Why does the ipad 3 have better resolution than even $600 monitors ?

[Blazkowicz]

for all the hatred against 16:9, with a 1080p panel it's still more pixels both ways than a 1680x1050, and you get more effective area when watching a movie. so I believe it's not too bad.

still waiting for a 120Hz IPS, but there's a cheap 60Hz IPS (180 euros), from Iiyama I believe.
high dpi would be nicer maybe but I like my fast mouse cursor and fast scrolling text, and the gaming benefits even though I don't game these days.
I'm still a CRT hold out but that's because I picked a good one up on the pavement and prefered to drink good wine with friends with the money.

 

[Grall]

..No im not

As a matter of fact, actually you are.

Common sense tells you that if they were selling 1080p panels 6 years ago...manufacturing priced would have dropped immensely..so..on the midrange cheaper panels..sure you can get a cheap decent 1080p tv...BUT.if you want to pay more than $1500 for a top of the range tv... then you should have access to 4k

You might think that, but common sense is not what dictates the manufacturability of LCD panels. 4k panels are considerably more difficult to produce than a 1080P panel of the same dimensions. Hence the monstrous price difference.

Im not talking about people in the lower/mid brackect...they already get a fantastic deal with their 1080p...im talking about people who like high end products...you expect high end tech to push the bounderies....thats all im saying...

The high-end is not a real pusher of new tech. The mass-market is, and a 40" 4k TV or PC monitor is not going to be high-end in price. It's going to be super ultra high-end, and virtually nobody in the middle class income bracket is going to want to buy one, and very few rich people as well since there are virtually zero advantages to owning one since there's no source material available.

Shit, you buy a 1080P movie on iTunes today and compare it to the same title encoded for 720P you'll find there's hardly any difference at all. And since everything is moving towards streaming or downloading services right now it's only going to get worse. Look at Youtube, all of their 1080P stuff is a joke. And you want to watch this stuff on a 4k screen? Good luck!

Where did i say that? i said scale to 4x...which is what my tv already does a fantastic job at from SD-HD.......of course it makes a difference...it even makes a difference...on the xbox 360..which was a £300 console in 2005....it DOES add more detail..my eyes can attest to that....

Scaling does not add detail. You can't create signal out of nothing. The TV scaler doesn't know how to interpret the image in order to add detail. It just smoothes out stairsteps according to an algorithm. That is not the same as adding detail.

The reason DVDs on a modern display look better is because DVD imagery is very low res (by today's standard), so upsampling makes a comparatively larger difference. But HDTV material upsampled to 4k on the same size display does not achieve the same dramatic effect. This is because while the DPI of the panel goes up your eyes stay the same; there's no comparative increase there (or even any increase at all actually) so the visual effect of the upscaling WILL NOT be as effective.

By the way my sharp Quattron was the worlds first RGBY panel....and its stunning...it DOES make a difference....

It does not, because the eye does not have a yellow color receptor, and is already quite capable of percieving yellow as a mix of red and green base colors. And of course, there's no source art that has been created with RGBY in mind. This is just a sales gimmick, and any improvement you're seeing is merely placebo effect.

Try a doubleblind study first before exclaiming the virtues of that silly "Quattron" TV.

My wish is for a 50inch Samsung oled display running at 4k..

OLED has big issues with subpixel endurance. Especially blue subpixels break down a lot faster than other display techs. Well, LCDs don't relly age, per se. The lightbars do. But that's a much slower process.

 

[french toast]

You might think that, but common sense is not what dictates the manufacturability of LCD panels. 4k panels are considerably more difficult to produce than a 1080P panel of the same dimensions. Hence the monstrous price difference.

Yea? so are ipad 3 screens over ipad 2 screens? whats your point?

The high-end is not a real pusher of new tech. The mass-market is, and a 40" 4k TV or PC monitor is not going to be high-end in price. It's going to be super ultra high-end, and virtually nobody in the middle class income bracket is going to want to buy one, and very few rich people as well since there are virtually zero advantages to owning one since there's no source material available.

Yes it is...because thats where it STARTS!!..it has to start somewhere to enable it to be duplicated and improved,..that is the same with every tech since the dawn of time....

