4k resolution coming

[DuckThor Evil]

A friend of mine bought one of those 29" 21:9 1080p screens and I saw it yesterday for the first time. I have to say I was quite impressed by it. Games really did look great on it and it was very nice to have two web pages side by side. That 34" 1440p would probably be quite sweet.

 

[lanek]

A friend of mine bought one of those 29" 21:9 1080p screens and I saw it yesterday for the first time. I have to say I was quite impressed by it. Games really did look great on it and it was very nice to have two web pages side by side. That 34" 1440p would probably be quite sweet.

I really need to test one myself, for my 3D works could be good, but i have really some pain for now to imagine exactly how it will look. I admit i can use extra size on the left and right for set my UI ( command lists, icon, tools palet, shortcut, etc... ),

The problem so far was mostly the size, but with a 34", this start to be really really interesting.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Nice vertical resolution yes, and it should be a lot better than using two 1080p displays.

I wonder about the scaling, does it have sufficient options? (like 1:1 for arbritrary res, scaling to 2560x1440 with black bars on the side etc.) and preferably an OSD menu that doesn't suck ass but that one is too much to ask.

It would be nice if it can work at real 72Hz refresh (nice for wide movies at 24Hz, but also because 60Hz is not enough for computer use)

A few pictures that simulate 2.35, 1.85 and 4:3 movies on a 2.35 display (this LCD is 2.388889 though)
http://www.projectorcentral.com/235_home_theater.htm

 

[Pressure]

I'm waiting till we get a native 4K display that doesn't need MST to function at 4K @ 60Hz.

Not going back to anything less than 2800 x 1800 after using this MacBook Pro with retina display.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's a bit weird, though. I guess price is going to be the determining factor.

Price is stupid. For development/professional use, the main purpose for anyone not a PC Leet Gamer, dual monitors is way cheaper and more flexible. Even a 1440p monitor costs far more than dual 1080p monitors with less screen-space. Maybe the market is just Leet PC gamers?

 

[UniversalTruth]

Now this is finally starting to be interesting to me!
All previous 21:9 screens were 1080p which was too little for me, but 1440p is a nice upgrade!

For me it is still not interesting. It is too big, too wide and with too low dpi.

I need a 26 inch monitor with resolution 3840x2160. Then I will be more than happy.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I still prefer the 4:3 aspect ratio. It's a shame that only the iPad still has 4:3 screens. I would pick a 3200x2400 monitor over any 4K widescreen monitor.

There's the argument that 1920x1200 is better than 1600x1200.
Sure, 3200x2400 is even better.

I would be reasonably happy with a cheap, non-TN and excellent 1920x1200 display.
Else if we go high DPI maybe I can tolerate 3200x1800, which would be a counterpart to the half-decent 1600x900 resolution.. Not great but if industry could standardize on that for cheap ass monitors we could live with it.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Price is stupid. For development/professional use, the main purpose for anyone not a PC Leet Gamer, dual monitors is way cheaper and more flexible. Even a 1440p monitor costs far more than dual 1080p monitors with less screen-space. Maybe the market is just Leet PC gamers?

Dual 1080p is a bit ugly. It works but it is extremely wide and with annoying separation, not much incentive to look at the secund screen.

Now that's a bad ass setup rofl (a 16:10 flanked by two 4:3)
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=102l2co&s=3#.Uzvh1o93_gE

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I agree, but sadly monitors are mostly widescreen using TV panels, and using other aspects gets expensive. Even the cheapest of 1920x1200 is barely less than dual 1280x1024's which offer more estate. 768p monitors are the lowest end, and you can get 3 or 4 for the price of a cheap ultra-wide display.

The monitor situation is pretty tragic IMO. You have TV res for the masses, and then high premium enthusiast/business displays.

 

[Blazkowicz]

We tend to forget that in Good Old Times (tm) the awesome displays were expensive, i.e. the CRT that did 1600x1200 @ 85Hz had a similar cost to nowadays's 2560x1600 or higher monitor, the cheap stuff did 1024x768.

Currently cheap stuff worth buying is 1600x900 or 1920x1080, both are higher res than 1024x768 or even 1280x1024.

A 2x2 grid of 1600x900 displays on a single graphics card would be a funny configuration if you're after pixel amount. Else you have Seiki 3.8K display for as much cheap, albeit at 30Hz.
It is not clear if we'll get awesome deals in the near future or not. I guess we'll know better after HDMI 2.0 TVs are out.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

We tend to forget that in Good Old Times (tm) the awesome displays were expensive, i.e. the CRT that did 1600x1200 @ 85Hz had a similar cost to nowadays's 2560x1600 or higher monitor, the cheap stuff did 1024x768...

