4K Monitors: Not Now, But Soon

An anonymous reader writes 4K monitor prices have fallen into the range where mainstream consumers are starting to consider them for work and for play. There are enough models that we can compare and contrast, and figure out which are the best of the ones available. But this report at The Wirecutter makes the case that absent a pressing need for 8.29 million pixels, you should just wait before buying one. They say, "The current version of the HDMI specification (1.4a) can only output a 4096×2160 resolution at a refresh rate of 24 Hz or 3840×2160 at 30 Hz—the latter, half that of what we're used to on TVs and monitors. Connect up a 4K monitor at 30 Hz via HDMI and you'll see choppier animations and transitions in your OS. You might also encounter some visible motion stuttering during normal use, and you'll be locked to a maximum of 30 frames per second for your games—it's playable, but not that smooth. ... Most people don't own a system that's good enough for gaming on a 4K display—at least, not at highest-quality settings. You'll be better off if you just plan to surf the Web in 4K: Nvidia cards starting in the 600 series and AMD Radeon HD 6000 and 7000-series GPUs can handle 4K, as can systems built with integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics or AMD Trinity APUs. ... There's a light on the horizon. OS support will strengthen, connection types will be able to handle 4K displays sans digital tricks, and prices will drop as more 4K displays hit the market. By then, there will even be more digital content to play on a 4K display (if gaming or multitasking isn't your thing), and 4K monitors will even start to pull in fancier display technology like Nvidia's G-Sync for even smoother digital shootouts."

Comments

Get a TV

[TechyImmigrant]

Why pay $1000+ for a 4K monitor tomorrow when you can pay $500 for a TV today?

http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-i...

Re:Get a TV

[houstonbofh]

I have 2 clients with Seiko 4kTVs as monitors and it is fantastic for them. Another case of "This is not what I need, so no one needs it."

Re:Get a TV

[rcht148]

Makes me wonder if Seiki can afford to give 65" 4k TV for $1059, (Deal at Amazon right now: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi...) why can't the other big name brands (Sony/LG/Samsung) have 65" 4k TV sets at even double that price (say $2100).

Re:Get a TV

[TechyImmigrant]

Frame rate is for gamers. Programmers need pixels.

That's why TFA is missing the right angle.
4K is great for programming
      1 - You can see more lines of code
      2 - it doesn't require silly refresh rates)
4K for gaming is silly. It doesn't meet the basic requirements
      1 - your card can't drive it
      2 - the framerate is low)

Arguing that 4K is bad because it's no good for gamers is like arguing mobile phones are bad because you can't program on one effectively.
 

Re:Get a TV

[sexconker]

Frame rate is for gamers. Programmers need pixels.

That's why TFA is missing the right angle.
4K is great for programming

      1 - You can see more lines of code

      2 - it doesn't require silly refresh rates)
4K for gaming is silly. It doesn't meet the basic requirements

      1 - your card can't drive it

      2 - the framerate is low)

Arguing that 4K is bad because it's no good for gamers is like arguing mobile phones are bad because you can't program on one effectively.

Are you kidding me? Staring at 30 Hz console output is maddening, and plenty of GPUs can handle 4K @ 60 fps for modern games. I'm sorry if you're trying to run Ubisoft's latest gimped turd, but that's an issue with the game, not a modern flagship GPU. Beyond that plenty of monitors can handle 4K 60 Hz. I have no idea why the fuck this shit got front paged. HDMI 2.0. WELCOME TO THE PRESENT. DisplayPort 1.2. WELCOME TO THE YEAR 2010.

Re:Get a TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets see, TVs are designed to be watched from a distance, so the retina area is farther back. Monitors generally have better options to connect to a computer(it's changing, but slowly), I get more options to adjust my monitors than I've seen on a TV, I can get more custom ratios on a monitor(I have one that's pretty much square, it works awesome for documents, but less so for video), more monitors are designed for multi-panel display, etc. Are those good enough reasons for you? Or do I have to point out that TVs generally have a shorter duty cycle(they need to be off more of the time or they overheat), or that most TVs don't go to sleep if the image isn't changed but instead allow the image to be burned into the screen permanently. I also get pissed because TVs have a stupid start noise and screen, my monitors don't have that.

Re:Get a TV

[Twinbee]

Enjoy your mouse cursor and window frame moving at 30fps then, and the associated lag that will bring.

