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Comment by haunter | Hacker News Reader

4K monitors. You need a soundbar though or some kind of audio setup + remote. Also no built-in tuner or such but I assume you get a set top box from your service provider or use a streaming device (Apple TV, Fire stick etc.)

4K OLED https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=384002160&P=7

4K IPS https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=384002160&P=2

4K VA https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=384002160&P=4

4K 55" or bigger monitors (there aren't many choices) https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#P=2,7,4&r=3840021...

The 4K 55" OLED Alienware has speaker but I doubt that it is any good https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/new-alienware-55-oled-gaming... (actually comes with remote too)

Linus made a video of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3oqktdx2a8

Last but not least you can go even higher resolution than 4K but these are all IPS only and they are not bigger than 34" https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=768004320,57600...

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Another approach is to look not for things advertised as "monitors" but instead look for "digital signage"[1]. Nowadays most of these contain some networking features but they'll be oriented at local control (i.e. by you via something on your LAN), not some third-party control center accessed via the internet.

Anecdotally this is the approach I took ~20 years ago when buying a (then slightly exotic) plasma flatscreen from Panasonic. It is still working flawlessly today, though I keep hoping it will die so I can guiltlessly replace it with something newer/bigger/higher-resolution.

[1] A random example https://www.usa.philips.com/p-p/86BDL3050Q_00/signage-soluti...

Digital signage is good but from my understanding (and I could be wrong) probably over-engineered for home usage. They're intended to be powered on 24x7, and last a long time. Probably more resistant to burn-in too. All of which is good, but if your use case isn't so intensive you could get by with something lower-end. (Especially if you want to eventually replace the device and are looking for an excuse ;) )

My direct experience is somewhat out of date, but from an engineering perspective the unit I have is much simpler than any TV, since it lacks a tuner or any fancy video scaling capability, and has no audio capability of any kind (that was a feature to me, since I use an A/V Receiver for sound). I think in general screens meant for signage are probably brighter than most TVs/monitors, but depending on the room that could be a useful feature as well.

The model that I have js definitely over engineered. I have a 2k sign display which uses display port and its 8 years old.

It's It's bit ugly, but as long as you are okay with that.

But does digital signage have good panels like "real" TVs? Eg. the high end oleds with deep blacks and stuff?

It depends. I have an Iiyama 44” and the display, while nominally 4K, is noticeably not as good as a good 32” 4K monitor. It’s not really visible when watching video, but using it as an external display looks horrible close up.

This is one of the ones with an android board in it, and if I did it again, I’d be getting someone sold as a computer monitor.

Of course a 44" panel doesn't look as good as a 32" one, it has lower pixel density. This has nothing to do with it having a bad panel.

The pixel density difference is about 30%. With careful close observation, you can easily see the pixels in each one. The monitor has smooth solid colors. The Iiyama looks more like it's a native 1920px wide with some 'interesting' pixel layouts for more dynamic range. It looks like complete crap with things like window titles, the MacOS blue highlight, and other gradients.

My experience is that not only are the panels generally worse, support for things like color calibration or Dolby Vision is almost impossible to find. Which is understandable because it's not obvious what advantage HDR would bring to digital signage.

While not HDR, I'd think colour calibration would be fairly important for signage.

If your company red is too washed out, or one section of a video-wall menu board is inconsistent brightness, it looks bad on your brand.

Same thing I did 20 years ago. IIRC it was the only way to get a flatscreen at the time. Mine was a NEC. 40" plasma. 1366x768. Not even full HD. I think it would work out to about $7000. It pissed me off that it didn't even come with a wall bracket and I had to shell out another $600 for that. For the price of just my wall bracket you can now buy a pretty nice 65" 4K screen I'm sure.

Lots of places call these "commercial monitors".

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Flat-Panel-Displays/ci/16...

This is good advice but if you're looking for something fancy like HDR or DV you will be dissapointed as (in my experience) digital signage displays often lack those features.

I have a big 4k tv that was destined for a sports bar but it was slightly damaged, got it for a great price. Sadly it doesn't have HDR either, but it is an older model. Anyway, its great as in there's no WiFi. There is a network port but there's no streaming apps or anything installed on it. I use it paired with an nvidia shield and a nakamichi soundbar and have been enjoying the experience.

But I digress, look for business displays

Challenges are features like HDR and having four HDMI inputs.

Planar makes incredible and also expensive displays for the commercial market. They offer a "luxury living" solution but the smallest is 100".

https://www.planar.com/markets/luxury-living/

With 4k monitors you usually pay a larger premium for latency, refresh rate, gsync/freesync, etc. All of which gamers care a lot about but are irrelevant for TVs.

