External display HD LCD monitor vs HD LCD TV  ??

Hello All
I'm needing to up-grade me second display and, have been shopping around.
In my shopping I'm getting mixed thoughts, I finding HD monitors and HD TV's so, I'm hoping somebody can point me in the right direction, I'm finding HD monitors in the area of $200. but, all the HD TV's $300. + , is there any real advantage of one over the other ?
I know just going with a standard LCD monitor would not be a good option, it's the HD monitors
that added to my future purchase confusion.
Thanks for any advice and or recommendations

They will probably both do as monitors. The Acer is a Computer Multisync Monitor, claiming to have a full resolution of 1920x1080. It is probably a progressive scan device, with some image processing on board, since they claim "Max. Refresh Rate 60Hz" on the Acer web site, so if you'll preview interlaced video on it, it may have the artifacts associated with standard poor or nonexistent de-interlacers. But it maybe o.k., specially if you are going to output most of your work for the internet, true Multisync Monitor maybe a good thing.
The Samsung is almost a TV set. It appears to be a 1680x1050 monitor. The bells and whistles appear to be associated with the HDTV tuner. As an ATSC tuner, it will have to tune the standard US ATSC channels and decode the standard 18 ATSC formats, including 640x480i30, 704x480i30/p24/p30/p60, 1280x720p24/p30/p60 to 1920x1080i30 and 1920x1080p24/ p30. But all this is converted into the monitor native 1680x1050xwhatever scan rate. From the HDMI inputs it will probably depend on drivers running on the graphics card on the MAC. Make sure that they have MAC drivers for this one, often they have just Windows drivers for these monitors.
I have a 26" Samsung, without the tuner and speakers, as my second monitor, to preview TV destined footage. It's resolution is 1920x1080, and it does an excellent job to show any artifacts that would show on TV.
I would recommend seeing the inputs before ordering the monitor on the WEB, because the most important characteristics are usually unavailable reading the specs. Also check about MAC driver availability.
Best of luck.

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