Instead we should be encouraging movement the other way - towards 120fps which allows for much more lifelike smoother motion. Youtube stuck at 30fps is a thorn in the whole online video sector.

Re:Get a TV

[Anonymous Coward]

So, given that monitors and TVs use the same LCDs and LED displays off the same production lines ... what's your point? Did you even have one? I'm pretty sure that my monitor only has DVI and VGA inputs, while the TV can eat just about everything but SCART.

Re:Get a TV

[aaronb1138]

For gaming (not text or web) if the refresh is high enough (30 hz is not), scaled resolutions look fine. We've hit high enough resolutions where certain scaling operations just look like anti-aliasing instead of blurring.

Scaling rightfully got a bad name when it was upscaling 800x600 content to a 1024x768 or 1280x1024 17" monitor. It looked blurry. Scaling 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 on a 27" monitor looks really good. I'm more interested on the gaming side if these 4K TVs will take 1920x1080 or 2560x1440 at 60 hz and maintain refresh rate (technically if it is 120 hz it should, but I have my doubts about their scaler). Doing productivity work at full resolution would mostly be fine at 30 hz, if occasionally annoying.

Re:Get a TV

[strack]

I mean, seriously, Seiki needs to hurry up and release a 60hz 4k version of its 38.5 inch display, preferably with a displayport. A 38.5 inch 4k 60hz VA panel would blow the weak ass 28 inch 4k TN panels everyone seems to be pushing today out of the water, especially if they keep their current price point. Ditch the tv tuner and smart tv crap, put in displayport and adaptive sync, and watch it become the monitor for All The Computers In The World.

Re:Get a TV

[mikael]

And graphics programmers need both frame rate and pixels. 120Hz seems perfect, but once you try using 3D vision glasses, those LCD shutters bring back the flicker.

The problem with the higher resolutions is that application developers just seem to think they can then make their application main window even bigger so it still fills the entire screen. Then they have to use bigger fonts to maintain compatibility with past versions of the same application.

Re:Get a TV

[Anonymous Coward]

thatts a nice fairy tale, and it may be true for your no name china crap but just the gaps between pixels on a TV sucks nuts and most of their controller boards wont handle the native resolution of the panel

Re:Get a TV

[wye43]

Seriously now, an article from January about the 2013 Seiki crap? That was covered by Slashdot already.

TVs and monitors are two different markets with different technologies and priorities:

1. The TN panels used in monitors prioritize fast response time, high frame rate and cost over color fidelity and viewing angles.

2. The IPS panels used in monitors prioritize good color fidelity and viewing angles over response time and cost.

In both TN and IPS panels pixel precision is paramount, blending is not acceptable.

3. The VA panels used in TVs are prioritizing cost, color fidelity, brightness and viewing angles. These panels have horrid pixel precision and have huge response time, pixels blend with each other on a regular basis. Using TVs as monitors are painful to the eye.

Re:Get a TV

[wye43]

Programmers need pixels

How ironic. The VA panel in the Seiki crap feature a pixel blend specific to TVs.

So you get to choose the way you want to kill your eyes:
1. half pixels blending
2. 30hz during scrolling in your code and mouse movements

VA panels are not monitors. They are TVs.

LMFTFY:

Programmers need monitors.

Re:Get a TV

[dbIII]

Me - I want e-ink and can live with a one second refresh rate for plain text.

Re: Get a TV

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that but being a sales guy at a large well known pc manufacturer and having sold a bunch of 30hz displays to a reasonably well known business with a serious preference for green screen and heavy coding sessions , 30hz was horrible even for them - they returned the 4k displays and went with a 2560x1440 60hz display instead. Even when you're moving the mouse 30hz tears.

Re:Get a TV

[mcvos]

I don't understand why 4K TVs exist before 4K monitors do. Firstly, TVs simply don't need a crazy resolution like that. Look at how long it took before HD finally took hold. Is anything actually being broadcast in 4K? And if it's impossible to get a decent signal to it, how do those 4K broadcasts end up on the TV?

Re:Get a TV

[donaldm]

Frame rate is for gamers. Programmers need pixels.

Basically if you display 80 or even 120 lines of code it does not matter if the monitor is 1080 pixels or 2160 pixels in height. Sure the higher resolution will display a well designed highly detailed font better than a lower resolution font but that is all, however programmers normally use a mono-spaced font like "Courier" so a fine detailed font is pointless.