Tech has progressed considerably allowing remarkably cheap monitors, but where technological progress meant an increasing resolution, now it's capped off. So where we can now afford multiple 720/1080p monitors where once upon a time multiple 1024x768 monitors was prohibitively expensive, the relative price of single larger screens has remained very high, making large desktop screen-estate far more affordable with multiple screens than large screens (whereas once upon a time we wouldn't even have considered large desktop and just used task switching). This price disparity is going to retard higher resolution desktop display adoption, which in turn is going to retard super high-res screen price reductions overall. Only 4k in the consumer space is going to push screen pricing down, but it'll be a long time before 4k is as commodity-priced as 1080p is.

What we failed to have was a continuation of that resolution progress. Displays hit 1080p and stopped by and large, with higher resolutions remaining frustratingly niche.

In the professional/development space, multiple monitors actually makes a lot of sense though. Multitasking can have one application per screen (game development environment on one screen, code IDE or 3D modelling package on another). Only very complex interfaces (3D modelling) ideally benefit from everything all on the one large screen.

 

[UniversalTruth]

I still prefer the 4:3 aspect ratio. It's a shame that only the iPad still has 4:3 screens. I would pick a 3200x2400 monitor over any 4K widescreen monitor.

Ok, but why? What advantages do you get from so narrow screens? Does it help you for multi-tasking or what?

 

[OpenGL guy]

Ok, but why? What advantages do you get from so narrow screens? Does it help you for multi-tasking or what?

Photos are still 3:2. You can always view 16:9 at full resolution on 3:2 with black bars and top and bottom, not so the other way around. For coding, I prefer as much real estate as possible.

 

[UniversalTruth]

Photos are still 3:2. You can always view 16:9 at full resolution on 3:2 with black bars and top and bottom, not so the other way around. For coding, I prefer as much real estate as possible.

My Sony Xperia S produces amazing photos at 4000x2250, this is 16:9, isn't it?

 

[OpenGL guy]

My Sony Xperia S produces amazing photos at 4000x2250, this is 16:9, isn't it?

Your photos are still 3:2, are they not?

 

[rcf]

Ok, but why? What advantages do you get from so narrow screens? Does it help you for multi-tasking or what?

Because 4:3 monitors have more real estate than similarly sized widescreen monitors and are better if used in portrait mode.
Widescreen monitors are better for video, but they are worse for texts, web browsing or anything more vertically oriented. IMO, widescreens don't have a very good balance between horizontal and vertical resolutions, while 4:3 screens are more versatile.

 

[UniversalTruth]

Web pages nowadays are intentionally done in this, for me stupid way, to drive smartphones sales.

Otherwise, 16:9 fits far better to our natural vision.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Your photos are still 3:2, are they not?

I think he means the camera is taking 16:9 snapshots at 4000x2250 pixels. And Googling, it's a 4:3 image sensor producing 4:3 shots and cropping. I think people tend to prefer widescreen photos these days, so not much need for legacy 3:2 format. We can crop everything digitally anyhoo.

Because 4:3 monitors have more real estate than similarly sized widescreen monitors and are better if used in portrait mode.

Relative to horizontal size, true - narrower aspects afford more room top and bottom. But unless desk space is a problem, overall there's little advantage to any aspect. In some content that's not full screen, one or other aspect will have a shortcoming.

Widescreen monitors are better for video, but they are worse for texts, web browsing or anything more vertically oriented

Who uses a browser in full screen? The browser is typically, as fas as I can see, run as a window with other stuff down the sides. And that's something widescreen grants, and why super widescreens are still valuable. You can open multiple portrait documents side by side. A massively portrait screen could open multiple documents one on top of the other, but it's hard to view up/down than left/right, so I think widescreen wins the ergonomics argument. In complex apps with lots of tool panels, widescreen lets you run them down the sides, perfect for lists.

I don't see any real benefit to narrower aspects, excepting the first case. At the end of the day, aspect doesn't really matter when content is windowed, leaving full screen content as the deciding factor for best fit aspect, and that's chiefly movies and games.

 

[rcf]

Web pages nowadays are intentionally done in this, for me stupid way, to drive smartphones sales.

Web pages are vertical since the 90s.

Otherwise, 16:9 fits far better to our natural vision.

But it only makes a real difference if the screen is huge (like in a movie theater) or if you are sitting too close to your computer screen.
I care more about most types of content fitting properly in the screen.

 

[Npl]

Web pages nowadays are intentionally done in this, for me stupid way, to drive smartphones sales.

Otherwise, 16:9 fits far better to our natural vision.

Bull.... Our peripheral is > 180degree vertically so flat monitors would need to be 1 to infinity to "match". Anyway, we really cant see sharply anything outside of 40-60 degree and this is the important thing - this area is closer to 4:3: Central angle view

Its just the same nonsense that gets brought up time and time again with the "realism" of 24FPS.

16:9 is a compromise for movies (which incidently where shot with wide angle in mind aswell, might have something to do with the rooms housing people scaling better in the horizontal direction), nothing else. Funny note aside, high-end cinema like IMAX has an aspect rate close to 4:3.