LCD Monitor at 2048x1280?

Traciatim · Post by **Traciatim** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 8:33 pm

I'm trying to track down if anyone makes an LCD monitor that is a widescreen and runs 2048x1280? I would really like to make something myself like the http://www.digitaltigers.com/zenview-powertrio24x.shtml but I would prefer to have the two 1280x1024 portrait panels to have the same vertical resolution as the center LCD to avoid the mouse catching on the corners when doing the tri-monitor.

Traciatim

P.S. I know it's not really a silent PC question, but I'm hoping to also be building a PC once I can afford it and the monitor and would like to have it low power all around, but still very useful.

Vaiski · Post by **Vaiski** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 9:35 pm

Well, Apple 30" for instance, although it's native resolution is 2560x1600.

jackylman · Post by **jackylman** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 10:58 pm

Sorry, the 24"ers are 1920x1200.

Traciatim · Post by **Traciatim** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 5:18 am

I have no clue why they wouldn't have made the 1920x1200 panels as 2048x1280 considering then you would be able to exactly fit two 1024 wide windows on the screen. With 960 x 2 you can fit two 800 pixel wide windows with extra wasted space, but you can't quite fit two 1024 wide ones, making some web sites and apps need to overlap/squish.

Why must everything in fixed resolution displays be a huge compromise? Want colour clarity, well you can have that but not with a fast display. Want a fast display, sure no problem . . . as long as you like to imagine what the colour could look like on a good display. Want to watch things without having to scale them making a huge mess of blurry disgusting slop. . . we can do that as long as you make sure everything you do is in one standard resolution, or you buy multiple displays. The only advantage I can see is power consumption and size. I'm thinking I'm going to look for a good quality used 24" wide CRT, it's the only way to get everything without a huge amount of downside.

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 1:08 pm

Traciatim wrote:I have no clue why they wouldn't have made the 1920x1200 panels as 2048x1280 considering then you would be able to exactly fit two 1024 wide windows on the screen. With 960 x 2 you can fit two 800 pixel wide windows with extra wasted space, but you can't quite fit two 1024 wide ones, making some web sites and apps need to overlap/squish.

You can buy 4/3 aspect ratio CRTsthat have a resolution of 2048x1536, which would meet your needs. Like someone also mentioned, you could buy one of the Dell or Apple 30" monitors. The Dell can be had for about $1100 when deals are going on.

The 1920x1200 resolution was choosen to match the width of 1080p/i video (which is 1920 pixels) to prevent scaling of the video. I tried to figure out why the broadcasting industry settled on 1080p (I did find that 1080p is refered to as the "Common Image Format"), but it seems to be based largely around everyone arriving at a consensus figure so a compatible standard is being used rather than any single technical requirement. For what it's worth, there is no good reason for a computer monitor to be 1024 pixels wide other than compatibility with applications and web sites that arguably should resolve their issues with a resolution dependancy. The general rule of thumb is that web site should be capable of rendering on 800x600 displays, and it's good practice to function on 640 pixel widths. Applications that have a dependancy on a certain pixel width are poorly designed.

One could make the powers of 2 argument (1024 being 2^10, and 2048 being 2^11), but clearly that's not a very substantial issue given that most output formats these days are not a power of 2. The idea originally had been that it was more efficient, but that's not a very compelling reason anymore.

I'm thinking I'm going to look for a good quality used 24" wide CRT, it's the only way to get everything without a huge amount of downside.

The downside here is when you try to lift the thing and throw your back out. Or find out you need two feet of depth behind the monitor on your desk.

TheRove · Post by **TheRove** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 3:08 pm

Instead of trying to find a monitor with as obscure as a resolution as 2048*1280, there are plenty of other ways to configure a seamless 3 monitor setup. I'm currently using a Samsung 244T and a Samsung 214T. They both use the same panel, have the same stand and encasing and both are 1200 pixels high. The 244T is 1920*1200 and the 214T is 1600*1200. If you added another 214T you'd have a perfect tri-monitor setup in my opinion. Overkill for my needs though. I don't have a camera available right now or I'd take a picture.

Another option is a 30" center display with a 2560*1600 resolution with 2 20" 1600*1200 displays on the sides in portrait mode. Like this: http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2006/2/ ... wfp-04.jpg

Traciatim · Post by **Traciatim** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 7:14 pm

The problem with the 244T and 214T is that I was really looking forward to having the two side monitors in portrait mode so that they would actually be 3:4 rather than 4:3, so I need to find monitors with the same horizontal resolution as I would the vertical resolution of my 'main' monitor. This way I could keep two separate websites or whatever on the outside monitors on a cheaper dual output video card and keep the main monitor with a powerful card for movies/games, my main data that I'm working on, and whatever else important it going on.

I do actually currently have a 21" Dell rebranded Trinitron that does 2048x1536@75hz and I regularly run at 1600x1200@85hz. The only game i really play is Soldat which switches to 640x480 which, for obvious reasons, looks like a big mess on any LCD.

Maybe one day someone will invent a display solution that's better than CRT and people will actually buy it so it will be cheap. I guess for now I'll only dream of my ultimate tri-monitor, or buy a house with a room big enough to fit 3 nice CRT monitors.

student · Post by **student** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:26 pm

The next big display technology is based on millions of pixel sized CRT's arrayed to make flatpanels. It looks like the CRT is here to stay for a while.

Traciatim · Post by **Traciatim** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 7:47 am

URL Please? Plus, if that was really the case it would probably still be a crapy fixed resolution panel. I would like to read up on the technology though.

student · Post by **student** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 8:18 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-co ... er_display

Slaugh · Post by **Slaugh** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 9:49 pm

There's also a good article on Behardware:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: SED

[...]

In fact, SED seems to be the natural son of TFT and CRT monitors. It combines the thinness of the first and the qualities of the second and improves them. Like cathode-ray tube TVs, SED technology is based on the collision of electrons and phosphoric monitor to emit light. Still, unlike cathode-ray tubes, there isnâ€™t a single gun for the monitor, but a mini electron gun behind each sub-pixel! 1920 x 1080 x 3 = 6.2 million of guns

Response time : inferior to 1 ms

Contrast ratio : 100,000:1 (brightness is of 400 cd/mÂ²)

Viewing angles : complete, 180Â° in each directions

dwkdnvr · Post by **dwkdnvr** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 5:01 pm

Have you looked into whether Powerstrip can help? I know folks in the HTPC world use it to create 'display within a display' type effects that change the active resolution of the monitor. An example of the HTPC use would be to create a 1024x576 active window within a 1024x768 display. You might be able to limit your side-panel resolution down to 1024x1200 (portrait) to match a 1920x1200 center panel.

Your idea intrigues me - is it 'easy' to flip the side panels to portrait, or do you need a special setup? A 'budget' setup using a 1680x1050 and two 1024x768 panels might be pretty cool. I'll have to see whether a dual-output card + onboard video can do this.