Using Your Computer Screen as a Television

I used to think people who watched TV and movies from their
computer screens were insane. How could you possibly get
comfortable at your desk? It wasn’t too long ago that even the
largest of screens couldn’t give picture quality that was good
enough to sit back and avoid squinting. If you didn’t have
external speakers hooked up, forget about it.

As monitors upgraded to flat-panel LCDs, upped their screen
size, stretched to wide-screen and adopted digital video
inputs like DVI, watching a two-hour movie off your computer
monitor has started to make more sense. Add decent built-in
speakers and it’s a no-brainer.

A couple weeks ago I asked Apple to send me a review unit of
their 24-inch LED Cinema Display. All I wanted was to check
out their three-in-one cable system for notebooks, which
includes the controversial new mini DisplayPort (more on that
in a later post). But DisplayPort aside, I was finally
convinced that turning your home office into a miniature home
theater makes total sense.

I live in and work from a large studio apartment in Brooklyn,
so space is in limited supply for me. My home office sits
within a former closet across from my bed — five feet from the
foot of my bed. The other night all I wanted was to lie in bed
and veg out to some Law & Order: SVU (I’m a huge Ice-T fan)
via Netflix. I wouldn’t be able to fully lay out my limbs on
the couch in front of my TV, so I decided to pull the LED
display to the very front of my desk and see if I could stand
watching this way. To my surprise it was almost as good as
watching the traditional way.

I wouldn’t recommend doing this with a screen smaller than 24
inches. I’ve tried with my 19-inch HP wide-screen and it ends
up feeling like I’m in the nosebleed seats. At 24 inches I
could get far enough away from the screen, about 6 to 7 feet,
so that I didn’t feel as if I was sitting on top of the
display. And when I was working at my desk, the 24-inch
display didn’t overwhelm my desktop. I know you dual-monitor
users out there will argue that 24 inches isn’t big enough,
but you don’t live in my apartment, O.K.?

Contrast levels are a lot higher than in previous Cinema
Displays – 1000:1 compared to 700:1. This results in a lot
more detail in the dark and dirty scenes Dick Wolf’s franchise
is known for. And while many people (myself included) groan
about the new DisplayPort connectivity, which currently limits
peripherals that can be connected to the display to only new
Apple computer products, it does lead to improved picture
quality over DVI. According to the DisplayPort Web site,
“The first version of DisplayPort provides over twice the
capacity of single-channel DVI over the same number of wires
through a much smaller and easier to use connector… In
addition to greater resolution, DisplayPort also supports
greater color depths and higher refresh rates.”

So while it’s a bummer that there currently isn’t an adapter
to connect older Macs and PCs to the LED Cinema Display, it is
exciting that there’s a new connection standard that the
majority of computer manufacturers have adopted which, later
this year, will really improve video quality on LCD monitors.

The built-in 2.1 speakers on the LED Cinema Display are pretty
decent as well. Sure, you wouldn’t want to watch a blockbuster
with only these on hand, but watching standard TV fare is
totally doable.

My biggest gripe, and this comes as no surprise, is that the
Apple Cinema Display is $900. Obviously, there are tons of
manufacturers out there that are now offering wide-screen HD
displays, so shop around. My only recommendations, if you’re
looking to have your monitor work two jobs in your house, is
to go with a minimum of 24 inches of screen size, make sure it
has digital inputs like DVI or DisplayPort, and also features
a 1000:1 contrast ratio at minimum.

But be wary of manufacturers who claim astronomical contrast
ratios (such as 2,000,000: 1, which you’ll see out there). You
can read about how manufacturers juice their specs here. I’m
not saying manufacturers who quote such high figures are
fixing their specs, but a number that stratospheric does make
you wonder what they’re basing that figure on.