TV or PC monitor?

[Tom B]

I'm looking for a new 4k TV around 40". All I need is a good screen, the rest is redundant. Budget £500.

- I do everything through my HTPC, it has a satellite tuner, handles TV recordings and I play everything through it, can stream from it, etc. I'm not going to use any "Smart" features and don't even need a TV tuner in the TV.

- I have a decent soundbar so inbuilt audio is also redundant.

I'm currently using a 10 year old, low end when it was new, 1080p flatscreen TV so anything would be an upgrade and I don't want to spend thousands.

Am I better off getting a TV or looking for a 40" PC monitor? My initial thought was that a £500 PC monitor you are just paying for the monitor so would get a better panel but then I realised that 40" monitors don't have the encomies of scale that TVs do so that might not be the case.

 

[jpaul]

I think you may underestimate the processing power of tv hardware, even with madvr your htpc would be doing well to do any motion interpolation/upscaling/noise-reduction to the standard of the tv for picture quality when it's playing local media;
TV calibration too, can be superior to flexibility of windows look up tables .. which I think is all that windows offers ?

so I would be after the tv solution, with the economy of scale, as you say -

BUT at 40" 4k tv's probably limited to 50Hz panel refresh, versus ips monitors, so maybe you have to get a bigger tv

 

[Stephanie Peterson]

Sounds like how i use my pc/telly combo.

I send everything, all telly/film viewing to my current 49" LG lcd from my pc in a cupboard next to it in the lounge. Absolutely everything i want to watch comes in on IP, no TV aerial, no sky nowt.
I do use the built in netflix and prime video apps though as they are great and seem to have a better quality than my pc outputs (1080ti) which is prob more to do with the software than anything else.
Everything audio wise goes to the surround sound amp, 7:1 Denon from a few years back - this is done with a single audio return feed from the telly (optical)

Friday see's the arrival of a 65" LG oled though, which wont fit where my TV is now... so er its going to be fun moving everything to fit it but.. telly inches come first.

 

[Poneros]

Sadly quality is lacking for 40". I don't know if you can step up to 49''-55'' but that would improve your options considerably.

 

[Tom B]

I think you may underestimate the processing power of tv hardware, even with madvr your htpc would be doing well to do any motion interpolation/upscaling/noise-reduction to the standard of the tv for picture quality when it's playing local media;
TV calibration too, can be superior to flexibility of windows look up tables .. which I think is all that windows offers ?

That's a good point, I'll look for a TV instead.

Sadly quality is lacking for 40". I don't know if you can step up to 49''-55'' but that would improve your options considerably.

That's a shame, I'm sort of limited on height to 60cm. I don't want the TV to be higher than the window sill behind it as it will impose too much on the small room. The sofa is only about 1.5m from the TV so don't want anything too big anyway.

I'll see if I can find anything decent though whatever I get will be an improvement.