Displaying more than 100 lines of code in the window/screen is IMHO stupid because the human eye and consequently the brain is not going to help you debug or even write code any better than if you used 24 to 80 lines. When coding you need to know what you are writing the code for and you should be writing the code in such a way that it is easy to understand and hopefully easy to debug.

As for gamers a screen with a 30Hz refresh rate is pretty much the "sweet spot" for general gaming however fast action games such as FPS's and racing benefit from high refresh rates such as 60Hz and above.

If a programmer is coding for a game then they will need a high resolution monitor with a good refresh rate, assuming they are going to use the monitor for both applications, although if you look at game programmers they normally use two or more screens with at least one low resolution for programming and the other a high performance one to test out what they are developing.

Re:Get a TV

[AC-x]

Are you kidding me? Staring at 30 Hz console output is maddening

Huh? How can you tell the difference? It's not like it's a CRT only scanning lines at 30hz.

Re:Get a TV

[AC-x]

And graphics programmers need both frame rate and pixels. 120Hz seems perfect, but once you try using 3D vision glasses, those LCD shutters bring back the flicker.

We're not using CRTs anymore, LCD panels don't flicker with the refresh rate so 24hz, 30hz, 60hz, 120hz will all be just as steady.

Re:Get a TV

[serviscope_minor]

Not madenning?

http://www.jfedor.org/aaquake2...

How how about that then, eh?

Re:Get a TV

[nabsltd]

Frame rate is for gamers. Programmers need pixels.

The mouse lag on a 24 or 30Hz display will drive you nuts when you are trying to select a block of text.

If you are a keyboard-only editor, it's not as bad, but even highlighting text or trying to page down quickly will likely send you back to a high-speed multi-monitor setup.

Re:Get a TV

[Ed Avis]

Have you tried 30Hz? It really isn't a big deal for text-based applications like programming and web browsing. Sure 60Hz refresh is nice; it gives you warm fuzzies to know that you're getting a fast refresh rate, and things just generally look cuter and more Apple-commercial-like if the screen refresh is smooth. But it's a hard case to make that it really has an impact on productivity for real work. I'm using Dell UP2414Qs at the moment, and the 60Hz refresh is great (tip: set the colour management to Game mode to eliminate input lag). But before then I used T221s at 24Hz and that was fine too for emacs and web browsing. I've even used a T221 at 12Hz and while I can't say it was the most comfortable setup, it got the job done.

Re:Get a TV

[swimboy]

Basically if you display 80 or even 120 lines of code it does not matter if the monitor is 1080 pixels or 2160 pixels in height. Sure the higher resolution will display a well designed highly detailed font better than a lower resolution font but that is all, however programmers normally use a mono-spaced font like "Courier" so a fine detailed font is pointless.

Spoken by one who hasn't done much programming on a HiDPI monitor. I can tell you from first-hand experience that the higher resolution display significantly reduces eye fatigue. I have two 24" 1920x1080 external displays connected to my 15" rMBP. I always put my main window on the small 15" screen because the text is much easier on the eyes at 220 dpi. In matter of fact, text is the only thing that looks dramatically better on the retina display than a standard display. Images and icons may be more detailed, but it's not nearly as noticeable as the improvements in the display of text.

I'd rather give up my external monitors than my retina display.

Re:Get a TV

[CronoCloud]

The VA panels used in TVs are prioritizing cost, color fidelity, brightness and viewing angles. These panels have horrid pixel precision and have huge response time, pixels blend with each other on a regular basis. Using TVs as monitors are painful to the eye.

Most TV's are TN, not VA.

Re:Get a TV

[Dcnjoe60]

The article was talking about 4K for mainstream consumers, which most likely would be closer to gamers than programmers.

Re:Get a TV

[Anonymous Coward]

4K is for pr0n. ftfy

Re:Get a TV

[KingMotley]

Of course, you do realize all major motion pictures are shot at 24fps with the exception of a handful.

Re:Get a TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does video need that many FPS? Video has motion-blur, which compensates greatly for the lower FPS. Games are discrete images at high speed, which is why a higher FPS is needed to make each void between frames seem less discrete.

Re:Get a TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any videos of this 'mouse lag'? Are you sure this isn't one of those 'audiophile' type bullshit 'problems' that doesn't actually exist?

Re:Get a TV

[rs79]

I've used a T61 Thinkpad for ages now and it almost alarming the difference between the laptop screen and say, a nice 24" external monitor at 1920 px.

Has anybody with a Y510p tried running of of those cheap Seiki 4K screens?