Not really, just like TV's there's certainly a 'premium' range for those that are interested but there's a wide range or regular 'work' monitors. e.g. a few years ago I got a 43" 4K monitor with 10-bit colour-depth, 60Hz refresh, good local dimming etc. for $800.

In OP's link for IPS, a monitor of the same size and brand that seems to be the next version after the one I got is $550. It's hardly a premium over a comparable TV.

I got such a monitor earlier this year for around $600. It's amazing for work but could totally work as a television with an appropriate device connected, especially since it has decent, loud audio built in.

Console gamers care about TV latency too.

Why does (consumer) monitor tech always seem to lag TV tech by a few years?

It looks like the situation is still that in the 4k OLED space there are a few ~$4000+ monitors and dozens of ~$1000 TVs. Per the pcpartpicker link, maybe the Gigabyte FO48U will change that, but it's still out of stock. Besides, I feel like this has happened before with HDR and 4k and IPS. First it shows up in TVs, a year later it is cheap in TVs, a year later it is expensive in monitors, and finally it becomes cheap in monitors. But it takes years. Which seems odd, since surely they use the same panels? Is it an industry structure thing, where panel manufacturers integrate and co-develop with TV manufacturers but monitor manufacturers are separate, only get the panels after release, and need a year or three to turn things around?

> Why does (consumer) monitor tech always seem to lag TV tech by a few years?

because there's more money to be made selling TVs than monitors?

consequentely, it's TV manufacturers pushing the entire display maker industry ahead? and so they get the newer tech first??

That's what I suspect, yes, but if that's the case it feels like integrating a monitor manufacturer would be a quick and easy business win for the TV guys.

> it feels like integrating a monitor manufacturer would be a quick and easy business win for the TV guys.

What does this even mean? The same companies that make panels for monitors usually make panels for the TVs as well. They already have production facilities that can manufacture panel sizes ranging from cell-phone size to 200" commercial wall panels.

Most people don't buy the volume to get a special size panel. Want a panel, you can save a ton of money buying one we already make. My company has obsoleted perfectly good embedded systems and had to redesign a new UI just because the panel we used went out of production. (I knew all along doing pixel perfect UI instead of one that scaled was a stupid idea, but I got overruled, now we spend a ton of money making our UI scale)

TV manufacturers can offset the lower price by selling ads to show you on your “smart” tv

That wouldn't explain the delay, and do they really expect to sell $3000 of ads per customer? I have doubts.

They get money from the ads, they get money from selling your usage data, they get money by selling space on the remote for streaming apps, and probably through some other means as well.

Sure, but my intuition says they might get a few hundred dollars that way, tops. Is my intuition off by an entire order of magnitude?

Vizio, as a public company, now has to share their ad revenue data:

https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/11/10/22773073/vi...

> from $10.44 to $19.89.

Yeah, I thought $3000 sounded silly, and my only mistake was that I thought it was one order of magnitude silly when in fact it was two orders of magnitude silly.

No, that's completely wrong.

That number is specifically for their SmartCast subscriber service. It's not clear what the rate is, but they subsequently talk about Roku making $40/mo; so it's possible that's the monthly rate. Assuming it is monthly, a television lasts for five years, and that is their only other source of revenue from the televisions, that's ~$1200.

The telling part of the article:

> ...[Vizio's] Platform Plus segment that includes advertising and viewer data had a gross profit of $57.3 million. That’s more than twice the amount of profit it made selling devices like TVs, which was $25.6 million, despite those device sales pulling in considerably more revenue.

If those are actually monthly figures you might be right, but I'm still not convinced that they are. $40/mo sounds implausibly high to me. Even if Roku, in a non-monopolized space, managed to swing a hefty 30% cut, that would mean an average of $120 spent on streaming services per month.

Are sports channels really expensive? Is that what I'm missing?

Most of the ad money comes from WatchFree Plus app on the tv.

"Vizio execs said 77 percent of that money comes directly from advertising, like the kind that runs on its WatchFree Plus package of streaming channels, a group that recently expanded with content targeting. The next biggest contributor is the money it makes selling Inscape data about what people are watching."

>The next biggest contributor is the money it makes selling Inscape data about what people are watching

sigh.

your argument requires that advertising is cost effective for the advertiser. what if therre was a competing ecosystem, in which advertisers pushed up prices overall in a bid to out-compete each other? essentially, the cost of advertisments is added to the cost of consumer and all other goods. advertising increases cosumer costs, and decreases consumer choice.

