I know the major difference between the two is that TV's have a receiver while monitors don't and TV's usually include sound whereas monitors usually don't (I have a ViewSonic monitor now that does include sound though).

As a practicle matter though, with today's world of satellite and cable TV, doesn't that make the reciever portion moot anyway? I mean, couldn't I hook up this viewsonic monitor, which has three HDMI inputs, into my DirectTV receiver?

I'm asking if they're interchangable in such a setup because I'm thinking of setting up something in my living room where my computer and DirecTV are both hooked up to the same output, and I THINK that it doesn't matter whether that device is technically a monitor or a TV, but thought I'd better ask before I go making any changes.

Thanks for any info.

You can certainly do that, no problem.

The thing about a TV is that we've gotten used to having a bazillion options available via the remote control, which your monitor won't have. However, most of them will probably be available on the settop box, with the notable exception of picture controls (brightness, contrast, etc.).

Edit: Ah, one other somewhat significant difference, though whether it'll affect your setup, I can't say. A monitor expects an exact image, so-and-so many pixels wide and so-and-so many pixels tall, and will usually scale this to coincide exactly with the edges of the screen. A TV will usually expect an "approximate" image, slightly larger than necessary, and will therefore scale the input image so that the outer edge of it is actually outside the screen area. The concept is called "overscan", and I have no idea why it exists at all anymore, but it can be a pain in the ass, mostly if you try to connect a PC to a TV. I'm not sure what side effects could come of doing it the other way around (overscan video source connected to a non-overscan display), so you may want to test it out before making any permanent arrangements.

Similar technology, different purpose.

They are "interchangeable" in your scenario but usually monitor makes poor TV and vice versa. If anything you will have to tweak the colors of your monitor.


One thing to be careful with is that most "cheaper" or gaming monitors uses TN LCD panels, the biggest flaws of TN panels (among crappy colors restitution and lousy blacks) is their low viewing angles, meaning that if you are not directly in front of the monitor the image quality will go down the drain really fast.

I haven't used a monitor as TV, but we do use our TV as a monitor every day. We have a laptop VGA cabled to our TV along with a wireless mouse and keyboard. For sound we have it hooked up to some external speakers which are much nicer than using the built in speakers when we are just watching TV.

The nice part about the TV is they come in larger flavors, and will usually accept many inputs. We have the laptop, cable, DVD player, and Xbox all hooked up to it at one time. I'm not sure how many monitors come with that ability even if their underlying tech is more or less the same thing. If I could only buy one item, I would be tempted to go for the TV.

I use a TV as a monitor myself. I use it exclusively for my PC, though, since i already have a 42 TV on my living room which i use with my consoles, Sky, and BD-player.

The TV i use is from LG and has 26 inches. It goes up to 1080p. The main reason i have chosen this model over a monitor is because it has an IPS-panel, and almost all the monitors sold here in Brazil use TN panels, which have poor quality, like Gersen mentioned. The only monitors i could find that didnt use TN panels were Dell models, which are a bit too expensive (they are high quality, though, you cant go wrong with Dell monitors). TVs do not use TN panels because they need a wider viewing angle, most of them have PVA panels if i recall correctly, which are much better than TN.

For image quality, you cant go wrong with a TV. Now, if you want to use a monitor, i would suggest that you look for better ones with IPS panels, such as Dell models. TN monitors have terrible color accuracy and low viewing angle.

About the overscan issue mentioned by WIshbone, yeah, it does happen, but it can be fixed easily. I use the HDMI port to connect my PC into my TV. WHen i had an ATi/AMD video card (HD5870) i did have an issue with the image not filling the whole screen, showing black bands as a consequence. I solved this by changing the overscan settings in the driver's option. Now with an nvidia card i didnt get this issue, the driver atuomatically configured the image to fill up the whole screen.

Overscan doesn't exists anymore with LCD. You issue was most probably caused by an incorrect resolution (i.e. not using you TV/monitor native resolution)

Thanks a lot for the replies.

The question came up because I saw a brief sale from Newegg for a refurbished 32 inch 1080p HD television that I wanted to pull the trigger on but wasn't sure I could hook up a computer to a TV, but then thought since my computer has an HDMI output, there shouldn't be a problem, but I wanted to ask to make sure. THANK YOU.

That sale is over however, or more accurately, that refurbished one is gone. And looking now it appears that monitors are generally cheaper than TV's, so now it might be leaning more like a monitor for both. But I don't want the limited viewing angles to be a problem, so I may need to rethink that.

Anyway, so glad I posted here and asked. As usual the folks here a very helpful and knowledgable, and I THANK YOU ALL very much for that. I'll keep looking and if/when I decide on something, I'll likely repost with the specific thing I'm looking at purchasing and get more feedback before actually purchasing.

Thanks again.

No, it was not an issue with resolution. In both HD (720p) and 1080p (which is my TV's native resolution) i had black bands on the sides, top and bottom by default. Check ATi/AMD's forum and you will see that i'm not making this up. There is some kinf of bug with ATi cards that cause the image not to fill the whole screen, and it can be fixed by setting overscan up by some percentage i don't recall anymore. If viewing angle is a problem for you stay away from monitors, unless you go for an IPS-panel one.

These days, a monitor and a TV are essentially the same thing. The difference is mostly in size, max/native resolution and the number and type of inputs and how they are handled. And, of course, whether it necessarily has speakers, as you mentioned. The other thing is how well it handles resolutions that are not native. Monitors generally do better with non-standard resolutions, though the scaling is often better in TVs for the resolutions they do. Cheap or older TVs are often terrible at anything that is not 1080i/p, 720p, or 480i/p. That may be a problem with the setup you have. Check to see what SD resolutions look like, along with 720p and 1080i/p. If the scaler is crap, then you might want to try something else or set up the scaling to be done on the receiver (provided the native resolution of the monitor is 1080p or another standard broadcast resolution).

Edit: As for viewing angle, I have not seen a monitor made in the last five years or so that has a viewing angle that is anything to worry about. Check it if you feel you need to, but it should be fine...

Edit 2: One other thing is many TVs have crappy (wrong) EDID information, which can make it difficult on anything Vista or later, since EDID is very difficult to override in newer OSs...

If it matters to you, a couple differences from my experience:

- number of inputs, which somebody else already mentioned. TVs usually have a ton of inputs, including multiple HDMI ports. Monitors will often have just one each of HDMI, DVI, and / or VGA ports.

- TVs often have picture-in-picture. I've seen only one monitor with that feature (and we bought it because it has that feature), though I'll guess there are some others out there.

Now that I think about it, if you want the newer "Smart TV" features then you're stuck going with a TV. I should think that probably won't matter if you're using it with a PC...

Oh, for what it's worth we're using a monitor with a DirecTV receiver, pumped through a Pioneer receiver. The PC also goes to the monitor, but is connected directly so we can use the picture-in-picture feature (PC audio still goes through the Pioneer receiver). The setup works like a champ for both uses.

Good thread. I've been thinking about this recently too.

My monitors all tend to die faster than my TV, especially my LCD. Should I use a TV instead of a monitor if durability/longevity is a deciding factor in my purchase?