TV or Monitor

[elbryyan]

For cost reasons I'm working if phases to get my ultimate theater set up in my house.

My first stage was a surround sound.
Check.
Second stage was setting up a PVR solution for our living room.
Check.
Third stage was getting a client set up for our bedroom.
Almost Check. Just need to finish dropping a network cable and all will be
done. (thanks to a coworker who had a box of "junk" to get rid of)

My next stage is to upgrade our current tv sets to one's that can display the new digital content we are recording. We have a 26" in the living room hooked up via S-Video and a 20" old tv/vcr combo set in our bedroom with composite video.

So long story short, I've saved enough to possibly upgrade the set in our bedroom but my quandry is this. Since the client is a PC I was considering purchasing a monitor instead of an actual TV. Here is what I've found.

ASUS VH226H Black 21.5"HDMI Widescreen 16:9 Full HD 1080P LCD Monitor
$189.99 shipped.

Vizio 19" Class LCD HDTV, VA19L 720p $197 + tax

My thoughts are, the monitor is bigger and has higher resolution and is cheaper but is only good with a PC.
The TV would still be usefull if it needed to be moved to say the kids room as a seperate tv later.

Your thoughts?

[K.S.]

take the ASUS ('cause of full HD) or save some bucks more & get either the VO22LF or the VA22LF (or search for other cheaper full HD displays with integrated tuners...). i would not buy an 720p display, thats just a tradeoff

[mikeh49]

I'll take a contrary view to K.S., but be aware that I am frugal and a known bottom-fisher, and may be misinformed.

First, I think 1080p is only useful, at the moment, for BlueRay DVDs. North American broadcasts are at most 1080i. Maybe 1080p capability gives a better picture even at 1080i or 720p, but I'd be surprised if you could tell the difference at bedroom distance on a small(er) screen. If you plan to view BlueRay, then 1080p is the way to go. GBPVR doesn't do BlueRay natively, AFAIK, but I think whurlston is working on a plug-in. My 720p 40" TV looks good enough to me.

I think size does matter, so I would get the largest screen I could afford. How about a no-name 26" TV, assuming it has VGA or HDMI/DVI inputs? The question of a tuner really depends on the probability you would need it for a TV, I can't help you on that one.

Let us know what you decide, and why.

[wtg]

I wouldn't commit to a monitor only unless you've been using the bedroom TV exclusively with gbpvr and are 100% happy with it. Having a tuner built into the TV is great when you're simply wanting to watch live tv, and unless live TV on your gbpvr setup is 100% rock solid, you don't want the WAF to take a hit when "All I want to do is watch TV!"

1080 is great if you're using the TV as a monitor for the computer and plan to do some surfing, sitting up close, as 720p is irritatingly vertically limited in a browser. And just for the record, 1080 browsing isn't any good at a distance either unless the TV is quite large, because the screen will be vary hard to read. If the TV is going to be limited to gbpvr/TV only 720p is fine.

In my experience you really can't tell the difference between 720 and 1080 when watching TV or videos until the TV is in the 35"+ range because you aren't sitting that close to the screen. I have a 37" 1080p screen and from the couch 720p and 1080p are hard to discern.

Just my two cents,
Tim

[mikeh49]

Big time thumbs up on wtg's first comment regarding WAF of "just want to watch TV (Oprah)". Do you have cable or antenna to the bedroom? If not, you may be covered on this point.

[gazoo]

I'm with Mike. You don't need 1080p on a 21.5" screen, you won't even notice it! If it brings it, just consider it icing on the cake, but you may not even see it from 5 feet away.