Double Your Fun with DoubleSight

Lothar writes "If you are looking for another reason to throw out that old CRT and upgrade to LCDs here it is. The DoubleSight DS-1900 packs two 19" LCD panels in a neat package and will take up less total space than that cathode ray tube whic has created the permanent bow in your desk. You will end up with 2560x1024 pixels of screen real estate, enough to increase productivity substantially, but you won't have to sacrifice too much space due to the reasonable size of the display's footprint. Just another reason to go LCD..."

Comments

LCD's

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Have they eliminated "Blurring" - We have cheap LCD's at work that suck as you scroll up a web page and it "blurs".

What aboud the dead pixel policy?

Re:LCD's

[modecx]

Indeed, they've got LCDs around that claim ~10ms response time. I have a 19" touting 16ms response time, and I'm proud to say that it plays movies well, plays fast paced games well--Enemy Territory, HL2 both look beautiful, even with lots of fast movement.

Of course, there's people that will poo-poo LCDs until they render every itty-bitty thing perfectly at 100hz... As if their "super high quality" CRTs have phosphors that react fast enough to make a difference, and their eyes are from the planet Krypton....

Truthfully, I don't notice that much of a difference between this and my old CRT, except text is sharper, and I swear that colors in the magenta range seem more vibrant. The price was more than reasonable too--$360. You can find the 12 ms screens for around that now, but I needed mine in a hurry and couldn't find a place that carried them locally.

Re:LCD's

[modecx]

That's called interpolation. Not blurring, or ghosting. The monitor has to scale the image up to it's native resolution. Sometimes, a resolution that's a factor of an LCD's native resolution will look okay. This isn't an issue for most people.

What he's talking about is response time, which is the amount of time it takes an individual pixel to fully change from one color to another.. It's usually measured as the time between going from white to black, or from one grey to another grey... There is a definite, measurable response time on both LCDs and CRTs, but they have different implications.

Re:LCD's

[McGiraf]

yeah nice... but to get double sight it's cheaper to buy beer.

Re:LCD's

[drsquare]

The DoubleSight DS-1900 packs two 19" LCD panels in a neat package and will take up less total space than that cathode ray tube whic has created the permanent bow in your desk.

The bit that gets me is, it takes up more space, not less. My desk space is limited by width rather than depth. Moving from a CRT to an LCD doesn't give me extra room at the sides, it gives me more room behind or in front of the monitor. Unless these LCDs are going to be in front of each other, it's not taking up existing CRT space. If I had width-space on my desk for another monitor I'd get another CRT and save spending ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS on a monitor. That's assuming the cheap, short cables that come with monitors would actually reach the computer.

Other than the blurring/dead pixel issue, LCDs are pretty good. The image is a lot sharper and less harsh on the eyes than CRTs. Although the colours and resolutions aren't so good, for most people not doing graphic design and not playing games, they're pretty good for word processing or spreadsheets or something.

Now all they need to do is reduce the price.

Re:LCD's

[jbarket]

The real problem with these monitors is that for $1,000, you could pick up a couple of nicer 19" LCDs yourself.

As far as your space problem, my personal recommendation (having a similarly small desk) is to wall mount your LCDs.

I picked up a mount for about $40 not too long ago, and I can extent the monitor out from the wall, tilt and pivot it, et cetera. Combined with a wireless mouse and an easily stored keyboard, I can regain use of my entire desk fairly quickly.

Can't recommend it highly enough.

Re:LCD's

[NeoThermic]

Dead pixels will relate to the ISO rating class that the pannel has combined with its native resolution.

ISO 13406-2 (Class II) states that you can roughtly have 2 dead pixels per million pixels. So for a native resolution of 2560*1024, you will get nothing more than 4 dead pixels.

You can get better, of course, if the pannels are rated to Class I, they must be perfect, i.e. no dead pixels.

NeoThermic

Re:LCD's

[molnarcs]

Short answer: yes, absolutely!

Long answer:
There are 3 lcd panel technologies: TN, *VA (MVA, PVA) and IPS. TN panels have achieved a very fast response time last year. My viewsonic vx912 has a response time of ~12ms, which is fine not only for movies, but for fast paced fps as well. The downside of TN panels is the smaller viewable angles, especially the vertical ones, and 6 bit panels (that achieve 16.2 million colors with a 'trick'). Contrast ratio is average.

