monitors and tvs seem pretty similar these days don't they they're both flat
pixel covered rectangles that output a picture so what's stopping you from
using a big old tv as the display for your pc bigger is better right well
despite the fact that monitors and tvs aren't too different at first glance
it turns out that there are some special considerations that come into play if
you plug your computer into a tv and we're going to tell you about them on
today's episode sponsored by vizio let's start with the most obvious one
size although it might seem tempting to stick a 55-inch tv on your desk provided
you have the space you really need to make sure the tv is high enough
resolution so that you aren't seeing the individual pixels remember apple's
marketing from some years back about retina displays what they meant by this
was that the display had a high enough resolution to keep a user from making up
the pixels at a typical viewing distance like an ARM's length when you're holding
your phone not surprisingly with larger displays you need to sit farther back
from the screen in order to achieve this effect for example a 1080p phone packs
the pixels in more tightly than a 1080p tv so you can be a lot closer to the
phone and still see the image as intended we've linked a calculator in
the video description so you can punch in your tv's resolution and screen size
to figure out how far back you need to sit in your room while it shouldn't be a
problem if your pc is hooked up to the living room tv and you're sitting way
back on the sofa maybe with a wireless keyboard be sure you're giving yourself
enough space if you're going with a more conventional desk and chair setup and
that the screen isn't so large that you're moving your head around just to
see the whole picture what a pain in the neck next let's talk about colors it's
very common to have colors not look quite right when you first connect your
pc to your tv for a couple of reasons one of them is a phenomenon called
chroma sub sampling you can learn more about that in another video we made but
the gist of it is that tvs often throw out color information in order to save
on bandwidth oftentimes video signals that come in through a cable box or a
blu-ray player are sub-sampled and the tv displays them just fine but pc gpus
often output uncompressed video which the tv won't necessarily expect not only
can this cause inaccurate colors but also fringing those weird artifacts that
appear around text that can make it difficult to read to alleviate this you
can tell your tv that you're getting a signal from a pc in a few ways on some
tvs you can just set the input label to pc or computer and it'll adjust
automatically to the pc color data you can also try looking for a setting like
RGB or a deep color and toggling them to on or full additionally you can tinker
with settings on the pc end as well in your graphics control panel make sure
your computer is outputting full RGB or a 444 ycbcr signal but if this doesn't
look right your tv may not support uncompressed color so you may need to
switch these settings on your pc to four to two another thing to verify is that
your pc's image isn't running off the sides of your tv screen this is a common
problem because tv signals often have artifacts that display wants to crop out
but this isn't usually an issue on computers to fix this go into your tv
settings and then set the aspect ratio to just scan or one to one or original
this will tell the tv to display exactly the area the computer outputs though if
you have an older tv without these features you can also resize your
desktop through your pc's graphics control panel while you're at it make
sure your pc is outputting a signal at the highest refresh rate your tv
supports as this is often bumped down when you first hook things up finally we
get to the dreaded problems of response time and input lag quite simply tvs
often aren't as optimized for gaming as monitors are and as such they don't
switch colors or respond to inputs as quickly although tvs have caught up to
monitors somewhat over the years most are still made
more with movies and shows in mind content that benefits more from rich
colors and a cinematic look instead of quick responsiveness so how do you make
your tv respond more correctly go through the picture settings and turn
off any special cinematic or vivid picture modes as well as bells and
whistles like motion smoothing or noise reduction some tvs also have a game mode
that further strips away any post processing that would otherwise create
additional latency just make sure you're plugging your pc into an HDMI port that
actually supports it some some ports will just be labeled game right on them
so how have your experience with computing on a tv gone let us know down
in the comments especially if you're still rocking old crt those if you're
playing retro games that's the low input lag thanks again to vizio for sponsoring
this episode and if you're looking for a great tv to use with your computer or
for anything else check out vizio's OLED series with their most powerful
processor and an infinite contrast ratio for deep blacks and a vibrant wide color
gamut thanks to vizio ultra color spectrum it features HDMI 2.1 for 4k 120
FPS gaming as well as ultra low input lag and variable refresh rate technology
that might just make your current monitor jealous they also offer a
bezel-less design and built-in cable management to keep your setup super neat
no matter what room it's in and best of all march is quantum color month for
vizio and they are celebrating by giving away a 65-inch m-series quantum tv
entries close march 31st with two winners chosen so enter today at the
link below so thanks for watching guys if you like this video hit like hit subscribe hit us up in the comment
section with your suggestions for topics that we should cover in the future