Why can a TV display different resolutions and still look crisp and clear, but on a monitor anything other than native looks terrible?

806 views

Why can a TV display different resolutions and still look crisp and clear, but on a monitor anything other than native looks terrible?

In: Technology

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

[deleted]

Anonymous 0 Comments

Typically a TV is displaying video and not super sharp text, graphics etc. Also you’re usually sitting much closer to a monitor to spot imperfections easier. Lastly some monitors just aren’t designed to run different resolutions cleanly, they are designed to run at their optimal resolution.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Most TVs nowadays have all sorts of fun features that increase the output quality that your normal LCD panel doesn’t. One big one I see in my house every day: My LCD on my laptop is 60Hz (it redraws the screen 60 times a second) The TV in my living room, however, is 120Hz, no matter the input. It can take 1080p, at 30Hz, and upscale it to 4K, at 120Hz. It’s only slightly choppier than at 60Hz, and only if you’re paying close attention. I play DVDs (480p) off of the playstation 3 (which upscales to 1080p), which displays on the TV (upscaled to 4K). All of this is brought in by one thing: The graphics card. The graphics card in my TV is amazing at upscaling, and antialising. The LCD in my laptop is being pushed by a graphics card that is only outputting a digital signal; it doesn’t exactly know what exactly the LCD is looking for. It may “support” smaller resolutions, but the LCD is not meant to upscale on it’s own, it outputs the data sent, and makes the best of it. The graphics in the TV, however, were tailored to that screen, it has a pretty awesome idea of what the end result is supposed to look like, and takes whatever input it gets, and makes it what it should, your LCD does not have this feature, and neither does mine.

TL;DR: Your TV usually has a computer of some kind that makes whatever input being fed into what it knows it should be, while the LCD panels on laptops usually are only made for one resolution, and is not mad to upscale smaller inputs on it’s own.