DaSchmarotzer

Hey there guys, I've got a couple interrogations regarding LCD televisions and monitors.

The first and most important question: what is the difference between a LCD monitor and a LCD TV? Is there any? I keep hearing people say that a plasma TV is better for gaming, but what about PC gaming? They do it on a LCD, and it's often even better than on a plasma TV.

Second question: why do they qualify monitors with a response time (in milliseconds), whereas for televisions it's all about Hertz? (I know that it's (s^-1) or "cycles per second").

Also, is the refresh rate comparable to the number of frames per seconds (of a game) How could a game run 100fps if the TV/monitor doesn't even have a good enough refresh rate?

I'm not done yet. Would a monitor with a 2 milliseconds response time be equivalent to a 500Hz TV? Do these even exist (I'm not talking about plasma here ).

PS: LED televisions are LCD TVs but with a different backlight, right?

Thanks, any help would be appreciated.

alostpacket

I'm a bit of a noob in this department myself, but I can help with one or two of those (I think)

2ms response is not = 500Mhz

Most Computer monitors ar 60Mhz
TVs are 120Mhz (but they only draw half the screen at a time).

Also (some) newer computer monitors are moving towards 120Mhz.

Mhz/Hz on a display is the refresh rate. This is the number of times the screen attempts to draw the picture per second.

The response time is the time it takes a single pixelto go from completely white to completely black (or on to off, or actually a newer metric is grey to grey). This is very important in twitch games (like Call of Duty) as we are sitting very close to the monitor and need precise location of objects. Slow response time used to cause "ghosting" which would leave slight, barely visible images behind when there was a lot of motion on the screen. However, moder monitors typically have less than 20ms response time which is faster than most people can notice. Nevertheless

LED and LCD are very different technologies, with various advantages. LED actually does not have a backlight

(I think) because each pixel is a light source (Light emitting diode) -- basically these pixels light up based on current, and will turn on and off individually. Color is more vibrant & saturated, but less accurate. At a glance this looks "nicer" to most people.

LCD are crystals that block light from a backlight. They let different amounts through based on the current applied to them. Color is more accurate, but less vibrant.


This all gets extra confusing when you add in the idea of FPS (frames per second) of the video. NTSC (American standards) are 24fps for film and 29.97 for video... PAL (Euro standard) is 30 fps I think.

Even more complicated is data rate, dropped frames, and interlacing. Due to different FPSs, and the fact that old TV used to "interleave" frames - there is a lot of weird conversion artifacting with regards to video these days.


All of this is very subjective though. Some people have a hard time seeing a difference between certain refresh rates/response times/frames per second/color while other people will be hyper sensitive to it.

And to further confuse you, it's usually NOT a good idea to look at a TV/monitor on display in a store -- as there is usually so much interference in the cables and magnetic interference on the TVs themselves, that you have no idea if they are representative of what they will look like standing alone in your living room.

So ummm... yeah glad I confused things further?

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lunatic59

I thought the same thing and found it's a common misconception with TVs. Actually LED TVs are backlit LED TV's too, it's just that they are backlit by an array of variable LEDs rather than a constant fluorescent light source.

If you read about it here, and you head doesn't explode in the process, you should be no close to making a decision than before.

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alostpacket

Nice find thanks, -- sounds like TV manufacturers have corrupted the "LED" acronym a bit.... those are some kind of LED/LCD hybrid...



But there are true LED displays out there, such as a lot of our phones (AMOLED)

And true LED "monitors/TVs" are rare though, I dont think many over 15" have been made yet.

alostpacket

one other thing I forgot, monitors also usually have a much higher pixel density.

EarlyMon

Depending on the plasma, gaming can lead to ghosting or burn-in. LCD TVs are more recommended. I've heard over that plasmas are better for gaming on HD forums and while many of us warn against them, those that choose them often come back complaining that got ghosting and burn in. If you must go plasma and you're going in for gaming on it, go Panasonic over Samsung, definitely. For LCD, your best choices are Samsung and Sharp, go with top line to get best response time and no motion artifacts.

The Samsung B750 (now obsolete) had LCD response rate of 2 ms - but for input, it's got to conform to broadcast / TV standards because of intended use, so a TV will accept input rates of 24, 30, 50 or 60 Hz. Frame rate processing can rate an LCD at 120 or 240 Hz and subfield processing in a plasma can rate them at typically 480 or 600 Hz but those two specs don't relate.

When a marketer refers to an LED TV, yes, that's an LED backlight instead of a CCFL (fluorescent) backlight. Advantages are longer life and no mercury. OLED sets are marketed as just that and are rare and pricey.

We use a 52" LCD 1080p HDTV as a part time monitor but not for PC games. Indeed, those can benefit from an LCD monitor where you can get game rates up to 90 fps and beyond - if the monitor has suitable input range to handle it.

For things like an XBOX, designed for a TV, an LCD works great.

A plasma is still a phosphor display, like a CRT, except the phosphors are excited differently and the newer formulations are better - chemically, they're harder to prevent burn-in. Consequently, the image decays faster, hence the ultra-high subframe refresh rates. I recommend Panasonic for plasma because of their phosphor technology.

Hope that helps.

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NYCHitman1

I personally use a 42" Panasonic Viera (plasma) TV as my PC monitor. I love it. No problems, whatsoever. I have owned this one for a good 3 years now.

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mikedt

LCD tvs are probably OK as PC monitors, but I wouldn't really recommend plasmas though due to probable burn-in of static images.

...before long all the TV programmes you watch will have a little START written in the corner.

I've actually seen plasma burn-in of TV station ID logos, e.g. CCTV1, CCTV2, CCTV News, etc., which are visible even when the TV is off. At Xilinhot airport they use plasmas for the departures and arrivals boards, they're really burned-in with things like Gate 2, Boarding, Beijing, Air China, etc. Paddington station in London had plasma information boards for about 6 years, then got rid of them because they became so dim as to be unreadable. Replaced them with LED boards. The short-lived plasma boards replaced the 30+ year old mechanical flip-digit boards.

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Last edited by mikedt; November 27th, 2011 at 04:05 AM.

richphitzwell

The difference isnt as great as it used to be even within a few yrs ago with LCD tv's. older tv' would skip everyother line when it refreshed while monitors refreshedevery line. Pixil count is higher on monitors but with higher def tv's they have to have higher amounts as well.

Led is backlighting. Before that cfl was the backlighting. Both are LCD screens though. The real difference is you can control leds in specific area of a screen or introduce multiple color leds which enhances the LCD colors while cfl is a singlebulb. Potential energy savings with led but I dont know if an y actual savings have been realized.