Or the $50 tv boxen on ebay that claim to do 4K, anyone tried those?

Re:Get a TV

[Twinbee]

Yes. That's even worse than 30fps.

Re:Get a TV

[twalk]

It's highly personal. My Seiki 39" doesn't bother me at all. I also didn't bother 3 other people that I let use it for a while. The 4th person however... he's a programmer with an autism spectrum disorder (formerly aspegers) with a sensory issue. He compared it to scraping sharp fingernails on the back of his eyeballs... When you consider how may programmers and slashdot readers there are that fall into or close to that category, then you'll get responses like the GP of this post.

Occulus Rift

[ZouPrime]

Some will call me a troll, but as a gamer I'm no longer interested in 4K video since I know Occulus Rift (and competing VR set) are coming.

Why spend a shitload of money of a new 4K screen and the video card necessary for an acceptable game experience when I'll be able to do VR with a fraction of the cost and with my existing hardware setup?

Obviously that's a gamer perspective - I'm sure plenty of people will find 4K for what they are doing.

Re:Occulus Rift

[Anonymous Coward]

In it's present iteration, the Occulus Rift might very well fit your current hardware but the requirements for getting a decent amount of pixel per view-angle on VR are brutal. Micheal Abrash's post on the matter is very enlightening: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/when-it-comes-to-resolution-its-all-relative/. In short, you'll most likely need a ultra-responsive, insanely dense mini-displays each boasting a 4k x 4k resolution per eye. This kind of resolution plus the latency requirements for VR will indeed demand a very powerful gaming rig.

Re:Occulus Rift

[Your.Master]

It's not entirely clear that VR is going to displace PC gaming to that significant of a degree.

As a fairly avid gamer, most games I play are not in the first person perspective and I don't want them to be. I don't like FPS, and that's a huge portion of all first-person games (though I do like the sort of FPS-stealth-subgenre that encompasses Hitman, Dishonoured, Deus Ex, etc., and I can see how VR would be an asset there).

Platformers, most RPGs (the Elder Scrolls series is a popular exception, but I have never liked them), strategy and/or tactics games, most adventure games, most puzzle games, most "unique" / "indie" games, etc. -- these things and others are generally not first-person, and VR almost implies a first person perspective.

Most of those things I listed (aside from platformers) are already more popular on the PC than on console competitors.

Re:Occulus Rift

[Anonymous Coward]

Platformers, most RPGs (the Elder Scrolls series is a popular exception, but I have never liked them), strategy and/or tactics games, most adventure games, most puzzle games, most "unique" / "indie" games, etc. -- these things and others are generally not first-person, and VR almost implies a first person perspective.

I disagree. I think 3D perspective -- think "god view" where you can view from any position in 3D space -- will be an even bigger deal than FPS. Of course it will require some creativity from game designers to make it more than just a gimmick, but really the same thing can be said for 3D FPS.

Re:Occulus Rift

[vux984]

Some will call me a troll, but as a gamer I'm no longer interested in 4K video since I know Occulus Rift (and competing VR set) are coming.

As a gamer I'm not really concerned about 4k either. I'm much more interested better support for 3-view type setups. And 4k 3-view is just all the gamer problems of 4k times 3 :)

Oculus... I'm not sold on it. I see it as niche at best. Very cool in that niche though.

I would like to see head tracking go mainstream though.

Re:Occulus Rift

[Osgeld]

you have been able to do that for 2 decades, so the question is why havent you

I will give you a hint, there is a reason for that, that reason is strapping a thing to your face gets old really fucking quick

Re:Occulus Rift

[Solandri]

Some will call me a troll, but as a gamer I'm no longer interested in 4K video since I know Occulus Rift (and competing VR set) are coming.

Why spend a shitload of money of a new 4K screen and the video card necessary for an acceptable game experience when I'll be able to do VR with a fraction of the cost and with my existing hardware setup?

You're making a fundamental error many people make when it comes to display resolution. What matters isn't resolution or pixels per inch. It's pixels per degree. Angular resolution, not linear resolution.

I've got a 1080p projector. When I project a 20 ft image onto a wall 10 ft away, the pixels are quite obvious and I wish I had a 4k projector. If I move back to 20 ft away from the wall, the image becomes acceptable again. It's the angle of view that matters not the size or resolution. 20/20 vision is defined as the ability to distinguish a line pair with 1 arc-minute separation. So within one degree (60 arc-minutes) you'd need 120 pixels to fool 20/20 vision.

