bennyboy

hi, can you buy a lcd tv to use a ps3 and pc on so that i dont have to have a seperate monitor for my pc? thanks!

BM08

yeah you can.
If your buying a new LCD tv then it will have a HDMI socket(or 2 depending on the set) so you connect your ps3 into that, and then new LCD tv's also come with a VGA connection on the back of the tv, so thats where you connect your pc into

Note that you will need a cable to connect the pc and tv together, if you ask in a store like Currys etc or go online to Ebuyer you will find them on there cheaply enough.

vroomtshh

Thats exactly how I have mine set up. Got a good deal on a Sony Bravia 32" which has HDMI (PS3) and DVI (PC)

Its good, but you would need an awesome GPU if you want to play PC games through it

BM08

or play on lower settings yeah.

If you dont play games you can get a 50" and not worry about gpu

bennyboy

thanks, seemed daft to have to have both but i wasnt sure! ive been looking at a samsung 32 inch. i dont really play games on the pc (hence the ps3 lol) so iam sure it will be enough for me. cheers for you replys!

vroomtshh

Just double check that the connections are there. Your PC will have VGA or DVI (if you dont know, stick up a picture and someone will tell you). I think almost all tvs have hdmi on them now for the PS3

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

DVI, VGA, and HDMI respectively.


Pick a TV or monitor that has a a VGA for your PC, or DVI should you use DVI from your PC, and a HDMI or a DVI that is HDCP enabled for the PS3. The HDCP enablement will allow you to watch movies and play games that conform or require the HDCP protection standard.

Two most important things to consider with choosing a TV for your PC and gaming is pixel mapping and refresh rate. Pixel mapping is how a picture is displayed on a screen in regard to it's resolution. In a nutshell this means that every pixel generated by the video card will display use one pixel on the plasma/lcd tv. VGA inputs on virtually all TV's will give this resulting in a perfect quality picture. If you don't have 1:1 pixel mapping you'll get blurred text and picture as each pixel won't quite map properly. 1:1 pixel mapping over HDMI will work with some TV's and won't with others. This is primarily caused by the TV scaling the input to fit the native resolution of the screen.

Overscan also causes a problem - PC's are a fixed resolution and only go to the edge of your screen whereas TV broadcasts are overscanned and actually extend past the edge of your TV screen. Using HDMI inputs will probably mean your PC picture will extend at least 5% outside the dimensions of the screen which means you may need to use a utility such as powerstrip to create a custom resolution and timing to get around this issue.

HDMI connectivity should be straight forward and be as simple as plugging a VGA cable in but unfortunately it's still some way from being a plug and play solution. This is something the industry is fully aware of however so hopefully we'll see things change for the better.

Refresh rate will affect the way moving images are seen. Slower refresh rates can result in flicker and lag, and as such, motion blur.

Moving with motion blur, this plays in with frequency. Most TV's come in 50Hz or 100Hz flavour. Quick backround : A bog standard TV broadcast is composed of 25 frames (pictures) per second. For reasons that need not be gone into here each frame is split into two "fields" for transmission.

Each field has half the full number of lines, odd numbered lines in one and even numbered lines in the other. These fields are transmitted at twice the frame rate, hence 50Hz. In the TV the screen builds the full picture by scanning the odd numbered lines then the even numbered lines.

A 100hz TV simply does all this twice over. Basically it scans the screen twice as fast as it would if it were doing it at 50Hz and repeats each frame twice. So in a standard set you see the sequence frame 1, 2 , 3, 4 etc in a 100Hz set you get the sequence, frame 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, and so on.

The theory is that it reduces visible flicker since you are now seeing 50 picture frames per second instead of the 25 in a standard set.

100Hz is reputed to be better for fast moving sports, so I guess this can be applied to gaming aswell - quick paced, flashing images etc.

So, in summary You want a HDCP enabled TV/monitor with the input combination of your choice, 100Hz screen, low refresh rate and 1:1 pixel mapping with ideally a 1920x1080 (for 1080p 1:1 pixel mapping on Blu-Ray) or at least 1280x720 resolution (for 1:1 pixel mapping for 720p for PC and PS3 games) (Quick note, 1366x768 resolution that many LCD TV's employ can give mapping issues for VGA/DVI, and overscan issues for HDMI)

Clear enough?

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

Next, do you wanna know anything about audio and audio formats?

vroomtshh

Sorry to hijack the thread but Thrush - you sound like the man who'll know the answer to a question I have.

I have my pc and ps3 connected as above. DVI and HDMI. I have a logitech z5500 surround sound attached to the computer and I want to get the sound from the PS3 through it while i'm gaming. How do i do it? I'm sure its prtty simple and if i read the instrucctions it will tell me, but why do things the easy way

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

By the looks of the specs on it, you have optical and digi coax inputs, a couple 6ch analogue inputs (3x mini stereo inputs) and an aux mini stereo input on the side of the control unit.

Not knowing how your PC is connected to it, the easiest way would be to use the PS3's optical connection directly into the Logitech system. This will pass through Dolby Digital and DTS multichannel audio, but not Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD, neither of which are supported by your system anyway. However, you could input the HD audio tracks using the 6ch analogue connections, tho what I can't remember is if the PS3 has multichannel audio outputs - think you can only output HD audio from the PS3 using HDMI

bennyboy

yep that all makes sense to me i just checked my pc and its a vga connection which is the same as the tv i had a look at earlier which is this one, do you think it would be ok?, the picture quality looked pretty good (to me anyway lol) .

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...ory_oid=-34024

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

Good TV, might not be the best monitor for what you want. Main problems would be it's 1366x768 res, 8ms response (which isn't bad, but not the best) and apparent lack of 1:1 pixel mapping. Meaning the PC will be outputting say, 1280x720 or 1920x1080 and the TV will have to rescale this res to it's native 1366x768 res, meaning you won't get pinsharp text, images, windows etc from the PC or the PS3. Basically it won't looks like a PC screen does

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

I would be looking closer to this if you want it to be a TV (as in have a reciever in it and speakers)

http://www.sharp.co.uk/invt/lc32x20e&bklist=

32" 1080p (1920x1080 native res) LCD, 6ms response, 3x HDMI and your PC VGA input (aswell as scarts, s-vid etc)

bennyboy

yer that does look the business but more than i wanna spend tbh lol! the idea of using the tv for both the ps3 n pc is due to space (living at my parents house so in my room lol) but this wont be for more than 6 months or so i dont think, so would the issues that you mentioned with that other tv be that much of an issue for the mean time, like would it be "liveable" or would the display be all fucked up lol! my main concern is the ps3 so aslong as the tv is good enough for that then iam happy as i can always go back to my existing monitor at a later date

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

I would probably look to a monitor then as opposed to a TV. TV's are comprimises to suit the masses, so a monitor would probably be a better option. Acer do some nice 1080p monitors so I'm told, not sure of prices or sizes tho....

bennyboy

just had a quick look on acer's site and they do seem well priced, i shall continue my hunt. thanks for your input dude!