HDTV as a PC Display - I've finally found one!

Dan_D said:
I prefer a 30" LCD monitor at 2560x1600. It blows 1080p out of the water.
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check the sig pimpin :) - ive a 3007 and a 2408

i know all about gaming at 2560x1600 and 1920x1200

but... what does it take to play the newest games at 4 million pixels?

you need a monster video card [or cards] - which for me would mean another power supply

1080p is the magic HD resolution - think about it: bluray and the ps3 and the 360 and it doesnt stress pc hardware too much

2560x1600 is indeed amazing but cost wise...? bit prohibitive unfortunately
 
ok - bought a 37lh30 from nfm

brought it home and hooked it up to hdmi1 via dvi

initially the desktop was kinda blah - i tweaked a bunch of settings with help from the guys over at avsforum

yep, there's a fair amount of wow going on with this display

windows [beta7 and xp] is perfectly doable, not perfect like a monitor but after a few hours to acclimate yourself... things are a -ok

games though! wow... ive checked out about 8 fps and 4 racing games - all at the native resolution of 1920x1080

plus the added connectivity of the ps3 and 360...

when using my 2408 i had to set the lag in guitar hero world tour to 30ms so that it kept in phase and i could actually play the notes

when using the 37lh30 its set to the exact same thing...

so fwiw - the lg tv and the dell monitor have pretty much the exact same lag when using the 360 over hdmi

no noticeable lag or any problem when playing via pc

when i first got it i thought about keeping my 2408... but after using it for a few days its enough to sell both the 30" and 24" dell - it hasnt left me wanting for anything in a tv or monitor

all in all for $730 out the door - this is an amazing 37" hd display/monitor
 
I bought the HP LP2475w, it had dead pixels and i only tested it for a few hours.

I now bought the LG 42LH3000 for the same money, 600€, and have had about two months worth of experience with it.
It is perfect as a PC monitor, text is crisp and picture quite good. Played numerous games with it, those were looking great. 1080p, 720p and even SDTV rips all look quite good.
Xbox360 looks great, Resident Evil 5 in split screen is playable, though the game does seem to have vsync issues, strangely enough, none of my other games do exhibit this.
Playstation 2 also looks better than on my old cheap no-name CRT TV. Although it is nowhere near as nice of an Arcade feel as my Sony CRTs of the past were offering. The picture via RGB is very smooth but also very unforgiving, showing every bit of the low res the PS2 has to resort to.
Anyhow, as with the HP display this one has bad viewing angles, although less. This means brightness differs depending on the angle you look at.
The HP had a very annoying issue that when I looked at the taskbar, it appeared much darker than it should, on the LG this does not manifest itself in a quite as dramatic manner, but it is discernible.
Overall these IPS panels without polarizer are best used in a bright environment, although the LG does offer tons of picture adjustment options which make it possible to offset its weakness in pitch black rooms.
I'm not missing the PiP functionality the HP had, although the switching between inputs could be faster on the LG.
The Stand of the LG does its job, the TV is is in no danger of losing its grip and swiveling to the side is also easily done.
The remote is ok, although as mentioned before, switching inputs could be faster and the layout in general is not as intuitive as on my older TV sets and vcrs, and not that much better than the no name one from my interim CRT. Although I've had the chance to test the LH4000's remote and it was by far worse than the LH3000's one.
I also noticed no discernible PQ difference between the LH3/4/5K series in the Shop I bought the display from, but I do wish I've had taken a 47" model, although I'm pretty sure the store hasn't had such available at the time of my purchase.

Overall, if you can live with the Panel specific weakness of brightness not being distributed well on different viewing angles, this panel is a definite Winner in terms of bang for the buck. It's definitely well worth its price and my age old PC CRT will see a few more months of life before I finally exchange it for a pivot capable LCD, although atm I haven't seen any displays really viable as non eye-strain inducing as my old CRT monitor.
 
Hello. I'm planning on purchasing a LH3000, and have a few questions to ask those of you who own one (and use HDTVs as displays in general).

I was going to buy the 37" model at first, but after I found a store that sells the 42" for almost the same price as the 37", I though why not get the bigger one. But 42" is pretty darn big for a PC monitor, and I'm going to be sitting 2,6 to 3,2 feet from the screen. So I was wondering if I should settle with the 37" as I'm sitting so close. Also, wont the picture be more blurry when viewed on the 42" in comparsion with the 37"? The pixels will also look bigger right?
 
