Is a TV and/or Monitor the Same.

[leon]

Hi Guys,

I have a question for anyone who may be able to help me.

I have always had a very god Mitsubishi CRT Monitor, and i performed quite well, although the resolution was always a bit duller than the present LCD screens.

The story is this, we bought a brand new Flat Screen TV/Monitor for our caravan, but now that we sold the van we were left with this TV.

It mentioned on the instructions that it could also be used as a Computer Monitor Screen, so I had this bright idea to connect it up and see how it compared against the CRT.

Well, it certainly made a huge difference to the resolution, very bright indeed, but it dosen't do well with Stars, and when I use Image Plus to Process the Flats/Darks and Lights the final processed image ready for Align TSR, it is just horrid on the screen.

All the Stars are square, little lines, and jagged light, specks, not a round one amongst them, and the whole Screen is like a checker board, of wide dark and light stripes running up and down, and side to side.

The question finally, could this be because it, the screen, is a TV screen, and not just a monitor, for a computer.

Is there a difference, and should i just get a dedicated Computer Monitor, and also if the answer is yes, what would be good.

Thank You.

Leon

[turbo_pascale (Rob)]

Short answer is that if it is a "TV", the resolution will be quite low.
Even small HDTV Plasma's/LCDs typical resolution is only in the range of 1024x768 (stretched to 16:9 ratio). Bigger ones can do the fill 1920x1080 but that's it.

So in a nutshell, it's geared towards standard TV res (ie 720x576), so yes, it will suck. If you have one that has proper DSUB-15 pins, you might get a bit better viewing, but a "caravan" type TV will have very low native pixel resolution.

You can get 19" LCDs with 1680x1050 res for about $250-$300 which will do a much better job.

Turbo

[bojan]

Leon, dedicated computer monitor is always better than TV...
TV screen is lower resolution (480 or so lines), and can not be compared to monitor (up to 1200 lines or more).

[Stephen65]

IIRC standard PAL TV resolution is even less than 576x720 because the 576 transmitted lines of picture includes the black bars above and below the visible picture (ie the lines you see if you mess with the vertical hold) so a TV needs somewhat less than 576 lines of resolution to display the standard picture.

Back in the days before LCD and plasma swamped the market there were some high definition CRT TVs made, I have a 36" Sony CRT that has about 900 lines of vertical resolution. This TV has awesome picture quality but as the weight goes up with the cube of the screen diameter it is rather heavy - 100kg. Other than that the only way to get high resolution in a CRT display was to buy an expensive monitor.

[Dennis]

Hi Leon

Good advice from Turbo re pixel “Real Estate”. I have a 1600 x 1200 LCD monitor for the desktop and a 1400 x 1050 panel on my notebook. I like a lot of pixel “real estate” on my screen so I can have multiple Windows open without the need to Alt-Tab between them.

It is nice to be able to see a large size, real time image in a large Window, whilst having a couple of smaller Windows open that display things like the Focusing software, Camera Control Software, Guide star and corrections, etc.

This way, I can make changes to the smaller Windows and see the effects in real time in the larger Window. Better still, multiple monitors!

1280 x 768 just doesn’t suffice any more! LOL

Cheers

Dennis

[leon]

Well thank you very, much, I did suspect that it wasn't really suitable, you have answered my question, so out she goes to the TV room.

Leon