> That wouldn’t explain the delay

That and expected maximum market size (or, more precisely, expected shape of the demand curve) do, I thimk, explain the delay, and higher price even before considering subsidy from advertising/data revenue, because there are fewer units to amortize fixed per-design production line costs across.

4K OLED laptops are more available and at a much smaller premium, perhaps because people buy a lot more laptops than desktop and larger monitors.

TV display quality is dogshit compared to monitors. Even cheap low-end monitors tend to have better displays. They aren't the same panels at all.

Nope. I'm using an OLED TV as a monitor on my main PC, and it kicks the pants off any monitor I've ever used before, including the 2021 MBP monitor I'm typing this on right now.

Which one are you using if you don't mind me asking?

LG C1. I have to turn it off and on with a remote, take the usual OLED precautions, and tolerate its "smart" nonsense, but the color is gorgeous and the contrast is magical.

Does autodimming work decently on C1? It's really bothering me when I try to use my CX as a monitor.

Agreed, auto-dimming is rough. I turned it off. 60% constant brightness for work, uncapped HDR mode for play.

How do you switch? Can you do it with just the keyboard?

I boot into Windows for gaming and when I launch a full screen game an "AutoHDR" badge pops up and the brightness limit is lifted. A similar thing happens when I launch a streaming app in the TV. I don't consume content through Linux because as far as I can tell linux doesn't support HDR yet.

Speaking of booting into Windows, I finally figured out how to make it painless: use a separate hard drive, not a separate partition. I wish I could go back in time 20 years and tell myself that. The number of hours I wasted debugging poorly written installers, bootloaders, and updaters exceeds the cost of hard drives by a factor too terrifying to calculate. Ah well. Now I know.

Any worries of “burn in”? I read the risk of using one as a monitor is that with a computer there is often static images like your task bar. Those can burn into the screen permanently where as if it is just tv the image often changes. Shows like news often have a bar at the bottom and was warned those too can cause burn in. Curious what your experience has been? Thanks

Yes, OLED care is a concern, and I take the usual precautions: no fixed menubars, no tiling WM, rotating desktop wallpapers, and reduced brightness (which isn't a compromise -- anything above 80% makes light-mode content uncomfortable, and auto HDR raises the limit for actual HDR content).

Even if I were not taking these steps and generally abusing the monitor, I wouldn't expect to see burn-in yet, so I can't really speak to how the situation will develop.

I used to have the Acer B326HK (32 inch 4k) which is marketed as a monitor and it still had really bad burn in

Isn't that IPS though?

same question

I'm using a Sony 43" X720E. IPS. I'm quite happy with it, can't complain. It's as good as any monitor I've seen except OLED, and the size is wonderful. I would like to have 120Hz though.

I will eventually go to OLED but 48" is the smallest size OLED TV available, and that's a bit bigger than I'd want on my desk.

Hopefully a reasonably-priced 43" OLED will come out.

Monitors are built for being an arm's length away. TVs are built for being several yards away. The pixel density changes accordingly

And so does the ability to use IR or some other remote control mechanism.

A “dumb tv” would just be a monitor with a remote to control power and volume.

There are monitors built specifically for digital signage, these have the same specs as large TVs but no tuner or adware.

Volume? Whether we're talking about TVs or monitors, the most competitive offerings are always the segments that sell in volume.

Just because OLED tech "exists" doesn't mean the equipment exists to make it economically at any particular size, format, etc. We have affordable TV-sized and phone-sized OLEDs because LG has invested in the equipment to make those particular panels in those particular sizes.

Maybe in the high-end only?

Speaking of low to mid end tvs, the ones I saw on display in local shops, they were just overpriced junk..

Even though it's smaller, I installed my 7? year old 24" benq fhd e-ips monitor as a tv for my parents. $120 + $20 for the cheapest 2.1 sound (I think 2x10W + sub), cranked the bass much higher than advised, put the speakers behind the monitor and the sub on the floor + ISP tv box with remote. Speakers and monitor are always on, they got their own power saving stuff. My parents are ecstatic, guests are asking where they got the TV from... apparently it looks better that the ones you could buy for $500+...

Last time I checked, I remember finding somewhere most tvs don't actually operate at the advertised resolution, they got all kinds of "prettifying" algos. Not going to trust them ever.

The panels have the advertised resolution, but yes, for "smart" TVs you always have to figure out how to turn off the gross sharpening/compression filters that they use to win the Great Best Buy Screensaver Battle. It can be done, though, and certainly if the manufacturer wanted to omit them in a monitor offering it could.

