My home system is beginning to take the shape i wanted it to and I'm now looking to get a fairly decent sized HDTV to use as a secondary monitor (for games and movies etc)

Anyone have any recommendations, warnings, suggestions on what models or specifications i need to look at?

Most HDTVs aren't really suited to be used as a monitor. Their brightness, color, resolution, etc. just don't coincide with the standards that PC monitors use. Having said that, most casual users are very lax about what passes as a monitor and think that color temperature is a woman in a red dress.

Most HDTVs, practically all the ones below 37", will have a resolution of 1366x768, and a computer maximum resolution of 1280x720 (but usually will also accept 1280x1024, which looks weird because of the wrong aspect ratio). Of course this doesn't look that good, since there is no "pixel-to-pixel-mapping", which means that each physical pixel doesn't coincide with a displayed pixel. The same effect as you would have when your LCD PC monitor displays a lower resolution than native, not very pretty or sharp.

The larger ones (and much more expensive to boot) that can do 1080p ("True HD") will display 1920x1080, but some still don't do pixel-to-pixel mapping. You have to check the various forums on that.

Or you could buy a normal PC monitor, say 24", which will display computer graphics well.

What Firefoxx has said is very true of LCD HDTVs...

If you're looking at plasma HDTVs, be very careful that they've got square pixels. (i.e. 1366x768 or 1920x1080, and not 1024x768 which means rectangular pixels).

Additionally, although the HDMI ports may well be restricted to the standard HDTV resolutions (720p, 1080i, 1080p, as well as usually 480p - for DVDs), if the TV has a VGA port (a Dsub), you may well find you can get a resolution a lot closer to the native resolution on a 1366x768 screen. (you may find it's 1364 x 768 or something equally weird, but it will be virtually pixel-perfect).

Using an HDTV for movies, Skype, games, etc. does work quite well, if you can drive it at a good resolution. However, they're not ideal for regular computing tasks like word-processing (unless you have eye problems such as being long-sighted, and find that a 40" LCD at 6 feet is easier to read than a 17" monitor at 3 feet).

Aside from people with issues reading things close up, they shouldn't be used as a primary monitor.

What Firefoxx has said is very true of LCD HDTVs...

If you're looking at plasma HDTVs, be very careful that they've got square pixels. (i.e. 1366x768 or 1920x1080, and not 1024x768 which means rectangular pixels).

Additionally, although the HDMI ports may well be restricted to the standard HDTV resolutions (720p, 1080i, 1080p, as well as usually 480p - for DVDs), if the TV has a VGA port (a Dsub), you may well find you can get a resolution a lot closer to the native resolution on a 1366x768 screen. (you may find it's 1364 x 768 or something equally weird, but it will be virtually pixel-perfect).

Using an HDTV for movies, Skype, games, etc. does work quite well, if you can drive it at a good resolution. However, they're not ideal for regular computing tasks like word-processing (unless you have eye problems such as being long-sighted, and find that a 40" LCD at 6 feet is easier to read than a 17" monitor at 3 feet).

Aside from people with issues reading things close up, they shouldn't be used as a primary monitor.

Thanks, It would be used as a secondary monitor which i anticipate would be used only for watching DVD's/TV shows and Playing Games, I'd keep my old 17" as the primary monitor for browsing, work and other text based serious stuff.

I'll go check out the stores at the weekend and see what specs are available and at what price