zed's resolution rant *spawn

[function]

Pretty cool, I'll have to keep an eye on that Dell monitor. It has a 6-bit screen which I normally avoid but since that screen is "mostly" for documents it shouldn't be that bad. The lack of a 6 in 1 card reader though will be a big loss. Means I'd have to actually buy one driving up overall cost.

eIPS panels seem very popular now in better-than TN 16:9 monitors. These 6-bit panels use some kind of colour switching to create in-between colours, and the monitor review sites reckon it's almost indistinguishable from old 8-bit standard gamut screens (unlike 6-bit TN panels which definitely still suffer).

I'd like to see one before I buy bth, but I can't find them in any stores and the only 16:10 alternatives are either old and out of stock or extended gamut things that are really expensive (and have strange quirks).

Scaler shouldn't be a problem with either PC or X360 where you can let those do the scaling for you.

The 360 can't output anything above 1920 x 1080, and the very limited scaler in the Dell monitor means the 16:9 Xbox output gets vertically stretched to 16:10 so everything would look pretty bad. You could set the 360 to 1680 x 1050 (which letterboxes the 16:9 output) then let the monitor scale to full screen, but then you get a double scale which won't look good at the best of times, and I think the Dell scalers can have issues with small percentage upscales (my 1600 monitor does badly with a 1440 input for example and nothing seems to have changed).

 

[zed]

@Shifty Geezer I didnt say 1600x1200 was the most common resolution, I said it was the 'highest typical res' i.e. the max res a standard (non professional monitor could pump out)
youve been around for a while, true not as long as me but even still Im pretty sure you can remember the time when the vast majority of mmonitors were 4:3 ratio (16:12) usually CRT monitors. Now sometime in the last decade, (Im not sure exactly when? ~2005 perhaps) we started getting 16:10 monitors usually (all perhaps) LCDs, nowadays even 16:9 is becoming more common.
Whats next I wonder super wide screen of 16:8 or 16:6 Oh happy happy joy joy
As others have said here widescreen is typically worse for most things we use a PC for than 4:3 ratios, look on your keyboard, see the page up/down (now find the page left/right keys )
@function yes when I had two monitors on the same machine, I have a 1920x1200 and a 1600x1200 (flipped to portrait mode)

Now back to my rant on price & higher resolutions, heres the largest PC place here in the south island of NZ
http://www.dragonpc.co.nz/c.aspx?r=1e&c=Hardware&s=Monitor+%2f+LCD
from quickly looking ~200 monitors, perhaps 4 at 1920x1200 all the rest AFAIKS at worse resolution! (my main monitor 1920x1200 is 4 years old, wheres the progress? (*)), the reason this isnt happening is cause whilst theres 100s of monitors at 1080p we have only a handful at ~2560x1600 thus limited competition.

(*)I doubt my CPU/GPU from 4 years ago would be in the top 5% performing now, yet with monitors it is, even worse we've gone backwards

see here highest resolution 1920x1200 was more a year ago than today! (its getting replaced with 1920x1080)
like I mentioned earlier (that was scoffed at)
640x480 > 800x600 > 1024x768 > 1280x1024 > 1600x1200 > 1920x1200 > 1920x1080

from wiki (which tends to show 16:10 happening a lot earlier than I remember, around ~2000)

The gradual change of the favored aspect ratio of mass market display industry products, from 4:3, then to 16:10, and then to 16:9,
.....
By 2011, the 16:10 aspect ratio had virtually disappeared from the laptop display market. One artifact is that the highest available resolution in laptop displays moved downward in this time frame (i.e., the move from 1920×1200 laptop displays to 1920×1080 displays).

Just like Ive been saying,

 

[patsu]

Where does this OP quote come from ?

surely its not a stretch to think these machine will be aiming for higher resolutions over the next 8 years??

It's not just higher resolution. Multiple views may become more common, specifically multiplayer (or multiple displays ala WiiU pads), 3D and holographic display; perhaps all at the same time. The processing power and bandwidth needs may be there even without 4K display.

2D resolution needs will evolve slowly because display lasts a few years or a good decade. Small businesses usually go for the cheapest PC and monitor, professional organizations may want the best but their numbers are too small. Popular devices are more mobile-oriented these days.

