4k tv / monitors - tips

[Brian Cluff]

If you want to use a large 4K TV as a monitor, I highly recommend you 
do.  I've been running a 55inch since last Christmas and it's been great 
with a few caveats.

* I wouldn't recommend anything larger than 50" to 55" or you will find 
yourself having to turn you head a lot.

* Do a TON of research before you buy, Most 4K TVs have a TON of lag, 
meaning that when you move the mouse the pointer won't move for up to a 
half second after you start.  Even a medium amount of lag will will 
drive you insane.  Unfortunately I didn't know about the lag so My 
living room got my first attempt and I'm out a lot more money.

* You'll also want to get a TV that is capable of running at 60h, many 
of the cheaper one only run at 24hz and while it's useable, it's not 
very smooth and you'll wish you have paid a little more, but more than 
likely a tv that only runs at 24hz will also have horrendous lag, so 
you'll find it to be unusable.

* Lastly, you'll want to find a monitor that does 4:4:4 Chroma 
Subsampling. If you don't get a full 4:4:4 chroma subsampling then you 
aren't getting the real colors for every pixel as your display will be 
lossy.  You might be thinking that you only program and you don't really 
care if your colors are exact, but because your loosing color 
information it can really make text very hard to read under certain 
circumstances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_subsampling

* A curved TV can help a little on a computer... they are kinda stupid 
for a living room though... not necessary, but it is a nicety.

* As mentioned before TVs don't provide EDID information while off, so 
unless you are planning on leaving you TV on all the time, it might 
cause strange behaviors with your desktop as the plug and play stuff can 
get into the way and leave your computer wondering why is doesn't have a 
display device available at all.  Some things that can be done is to 
directly define your monitor setup in the xorg.conf file, or get an EDID 
hardware cache, but those can be expensive.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but I believe that is 
the most important stuff for purchasing a TV to re-purpose as a monitor.

Brian Cluff

On 06/19/2016 09:45 AM, Bob Elzer wrote:
> My plan when I have the money is to get the new vizio e43u-d2 4k uhd 43 inch
> That would be about the size of 4 24 inch monitors
>
> I currently run 2, 24 inch monitors
>
> Going to 1 uhd monitor means less wires, maybe less power (not sure), no
> bezels / borderstor
>
> With vnc I can run 4 desktops on one screen
>
> On Jun 19, 2016 8:04 AM, "Keith Smith" <techlists at phpcoderusa.com
> <mailto:techlists at phpcoderusa.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     Hi,
>
>     After a little research it looks like the benefit of a 4k TV or
>     monitor is resolution.  I assume that means a single 40+ inch TV or
>     monitor configured at a high resolution so I can pack tons of stuff
>     on one monitor.
>
>     Any other benefits?
>
>     --
>     Keith Smith
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