TV vs Monitor

[spike99]

Hi,

I have been thinking about building a HTPC... And I am now considering building HTPC to include gaming in my living room.

Currently I game on my desktop and my 30" Monitor is about 2 ft away when sitting on my desk.

In my living room, my 60" Plasma is about 10 ft away from sofa.

Obviously the sound that would come out from my HT in my living room is superior to my 2 small speakers I have on my desktop... but question is the difference between a monitor and a TV.

I understand the difference in resolution between a TV and a monitor... but wanted to check if it's a good idea to use a TV sitting about 10 ft away vs using a monitor 2 ft away.

 

[NakedRunner96]

For gaming and watching movies you will be fine. I would not want to do anything productive on a screen that far away though.

 

[BoomSlang001]

For gaming and watching movies you will be fine. I would not want to do anything productive on a screen that far away though.

I agree. Running 720p would probably help as everything would appear larger but still is not ideal. Also, be careful because leaving the taskbar up could produce burn-in on the plasma. The games can as well but people are typically advised not to use a plasma as a monitor.

 

[mangapc]

Hi,

I have been thinking about building a HTPC... And I am now considering building HTPC to include gaming in my living room.

Currently I game on my desktop and my 30" Monitor is about 2 ft away when sitting on my desk.

In my living room, my 60" Plasma is about 10 ft away from sofa.

Obviously the sound that would come out from my HT in my living room is superior to my 2 small speakers I have on my desktop... but question is the difference between a monitor and a TV.

I understand the difference in resolution between a TV and a monitor... but wanted to check if it's a good idea to use a TV sitting about 10 ft away vs using a monitor 2 ft away.

I am using a Vizio 39" LED HDTV as my main monitor and 2 Dell PH2012 widescreen monitors. And it looks amazing you would not know the difference between the TV and a monitor. It is because the HDTV is a LED just to let you know. You can just use any HDTV and get the same result.

 

[spike99]

For gaming and watching movies you will be fine. I would not want to do anything productive on a screen that far away though.

OK...

I was just a bit concerned... I'm just so used to playing on my monitor (so near ~ 2ft) ... that I have been uneasy about gaming my Plasma (1080p) and have TV about 10ft away... I don't know if I can get used to the distance...

On a side note... what would be recomended to use as a table tray to place keyboard & mouse and place it in front of sofa ?

 

[Decibel]

I used my plasma as my main monitor for quite some time with no ill effects.

In order to minimize image retention I'd recommend that you get rid of all of your desktop icons, set your desktop to change and set your taskbar to auto hide. Heck, once I figured out how to stick the recycle bin on the taskbar I haven't looked back. That has become my default configuration on all of my systems - game system, laptop and work machines.

As far as keyboard and mouse go, I found it best used from the couch with devices designed for it - get a remote control and a gamepad. For FPS ant RTS games head back to your desk and your 30. I had mine set up on a table so I could roll my office chair up to it, but 42 inches was a bit much from that close.

I picked up a wireless keyboard and trackball, but have been able to get most things configured so that I can handle them with my remote or xbox 360 controller.

 

[spike99]

As far as keyboard/mouse... I should get a wireless keyboard/mouse when playing games... Mostly I play strategy games... so I need keyboard/mouse.

The only thing is that sometimes I can sit for hours and I don't know how comfortable it would be on a sofa... To place keyboard/mouse I thought about a portable stand that I can put away when not in use.

Any ideas what stand would be preferred to use on a sofa ?