HDTV numbers will only be a small part of the total display units because it's not in the fast growth area. People also don't surf from the living room compared to say mobile and office web surfing (Those reading display stats from websites).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

@Shifty Geezer I didnt say 1600x1200 was the most common resolution, I said it was the 'highest typical res' i.e. the max res a standard (non professional monitor could pump out)

Okay. I don't think many read it that way, especially with your follow-up "1600x1200 was reasonably common ~5 years ago (I saw it first last century)". I guess another way of saying it is that when shopping for a decent, highish end monitor, without wanting to break the bank, 1600x1200's were fairly commonplace, but now they are niche. You might be right on that; I've never shopped much for monitors.

youve been around for a while, true not as long as me but even still Im pretty sure you can remember the time when the vast majority of mmonitors were 4:3 ratio (16:12) usually CRT monitors. Now sometime in the last decade, (Im not sure exactly when? ~2005 perhaps) we started getting 16:10 monitors usually (all perhaps) LCDs, nowadays even 16:9 is becoming more common.

That was due to people using their PCs as much for entertainment as productivity (or at least beomcing familiar with widescreen TVs), and that looks better filling than screen than with horizontal margins.

Whats next I wonder super wide screen of 16:8 or 16:6 Oh happy happy joy joy

Not unless that becomes common in source material, but if the majority content remains 16:9, margins on the sides will never be welcome methinks. But even then, if the overall screen resolution is high enough then what does it matter? If you had the choice between paying $500 for a 4:3 2130x1600 display, or $500 for a 4260x1600 16:6 display where you can have three full documents open side-by-side, I'm sure you won't begrudge the aspect ratio!

As others have said here widescreen is typically worse for most things we use a PC for than 4:3 ratios, look on your keyboard, see the page up/down (now find the page left/right keys )

Those page/up buttons were invented when the screen could only fit 40 rows of characters. We also format text to be read downwards. If we had 9:16 monitors and text was formatted to run over the right edge, we'd be scrolling left and right all the time. We'd never format the text to run off the right edge for that reason. Go read a book in Notepad with wordwrap turned off. The actual amount of room needed for reading or typing is pretty little - here's me typing into a small text box. It's only a matter of comfort to have a large work area and jump around the content. I agree those working on DTP or are tracing through a load of code and similar can benefit from better layout views, but screen estate doesn't really matter. Ultimately if you want 1600 vertical pixels of resolution then you get that with a 1:1 1600 x 1600 square monitor, a 4:3 2130 x 1600 display, and a 16:9 2840 x 1600, or even a 1:4 400 x 1600 display. Aspect doesn't really enter into it. And for portrait work a 16:9 monitor turned is pretty good, so for a pretty low price thanks to 1080p panels being so common, you can have 1080 x 1920 viewing. I'm not convinced 4:3 is in any way an ideal ratio for any activities except 4:3 media. Having enough screen estate and resolution overall is what matters. The common high-end resolution is still going up.

By 2011, the 16:10 aspect ratio had virtually disappeared from the laptop display market. One artifact is that the highest available resolution in laptop displays moved downward in this time frame (i.e., the move from 1920×1200 laptop displays to 1920×1080 displays).

Because laptops are used for watching 16:9 DVDs and nothing more demanding, so vertical screen space isn't important. I'd even say that a reason higher resolution monitors are less common than before is because the minimum resolutions are very functional, basically diminshing returns. At a time when TV sets were 720x576, proprietary monitors needed to push resolution up to 1024x768 and 1200x1024. Now that TVs are higher resolution, monitors can share the same panels, with the need for higher resoutions more niche than ever before, the market much smaller, and so the number of players and options much reduced. That there's why you find it hard to find higher resolution monitors - we've got to a point where the 'low resolution' is plenty high enough!

Anyway, wait a few years and you'll be able to grab yourself some 2k display.

 

[zed]

but if the majority content remains 16:9

But its not,
The single most widely used thing on a PC/laptop/tablet is browsing the internet. Prolly used more than all the rest of the stuff together in actual time.
Yet the vast majority of pages are optimized for eg 1024*X resolutions, i.e. we see bars on the sides.

If we had 9:16 monitors and text was formatted to run over the right edge, we'd be scrolling left and right all the time

pick up a book, notice its portrait orientated, or the newspaper/magazines (where they even break the text up into smaller columns still!, the reason is its easier to read due to less eye/head movement)

yes 16:10/16:9 is better for most(*) films (I have no probs with tvs being that ratio)

(*)though I hazard a guess if you picked a top 100 films of alltime ~4:3 would be the most common format
and before someone saiz impossible think
Gone with the wind
All about Eve
The Shining
Casablanca
Citizen Kane
Rocky
etc

 

[AlphaWolf]

But its not,
The single most widely used thing on a PC/laptop/tablet is browsing the internet. Prolly used more than all the rest of the stuff together in actual time.
Yet the vast majority of pages are optimized for eg 1024*X resolutions, i.e. we see bars on the sides.


pick up a book, notice its portrait orientated, or the newspaper/magazines (where they even break the text up into smaller columns still!, the reason is its easier to read due to less eye/head movement)

yes 16:10/16:9 is better for most(*) films (I have no probs with tvs being that ratio)

(*)though I hazard a guess if you picked a top 100 films of alltime ~4:3 would be the most common format
and before someone saiz impossible think
Gone with the wind
All about Eve
The Shining
Casablanca
Citizen Kane
Rocky
etc

So what you're saying is you should be using a 1080 monitor in portrait.

