going to a TV means you will have a much larger dot pitch. You will have to be much further away from the screen, which will make it appear smaller. So is it really worth it?
Without actually trying it I cant be certain, which is why I am planning on taking my PC round to a friends house and playing Skyrim to determine what distance is optimal, browsing the internet to see if the "physical pixel size" at whatever viewing distance really makes a difference to thin lines (aka text), and finally test the screen with a fast moving game.
Personally I think that the difference a larger screen will make vs the extra difference from me will make the overall experience better. I have personally used various screen sizes over the years and the have all been at a similar distance from me as my current 24" screen is. I have in the past had a 15" 800x600 CRT, a 19" 1280x1024 CRT, a 19" 1280x1024 LCD, and my current 1920x1200 LCD, (I have also used a 27" 1920x1080 screen for a while at the same viewing distance and I considered that a better "experience" than my current 24" screen even though I lost some vertical height and some 240,000 pixels), none of these have "saturated" my viewing space enough to move the screen back further, the screen has simply taken up more of my viewing space, but not enough to move into what I would consider my "view periphery".
Given the choice of having a higher resolution "Hazro HZ27WC" 2560x1440 screen at the cost of £400, or an "LG 42LS3400" 42" LED-Backlit 100Hz TV @ 1920x1080 at the cost of £410 makes for an interesting choice, one of the main things that puts me off of having a screen with an even higher resolution than 19x10 or 19x9 is that I would have to spend even more on a graphics card to run games at that resolution with enough eye-candy turned on to keep me happy.
On the other hand that 27" screen would be just fine at arms length distance where a 42" screen would have to be further away.
Another, but smaller point is that TV's have speakers built into them, they are obviously not of "Audiophile" standard, but they would be fine for my purposes.
Coming back to the physical screen size vs relative pixel size, here is a link giving the dimensions of screens
http://www.displaywars.com/24-inch-16x1 ... -inch-16x9
As you can see, my 24" screen is 20.35" wide, if we divide that by 1920 that is a resolution of 94.34 pixels per inch, if we do the same with the 42" screen (width 36.61") we get 52.44 pixels per inch. Remember this is the quantity of pixels per inch on the screen itself, the further away from the screen you are the small the pixels will appear and thus the "relative pixel density as you see it will go up".
If we then look at the physical width of the screens (bearing in mind the quantity of pixels is the same), here we want to determine the size "ratio" of the screens, the 42" screen is 36.61 / 20.35 = 1.799 Let us round that to a screen width ratio of 1.8, this means that the 42" screen would have to be 1.8 times as far away from me as the 24" screen to be "seen as" the same physical size and thus have the same "pixel density of 94.34 pixels per inch.
Here are the sums (I will update tomorrow when I find a tape measure). My estimation (I don't have a tape measure to hand) is that my screen is 25" from me (2ft 1), that means that the 42" screen would have to be (25 * 1.
45" (3ft 9)) away from me.
That's the basic science of it to keep everything relative, the next question is of course does a 42" screen feel the same when it is 3ft 9" away from me as my current 24" at a distance of 2ft 1" from me, it should do, but there is only one way to tell and that is to test it out. Of course this then brings up a few extra things to note, if a 42" TV is further away from you than 3ft 9" the the relative "pixel density" will go up vs the 24" at a distance of 2ft 1", and if it is closer then the relative "pixel density" will go down - both options may have advantages and disadvantages depending on what the end user is using the screen for.
The last couple of points.
Higher resolution is always better, but this is only available with very expensive "monitors" until "Quad-HD" becomes affordable, but from my perspective of not having a lot of money as a whole I need to take into consideration the cost of a graphics card to run games at xxx resolution with eye candy turned on, currently my old HD4850 struggles a lot with many newer games so I will be buying a new graphics card at the same time as a new screen, or perhaps before then taking into account the resolution of my next screen purchase.
When I have friends round watching a movie, they will be watching the same screen that I use as my computer screen, a 24" screen doesn't really do the job as everyone needs to be that much closer to the screen that space becomes an issue, or rather cramped conditions do. As I plan for this to be used for multiple purposes then the larger screen is still what I would prefer (note: I have not owned a TV for 5-years because I don't watch "broadcast" TV, I watch "everything" on my PC, this however might change and that again would require me to have a TV anyway.
PS: Looking forward to Quad-HD and winning the lottery as Quad-HD TV's are expected to sell for $8,000 USD later this year
Andy