Shit, you buy a 1080P movie on iTunes today and compare it to the same title encoded for 720P you'll find there's hardly any difference at all. And since everything is moving towards streaming or downloading services right now it's only going to get worse. Look at Youtube, all of their 1080P stuff is a joke. And you want to watch this stuff on a 4k screen? Good luck!

I can't test that as i don't have a new ipad But i wasn't talking about an ipad..i was talking about some high end home cinema equipment...which can sell for up wards of £3000 and a good market there is for it as well in the uk.
Something like that usually have powerfull dedicated processing like the Toshiba cell Tv....the HD stuff on you tube does look better unless your blind..

Scaling does not add detail. You can't create signal out of nothing. The TV scaler doesn't know how to interpret the image in order to add detail. It just smoothes out stairsteps according to an algorithm. That is not the same as adding detail.

It is the same as adding detail if my eyes see an improvemant that points that way....upscaling while not prefered DOES add detail to the image if done correctly.

The reason DVDs on a modern display look better is because DVD imagery is very low res (by today's standard), so upsampling makes a comparatively larger difference. But HDTV material upsampled to 4k on the same size display does not achieve the same dramatic effect. This is because while the DPI of the panel goes up your eyes stay the same; there's no comparative increase there (or even any increase at all actually) so the visual effect of the upscaling WILL NOT be as effective.

How do you know that? have you that first hand with a top quality upscaler?
-Have you seen the difference between the upscaling from a crap dvd player..with HDMI..to a high end one??..massive differnece..not anywhere near as good as native from a high end player..but massive difference....

Certainly the visual difference just from native 1080p-1440p is not going to be as apparent as 720p-1080p...as the resolution increases the less difference you will notice...
So whilst there won't be as much difference thats not a reason to stop pushing tech forward.

It does not, because the eye does not have a yellow color receptor, and is already quite capable of percieving yellow as a mix of red and green base colors. And of course, there's no source art that has been created with RGBY in mind. This is just a sales gimmick, and any improvement you're seeing is merely placebo effect.

Try a doubleblind study first before exclaiming the virtues of that silly "Quattron" TV.

Well have you tried a double blind study? or have you any links to make such a baseless assumption?? if you have a dedicated yellow pixel you have many many more shades of not only that colour but all the colours..that just a simple fact....i can tell you yellows look much better on my tv than almost anyother tv ive seen..the colours all round are better as well....

The point i originally made about all content being made in RGB..you anythink outside of that scale will always be non accurate by default remains true...but don't tell me it doesnt make a difference... placebo BS.

OLED has big issues with subpixel endurance. Especially blue subpixels break down a lot faster than other display techs. Well, LCDs don't relly age, per se. The lightbars do. But that's a much slower process.

[/QUOTE] Pentile. enough said.

 

[Blazkowicz]

when the blue degrades on an OLED, just recalibrate, the other colors get dimmed and you only lose a bit of max luminosity output. have the firmware tell you how many hours it has worked, like on projectors.
switch it off when you don't look at it, LEDs are instant on/off.
120Hz-only hardware, lower refresh rates only if your display interface or player/computer doesn't support it.

that would be fine for me. only the latest not-quite-perfect technology, there were worse things in the past (dumb terminal CRT displays with the app's menu permantently printed in the phosphors.. )

 

[Grall]

Recalibrating only goes so far. You might not have even pixel wear across the screen - outdoors scenes for example tend to have blue sky across the upper portion of the screen for example. Probably don't make a difference in the short run, but over months or even years you bet it will.

 

[pcchen]

It does not, because the eye does not have a yellow color receptor, and is already quite capable of percieving yellow as a mix of red and green base colors. And of course, there's no source art that has been created with RGBY in mind. This is just a sales gimmick, and any improvement you're seeing is merely placebo effect.

Technically, the eye sees all wavelength in the visible light spectrum. It's just that since there are only three different color receptors and they happen to peak at RGB, it's possible to create all colors by these three colors. However, since LCD does this through masking (instead of actually generating lights) some colors may be very difficult to reproduce. One can view this problem as solving a matrix and then some solutions have elements with negative values. Since you can't have "negative" light, it could be impossible to create the color accurately. So having an additional element for those difficult colors can be useful.