And I'm pretty sure Rocky was shot in widescreen (1.85:1) and the Shining and almost any popular movies from the 1970s and beyond, even older movies like Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge over the River Kwai (all 2.35:1 I believe). I doubt the top 100 of all time would be primarily 4:3, of course that would depend entirely upon your criteria for determining the top 100.

I agree in principle, I'd love to see more options for higher resolution displays, I had a hard time giving up my old 2048x1536 CRT, although at 90lbs it makes a wonderful boat anchor.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Anyway, wait a few years and you'll be able to grab yourself some 2k display.

Isn't 2k just something they use in filming. The resolution is almost identical to 1080p. 2k comes from the amount of pixels on a horizontal line.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Isn't 2k just something they use in filming. The resolution is almost identical to 1080p. 2k comes from the amount of pixels on a horizontal line.

nah

http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/09/panasonic-outs-worlds-smallest-and-thinnest-4k-x-2k-ips-lcd-m/

There's actually been displays at or above that kind of resolution for years, they are just priced well beyond most peoples means.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

That's a 4k display with Something like 3840 pixels (around 4k) on a horizontal line.

 

[AlphaWolf]

That's a 4k display with Something like 3840 pixels on a horizontal line.

after checking from what I can see it's not technically either, it's a WQUXGA display.

Projectors refer to 2k as 2048x1080, and double that as 4k. But I've seen the term differently in other places, I'm not sure there's any real naming convention

 

[DuckThor Evil]

4K is 1080P times 2 in both directions having 4x the pixel count. The standard seems to vary a bit(4096x2160 etc), but that's what it basically is.

 

[AlphaWolf]

ya checking around the deal for film is the horizontal is the only thing that matters, because they can just letterbox for the vertical so it varies. So 2k wouldn't be much of an improvement for a display.

For monitors it doesn't look like you should expect anything much between 2560x1440 (quad HD) and the QFHD (quad full HD) stuff (although there have been a pile of them in the past), although if all you want is real estate, multi-monitor will be a much cheaper alternative for the foreseeable future.

 

[function]

For the digitally remastered classic Star Trek that I recently watched on telly, all they did to make it "widescreen" was chop off the top and bottom of the picture and zoom in. Everything is incorrectly framed now, and you get 25% less Star Trek.

Widescreen is cool but "widescreen" sucks. God damn the "widescreen" generation.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But its not,
The single most widely used thing on a PC/laptop/tablet is browsing the internet. Prolly used more than all the rest of the stuff together in actual time.
Yet the vast majority of pages are optimized for eg 1024*X resolutions, i.e. we see bars on the sides.

Whereas if we had thin portrait monitors as standard, we'd have scrollbars at the bottom and have a terrible time reading. Or rather, we'd format differently. It's easy to scroll up and down, and that allows infinite page lengths, something tying yourself to a monitor's width could never provide. Reading a thread of this forum, I don't need to see it all in one go. You only really need one line at a time, with neightbours for tracking, although it's more comfortable to see more. But would you actually be better off if you had an amazing display that could show a whole newspaper in one vertical page without having to scroll??

pick up a book, notice its portrait orientated, or the newspaper/magazines (where they even break the text up into smaller columns still!, the reason is its easier to read due to less eye/head movement)

And you can and do break up the widescreen dsplay into columns. like I say, the only thing that matters in actuality is vertical resolution, if you can fit as much as you need to see at once. Margins either side don't matter as they can be used for workspace or just ignored. Whereas a narrow display doesn't work well for media.

(*)though I hazard a guess if you picked a top 100 films of alltime ~4:3 would be the most common format

What matters is the content people watch, and if they are most interested in watching new content at 16:9, the format of old films is immaterial. But even then that's a pretty pointless metric. Old films were made in 4:3, so we should keep all monitors at 4:3? Some of the classics, but not all of them, and it'll be a very subjective list, are 4:3, so we should stick to 4:3 monitors?

I'll repeat myself on resolution. If you want 1600 pixels vertical resolution, that can come on any format. If you personally want a portrait display because you are more comfortable with it, then flip a widescreen. As such, there is no common market any more for higher resolution, 4:3 displays, and they are niche, and will remain niche. There's no logical reason why the PC space should return to 4:3 monitors. Just up the resolution, if need be, which for all but professionals (and hobbyists) is fine.