Two of the most important settings:

Game mode. This turns off most/all the image processing, which greatly increases the lag.

Overscan. Also turn it off. This zooms in the picture a little to crop out artifacts around the edge.

^ This.

>Why does (consumer) monitor tech always seem to lag TV tech by a few years?....

Monitor used to have "much" lower input latency, higher PPI, much higher refresh rate and generally higher reliability because they are expected to be constantly on. i.e Their panels have different specifications.

Although I am not sure if most of the above are true anymore especially with OLED. Given how TV manufactures have also had focus on gaming. But reliability is still a thing on monitor. That is the similar to reference TV that uses panel from one of two years prior.

Edit: I had to look up Panasonic TV set and panel and then I discovered they are pulling out of TV production and outsource to external partner. Sigh.

https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=...

Yeah, I use gaming mode for my TV-as-a-monitor and if I don't the lag is noticeable even on the desktop. It has the nice side effect of disabling the obnoxious sharpening filters, too.

My dedicated monitors have had dismal reliability: one died right after the warranty, one died inside the warranty and they flaked on the warranty anyway. My reliability expectations are rock bottom, my TV will have to work hard to undershoot them.

> Why does (consumer) monitor tech always seem to lag TV tech by a few years?

Well, “always” seems like an exaggeration; consumer monitors were far beyond 480i before consumer TVs were.

> It looks like the situation is still that in the 4k OLED space there are a few ~$4000+ monitors and dozens of ~$1000 TVs.

That’s not monitors being behind in tech, that’s TVs being cheaper because of economies of scale and opportunity for ad serving and data harvesting.

> Is it an industry structure thing, where panel manufacturers integrate and co-develop with TV manufacturers but monitor manufacturers are separate

AFAIK, LG, Sharp, Samung, and Sony are all four panel/TV/monitor manufacturers; I dont think that’s an issue.

Scale and ads are plausible explanations for why monitors are behind in tech, but they're still behind in tech.

What a weird nonsensical statement.

Monitors and TVs are manufactured with the same "tech", just to different specifications to fit their desired purpose/niche, and to capture the maximum possible value from that market.

You could maybe make an argument that Samsung panel tech is behind LG's or something, since companies have separate R&D labs and actually have different technology, but in order to do so you'd have to be an industry expert.

In what world is a comparison "nonsensical"? They both displays pixels. Each can be substituted for the other with a modest amount of non-panel-related effort. They compete. We can compare them.

> the same "tech", just to different specifications to fit their desired purpose/niche

Clearly not. I am using a TV as a monitor right now, because 4k + OLED + HDR + 120hz was just not available for $1100 in the monitor space six months ago (I think there was a $6000 offering, lol). Looks like it still isn't. This situation has been going on for years. Before OLED it was HDR, before HDR it was 4k, and so on. TVs are always far ahead, monitors are always far behind.

I'd rather not use a TV as a monitor because it's a PITA. I have to put up with substantial non-panel-related silliness to make this happen (turn the TV off/on with a remote, deactivate the laggy filters, tolerate the "smart" BS, etc). If monitors are so well tailored to their own niche, why are they losing so badly to a competitor who isn't even trying?

> to capture the maximum possible value from that market

That's the only explanation I can come up with: monitors are a backwater that the industry just doesn't care much about because volume is lower. Tech has to trickle down, and that takes years.

> TVs are always far ahead, monitors are always far behind.

Your own description isn't of TVs being ahead in tech, but offering the same tech at a lower price point. (There often is some actual tech lag, for many of the same reasons, but it's much shorter.)

> I'd rather not use a TV as a monitor because it's a PITA. I have to put up with substantial non-panel-related silliness to make this happen (turn the TV off/on with a remote, deactivate the laggy filters, tolerate the "smart" BS, etc).

Usually, all of those except for the filters are effectively bypassed when using an input that supports CEC.

> Your own description isn't of TVs being ahead in tech, but offering the same tech at a lower price point

I specified consumer TVs. You didn't read what I wrote, and then you decided to nitpick anyway.

> Usually, all of those except for the filters are effectively bypassed when using an input that supports CEC.

Yeah, I heard about that, but evidently it needs more work before it Just Works.

that looks like a price problem, not a tech problem. you said it yourself, the tech exist, just much pricier.

And like the other person said, one of the reason is just basic scale. TV is multitude much bigger market than monitor ever is.