There's just no way I could sit up that close to a 37 inch display. I've got a friend who uses an LG 42 inch as a computer display and it's just stupid. I mean really. It's not that comfortable except to play console games on. And I dunno about the input lag but it's probably at least 2-3 fps ie 30-45+ ms.

I think 24-27 is probably the max i'd want have in front of me as a computer monitor display. 30 the absolute limit just for the awesome increase in resolution. But then you'd need to pony up for an expensive video card too so I think I'll stick to 24-27. 25 inch displays are actually underrepresented and I think they might be pretty nice.
 
vjcsmoke said:
There's just no way I could sit up that close to a 37 inch display. I've got a friend who uses an LG 42 inch as a computer display and it's just stupid. I mean really. It's not that comfortable except to play console games on. And I dunno about the input lag but it's probably at least 2-3 fps ie 30-45+ ms.
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IMO, 37" is perfect for a monitor. It all depends on your desk, how tall you are, and how close/far back you sit. A decent screen shouldn't have bad input lag, even my cheapo Sceptre is fine.
 
I was gonna buy the 32LH30 this week but I have been reading they have started putting cheaper panels in these that show lots of blur and is only 8 bit. So I am considering a 32LH40, but Im not suree about the 120hz stuff. How does it fare as a monitor compared to the 32LH30?
 
Just got a toshiba 32rv525r. Fucking beautiful. It's the newer model if the discontinued 32rv520u(which was known as an awesome tv to pc monitor.
 
My 37RV530U just died on me after 13months use, i'd worry if i were you edgarrrrr...
 
Have a 5 yr warranty on it with the place i bought it at. So im not worried at all :)
 
I was very interested in the lh30 as a PC monitor but since they are using a lower quality panel I am searching for alternatives. Does anyone know if the Panasonic TCL32S1 or the LG 32lf11 are good candidates for use on the PC? Any outstanding issues?
 
albovin said:
Four MUSTs for a universal PC monitor:
#1. Photographic quality picture with no issues (lack of color accuracy (dE), incorrect gamma curve, lack of calibratability, no color management, presence of color shifting, washouts, large pixels, etc.).

TVs do not pass #1 and #3. Being a primary PC monitor is out of the question for TV sets.
They are expected to be capable of #2 an #4 only - that means just an entertainment screen.
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Sorry to break your bubble but NO LCD has #1. They all suffer from some sort of color shifting, or other problems.
And if they don't then they cost 1000$+ and STILL have problem 3, huge input lag.

If you want all of the above, get the biggest CRT you can find...
 
FarleyM said:
I was very interested in the lh30 as a PC monitor but since they are using a lower quality panel I am searching for alternatives. Does anyone know if the Panasonic TCL32S1 or the LG 32lf11 are good candidates for use on the PC? Any outstanding issues?
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Dont know about those but I'm loving my Vizio VL320M.

No the color isnt good enough for professional image editing but if you are just going to play a game or watch a movie it should be good enough. Especially for under $500. I dont know what the panel type is but viewing angles, black levels, and color quality compare well with my VX2025WM

1080P at 60hz with 3 HDMI inputs and minimal lag.

It takes a few minutes to dial the display just right but it is possible and worth the effort.

My biggest gripe is that the backlight takes a noticeable amount of time to reach full brightness. Also I wish my desk was a little deeper. Another foot back and I would be golden but perhaps a slide-out keyboard tray mod will solve that one.

Do you have a laptop with a digital out? If so maybe go to a store with an HDMI cable and take some test drives.
 
FarleyM said:
I was very interested in the lh30 as a PC monitor but since they are using a lower quality panel I am searching for alternatives. Does anyone know if the Panasonic TCL32S1 or the LG 32lf11 are good candidates for use on the PC? Any outstanding issues?
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The LH30 series of HD TVs utilize S-IPS.
 
I ended up buying a Vizio voj320f1a that was on sale at walmart for $449. I think its great except I seem to have ONE pixel very top about an inch to the left from the top right corner that blinks brightly. I took the television back to walmart and exchanged it, the new one has a pixel doing the same thing in the EXACT same spot. I am pretty OCD when it comes to pixels so I am gonna take this to the walmart about 20 miles away next town over tommorow and switch it again, thinking maybe my walmart got a bad batch of these or something, I hope the one I get tommorow doesnt have this blinking bright pixel because I love everythign else about this display.
 