Isn't 2k just something they use in filming. The resolution is almost identical to 1080p. 2k comes from the amount of pixels on a horizontal line.

I've heard and used 2k to mean number of rows, same as 720p and 1080p counting rows. It doesn't make sense to go from counting rows to counting columns, especially without any qualification in the sudden change in terminology...

Googling this though, I find this which agrees with you, and just goes to show there are no limits to the idiocy of the cinematography industry!

 

[tuna]

Googling this though, I find this which agrees with you, and just goes to show there are no limits to the idiocy of the cinematography industry!

What is idiotic in the link you posted? Seems pretty reasonable to me....

 

[Rurouni]

I believe the term 2k, 3k and anything with k are about horizontal (column) resolution. So the new red scarlet is a 4k cam, which records 4096x2160 video (according to wikipedia, it can record up to 5k but at 12fps).
So... Yeah, k is about horizontal res. That is why the next jump in display is about 4k display and not 2k.

Edit: mixed vertical with horizontal. I need some sleep.

 

[AlphaWolf]

as I said above for the film industry they use horizontal because vertical is not fixed, I suppose they will find a new convention for LCD.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

And for portrait work a 16:9 monitor turned is pretty good, so for a pretty low price thanks to 1080p panels being so common, you can have 1080 x 1920 viewing. I'm not convinced 4:3 is in any way an ideal ratio for any activities except 4:3 media.

1080 starts to get too narrow to work with comfortable when in portrait mode. Just like a 1920x1080 monitor is uncomfortable to work with in lanscape mode for any type of document work.

As well you end up with a ton of wasted screen space with a 1080x1920 resolution. The same issues exist with 16:10 monitors in portrait. But at least the width is then more comfortable even if you still end up wasting a ton of space top and bottom. I suppose this is mainly due to working with documents in standard A4 sizes (or US letter - 8.5"x11").

I suppose if working with US Legal size documents (8.5"x14") were more common then 16:10 in portrait makes more sense.

As it is, I use my 20" 4:3 monitor in portrait for the majority of single document work, then 30" in landscape for photographic and side by side layouts, and the 24" 16:10 monitor in portrait is limited almost entirely to web page viewing and almost nothing else although I do use it occasionally for document work as well.

Another interesting footnote. 1080 width also makes web surfing sometimes inconvenient as some pages for a few sites are created with expectations of a width of 1280 (but usually then adjust to 1200 to also meet the needs of people with 1600:1200 and 1920x1200 users in portrait) although some sites have expectations of 1024 or 800 width depending on the demographic they are targetting.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

4K is 1080P times 2 in both directions having 4x the pixel count. The standard seems to vary a bit(4096x2160 etc), but that's what it basically is.

That's only a few of the competing 4k standards. 3840x2160 (film), 3840x2400 (computing), 4096x2160 (film and TV), and a few others that I've seen TV and monitor makers propose or making prototypes of.

But yes a people noted "k" is being used to denote the horizonal resolution of a display or source material while "p" is used to denote the verticle resolution of a display or source material. Either way it's just marketing or industry speak.

Regards,
SB

 

[zed]

So what you're saying is you should be using a 1080 monitor in portrait.

No Im against 16:9 monitors fullstop for PCs, the thing is 4:3 looks OK horizontal or vertical.
Part of the reason why apple choose it for the Ipad (one of the few good design choices they made)

And I'm pretty sure Rocky was shot in widescreen (1.85:1) and the Shining and almost any popular movies from the 1970s and beyond, even older movies like Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge over the River Kwai (all 2.35:1 I believe). I doubt the top 100 of all time would be primarily 4:3, of course that would depend entirely upon your criteria for determining the top 100.

oh sure a top 100 would depend on who's choosing
http://www.afi.com/100years/movies.aspx
WRT Rocky Im just going from its IMDB page, sure I realize for the last 40+ years most films (not tv) has been shot at wider format 1.85:1 2.35:1 1.66:1

I agree in principle, I'd love to see more options for higher resolution displays, I had a hard time giving up my old 2048x1536 CRT, although at 90lbs it makes a wonderful boat anchor.

so whats your current home monitors resolution?

Whereas if we had thin portrait monitors as standard

mate Im not arguing for narrow portait monitors Im arguing for ~4:3 & not ~16:9 monitors
Another media, you got a camera? what ratio pictures does it take? Im guessing 4:3
Films on a PC is not a mainstream activity (most ppl use their TVs), Im one of the few that doesnt since I dont have a TV.