I don't quite see how "TVs are cheaper because they earn money beyond the sale and have more economies in scale" translates to "monitors are behind in tech"? They have similar tech, but at different price points.

Everyone shops at a price point, and the existence of a $6000 professional monitor just isn't at all relevant for most people. Consumer monitors are years behind consumer TVs in tech.

EDIT: Actually, I did specify that I was talking about consumer TVs. You didn't read my post, and then you decided to nitpick anyway. Bravo.

TV's are such a big business that they overwhelm the rest of the display manufacturing world. That's why 16:10 monitors basically disappeared - 16:9 is 1080p is a TV.

On the other end of the spectrum is professional industry displays which are ahead of consumer facing devices, like are shown at NAB (vs CES) and there you'll find 8k monitors for tens of thousands of dollars.

If I had to guess I’d say it’s just market size. I’d bet there’s a larger market if people who want a large, high definition TV for movies and shows than there is for people who want a high definition monitor.

Most business uses for monitors don’t require high definition, so you’re really looking at specific industries and gaming.

Excluding that Mac market, I don't think Apple sell anything new anymore that is under 200 PPI.

You can get OTA tuners for incredibly cheap. Like $30 for a basic one. These come with the bonus of allowing you to plug in a USB HDD and record live TV. For a little more you can get a HDHomeRun or Tablo and have a network connected tuner so you can stream live TV to tablets or phones and streaming boxes like the FireTV.

Powered bookshelf speakers are also an alternative to soundbars.

I personally use a monitor as a TV. One con is that some devices like the Fire Stick don't send HDMI display off signals but instead a black screen in sleep mode which wakes the monitor and keeps it on. You need a smart switch to easily turn it off.

I would assume most setups leveraging a monitor as the display would also be going through an AVR and that should take care of this kind of thing?

Sound bars and powered speakers are also an option and don't require an AVR but also typically don't offer HDMI/AV pass-through at least on the cheaper side. Going the AVR route adds even more cost and more space as a decent sound bar or powered speaker set costs less then even a low-end AVR. I went the monitor route as I just don't have room for both a desktop PC setup and a TV. I do have an HDMI switch with audio extractor but that also picks up on the Fire TV stick and auto switches to it. TBH it's just a design flaw with the Fire TV and I really wish Amazon would fix it but I bet it saves them 7 cents or something to do it this way.

That's good to know. I've been through a few units (Denon, Pioneer, Onkyo) and they really feel like the weakest link in my setup, with fussy menus and strange failure modes involving cryptic error codes— the Denon in particular would go into a fault state that was probably a thermal problem but might also have been a voltage regulation issue.

It's definitely overkill given that I'm only driving stereo speakers anyway, so maybe next time I have issues I'll go this direction.

It's amazing how much more expensive those are than traditional TVs, non-starter even.

Economies of scale, and subsidies. TVs that ship with Netflix buttons on the remote, Prime Video app, and built-in crappy ads all over the place are being subsidized by those companies.

Meanwhile, no one is buying non-smart TVs, so lower quantities are more expensive.

(Or they know that non-smart TVs are a niche product that they can charge more for.)

Netflix is paying to have the button on the remote? I actually thought it would be the other way around.

Here's a nice NEC 220" display. Helpfully, BH offers monthly payments.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1533261-REG/nec_led_f...

$317,999.00 $13250/mo. suggested payments with 24 Mos. Promo Financing* Learn More Important Notice This item is noncancelable and nonreturnable.

Well… it is 18ft diagonally. Of course, you need a place capable of housing such a thing.

A stadium?

4K OLED monitors are insanely expensive. You can get an LG 65" OLED TV for $1,800. The OLED computer monitors I have seen start at $4,000.

A Gigabyte FO48U (48" OLED, same LG panel as the C1) goes for around $1500

83% of the price for 54% of the area.

For use as a monitor, smaller panels may be more desirable, more pixels per unit area.

I don't want a 72-inch wall monster. I'm going to be viewing it from about a meter from my face.

But that's just my face. Other faces might work better.

AW5520QF (55" 120Hz) is on sale for $2500. That's getting down to about double the cost.

The price spread seems so drastic, more than four times. There is obviously much that I'm missing.

>Apple TV, Fire stick etc.

That's just offloading the problem to a separate device.

I think they help by siloing the snooping.

Our smart TV seems to actively try to figure out what is attached to the HDMI. Its probably reporting that back. At least every time I plug my notebook into the tv it seems to wait at least 20 seconds before forcing me to select "PC" as the input device. The old tv the notebook shows up instantaneously.

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