Conference room monitor - will a 1080p tv do?

Mar 15, 2003
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I'm tasked to get a new large monitor for the conference room (70-80 inches) for presentations (mostly powerpoint, hooked up via hdmi). Is there any reason I can' just get a 1080p LED lcd tv and call it a day? Is there something special about monitors that make their added expense worthwhile?

Thanks!
 

Anubis

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Aug 31, 2001
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we just use TVs here where i work, they work fine. most of ours are 55" but shoudl work the same for larger ones.
 

Midwayman

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Jan 28, 2000
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Well monitors tend to support more resolutions and refresh rates. Where I work we have a ton of people come in with laptops with all sorts of weird resolutions running on them. Ideally its a plug and play operation, but many times I get called on one that isn't working and its is frequently a resolution issue not working with the TV.
 
Mar 15, 2003
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we just use TVs here where i work, they work fine. most of ours are 55" but shoudl work the same for larger ones.

How does a 1080p set handle scaling? Some people come in with 1024x768 laptops. It doesn't have to be perfect, but is text readable?
 

Midwayman

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Jan 28, 2000
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Since you're doing powerpoint specifically... Powerpoint apparently does some goofy internal rendering scheme. In full screen it doesn't render at your desktop resolution apparently. I only found this out after someone came in to do a presentation and the TV refused to display whatever the native powerpoint resolution was. It was find in windowed mode so we proceeded that way.
 

KentState

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Oct 19, 2001
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err, projector would be better at that size no?

IMO, projectors are just a pain in the ass. You need a screen, objects block the beam, lighting has to be adjusted, windows can interfere, fan noise, cool-down/warm up cycles, key stone adjustments and so on. I prefer a decent 55" 1080p LCD or so.
 

sdifox

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Sep 30, 2005
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IMO, projectors are just a pain in the ass. You need a screen, objects block the beam, lighting has to be adjusted, windows can interfere, fan noise, cool-down/warm up cycles, key stone adjustments and so on. I prefer a decent 55" 1080p LCD or so.

fixed installations work fine. Light is easy to control.

TV are a pain in the ass most of the time because there are still plenty of laptops without hdmi.
 

BurnItDwn

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Oct 10, 1999
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At the office here we use projectors in bigger rooms and 50ish inch 1080p tvs in smaller conf rooms. In HUGE rooms we have multiple mirrored displays ..

1080p sets don't look ideal/perfect when viewing non-native resolution, but it's always "good enough" for business meetings. 720p would be good enough as well.


Mount projector to ceiling, run cables along wall to "hot seat" where presenter sits, best to run cables under table and connect them to a junction box or something... that way, if the cables need replacing after a year or so of people plugging and unplugging things 20 times per day, you can simply replace the end cable, and you don't do all that extra wear and tear on the terminals on the projector...

Projectors often take like 15 mins between power down and next time they power on ... this may be an issue for a busy conf room...

If it's a big room that holds more than like 6 or 8 people, projector makes more sense. for small conf room, a couple of 50+ inch TVs is cost effective and practical option....
 

Anubis

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How does a 1080p set handle scaling? Some people come in with 1024x768 laptops. It doesn't have to be perfect, but is text readable?

all the rooms with TVs dont let people with laptops hook directly in, they would have to use Lync and share the desktop to the other monitor. does not happen often honestly, most stuff being presented is being shared from the cloud
 

alkemyst

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Feb 13, 2001
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Like others said, a projector is going to be more compatible with devices and scaling.

It's not so much a 1080i/p issue as what the TV is capable of rendering as far as resolutions and scaling them. I have seen everything from a huge letterboxed image to one that was skewed in a weird way.

Whatever you pick, I'd try to test the inputs in a store prior to buying with your most common devices.

We have both a large HDTV and projector for each of our conference rooms. The types of projectors for presentations are very bright usually.
 

destrekor

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Nov 18, 2005
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all the rooms with TVs dont let people with laptops hook directly in, they would have to use Lync and share the desktop to the other monitor. does not happen often honestly, most stuff being presented is being shared from the cloud

Or in the case of where I worked once, the conference room TVs are connected with third-party collaboration equipment. Business users would never connect to the TV, nor did they use Lync (I wanted it, but they didn't have it)... they'd, through various means, connect to the middle-man equipment to share what needed shared on the TV.