TV + Roll20 = Awesome Sauce

Are your miniatures directly on the TV screen, or do you have a transparent barrier lying across it? I would love to do something like this, but I'd be afraid of damaging the screen.

Brett E. said:

Are your miniatures directly on the TV screen, or do you have a transparent barrier lying across it? I would love to do something like this, but I'd be afraid of damaging the screen.

For testing and pictures... they were directly on the screen. I'm gonna pick up a thin sheet of plastic or something before I use it for real.

That looks good. I run Roll20 on my TV as well, but standing vertical like a regular TV, using the tokens that are on Roll20 rather than the physical miniatures.  I would suggest setting a darker Page Background color to avoid the large white area like the middle picture.

Gold said:

That looks good. I run Roll20 on my TV as well, but standing vertical like a regular TV, using the tokens that are on Roll20 rather than the physical miniatures.  I would suggest setting a darker Page Background color to avoid the large white area like the middle picture.

I know. I was just testing it real quick after having been awake for almost eighteen hours. :D

Looks awesome HoneyBadger, please share more as you progress!

Verrrrrry cool

My players and I started this way since it was a face-to-face game.  Then we converted to using a large-screen upright TV because it was easier to have the exact mini I wanted as DM.

We played a number of sessions and never scratched the surface.  But it was an old TV that we didn't care if it got scratched.  If we had cared, we would have probably used something.

I have seen saran wrap used effectively. The biggest problem is most TV's are made to be upright, heat can damage the TV. I have a small fan for a laptop that is quite quiet and can plug into a USB port. something like this may extend your TV's life a bit.

Should be fine, but there is room for a fan to be mounted.

You could probably get a piece of smoothed, beveled glass from a hardware store and four sticker-backed soft furniture pads to rest it on so it isn't resting directly on the screen for ~$35-45 depending on where you live. With the pads between the glass and the screen you have a layer of protection for monitor you can easily clean and also a half-centimeter or so to let air move over the top of the screen to prevent heating.

Back when I worked in architecture and design we did something similar in a film studio that wanted to use an early flat panel as a coffee table. That was back when "flat panel" was essentially still CRT, but it would apply here as well probably.

Really cool idea. I want to try this for my own game at some point.

Edit: Re: cooling. We had ours on a pair of U shaped frames connected by a supporting brace, so there were only four points of contact on the television and about 2 feet between the bottom of the TV and the ground for cooling. I would recommend making something similar as placing the back vents of a tv on carpet or tile will overheat it as others have said. Can you cut way part of the coffee table you have it resting on so that frame is just supporting the TV?

The tv is mounted using a wall mount kit, to a piece of pine wood. The only contact between the wood and the tv is via the wall mount. There's plenty of ventilation as a result.

http://imgur.com/a/bY0Vv (imgur album with more pictures)

Dang man, that is really amazing. 

is my plan for home games as soon as I start to run them again... looks good HB, I had not thought about a wall mount as a stand - I was toying with under table mount so that there was non-TV space around the edges for all the non food and drink gaming crap.

DK Heinrich said:

is my plan for home games as soon as I start to run them again... looks good HB, I had not thought about a wall mount as a stand - I was toying with under table mount so that there was non-TV space around the edges for all the non food and drink gaming crap.

That was my initial plan... but I just don't have the space for it. Not in this house.