Today I tested some things. I still have one of those “older” flat TV models. It’s already a 42 inch HD TV with 1080p resolution (1920×1080) but it’s not a Smart TV. We have autumn, a time where I sometimes also just want to relax on the couch, watching Netflix or YouTube. But I usually turned my PC screen to the couch so that I can watch these things on the computer, since I don’t have a smart TV with streaming functions on board. I also don’t want to have a long HDMI cable from one wall to the other in my living room. However, there are always solutions and even cheap ones. I could purchase a Blue-ray player with Netflix and YouTube on board. Then there are things like the Amazon Fire TV stick or Google Chromecast and so on. All of them are cheap solutions that would make my TV become “smart”, as the marketing term suggests. I’ve also been in the market for the Steam Link since a while, a nifty little box that makes it possible to enjoy PC games from my Steam library on the larger TV screen. I will probably purchase two things, the Steam Link and Google Chromecast because both together would meet my requirements.
The solution is very affordable and I think I did my research well. I just want that the tech gadgets (Desktop PC, mobile devices) in my living room connect with my TV. I could afford a new TV, but the question that I asked myself is why I should do that. I mean, my TV is large enough, in fact it can’t be larger than 42 inch due to the size of the cabinet in my living room. Also HD is way enough for me, I don’t need fancy resolutions like 4K since the TV is the least used gadget in my apartment anyway, and I tend to spend less money on things that I barely use, and especially not on things that do still a good job. With that said, I wanted to find out how other source signals would look like on my TV (HDMI PC to TV) before I get serious about the idea to purchase the gadgets. I barely move my TV, nor did I ever check what kind of ports there would be except the HDMI ports. I found out that the TV also has one USB port and I got an idea.
I batch converted tons of my DSLR photos to 1080p resolution and copied them to one of my USB sticks. I actually never saw my own photos on a large TV and that was now my idea. With the batch conversion I wanted to make sure that the photos would absolutely fill the screen resolution on the TV (no black borders). I was pretty much blown away when I did put my USB stick into the TV. So, for all the photographers out there, if you never did that either, just do it now! Really, this is my big suggestion. Take a look at your own photos on a large screen, it’s amazing. I had so much fun today browsing through my own photos on my TV. The DSLR photos look gorgeous on a large screen. I just wanted to test the USB port and how photos would look like on the screen, but now I was sitting there amazed, browsing through tons of photos in comfy position on the couch. There are of course different ways, you could also connect your camera via HDMI to the TV. My point is not how to do it, my point is to do it at all. We own so much stuff, but we barely test all functions of the things. In the case of my own photos, I never saw a reason to check them out on the TV since I saw all of them already on the PC. If you thought the same, take a look at the TV, it’s really fun to see your photos in large!
Diary of Dennis 
My TV is not so bg although when we bought it we thought it was compared to what we had been watching before. Now a 32 inch TV is considered small but it’s fine for me. I have a gadget with my internet /phone package, basically a streaming device made by ROKU that allows me to watch Netflix, YouTube, catch up channels etc. I can also look at my photos on it. I don’t often use this feature but you are right. I should use it more to see my pictures full size. It is certainly nice to be able to sit on a comfortable chair in the living room watching stuff from the computer, especially on a cold evening as the living room is the most well heated room in my house.
A TV with 32 inch is realy fine too. When I was in Reinfeld to help my uncle, I went there with my PC of course and my uncle said this would be all I need since he would still have a 32 inch TV with HDMI in the room for me. So, instead of carrying my own PC screen, I just used his 32 inch TV and it was awesome, even for playing games. Never played games on such a large TV before 🙂 Photo editing was really fun too on that screen. Of course it’s a bit over the top to use 32 inch as daily work screen, but it was a fun experience 😀
I guess you are right that 32 inch is now considered small, but same counts for my 42 inch. That’s at least what I found out yesterday in one of our large tech stores. They really have massive TV’s and many of them are even affordable. However, while it might be fun to go larger, it’s not really where I want to spend my money and my TV size just fits anyway to my cabinet. It will have to do the job until it doesn’t anymore, I won’t spend a penny on a TV screen earlier.
Yesterday when I researched I also found out about ROKU. I think there are now tons of solutions, but ROKU, Amazon Fire and Chrome Cast are the popular ones. Many Blue-ray player can do the job now too. Yes, try it out and see your photos on your TV! 32 inch is still very large compared to PC screen size. I actually thought my TV would show pixels when I see my photos, but both the TV and the image quality of DSLR cameras are that great that it just looked stunning. It was a different experience. I know all my photos very well, but just the larger size made it very interesting to look at them again. 🙂 Especially landscape and city photos worked extremely well on the TV, it was like going through a massive wallpaper collection.