*VA panels had an average of 25ms - that was fine for movies, and not so fine with games. Especially since 25ms was usually the black-to-white-to-black response time, and for some colors, switching could took as much as 60ms. However, *VA panels have excellent color reproduction capabilities (truly 8 bit panels) and excellent viewing angles, and high contrast ratio. S-IPS panels has also 25ms response time, but that's more or less even for every color transition. So a 25ms S-IPS panel is much faster than a *VA, has great viewing angles, good color reproduction, and sucky contrast. Newer S-IPS panels have improved on contrasts however a lot. APPLE displays have S-IPS panels (from LG.Philips).

Recently, various panel vendors (AUO, Samsung, Fujitsu) have experimented with increasing the response time of *VA panels. You'll see those panels described as P-MVA (premium mva) or S-MVA (super MVA), that boast a grey-to-gray response time of 8ms, while having still 25ms average response for non grey to grey transitions. Still, they proved to be excellent gaming monitors even for fps, without sacrificing viewing angles and contrast like in the case of IPS and TN panels, and they are out on the market and affordable. There is little or no reason to buy CRT-s now, because LCD Monitors are actually cheaper if you don't consider the initial price only! My 19'' LCD's average power consumption is 35W. A CRT with similar size (that would be a 20'' CRT) will consume 110+ Watts. Depending on your usage pattern, the additional cost of an LCD monitor can be saved up on energy usage in one to three years. Moreover, LCD monitors have perfect geometry (important for cad related works).

I put a site, a community effort to create a table of what's what in LCD land. The site is here. direct link to monitor table, and a direct link to LCD-TV table. If you are looking for characteristics of various panels (not end products), you'll find them here.

Re:LCD's

[47F0]

Or, for just over twice the price of your wall mount (about $90 US), I picked up two used 19" Trinitron monitors - the the balance of the thousand dollars will buy you a much roomier (again, used) desk, and leave enough left over for quite a lot of beer - which, if you consume enough, will let you percieve a four-monitor setup...

"Sigs? We don't neeed no steenking sigs"

Re:LCD's

[Total_Wimp]

The pivoting part is important, at least to me. I run dual LCDs at work and each of them is on a pivoting base. We have a highly colaborative environment and it's very common for me to want/need to show something on my screen to a coworker. I can actually swivel one of the displays and then hit a hot key so that both the coworker and me are looking at the exact same material, but then reverse the process and have the ability to use both screens as one giant display. If I had a single base that contained both screens, this wouldn't be possible.

Another technology that makes this expecially usefull is USB mice and keyboards. I actually have an extra set on my desk in just the right position so my coworker can do input when they're looking at my swiveled display. Ever have someone try to reach accross you so they can use your mouse to show you something? Ever switch chairs so someone else could "drive" and then realize you have stuff you need to show them too? Dual displays keyboards and mice are amoung the best investments I've ever made to enchance teamwork in our workplace.

TW

CRT can do this too

[camcorder]

Why this is a reason to switch LCD? You can do same with CRT as well. You'll also have better colors if you pay same amount of money.

But I can't argue that real desktop real estate will be better with CRT.

Re:CRT can do this too

[Lord of Ironhand]

One reason I'm sticking to CRT's is that the affordable LCD's I've seen suffer from the problem that the colours are only right as long as I'm exactly in front of the monitor. If I move my head to the right too far, I notice the left edge of the screen slowly changing colours. Not even that bad in itself since I don't usually have much reason to move to the sides so far, but I've noticed that when I'm doing graphical work on an LCD, I get paranoid about "odd" colours and have to move my head around a bit to make sure it's not caused by the LCD.

Another problem I have is that most affordable LCD's have a 1280x1024 (aspect 5:4) resolution. In a world where widescreen TV is promoted as being more "natural" for the human brain (something I actually tend to agree with), why go from 4:3 to a narrower 5:4 resolution?

For now, I'm staying with CRT's, and I'm re-evaluating once 1600x1200 LCD's with a wide viewable angle are affordable.

No, it isn't.

[sglider]

Just another reason to go LCD...

I'm afraid not. LCDs are very expensive, and with the current level of technology (dead pixels, et. al.), the cost doesn't justify the product. So what if the Resolution is higher? How many people use a dual display? The average joe -- or even average geek -- could build 2 systems for the cost of this one monitor.