However, since I haven't compared Sharp's RGBY with other solutions I can't say whether it's better or not.

 

[Grall]

Hurm... Some people actually have four types of color receptors due to a genetic mutation. However, the fourth color is a deeper red from what I understand, and not yellow.

 

[pcchen]

Hurm... Some people actually have four types of color receptors due to a genetic mutation. However, the fourth color is a deeper red from what I understand, and not yellow.

Well, that's not the point unless you want to target a market which is at most 2% ~ 3% women

My point is, sometimes a fourth color can help color reproduction, not unlike how people use black in CMYK color printing (it's very difficult to make perfect black with CMY alone).

 

[Grall]

I wasn't really trying to make a point, or even address any of your points... I just thoguht it a funny bit of trivia to mention.

Now, if the extra receptor had been sensitive to UV light, THAT would really have been something...!

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Monitors with these resolutions are still very cheap. But that's not enough to compete when 1080p panels are also cheap and offer more area/better quality.

Which brings us right back to where we started. The only reason that 1080p monitor's became cheap enough to supplant the far more popular 1680x1050 and 1440x900 monitors in the computer desktop space was due to the fact that the price dropped rapidly due to its use in TV panels. Had it been a computer only resolution it would have fared even worse than 1920x1200 due to resolution.

1680x1050, 1440x900, and 1600x900 (16:9 just like 1080p panels) all couldn't scale downwards in price like 1080p panels because they were used only in the PC market.

If resolution had mattered, you would have seen 1920x1200 panels reach the price points that 1080p panels enjoy years ago. But without being used in HDTV sets, there was never any possibility for it to drop down in price to be able to compete with the 1680x1050 or 1440x900 panels.

Put it this way. Even Apple couldn't make 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 monitors the dominant computer screen resolutions despite a large push from them in this direction with the Cinema HD displays and iMac computers (1440x900, 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 displays). Despite Apple investing heavily in 1920x1200 and 2560x1600, they had limited success.

BTW - just for trivia's sake. Apple also had the 4000 USD 22" Apple Cinema Display with a very odd 1600x1024 resolution back in 1999. Guess how successful that was in moving the market? But at least it got people talking about larger displays.

Regards,
SB

 

[hoho]

The only reason that 1080p monitor's became cheap enough to supplant the far more popular 1680x1050 and 1440x900 monitors in the computer desktop space was due to the fact that the price dropped rapidly due to its use in TV panels

Can someone explain me how can a 1080p TV at 32"+ have any effect on the price of computer monitors at <=24"? I can understand the control logic being same but I don't think that makes up all that big part of the price.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I own a 24" 1080p TV.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Can someone explain me how can a 1080p TV at 32"+ have any effect on the price of computer monitors at <=24"? I can understand the control logic being same but I don't think that makes up all that big part of the price.

You don't see them in the US much, but in the orient (Korea, Japan, etc.) 19-24" HDTVs are (or at least were) extremely popular. And those were the dominant HDTV sizes in terms of unit sales in many countries in the orient. Hence, for example, Samsung who makes both TV's and Monitors had a large incentive to push 1080p across both lines of displays.

I haven't got a clue what the situation is in European countries. But it wouldn't surprise me if Central and South America were also dominated by the smaller HDTV sets. When those sized TV's only cost 200-400 USD when 32"+ HDTVs were going for ~1000 USD, you can guess why they were so popular. Combine that with the average apartment in most of those countries being smaller than the typical studio apartment in the US and the large screen HDTV's that dominate HDTV sales in America just don't make a lot of sense.

Regards,
SB

 

[hoho]

You don't see them in the US much, but in the orient (Korea, Japan, etc.) 19-24" HDTVs are (or at least were) extremely popular. And those were the dominant HDTV sizes in terms of unit sales in many countries in the orient. Hence, for example, Samsung who makes both TV's and Monitors had a large incentive to push 1080p across both lines of displays.

