[Wylug-discuss] Buying Advice: TV vs. Monitor vs. Hybrid

[Paul Brook]

>   1. Do TVs still have lower DPIs, refresh rates etc.?
>   2. What, if any, are the deficiencies of PC monitors for video?

Refresh rates are largely irelevant with LCD displays.

PC monitors generally don't have builtin speakers, and often have little or no 
upscaling capabilities. A decent TV is more likely to have a smart scaler so 
lower resolution input looks "better". A TV will probably also have a builtin 
freeview decoder. Whether these features are useful depends on how much other 
gear you have lying around :-)

Smaller monitors (<=17") tend to be 3:4 aspect, whereas A TV is almost 
certainly widescreen.

For 19-22" displays there's probably very little difference between a monitor 
and a TV.

Large PC displays (24"+) tend to have a resolution higher than even full HD 
TV, so a similarly sized TV will be much cheaper. The same is probably true 
for many smaller screens - you can find cheaper TVs because they're using 
lower resolution displays. If you don't have/care about HD quality stuff 
(i.e. blue-ray disks) then you pretty much don't care about resolution. 
Standard DVD and TV are comedically low in computer terms (~800x600).
As a side note, I'm extremely sceptical about HD quality making any practical 
improvement unless you're already using a huge (40"/50") display.

>   3. What are the connectivity and compatibility elephant traps to avoid
>      as far as Linux is concerned? e.g. DRM, cables and socket,

A TV/Monitor should accept+display unencrypted images. i.e. you only need to 
care if you're hooking your disply up to something that already enforces DRM 
restrictions. Linux basically doesn't do DRM, so this is only an issue if you 
have other devices (typically a blue-ray player) that you want to hookup.

HDMI and DVI are basically the same thing, they just use different physical 
connectors. Converting from one to the other is a trivial adapter/cable, 
available for not much more than the price of postage.
The real difference is that HDMI includes audio over the same cable - this 
uses spare bandwidth on the video lines, so still works even if you're using 
mutant HDMI/DVI connectors :-) 

If you're still using crufty old analogue connections then you've just got to 
check whether the display has the relevant inputs - D-Sub (aka VGA) or 
s-video/composite.

>   4. What other questions should I be asking myself and potential
>      suppliers?

In my experience the most important factor is the quality of the display 
itself, whether it be a TV or a monitor. I've seen may to many of both that 
have really lousy colour reproduction or crappy viewing angles.

Paul