Unless you are into digital editing, or watching TV on your PC, this dual monitor bit is nothing more than a rich man's folly.

Re:No, it isn't.

[Klar]

Unless you are into digital editing, or watching TV on your PC, this dual monitor bit is nothing more than a rich man's folly.
Having a second monitor isn't all that expensive -- what like $150 for a 17" crt? Also, many people I know who program, including myself, find having two monitors much more productive. There is so much more desktop real estate. eg, if you are working in java, you can have the api open on a monitor as you are working on code. Or, have some code on one monitor, and test it on the other. etc etc. All the people I know who have had two monitors never go back.

Re:No, it isn't.

[Esion Modnar]

All the people I know who have had two monitors never go back.

Same thing can be said about a woman with no teeth.

Re:No, it isn't.

[steeef]

I recently replaced my old 19" CRT monitor with a Samsung 19" CRT, but not before I looked at comparable LCDs.

I knew I wanted at least a 19" that was capable of displaying 1600x1200. I scoured NewEgg, but all I got were 19" LCDs with a native resolution of 1280x1024. I could put up with a lower resolution, but the fact that they all run at a non-4:3 resolution kills the deal for me. It just looks wrong.

In order to get 1600x1200, I would have had to buy at least a 20". And judging from the current prices at NewEgg, that's at least $600. So I went with the Samsung 997DF-T/T CRT monitor for $210. That's nearly a third of the cost for a flatscreen CRT with great colors and dotpitch.

LCDs are great, and had I $600+ to spend, I would have jumped at the chance. But for now, the cost difference is enough to make me stick with CRTs for now.

Re:No, it isn't.

[bahamat]

Unless you are into digital editing, or watching TV on your PC, this dual monitor bit is nothing more than a rich man's folly.

I beg to differ. I'm a systems administrator and I've been using dual 19" LCD's on my Linux workstation for months. I regularly load my screens with more xterms than you can shake a stick at. I have two virtual desktops filled with terms, one with a browser and my e-mail each a full screen and one for various other things (usually Ethereal, Gimp or OpenOffice) and I still find myself craving more space. And when I see the tripple screen desktops from Digital Blasphemy I start thinking to myself that it's time to upgrade.

2560x1024 is nice, but it's just too derned cramped.

Re:No, it isn't.

[The Snowman]

In my experience there are two types of people, those who have two (or more) monitors, and those who have never tried it.

How about a third type of person: someone who had a dual-head system, but whose manager took the extra video card and monitor so he could have TWO emails open at once.

Re:No, it isn't.

[Tetrad69]

but the fact that they all run at a non-4:3 resolution kills the deal for me. It just looks wrong.

The reason they run at 5:4 resolution is because, get this, the monitor itself is 5:4.

Re:No, it isn't.

[teslar]

So what if the Resolution is higher?

I'm afraid it even isn't that. I've got a 19 inch CRT monitor at home running at a resolution of 1920*1440@85Hz - that's almost 145.000 Pixels more than that LCD setup.
My monitor at work is a 22inch running at 2048*1536@85Hz - that's more than half a million pixels (i.e. another 800x600 monitor and some leftovers) more at half the price.

So mine is longer, thicker and bigger - but the LCDs still get all the girls. I just don't get it,

Re:No, it isn't.

[canon006]

Dell coupons kick ass, I just picked up a 2005FPW, 20 inch widescreen(1680x1050) for around $450. Google "Dell coupons" and you'll find plenty of sites that list them.

mirror

[MankyD]

Mirror mirror on the web
please copy this website
so that this slashdotting might ebb.

(anyone?)

Re:mirror

[v3rgEz]

http://mirrordot.org/stories/a859968e8a446de3b6334 ac86a888d47/index.html

Just check mirrordot.org next time. They automatically do it.

Just get two of the same LCD

[DaRat]

Geez, just get two identical LCD monitors. You can get two good 19" Samsung LCDs for $500 each. Then put the two next to each other with one just slightly behind the other (to minimize the bezel). Then, you have the same setup for less with the advantage that you can split up the monitors down the road if you want. This is the setup that I have, and it works just fine.

