So I have this great Panasonic 65 inch full 1080p plasma TV in my man-cave. I was moving things around in the cave and while I was wheeling my compter desk by the tv I just thought I would "try" to plug in my HDMI connection and give it a quick go.

WOW! Brings racing games and Rise of Flight to a whole new level. Ummmm this might change the way I set up my man-cave.

Now, is there any reason NOT to do this? My TV is full 1080p (same as my lcd monitor) but its plasma and I run my games at 1920x1080. <--- so this all works perfect yes?
I was moving my mouse look around in ROF as fast as I could and detected no lag or response delay. Do plasma TV's have a refresh rate or response time?

Anyway I know I am not breaking new ground here by doing this but I really didn't expect it to look this good. I am thinking about diving into Skyrim and I can't imagine how great it would look. But what I really want to know is there any downside to using my TV for my permanent monitor?

I set up my Panasonic 54" 1080P Plasma as a computer monitor specifically to try it out in my TV room. I wanted a huge monitor in front of me. I used wireless keyboard and mouse to get some separation.

The plasma nominally has large advantages over a typical LCD. Blacker blacks, far better off-axis picture, faster effective refresh, often better color. One technical downside a tendency for "burn in" of bright images that sit in one spot on the screen for a while. The burn in is not permanent in normal use. Rather, there is a slightly lighter area on the screen for some minutes -- usually, these days, its only visible in a dark part of the screen in a dark room (as plasma technology now has features to minimize "burn in"). LCD is also capable of burn in but its less obvious because LCD contrast is so poor to begin with.

Main Advantage/Disadvantage is that they don't make small ones. The games did look/feel much much better that size in front of me. However, unless I sat about 8 feet away, the pixels were too evident to my eyes.

All in all, I seriously considered it, but as I was going to buy another one for a desktop and couldn't get a small one, it didn't work out for me. I went Eyefintiy.

Not stupid to consider it in a "man cave" -- particularly if you'll be sitting a few feet from it, I think. Heck, if you own it and its already set up, use it until it "turns you off"

Thanks for the opinion Allen.

I already sit about 7 or 8 feet away so no pixels visible. Further research suggests that the only real concern is text but I have no trouble reading it so far. Hmmmmmm. This might HAVE to happen. Thank goodness for HDMI.

The only *real* downside is when you decide you just *have* to have 2 more of them to go Eyefinity triple screen.

I have run 32" and 42" LCD's and a 50" plasma on my desk over the years. All ~24" from my eyes. Loved it.

Currently rocking three 40" LED TV's for my racing and combat sim setup. Full 737 sim runs 3 projector views.

If that was a Guinness tap it would be PERFECT!

Yes it would!

Only have a D and S type Sankeys now and Guiness needs a mixed gas vs CO2 setup. Maybe someday I will invest in a 2 head tap for Guiness and a Hefeweizen at the same time.

You have good taste fellow Michigan boy!

For most people the new TVs will do just fine. But, if you are like me and do programming work and read a lot of text on at least four windows open. A computer monitor beats a TV hands down. Text is much sharper and clearer at much smaller size.

Bought a 52 inch Sharp Quattron 3D LCD TV and it works just dandy. Been on and off custom coding some 3D scripts to work with Nvidia 3D TV Play for IL2 and LOMAC FC2, to bypass the limitations of the HDMI 1.4a (works by fooling with frame packing). Here is a shot:



Once you get used to flying and doing home work in front of a big screen, you wont go back to a 20 to 30 inch monitor. No matter how nice the resolution is.