Yeah, things were/are definitely different here as I rarely see any TV's on sale that are 27" or less. Most seem to be 32-42" and anecdotal evidence from forums and friends seems to indicate those being the most popular sizes.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The other thing also that influences the pricing of 1080p monitors is unrelated to the cost of manufacture.

Competition in the LCD TV market is cutthroat with bargain brands pushing down TV prices substantially. And unlike CRT TV's there's not a huge difference in image quality going from a cheap TV to an expensive TV. With CRTs there were so many factors in play that could lead to less than good images. With LCD's not so much.

Hence it's harder to maintain premium pricing as it's harder to convince people that the 500 USD name brand 24" HDTV is worth 300 USD more than the 200 USD 24" HDTV. Feel free to move the comparison up the size categories.

So what does that mean? It means it's also easier for off-brand HDTV makers to push computer monitors. But since they are an off brand with likely less funding than a brand name like Samsung, it's easier to just push 1080p on the PC as well rather than 1080p and 1200p.

So what does that mean? That means that the name brand monitor makers with entrenched sales and marketing for the business and professional markets in the PC world can keep higher margins on computer only displays as they don't have to fear competition in those areas from the off-brand HDTV makers who are entering the PC market.

So combine lower cost to manufacture with a TON more competition in the 1080p display space (so lower margins) and you end up with bargain basement pricing.

Regards,
SB

 

[Grall]

You don't see them in the US much, but in the orient (Korea, Japan, etc.) 19-24" HDTVs are (or at least were) extremely popular.

China too, I would assume, considering the generally lower wages there compared to the older industrialized nations of Japan and South Korea (and the west as a whole, pretty much.)

I haven't got a clue what the situation is in European countries.

Like Hoho already posted, the sweet-spot is around 32-42 inches right now over here, but if the shaky economy continue to persist, who knows how things will develop... As it is now however it is difficult to even find sets smaller than 32".

Hence it's harder to maintain premium pricing as it's harder to convince people that the 500 USD name brand 24" HDTV is worth 300 USD more than the 200 USD 24" HDTV.

Indeed. Much of the price difference is taken up by relatively immaterial differences like image processing - demonstrated in stores by playing excessively choppy panning imagery that seems shot at around 20fps or so. Interpolation then smoothes that out - with sometimes weird artefacts appearing as a result in non-panning images... I noticed some very weird things going on in a woman's walking legs on an otherwise stationary screen for example.

Oh... And then there's 3D too of course, but only on relatively premium models from what I've seen so far.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Newegg here in the US used to have a fair selection of HDTV's in the 20-24" range, but looks like demand for those has gotten so low in the US that there's only 19 models that are 26" or lower and 5 of those are the portable 7-9" models.

Just out of curiosity I had to go looking at a larger electronics wholesale retailer. And Buy.com has a surprising assortment of HDTVs in the under 20" (40 models) and 21-29" (48 models) range. Then again I shouldn't be "too" surprised. They make good Kitchen TVs (know a few families that have those). Large selection at Amazon.com as well.

Regards,
SB

 

[Xmas]

1680x1050, 1440x900, and 1600x900 (16:9 just like 1080p panels) all couldn't scale downwards in price like 1080p panels because they were used only in the PC market.

Those panels are very cheap. But even in the low-end market there comes a point where you can't compete solely on price.

If resolution had mattered, you would have seen 1920x1200 panels reach the price points that 1080p panels enjoy years ago. But without being used in HDTV sets, there was never any possibility for it to drop down in price to be able to compete with the 1680x1050 or 1440x900 panels.

It doesn't matter that a particular resolution wasn't successful. The price of larger, higher resolution panels has gone down continuously, leading to transitions from 15" (1024x768), to 17", 19" (1280x1024) to 20" (1680x1050), to 22", 23", 24" (1920x1080). This development will continue, even if 4K TV remained niche for the next decade.

Put it this way. Even Apple couldn't make 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 monitors the dominant computer screen resolutions despite a large push from them in this direction with the Cinema HD displays and iMac computers (1440x900, 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 displays). Despite Apple investing heavily in 1920x1200 and 2560x1600, they had limited success.

