Using TV instead of monitor

[StratRider]

I searched the forum and Cliff Notes and couldn't find anything on this.
Likely because it is too obvious, but I wanted to be sure.
I have a 32" 1080p TV that I want to use instead of a computer monitor - it has HDMI - any problems?
Even my computer monitors are only 1080p and I would only consider higher MP cameras for zooming purposes.

 

[looney2ns]

I searched the forum and Cliff Notes and couldn't find anything on this.
Likely because it is too obvious, but I wanted to be sure.
I have a 32" 1080p TV that I want to use instead of a computer monitor - it has HDMI - any problems?
Even my computer monitors are only 1080p and I would only consider higher MP cameras for zooming purposes.

Shouldn't be.

 

[bp2008]

There are a few tricks to getting the most out of a TV when using it as a computer monitor, but you can usually get it to work just fine.

Some things to look out for are sharpness settings and scaling problems.

Sharpness settings
Many TVs come with a sharpness default of 50 which adds a medium-strength sharpening filter to everything, and it puts horrible halos around fine black text and edges on a computer desktop. I always turn this to 0 (off). Beware that some TVs may do it differently though where Sharpness 50 is actually off, and going down from 50 starts adding a blurring filter. In that case you would actually want it set at 50.

Scaling problems
Some TVs want to scale a computer desktop incorrectly, either stretching the image, cropping it, or shrinking it so there are black borders on all sides. If you can't tell for sure, try loading this test pattern I cobbled together in mspaint a while ago. It is a set of alternating black and white lines. Load the image at 100% scale. Using desktop scaling in Windows or Mac OS will make it look wrong, and likewise, it will look wrong on most mobile devices. The lines should appear extremely clean and crisp if your display is scaling the video signal correctly.

I've attached the test image here:

 

[StratRider]

Thanks guys - and I just d/l'd that graphic too. What you said there makes sense, so I'll give that a go.
The TV does have settings for "wide screen", etc.

 

[bp2008]

The TV does have settings for "wide screen", etc.

Hard to say which setting will work correctly then, but hopefully at least one of them does! If not perfectly then perhaps "good enough" for a camera monitor, but not necessarily something you'd want to do a lot of reading on.

 

[ThomasPI]

Just came across this post in my searching and going to respond and perhaps the OP will update with hopefully positive findings.