Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

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hesnotthemessiah
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Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by hesnotthemessiah »

I have been trying to get my head around pixel resolutions/monitor display sizes and how they affect how much you can actually view on screen. Can't really find any explanation on the net for what I need to know. I currently use two Acer AL2416W 24" monitors. These have only got analog inputs - no DVI. I use them at their max res. of 1920x1200 and they have been great for the price.

I want to get one more monitor so that I can view Cubase over my 2 Acer 24" monitors and then view the Sonic Core Xite over the new monitor. I really need quite a bit of screen space for the Xite. Ideally I would like to go for something larger than a 24". 28" would be good. 30" would be very nice but very expensive. The thing is, all the monitors that I have found that are within my price range have a max. res. of 1900 x 1200.

Please tell me if I have got the following correct or not:-

If I was to buy a 28" monitor with the max res. of 1920x1200 then I wouldn't be able view more on the screen than if I bought a 24" monitor with the same max res. of 1920x1200. The 28" monitor would just be able to display the same image as the 24". The 28 would be "blockier" and probably better for viewing at longer distances than the 24".
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by cortone »

hesnotthemessiah,

You could check out this link:

http://www.thescreamonline.com/technolo ... _res.html

It gives some pretty good descriptions, and then gets into the details. I didn't make it all the way to the end. The first graph shows quality comparisons vs. screen size. It only goes to 21", but the next step out probably confirms what you are saying in regards to the blockier 28" picture, but I think it would still be considered in the 'good' category. Blockiness may not be noticeable. Based on this article, you would want a 28" screen at the next bump up in resolution (and I'm sure, price) for the best "viewability." The quality of the newer screens themselves probably has an impact as well.

Any reviews of the two models online? Is there someplace you can go take a look?

Hope that helps,
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spacef
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by spacef »

correct, you need something that can do higher resolution (2200*1600 is the next size i think)
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by Neutron »

sometimes dell has their 30" one on sale, it is the same panel as the apple one, and very nice i would rather use that at home if i could buy one before something else shiny distracts me.

i have 3 monitors at work on 2 good quadro cards, personally i would not do 3 monitors without 3 cards, (even cheaper ones) some motherboards have 3 video card slots now, even 4

2 monitors on 1 card is fine, 2 on 2 is fine, but 3 monitors on 2 cards just doesnt work out so great. the card that has to do the 2 really is slow compared to the main one and it slows the whole OS down.
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by Shroomz~> »

You can get the 30" Dell (2560 x 1600) that Neutron's talking about on Ebay for £755. It's excess Dell stock, but comes with a full 3 year warranty & the New price for one of these in the UK is almost £1400. Looks like a great deal to me. - DELL 30" 3008WFP REV A02 NEW
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hesnotthemessiah
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by hesnotthemessiah »

Thanks for your help chaps. :)

Looks like I am going to have to sell my UAD1 cards/plugins and Magma Chassis to afford a 30" 2560x1600 monitor. Cheapest I have seen is about £800. I think I am going to need some more screen space to display my Xite stuff though as more DSP means more devices means more connections means more screen space needed for the Routing Window. Thinking about it, I could fit in two more 24" monitors so that I would have four 24" monitors in total with pixel res. of 1900 x 1200 on each. Two for Cubase and two for Xite. Two 24" monitors at 1900x1200 would be cheaper plus give me more screen space than one 30" at 2560x1600.

Bit worried about your comments concerning running 3 monitors on 2 cards Neutron. :o I would be using two Gainward 8400 GS 512MB cards http://www.gainward.com/main/vgapro.php?id=94 . GPU clock speed 567MHz. Memory clock speed 350MHz. Bandwidth 8 GB/s. Ramdac 400MHz. Just waiting on my new PC from Scan:- Motherboard Gigabyte EX58-UD4. CPU Intel i7 975 Extreme 3.33GHz 6.4GT s QPI. Do you really think there could be problems with running 3 or 4 24" monitors at 1900x1200 with this setup? Would running 3 or 4 monitors like this have an effect on the available bandwidth for other PCI/PCIE cards like my Xite?
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by Shroomz~> »

Just a personal opinion here, but if I was in your shoes, I'd consider spending the extra lolly to get the 2560 x 1600 30" screen. 2 x 24" screens will only give you about 23% more screen space than a single 2560 x 1600 & you would always have the option to save up for a second 30" screen to eventually give you 5120 x 1600 screen space for running XITE-1 on. :)
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hesnotthemessiah
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by hesnotthemessiah »