Syntax Error said:
The LH30 series of HD TVs utilize S-IPS.
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They do, or atleast they did. It seems LG has recently started using different panels for this model, an 8 bit panel instead of a 10 bit panel. Im not sure if that means its not S-IPS anymore but I do know alot of people are saying it has lots of blur and such with this worse panel.
 
Fors30 said:
They do, or atleast they did. It seems LG has recently started using different panels for this model, an 8 bit panel instead of a 10 bit panel. Im not sure if that means its not S-IPS anymore but I do know alot of people are saying it has lots of blur and such with this worse panel.
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That's unfortunate - any links to threads pointing out how you can spot the differences?
 
I have a 50" plasma TV and a 25" LCD monitor, LCD monitor is clearly better for everything other than watching TV shows, movies, or playing Xbox.

Big pro-tip tho, NEVER use a VGA input on an HDTV for the computer. The quality is seriously half it seems. Go with DVI, HDMI or DVI/HDMI. It's a night and day difference.
 
Fors30 said:
I ended up buying a Vizio voj320f1a that was on sale at walmart for $449. I think its great except I seem to have ONE pixel very top about an inch to the left from the top right corner that blinks brightly. I took the television back to walmart and exchanged it, the new one has a pixel doing the same thing in the EXACT same spot. I am pretty OCD when it comes to pixels so I am gonna take this to the walmart about 20 miles away next town over tommorow and switch it again, thinking maybe my walmart got a bad batch of these or something, I hope the one I get tommorow doesnt have this blinking bright pixel because I love everythign else about this display.
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Well I took the TV to the walmart the next town over today and they didnt have any voj320f1a in stock, I noticed they had the Vizio VL320M in stock it said price was $547, I had them scan it ant it scanned at $448, so I picked it up and brought it home. I have to say I like it better than the voj320f1a its much better to look at and the picture looks just as good if not better than the voj320f1a. No blinking pixels anywhere that I can tell of, and I believe this model is this years newer model compared to the voj320f1a which I think was last years model, so far I am pretty happy with what I am seeing.
 
Fors30 said:
They do, or atleast they did. It seems LG has recently started using different panels for this model, an 8 bit panel instead of a 10 bit panel. Im not sure if that means its not S-IPS anymore but I do know alot of people are saying it has lots of blur and such with this worse panel.
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There are no 10 bit panels outside of the medical market place. Any 10 bit panel uses some form of dithering. It may be that they use a 10 bit color lookup table, which IMHO is technically better, but probably not visually better.

I have had three "10 bit" monitors and all of them displayed some form of dithering or another, albeit done so well that unless you really know what to look for, you won't see it.
 
10e said:
There are no 10 bit panels outside of the medical market place. Any 10 bit panel uses some form of dithering. It may be that they use a 10 bit color lookup table, which IMHO is technically better, but probably not visually better.

I have had three "10 bit" monitors and all of them displayed some form of dithering or another, albeit done so well that unless you really know what to look for, you won't see it.
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Either way im not sure about all of that hehe I just know what I have read. But anyways it does seem that they are using panels that arent as good as what they were using.
 
I was looking in to this tv because of the fact that it worked great with a pc (low input lag and great text quality). After reading about a great black Friday deal at best buy it really made me consider picking one up. I looked in to this a little further and read that they don't use the s-ips panel in this tv anymore and the lg site confirms this because they have removed the panel type from the specs. I've been looking for a good tv for pc for some time and this was the only one that has been so highly recommended. what are the chances of me getting one with a s-ips panel? Are there any other tv's that could be recommended that would come close to this?
 
Gonna bump this thread before the information and TV models become too old and irrelevant. Lots of good info was shared here (Thanks to the OP!)

Too bad the LH30 swapped over to a slower panel. So i was wondering if anyone used the Panasonic L32S1 as a monitor yet? Or even the L37S1? The L32S1 is priced to sell at below $500.

Rumor has it that it shares the same PC characteristics as it's older brothers the LZ800 and LZ85, didn't hear anything about smeared red text though. No idea if any of this info is true or not.


Edit: another person interested in the L32S1 responded to my post at AVS, he claims to have read about two owners claiming 0~15ms of lag.

Crap, the circumstantial evidence is growing, nearly enough for me to take a chance and go and buy one.
 
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