Re:Just get two of the same LCD

[Slack3r78]

Personally, I'd rather get a single, widescreen display. I caught Dell's 2005FPW on sale for $400 a couple of weeks ago, and it's been outstanding, moving up from a dying 17" CRT @ 1600x1200.

I'd used widescreen displays previously on notebooks, but it was nice to finally get that kind of screen ratio on my desktop. The biggest thing about widescreen is breaking users of the habit many have of maximizing and subsequently minimizing *every* window they use and instead simply sizing the window down and leaving everything open. A widescreen allows you to work in a manner similar to a dual monitor setup, but without forcing your brain to constantly context-switch between the two displays. It's really a great compromise, IMO.

Re:Just get two of the same LCD

[Saeger]

Indeed. By the end of this summer you'll be able to buy the Dell 24" LCD for only around $700(!), and currently you can get it for only $900 (25% off the official $1200 price) if you know where to look.

What used to be luxury displays will soon become commodity, much to the shagrin of the Apple Cinema fans (who fall back on the "aluminum style" defense).

Anyway, 24" is about the size limit a person can tolerate for a desktop display if you don't want to have to physically pan your head around to take it all in. The price drops can't come soon enough for me, as this is the huge, low-response display I (and everyone else) have been drooling over for months...

Re:Just get two of the same LCD

[Nexx]

I have a friend with a 20" Dell and another with 20" Apple Cinema (both purchased within weeks of each other), and I will say that given nearly identical viewing conditions, the Apple Cinema is consistently brighter and offers a punchier picture. They're both phenomenal screens, but the picture of the Apple Cinema screen is more pleasing to view.

Subscriber-free!

[Ochu]

Shouldn't be getting that many subscribers posting to this one; after all, they pay not to receive ads.

Not enough!

[scoopr]

Ah, but if we are going to go this route, I'd rather go for this offering.

(Sorry, the site is rather awful, check out the source, eww)

Is there a rate sheet somewhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, if this isn't a "slashvertisement," I don't know what is.

And the price is ...

[oneiros27]

C|Net list the price as being US$1070 - 1337, with the basic price near US$1160.

When you consider that you're going to need to get a second video card, if you don't already have on lying about, just buying a 23" LCD (about 1920x1200) seems like a much better solution.

I'm guessing that someone has probably come up with a VESA compliant mount for two screens, or if they haven't, you could probably make your own from an existing base, a bit of sheet steel, a drill, and a few screws ... and then you'd be able to just recycle existing monitors.

Of course, the real issue the is stability of the base ... how high is the center of gravity, and what is the span of the base, so that we can compute the eccentricity required to tip it?. (it'd be more stable to just place two screens next to each other, and if you want them to stay in place, try a little bit of VHB or duct tape.)

I would think that the advantages to the small footprint would be those that couldn't fit two monitors side by site normally -- which would mean it'd be extending over the edge of the desk, and has that much further to fall when someone bumps it. (unless you VHB it down to the desk, of course)

Try it, you'll like it

[Greg Hullender]

When you've worked with dual monitors for a while, you'll never want to go back. It's surprising how often you really want at least one full-screen document while still being able to look at others.

For example:

1) Writing code with your editor on one screen and a spreadsheet or word processor document on the other.

2)Preparing a report on one while surfing the web for references on the other.

3) Reading e-mail with your list of messages on one screen and the current message on the other.

4) Reading Slashdot on one screen with The Article on the other.

(Okay, I'll admit scenario #4 is a little farfetched.) :-)

--Greg

Re:Increase Productivity Substantially

[yotto]

*Exactly how many pixels does it take to increase productivity substantially?*

Apparently, about a million. I'd say round it to a million, maybe make 1,000,000 pixels == 1 substantial productivity increase, call it 1Mipx=1spi

Re:Two is the wrong number

[cbr2702]

With two you can put your documentation on one screen and your code on the next.

Tigervista have been doing this for years.

[MrAngryForNoReason]

Digital Tigers have been making multi LCD monitors like these for years. They offer 2, 3, 4 or 6 screens on a single stand

The best option to my eyes is the Tigervista Power Trio, one large LCD flanked by two smaller ones mounted portrait. This neatly gets around the problem of having a 'seam' down the middle of your eyeline where the screens join.

Oh and before the accusations fly I don't work for the company, but I have been lusting after one of their screen setups for a while now.