Shroomz~> wrote:Just a personal opinion here, but if I was in your shoes, I'd consider spending the extra lolly to get the 2560 x 1600 30" screen. 2 x 24" screens will only give you about 23% more screen space than a single 2560 x 1600 & you would always have the option to save up for a second 30" screen to eventually give you 5120 x 1600 screen space for running XITE-1 on. :)
Problem is the only place I could fit a 30" screen would be to the left of where I sit. Alternatively, I could place two 24" screens there instead. Both infront of me and also to my right, I have room for one 24" screen. So, for sometime yet at least, I can't see a way of gettiing two 30" monitors into my "studio" (and getting the funds to afford two could take sometime aswell!) A decent LG 24" 1920x1200 monitor is about £220.oo inc delivery http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/24-LG-W2 ... -Black-DVI two of these along with my two Acer 24" monitors would give me 7680x4800. Should be plenty of screen space for Cubase and Xite to get along together! :)
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by next to nothing »

i think it would be more correct to say 7680x1200 :)

i know, its nitpicking :)
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by netguyjoel »

either way...it's a shitload of realestate :wink:
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valis
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by valis »

I've got 3 monitors here that are essentially that format, though it's 24" 1920x1200 on the left, 27" 1920x1200 in the middle and 24" 1920x1080 on the right. I find it much more useful to use them across 3 different pc's though I could technically hook them all up to the primary machine at once. Atm only the right hand monitor toggles an input when I need more real-estate for my primary task.

I had considered a 30" too but I chose 27" both because the larger pixels meant I could locate it further away and save eyestrain (further natural resting point for my eye's focus) and because the 30" models require a lot more horsepower. Even in 2d mode you need a dual-link capable card & cable, and that's not nearly as hard as it was 2-3 years ago but the cable itself will at least still be an added purchase, and if using 'inexpensive' passive graphics cards you may have to double check to make sure the port is dual link capable (most upper tier cards are fully capable now on both ports). Also if you do any gaming (or high end 3d stuff) to do real work/gaming at native resolution means you wind up having to use SLI/Crossfire (multiple cards and massive power supplies) OR the newer dual-gpu cards. Not something relevant to most here but it's worth considering. Using a single card in non-native resolution for the monitor will net you 30-50ms worth of input latency (the dsp engine in the dell & samsung models vary between 2-3 frames of processing @ 60hz when doing the scaling.) Tack on the slower response of the pva/ips type panels and you will have quite a bit more 'lag' than you'd expect. Again not something a DAW-only machine may care about, but these issues are all a concern to me. I wound up with 15ms input latency at native res with this 27"...

And hesnotthemessiah, to answer one of your original questions... When 2 monitors have the same pixel resolutions (1920x1200) but come in different sizes, what actually changes is the size of the pixels themselves. So (as you know now I think) the amount of data displayed is the same. Using windows DPI settings only allows one to make fonts larger (or smaller) to compensate for aging eyes, it doesn't actually change any other onscreen drawing functions. So if you turn DPI settings UP you'll actually perhaps see less data, due to menu bars and other onscreen elements needing to render the fonts larger.

Pixel densities are going up though, I would expect in another few years we'll be using panels that work at 120hz with LED backlighting (or perhaps OLED) and have pixel densities getting closer to print. Noone will want 72 to 96dpi fonts at that point (12pt might be 1-2cm large) but having fonts displayed at 180dpi where they were at 96dpi before and being the same 'apparent' size with more pixels will make things much more readable imo, especially with graphical UI's important in things like audio software.
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by eric »

No-one mentioned form factor here. Diagonal size does not take into account the "shape" of the screen.
The trend is 16x9 but I used a 5x4 1240x1028 with SFP at the top and Cubase at the bottom until recently. I just changed to a 20" 16x9 because of the space constraints, it sits inside a 19" rack space at the bottom. I can still run one above the other and with slightly less actual height (less 128 pixel rows) and a lot more actual width (560 pixel columns) at 1600x900 (the optimum resolution for the monitor) The overall effect is a bigger screen and easier to see. I really need 2 screens and am looking at an option where the second screen fits in a 1-1.5 U rack space and slides out and folds down so I can put it in the top slot of the rack space. It will cover some units but not ones that require very much front panel access.

