Every computer monitor is a TV, every TV a computer monitor. But the way a computer draws images and the way a signal (specially an analogic one) behaves are different; different frequencies, for starters.
Several posts have mentioned “persistence of vision” and something about refresh rates of TV images.
Not long ago, I came across a news article on “flicker fusion threshold”, a phenomenon related to vision persistence. It had to do with insects, but I think there were tangential mentions of other animals too. It might be relevant here. Sorry, I’m having a hard time finding a cite for it now. But you can google for flicker fusion threshold or flicker fusion frequency to find general discussions.
This has to do with the rate at which a flickering image (like a movie) must flicker, in order to be perceived as a smooth continuous motion, versus a sequence of still pictures (in essence). This differs among species. The gist of the article I saw was that it is extremely high for insects (explaining why it is so hard to swat flies); they essentially see the swat coming in “slow motion” (for a fly) giving them plenty of time to take evasive action.
So I’m wondering if something like this is relevant for cats (or dogs), to explain how they might be perceiving a flickering TV show.
This also raises the question: Maybe if you took your cat (or dog) to see one of these new movies with the 48-frames/sec (or whatever the number is), they would see that as continuous motion (i.e., it would look “real” to them), whereas the usual TV/movie flicker rates don’t.
Just speculating here, as hinted by the stuff I read. Sorry I can’t find the cite again. May your google-fu (for cats in particular) be more successful.
Never mind cats, owls not only watch TV, they decide which programs you should watch! (Owls apparently like Star Wars, tennis, and Top Gear.)
That link is worth clicking just for the picture. Would you dare argue with that owl about what to watch?
I noticed during the last Winter Olympics that my cat is apparently a huge Curling fan. He would sit in front of the television and seemed hypnotized by the stone sliding across the screen. I’ve never seen him seem to notice the television other than that, but he seemed fascinated by it. When the Curling coverage was over, he’d wander off.
I’m looking forward to this upcoming Olympics to still if he’s still into it.
My cat is an overbred dullard, a gorgeous animal, but not very cat-like at all. I will play cat sounds and youtube videos for him on the laptop for his amusement, he’ll jump up and look in front, look in back, and then try to gnaw on the corner. Maybe he has poor eyesight. There will be a rabbit or birds out on the deck and he doesn’t seem to notice 3 out of 4 times.
We used to have a (male) cat named Sheba. Once there was a program showing a close-up of a cat on TV, and Sheba turned and watched it until the picture of the cat went off the screen. He showed no interest after that. No other cat we ever had did that.
Yeah, it’s an old thread but since I wasn’t here in 2002 I will offer my observations about my own cat, Dallas Jones. Yes, I have stolen my cat’s identity. She won’t find out unless she tries to take out a loan. 
She is about 17 years old and quite active and intelligent. But she does not seem to perceive the TV or computer screen as something real, just a bunch of color and noise. We have a 42 inch TV and I have a 20 inch monitor here at my desk where she will sit and just ignore whatever is on either one.
Now, right next to this computer desk is a sliding glass door and she definitely regards what is seen outside as real. She gets all twitter-pated about the birds and if she sees another cat she will go to the door and want to be let out.
The images on the TV or computer screen are not real, she does not confuse them with a window. She knows what is outside the window is real but the images on screens are just stupid human stuff.
Dear old kitty…she’s wise to you, eh? 
We had the occasional cat back in West Texas. And there used to be a game show on TV featuring a giant pinball machine that contestants would play. Not only did one cat watch it, it would jump at the ball on the screen, trying to bat it as it made its way through the machine.
Way back in the day, our cat was fascinated by Sea Hunt. He’d never paid any attention to any other program but would sit on the back of an easy chair and watch that one program from beginning to end. We claimed he liked staying dry while watching fish.
The sounds that can be heard from a device are limited to the sounds the device can produce.
Your camera can’t record IR or UV, for instance - even though those images are coming from the subject.
The speaker in the TV probably does not respond to frequencies that humans can’t hear - see if you can find the specs for your TV (original docs or google) and check response frequencies.
Glad to see there are a few other kitty sports fans out there. My girl kitty loves hockey. She goes as close to the TV as she can get and remains fascinated until there’s a commercial. I can’t decide if it’s the sound of the puck on the ice, the cheering of the fans or the movement, but she pays no attention to football at all. Maybe she just loves the sound of Doc Emrick’s voice. (Can’t blame her for that.) I’ve recently gotten interested in curling myself so I’ll have to see if she likes curling, like Anamorphic’s cat.
My boy kitty thinks we’re crazy and pretty much ignores the TV unless there are bird sounds or cat sounds coming out of it. He does sometimes look behind the TV to see if that’s where the birds are.
My cat reckons* The Wire * was way better than Breaking Bad but she thinks* Justified *is better than both of them.
Cats? Who can work them out?
If it pays the license fee, I suppose it can.
The opening scene of the video game Fable II had a bird fly across the screen. One of my cats was instantly interested and tried to hit the bird with his paw.
Sheba was the only cat who watched TV in our household. When I was a kid we had a calico cat named Jo-Jo, and she sometimes jumped on top of our set; and when I was 18 we had a big fluffy black-and-white cat named Archie who sometimes did; both because it was nice and warm. While we watched TV, the cat watched us. 
One of my cats showed interested behaviors similar to the ones previously mentioned when I played a youtube 'video for cats’for him. It was birds at a feeder in a single, uncut shot, and he did the visual tracking, the batting at the bird images, the sniffing/chewing the screen and searching around the back to try and find birds that flew out of frame. But it only worked that one time, for a couple of minutes. After that he seemed to either figure it out or make some sort of peace with the mystery, after which he stalked off. perhaps a bit peevishly. Successive attempts over the next couple of days to re-ignite his interest in such videos failed utterly. He does still visually track fast-moving objects like the moving cursor, or any straight up and down or side to side movement like scrolling and whatnot. But he does it with this kind of compulsive intensity-as if he can’t help but stare at anything moving that way, and not as if he believes he is seeming something ‘real’ that could exist off-screen.
zombie or no
can they follow the plot or do they just like the chase scenes?
Once we had a cat who loved hockey and would try to catch the puck, and another cat favored tennis, and laid paws on the tennis ball everytime. They definitely saw and responded to the images. A friend had a cat who responded favorably to nature programs. MY best-beloved, favorite cat didn’t pay any attention to tv, but preferred classical music, especially Rachmaninoff piano concertos. I think I was a disappointment to him, since my own tastes favored rock.
I have been told that a cat shouldn’t be able to see the image on a tv screen; that what we see is really just a field of dots and it is a trick of our brain that turns it into an image so effectively that we do not consciously see the field of dots.
HOWEVER, I have had many cats who enjoyed watching the screen. Possibly they were just mimicking the people around them.
But one cat I had showed a distinct preference for nature shows about big cats and low-budget martial-arts films. And turning the sound off didn’t affect this: kung-fu theater or lions of the Serengeti and he’d sit and watch, anything else and he’d leave.