Using a TV as a Computer Monitor

[wutang112878]

Shockingly my eyesight is getting worse and my I'm frequently working on code and formulas so monitor space and font size is something I really value.  I have laptop and a 27 inch monitor and I use my laptop screen as a second monitor to just look at my email.  However, I'm thinking of upgrading my monitor to something bigger and getting a USB adapter to create a 2nd video output from my laptop so I'd have my new monitor plus the 27 inch one for email.  It may seem excessive but, considering I stare at this thing for 8+ hours a day, it sounds fantastic to me.
 
Monitor prices get out of control after 27 inches, whereas I can get a Vizio 1080p TV for like $280 at BJs Wholesale.  Are there any good technical reasons the TV wont work?  I've hooked up my laptop to my 60 inch living room TV and it looks fine resolution wise, so the only other issue I can think of is that there is some technical reason why the TV shouldnt be a monitor but I really cant think of any myself.  I've read a few articles online and I still cant find a reason not to do this which is why I ask you.
 
As a secondary question, has anyone ever got one of those USB video adapters?

 

[glasspusher]

I bought an Elgato EyeTV usb dongle for my mac in about ~2006, watched the 2007 WS on it (and recorded it). Almost 10 years in, it still does great, I'm going to take it with me tomorrow evening, I'm proctoring my mid term exam and don't want to miss the game.
 
Oh- to clarify- I'm line of sight to the Sutro Tower in SF and can get 25 digital stations over the air with it, typically at a higher bit rate than that POS, directv.

 

[EricFeczko]

No. There is no technical reason why a TV display wouldn't work for as the primary display for a computer.
 
From home, I always use my TV as the primary display for my laptop. If you have an HDMI output, it is pretty simple to hook it up to a TV (slightly more complicated if you're using an adapter).

From a work perspective, the biggest issue is resizing the fonts so that they are readable from where you are sitting. 16-18 point font may not be sufficient depending on the distance from your eye to the TV.

 

[Nick Kaufman]

 Are there any good technical reasons the TV wont work?
 

The reason is that it's cheaper it's because it's only 1080p and if you want to get a large screen, presumably, you would want to have it close by and take advantage of said resolution. If it's 1080p and it's a let's say 32'' monitor, you will be able to see the pixels from that close of a distance.
 
Have you tried toying with dpi scaling? If you re eye sight is the issue, this will increase the size of everything you see on a screen.
Besides that and in order to show how old I am, I don't understand why you need a separate window for email. Is it that hard have a window open in your 27'' monitor and check on the taskbar every once in a while? I ve got a 19.5'' where I do everything and I can't understand why people need to have large monitors so that they can be checking multiple windows at once. I mean, we used to get by on 15'' monitors and no one really complained. Say's law in action.

 

[derekson]

I'm not sure how helpful this is, but I found going to a high resolution screen was a huge decrease in eyestrain when using my laptop. Obviously that doesn't help against existing deterioration of vision, but in the long term it seems like a huge benefit. My understanding is that the fuzziness around the borders of things like font lettering on a pixelated screen results in the eye constantly trying to get that image into better focus, while having a higher resolution with crisp edges lets the eye focus better. 
 
I wouldn't want to use 1080p on a screen that size, personally.

 

[wutang112878]

The reason is that it's cheaper it's because it's only 1080p and if you want to get a large screen, presumably, you would want to have it close by and take advantage of said resolution. If it's 1080p and it's a let's say 32'' monitor, you will be able to see the pixels from that close of a distance.
 
Have you tried toying with dpi scaling? If you re eye sight is the issue, this will increase the size of everything you see on a screen.
Besides that and in order to show how old I am, I don't understand why you need a separate window for email. Is it that hard have a window open in your 27'' monitor and check on the taskbar every once in a while? I ve got a 19.5'' where I do everything and I can't understand why people need to have large monitors so that they can be checking multiple windows at once. I mean, we used to get by on 15'' monitors and no one really complained. Say's law in action.

 
I've got a catch 22 situation.  I write a lot of code so the smaller the font the more lines I can see and that helps me out from a productivity standpoint big time.  Like imagine reading a book and only 3 sentences fit on page, thats going to get old quick.  But the smaller the font the more strain it seems to be on my eyes.  Which is why the oversized monitor seems like a great solution for me, I would get more work space while also increasing the font I could use.
 
I'm going to try hooking my computer up to my TV again.  I tried last night and stood like a foot in front of the TV and really couldnt see a pixel issue, so I might really be going blind.
 
As for the email monitor, the value is not clicking over and not breaking my train of thought because I like to read my emails as they come in.  With the email monitor an email comes in from my boss and I see exactly what its about and realize I need to address it now and stop what I'm doing.  When an email comes in from my colleague Kevin, who is useless and completely ineffective, I dont have to click over and see he is requesting something else to waste my time.
 
 

I'm not sure how helpful this is, but I found going to a high resolution screen was a huge decrease in eyestrain when using my laptop. Obviously that doesn't help against existing deterioration of vision, but in the long term it seems like a huge benefit. My understanding is that the fuzziness around the borders of things like font lettering on a pixelated screen results in the eye constantly trying to get that image into better focus, while having a higher resolution with crisp edges lets the eye focus better. 
 
I wouldn't want to use 1080p on a screen that size, personally.

 
I'm really starting to get freaked out by my vision now.  Its weird because I can see the difference between a 4K and 1080p TV but I just dont see the blurr or pixel thing when my computer is on my tv.

 

[Marceline]

Just make sure the TV supports 1 for 1 pixel display via HDMI, as some do not. Otherwise it will overscan and cause blurring on everything.

 

[NortheasternPJ]

If you aren't blind now, you will be sitting 24" from a 42" display at 1080P pretty quickly. I just tried it on my 50" TV and I felt like my eyes were burning in 30 seconds or so. The resolution is way too low at that size at that distance, unless you really are blind. 
 
Even the additional eye strain from having to move your eyes up and down, left and right all the time to read the full display probably would cause fatigue as well.
 
I ended up using DPI scaling to get the font at a normal size that was comfortable to read, which negated the larger size.

 

[Couperin47]

Two issues (this is for the Windows world):
 
1. Using scaling to increase font sizes much beyond 115% will cause endless frustration. You will find that, despite decades to get this right, an amazing amount of program code, especially inside pop-up and control windows and other portions of many programs have been hard coded. Attempt to really scale upward and now you can't see half the text and often even the control buttons inside windows have disappeared, as the window itself is a fixed size. It all becomes unending frustration.
 
2. With any size monitor many are unaware of the Cleartype Text Tuner or equivalent that exists in all versions from Win 7 on up.  Adjusting via it's routine can greatly increase the clarity of text on any monitor. Simply search on help to get the link to the routine is which is buried pretty deep in each version.
 
Note: This can only work with computer monitors, TVs cannot be tuned via this process.

 

[Nick Kaufman]

FWIW, the other day when I was toying with Windows 10, I noticed that on the display settings, it allowed a 4k resolution (or something definitely higher than 1920x1080) on my 1080p TV. Then I was on a bestbuy on Saturday and I was checking out a dell all in one with a 19.5'' screen and a 1600x900 recommended resolution (which I assume is the native one), but Windows 10 allowed it go as high as 1080p.
 
What's going on in here?
 
I am guessing it's a software trick, but if wutang doesn't mind the fact that he won't be really getting 4k, he might try this on his 1080 TV if he's got windows 10.