on which it looks best to you several times.

I've been using TVs as monitors for nearly 15 years. I mostly use them as a HTPC, but I did use a smaller flat TV for a desktop replacement. Overall, they are great for watching media, playing most games, and good for browsing the internet. The biggest issue I've experienced is that usually TVs display some less common resolutions such as 900p or 768p worse than monitors, and on few TVs they won't display them at all. The other drawbacks are that some games would have unreadable text (to me) when played on a TV, and some games are designed for keyboard and mouse in mind which is not ideal when you are sitting on a sofa/couch, then again those are drawbacks when using a TV that is far from me.

YES. I use a Vizio 32" as a monitor and I love the added real estate and beautiful image and sound. I highly recommend it. This was super informative though.. I have some settings I need to check after watching this. The RGB part was all news to me. Great video.

Actually, the best audio delivery--when used with any source--is had with a good component stereo system. I recall the 6-speaker/5-channel setup I used in my room, which included a pair of tune-able 3-way floor speakers w/12" poly cone & foam surround woofers. The receiver had a "bass boost" function that negated the need for a sub-woofer rather well, while a pair of Bose compact "reflectors" handled the rear channels. The result was that when a friend poked his head in, as I was streaming Christmas carols, he got a look of impressed surprise to his face. BTW: My "monitor" is a 4K 65" JVC... which hangs upon the wall, as I sit across the room on my bed.(Gotta love Bluetooth accessories!😉)