Monitors replacing televisions

[Dresden]

Someone reminded me of a valid point a few threads back detailing compatibility of consoles with computer monitors. I'm leery of this mainly because my roommate did this exact thing with his PS2 and the quality was almost enough to laugh at. He then began to explain that the differences in contrast ratios in television and computer monitors is what leaves such a blatant discrepancy between the two. Has that changed with next gens? I haven't gone out and bought myself an HDTV, nor do I see the sense in it seeing as my television watching is sparse. I'm asking this because I'm on the eve of purchasing a next gen console, which one I haven't decided but I can safely say it won't be a Wii, and would like to avoid purchasing an HDTV.

 

[ZoinKs!]

The higher quality of the new consoles should benefit from a higher quality display.

Traditionally, a typical monitor was higher quality then a typical tv. Maybe that's partly why the ps2 looked worse on the monitor; the high quality monitor made the low def ps2's faults more noticable.

The quality difference between hdtv's and monitors is less now due to convergence between them. When I get an hdtv, I'm going to be sure it'll work well as a pc monitor. Some hdtv's (such as a bunch of the Westinghouse models) really are monitors marketed as hdtv's.

Exactly what monitor do you plan to use? Maybe you'll get lucky and someone here has tried it out.

 

[Dresden]

Heh it would probably have been smart of me to specify that. I use a SONY LCD 20"16MS DVI SDM-S205FB .

 

[pegisys]

can the PS3 be connected to a monitor, I heard you can't use a HDMI to DVI converter unless the DVI port is HDCP compliant, don't know if it's true though. I know people mentioned the PS2 VGA cable but AFAIK it's not confirmed yet.

since you have a 20" monitor it's probably 1600x1200 I don't know if the xbox 360 can output at that resolution so it might have to be scaled, depending on the scaler in your monitor it could look pretty bad, but it would be easy enough to test that with a PC

but they do have reasonable priced HDCP widescreen monitors around now, and it would still be a lot cheaper then a new HDTV

 

[Acert93]

The GCN looks great on a monitor in 480p (with games that support progressive scans) and I have a number of friends using the VGA adapter for the 360 and love it (i.e. just use what they have instead of buying an HDTV). It works great for most games, although a couple games do require some adjustments (e.g. PGR3 which gets stretched; pixel mapping on an LCD or squashing the image on a CRT can resolve this).

Personally I am all for using a monitor for gaming. I did it last gen and plan to do it exclusively this gen as well.

 

[patsu]

can the PS3 be connected to a monitor, I heard you can't use a HDMI to DVI converter unless the DVI port is HDCP compliant, don't know if it's true though. I know people mentioned the PS2 VGA cable but AFAIK it's not confirmed yet.

...

but they do have reasonable priced HDCP widescreen monitors around now, and it would still be a lot cheaper then a new HDTV

I bought a USD240 19" HDCP monitor and hook it up to my PS3 via DVI-D. Works beautifully. It's just beside my work desk now. So whenever I want to take a short break, I just swivel around and get into the game.

Bad for health though. After playing through Resistance, rushing for 2 PowerPoint presentations, missing 3 consecutive meals, and completed 1 demo/prototype all around the same time, I'm pretty much exhausted this week.

I also bought a new USB keyboard (got an old USB mouse) for some simple programming in YDL, and for web browsing on the PS3.

 

[Dresden]

I'm still a little lost. So is my monitor capable of acheiving this? A lot of this I'm having difficulty understanding, for I'm not really on top of a lot of the lingo you guys are throwing around.

 

[Acert93]

I'm still a little lost. So is my monitor capable of acheiving this? A lot of this I'm having difficulty understanding, for I'm not really on top of a lot of the lingo you guys are throwing around.

What console are you planning to get?

Your LCD is a native resolution of 1600x1200 in 4:3 aspect and has DVI and VGA inputs. The few reviews I saw indicated, like most LCDs, it is not very good at non-native resolutions. If it doesn't have pixel mapping you may have some issues. With pixel mapping you get letterboxing, so a 720p image would show up with black boarders (160 pixels on each side, 240 top and bottom). Without it a 720p image would look pretty poor in most cases. Now some LCD HDTV Monitors (Monitors with TV support) have better scalers and support Component and so forth, but yours does not.