Eric.
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by valis »

Indeed, 16:9 for 1920 is 1920x1080 (1080p for hdtv enthusiasta but that actually has a different pixel ratio still when displayed on a 'pc'). and 16:10 is 1920x1200, hence the extra 'start menu' area. 16:10 is actually quite a good resolution for timeline based applications like your sequencer/DAW, but scope has different needs due to it's "vertically" stacked routing so that's a good point as well.
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by eric »

valis wrote:Indeed, 16:9 for 1920 is 1920x1080 (1080p for hdtv enthusiasta but that actually has a different pixel ratio still when displayed on a 'pc'). and 16:10 is 1920x1200, hence the extra 'start menu' area. 16:10 is actually quite a good resolution for timeline based applications like your sequencer/DAW, but scope has different needs due to it's "vertically" stacked routing so that's a good point as well.
I always run the Nokia monitor test (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia ... Test.shtml) when setting up because I want circular circles NOT elipses! :) If you run a resolution higher than the natural resolution for that monitor you get blurry bits and it's annoying.

Eric.

edit. This monitor I'm using now is 1680x1050 and is only 20" wide. I will be taking this one for the studio! :D
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by valis »

Agree about the necessity of using the native resolution of any LCD though, you're just asking for blurry eyes otherwise...

What I meant though was...if you get a 1920x1080p HDTV and watch a blu-ray or HD video on it, it will fill the 16:9 screen (assuming the movie is 16:9). Play the same thing on a computer LCD and it won't, because NTSC & PAL have non-square pixels (vertically larger). Playing it back on a computer monitor yields 90% of the vertical height you need, but most media players allow you to 'add that back'.

Also find it entertaining when people buy HDTV's for computer use, almost all HDTV processors (the tuner+dsp inside) will not expose the native resolution of the monitor. Modern graphics card drivers & OS's are smart enough now to keep text from looking stretched vertically but your vertical pixels will always get a bit of smudging, assuming you're able to at least hit your horizontal resolution (1920 is do-able, but most 720p monitors only give you 1360x768 or 1366x768 as exposed by the monitor, while native panel res is more on the order of 1440x900).
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hesnotthemessiah
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes.......

Post by hesnotthemessiah »

Thanks for the info fellow Zers. :wink: I should be getting my PC this Friday and my Xite at about the same time. As explained, I really could do with more screen space and I think that two more 24" monitors running at 1920x1200 would be my best option to expand my current setup to four 24" monitors. I would position the 4 monitors in Windows XP's Display Properties to form a rectangle (4 monitors:- 2highx2wide) with a total screen space of 3840x2400 (is that right next to nothing? :P ). Damn, this is so hard to explain without pictures! Anyways, loads of screen space and I will be anle to navigate to and from Cubase and the Xite pretty quickly and easily this way. Xite will take up the two screens in the first column and Cubase the two screens in the second column. The two Xite monitors will actually be positioned to my left. The two Cubase monitors will be setup with one right in front of me and the other to my right.

The new PC, Xite and monitors are going to put a serious dent into my redundancy pay that I got about a month ago. I am thinking of selling my UAD plugins, Magma Chassis and UAD1 cards so that I could have a few extra months off to really make serious use of the new setup - it's going to take a few weeks just to get everything installed (plugins to reinstall :o ) and for me to get the system running as I want and then I still have to learn how to use Cubase5. But I do love the UAD plugins which I have seriously invested in and feel I may regret selling them as I am sure I won't get anywhere near what I payed for them. I don't think it's a good idea to sell if you are not 100% sure that you won't miss it or if you are not desperate for money...... so it looks like I am going to have to make a serious effort now to look for work...which means less time to play with my new toys!! I was going to travel a bit during the summer and then start looking for work...but I think I have made a good investment with my new PC and Xite instead. :wink:
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Re: Monitor display pixel resolutions and screen sizes......

Post by ronnie »

I know this is an old thread but I just came across it in a search. You see, I have two old SCEPTRE 20" monitors (12 years old) connected to my SCOPE box, each which display at 1280x1024. While screensets are a great thing, I felt the need to get more real estate on the screens. I came across a post through Google that said it's possible to boost the native resolution without hurting anything. I decided to give it a try and it works! The screens are not as sharp but with some tweaking are very acceptable at 1440x1080. I could go more but it's hard to read. The 1440x1080 on each gives me enough to get pretty much everything across both monitors! While prolly not as sharp as a native 2880x2160 it's a heck of a lot cheaper and there's no perceptible latency at all on meters, etc.
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