BTW - just for trivia's sake. Apple also had the 4000 USD 22" Apple Cinema Display with a very odd 1600x1024 resolution back in 1999. Guess how successful that was in moving the market? But at least it got people talking about larger displays.

Again I'm not talking about a specific resolution, but high PPI in general. Sure you can't drive mass market adoption with a $4000 monitor. It's quite a different situation with devices that sell millions.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It doesn't matter that a particular resolution wasn't successful. The price of larger, higher resolution panels has gone down continuously, leading to transitions from 15" (1024x768), to 17", 19" (1280x1024) to 20" (1680x1050), to 22", 23", 24" (1920x1080). This development will continue, even if 4K TV remained niche for the next decade.

Yes and at some point those costs cannot go down any futher. Every resolution had a minimum price floor after which it couldn't drop anymore due to a combination of manufacturing costs and demand.

If you have more people you can sell to, you can reduce your profit margin and end up making the same or more money. That's the simplest way to think of the economies of scale.

The demand for high resolution monitors (1920x1200) wasn't enough to drive the price down to be cost competitive with 1680x1050 monitors. Hence 1680x1050 dominated the computer market (after 1440x900) as it was able to reach that ~200 USD price point while 1920x1200 was stuck at ~500 USD.

1920x1080 would have shared the exact same fate as 1920x1200 if it was computer only. The demand would have been as low or lower and hence that so important economy of scale would never have kicked in.

The fact that it was a TV standard which instantly gave it 100's if not 1000's more potential buyers than it would have had in the PC market meant that economies of scale suddenly kicked in allowing manufacturer's of panels to cut margins while still making the same profit or more. This in turn not only made it cheaper for the actual display makers to make a cheaper display but they in turn could also lower profit margins driving the price even lower compared to a PC only display.

Add in the cutthroat nature of HDTV sales and suddenly manufacturer's had to reduce margins even more just to get their display to sell.

All of which makes 1080p absolutely nothing like any computer display ever sold previously in the history of computing.

Again I'm not talking about a specific resolution, but high PPI in general. Sure you can't drive mass market adoption with a $4000 monitor. It's quite a different situation with devices that sell millions.

Yes, I realize that. What you don't seem to realize is that 4k without a push in the consumer mainstream HDTV market isn't going to hit low prices. If it is constrained to the PC market it is going to be even more of a niche monitor size than 2560x1600. At best it may be as niche as 2560x1440.

4k panels (or any other high PPI resolution) without those economies of scale of the HDTV market is going to be far more expensive to manufacture than 2560x1600 panels.

Yes, they will come down in price. That's obvious. But without the consumer TV market, that is going to be a very slow process.

Regards,
SB

 

[Xmas]

The demand for high resolution monitors (1920x1200) wasn't enough to drive the price down to be cost competitive with 1680x1050 monitors. Hence 1680x1050 dominated the computer market (after 1440x900) as it was able to reach that ~200 USD price point while 1920x1200 was stuck at ~500 USD.

1920x1080 would have shared the exact same fate as 1920x1200 if it was computer only. The demand would have been as low or lower and hence that so important economy of scale would never have kicked in.

Some resolution higher than 1680x1050 would have become widespread along with monitors >20" in any case. 1080p as TV standard certainly accelerated adoption, and basically determined the winner of this round. But while 1080p might be more dominant than other resolutions before it, it will still be replaced as technological progress reduces the cost of manufacturing larger and/or denser panels.

Yes, I realize that. What you don't seem to realize is that 4k without a push in the consumer mainstream HDTV market isn't going to hit low prices. If it is constrained to the PC market it is going to be even more of a niche monitor size than 2560x1600. At best it may be as niche as 2560x1440.

4k panels (or any other high PPI resolution) without those economies of scale of the HDTV market is going to be far more expensive to manufacture than 2560x1600 panels.

The HDTV market doesn't drive down prices for tablet or notebook panels. But that's where high PPI is likely to become widespread first, which will lead to increased user expectations as well as improved manufacturing processes. That in turn enables high PPI panels >20" to become affordable.