So the weight displaying the images correctly will fall to the console in most cases. The 360 has officially supported VGA cables and they work flawlessly in almost all games due to the internal scalar. You will need to get a response from a forum member to see if it supports a 1600x1200 resolution though as scaled output. Not sure it does. As for the PS3, it currently doesn't have the scaler being used and would need to find someone who has tested not only some sort of conversion to VGA/DVI, but also on a set resolution of 1600x1200 if the dashboard even supports it.

That is why I plan to use a CRT. You can get big ones for cheap and you have more control over the image and image quality. And I have a 21" laying around. 720p works fine on these (ditto 19"), the image quality is great, and for the odd game that doesn't work quite right with the aspect you can squish the image.

Your best bet is to check the manual and settings of the LCD to see what display options it has, namely pixel mapping.

 

[DigitalSoul]

The GCN looks great on a monitor in 480p (with games that support progressive scans) and I have a number of friends using the VGA adapter for the 360 and love it (i.e. just use what they have instead of buying an HDTV). It works great for most games, although a couple games do require some adjustments (e.g. PGR3 which gets stretched; pixel mapping on an LCD or squashing the image on a CRT can resolve this).

Personally I am all for using a monitor for gaming. I did it last gen and plan to do it exclusively this gen as well.

Yeah, I got a 20" widescreen LCD monitor last month and thats what I'll be using when I get a 360. It kinda stinks that Sony didn't provide vga support for PS3, though.

 

[Dresden]

What console are you planning to get?

Your LCD is a native resolution of 1600x1200 in 4:3 aspect and has DVI and VGA inputs. The few reviews I saw indicated, like most LCDs, it is not very good at non-native resolutions. If it doesn't have pixel mapping you may have some issues. With pixel mapping you get letterboxing, so a 720p image would show up with black boarders (160 pixels on each side, 240 top and bottom). Without it a 720p image would look pretty poor in most cases. Now some LCD HDTV Monitors (Monitors with TV support) have better scalers and support Component and so forth, but yours does not.

So the weight displaying the images correctly will fall to the console in most cases. The 360 has officially supported VGA cables and they work flawlessly in almost all games due to the internal scalar. You will need to get a response from a forum member to see if it supports a 1600x1200 resolution though as scaled output. Not sure it does. As for the PS3, it currently doesn't have the scaler being used and would need to find someone who has tested not only some sort of conversion to VGA/DVI, but also on a set resolution of 1600x1200 if the dashboard even supports it.

That is why I plan to use a CRT. You can get big ones for cheap and you have more control over the image and image quality. And I have a 21" laying around. 720p works fine on these (ditto 19"), the image quality is great, and for the odd game that doesn't work quite right with the aspect you can squish the image.

Your best bet is to check the manual and settings of the LCD to see what display options it has, namely pixel mapping.

I plan on buying both, but the Xbox first, and it's unknown when I'll be picking up a PS3. I did however, discover this interesting article:

http://hardware.teamxbox.com/reviews/xbox-360/56/Monster-Cable-GameLink-360-VGA-AV-Cable/p1/

That's probably what a person like me is looking for, now isn't it.

 

[bramsk]

I'm lucky enough to have a decent HD projector that I use for my 360, but when I want to play during the day I'll hook it up to my trusty old 21" CRT monitor. There's no way I'd go out and buy a HDTV just to play my console on when I can get a large CRT monitor for 10% the price of a HDTV.

 

[Acert93]

I plan on buying both, but the Xbox first, and it's unknown when I'll be picking up a PS3. I did however, discover this interesting article:

http://hardware.teamxbox.com/reviews/xbox-360/56/Monster-Cable-GameLink-360-VGA-AV-Cable/p1/

That's probably what a person like me is looking for, now isn't it.

Yes, but one point of interest is they tested it on a widescreen LCD.

Anyone use the VGA cables on a 4:3 LCD higher than 1280x1024? Also, the normal MS VGA cables or a cheaper pair would probably work just as well. The Monster Cables from the review seem to be a premium for little extra benefit.