Of course you do need an extra graphics card to power the third screen, and the screens are by no means cheap.

Nothing special, really...

[thanq]

It does not look that exciting: large res image here.

It is much cheaper do one yourself with your own LCD's and a stand like these: horizontal or vertical.

Re:2560x1024 fractal wallpapers

[Ianoo]

Your CRTs should be set at 1280x960, not 1280x1024. All computer CRT screens are 4:3 aspect ratio, which corresponds with 800x600, 1024x768 and 1600x1200, but not 1280x1024, which is actually 5:4.

This means that the pixels on your CRT won't be square, leading to the screen appearing stretched horizontally.

With an LCD, the resolution is factory set, so a 1280x1024 screen will actually be physically 5:4, and so the pixels will still be square.

General office work too

[cgenman]

It's great for pretty much any office work.

I can't tell the number of times I've had a spec open in one monitor, and whatever it was I was working on open in the other. Glancing back and forth between screens is a lot faster than grabbing the mouse, clicking on the taskbar icon, absorbing as much as possible, clicking back, and repositioning your cursor.

In my particular field, this lets you have the game you're working on open in one monitor, and an editor open in the other, so that you can change values / setups on the fly and see how that effects gameplay. Sure, I could click over, but this is much, much faster. For Midi work I've had the current detail window open in one monitor, and a broad overview of where you are in the song and detail on the vocals you are trying to sync to in the other. For web work, it's great to have Dreamweaver open in one monitor and either a spec or the actual rendered HTML in the other, set to a 1 second refresh. Or a Word Doc open in one monitor, and an Excel Spreadsheet open in the other. Anywhere you have to compare data, a dual-setup is much, much nicer. I'd even like to get a 3rd monitor as basically a dedicated chat/e-mail window, as most of the communication at my company happens over that medium.

Old CRT's are so plentiful these days that it doesn't make sense not to. I've found 4 free monitors in the past 2 weeks without even looking. If something is going to speed up your workflow, there is no reason not to do it.

If you've never used a dual-monitor setup, I can see how it would look frivilous. But nearly everyone who uses it loves it, and finds it helps them in their daily tasks. And with monitors basically free and all video cards shipping with two outputs anyway, it doesn't cost a thing to try it out.

Re:General office work too

[fm6]

I can't tell the number of times I've had a spec open in one monitor, and whatever it was I was working on open in the other. Glancing back and forth between screens is a lot faster than grabbing the mouse, clicking on the taskbar icon, absorbing as much as possible, clicking back, and repositioning your cursor.

Faster, and less error prone.

For years, people have been talking about paperless offices, but that can't happen until computer displays are as convenient and as pervasive as paper already is. That means you not two displays, but dozens in an office. They'll cover your desktops and walls the way printouts, memos, yellow-stickies, posters and memoes already do. Not feasible yet, but we're getting there.

Daddy, what's that black thing with the metal bit?

[Dogtanian]

Anyone else find it weird that the drivers come on a floppy disk?.

Is there *anyone* out there with the money to spend on this that does't have a CD/DVD drive? I'm willing to guess that the proportion of (potential) buyers without a floppy drive will far outweigh those without a CD drive.

Besides which, if a floppy is that important, they could put a "create floppy" option on the CD.

2560*1024?

[LordJezo]

How could it be considered that if there is that huge ugly black gap in the middle?

For that kind of money I'll just get myself an Apple Cinema Display instead. What's a couple more 100 dollars when you are spending that much already?

Re:Text too small

[pomo monster]

Can't you just adjust your systemwide DPI setting or use larger fonts?

Viewsonic has had this for at least a year

[Alowishus]

Big deal, Viewsonic has offered stands that mount any of their Pro series LCDs (15" to 21") in not only dual horizontal but also dual vertical, triple wide and quad (2x2) layouts. You buy the standard LCDs, remove the included bases, and mount them to the special stands. If you ever decide to split them up, you still have the original bases to reattach and use standalone elsewhere.

I priced out the same 2-wide setup at CDW with 19" ViewSonics and it came out cheaper, for better quality monitors IMHO.

Who so wide ?

[terminal.dk]

2x 1280x1024 - So why 2560 x 1024 ?

I would have made it 2048x1280 - 1:1.6 is a more natural aspect ratio.

The onbly large resolution screen that is made right that I have seen is the Apple 30".