This is where the 300 dpi standard comes from. Viewed from 2 ft away, one inch covers just about 2.5 degrees, which is 150 arc-minutes, which can be fully resolved with 300 dots. So for a printout viewed from 2 ft away, you want about 300 dpi to match 20/20 vision. If it's not necessary to perfectly fool the eye, you can cut this requirement to about half.

In terms of Occulus Rift, a 1080p screen is 2203 pixels diagonal, so this corresponds to 18.4 degrees to fool 20/20 vision, 39 degrees to be adequate. If you want your VR display to look decent while covering a substantially wider angle of view than 39 degrees, you will want better than 1080p resolution. I'm gonna go out on a limb, and predict that most people will want more than a 39 degree field of view in their VR headset.

Re:Occulus Rift

[RedWizzard]

It's not entirely clear that VR is going to displace PC gaming to that significant of a degree.

As a fairly avid gamer, most games I play are not in the first person perspective and I don't want them to be. I don't like FPS, and that's a huge portion of all first-person games... and VR almost implies a first person perspective.

Only if you've got no imagination. What this iteration of VR is bringing is head tracking and that allows massive virtual screens. I think Rift and similar products are going to break into non-gaming market as cost effective way of getting giant flat displays.

Re:Occulus Rift

[DarwinSurvivor]

Yes, resolution DOES matter. A line of text requires a certain number of vertical pixels to be legible. Whether that line is an inch high or a quarter-inch high makes no difference. For people that need to see more at once, they absolutely do need more pixels. The image from a 1080p projector may look fine from across the room, but you can still only see a small amount of text at a time.

You are making the fundamental error that people just want their displays to look nice instead of actually being able to see either fine detail or large quantities of information at the same time. Some of us DO need (or want very, very much) more pixels on our displays.

Re:Occulus Rift

[Osgeld]

head tracking has been around in toy grade vr helmets like the rift since the 90's ... those serial ports on them were not there for the sound

Re:Occulus Rift

[Anonymous Coward]

spoken like a spoiled brat

go use a single tasking 80 column system for a week then come back and say 1080 is a small amount of text

Re:Occulus Rift

[Znork]

Then you need better eyes. Unless you can actually get cybernetic implants you're stuck with the choice of fine detail or large quantities of information at the same time.

Even the GP is overestimating the capabilities, because the 20/20 resolution itself is limited to a very narrow field of view; the human eyes capability of even resolving text at all is pretty much nonexistent outside a 6 degree arc.

Now, if we could get monitors where you'd have to look away from an image of the sun because it's too bright, that would actually be something I'd be interested in. Because with contrast we're nowhere near the physical capabilities of perception and that would make some difference.

Re:Occulus Rift

[Anonymous Coward]

What? I've been programming on an 80 column terminal all my life and feel fine, thank you. Actually using more columns is a waste because then people don't wrap manually, so you depend on IDEs, but then navigating line by line is pretty shit and refactoring more so. Reviewing diffs is again quite lame as little changes make you hunt horizontally like crazy.

Using 80 columns is better because it forces you to condense everything in a smaller place rather than spilling it around like diarrhoea. Yes, you can avoid this if we had perfect tools and everybody used them, but that's not the world we live in when source control systems still store text rather than ASTs.

Re:Occulus Rift

[mestar]

The word "flat", it doesn't mean what you mean it means.

Re:Occulus Rift

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously have never tested an Oculus. They suck... Its a fun toy but the resolution is too poor for any serious gaming. Brink on a 4K Oculus and we are talking.

Re:Occulus Rift

[mestar]

"Why spend a shitload of money of a new 4K screen and the video card necessary for an acceptable game experience when I'll be able to do VR with a fraction of the cost and with my existing hardware setup?"

Oh boy, somebody is going to get very disappointed.

Re:Occulus Rift

[jellomizer]

Some people like to compute without headaches and vomiting.

Re:Occulus Rift

[AmiMoJo]

So within one degree (60 arc-minutes) you'd need 120 pixels to fool 20/20 vision.

That is a common misunderstanding. 20/20 vision is the ability to distinguish two lines with 1 arc-minute separation from a single thicker line. Beyond that human eyes can still distinguish a 0.5 arc-minute wide line from a 1 arc-minute wide line, and can tell if a 0.5 arc-minute line is jagged or smooth.

That's why there is a noticeable difference between 300 PPI and 450+ PPI phone displays at normal viewing distances. It's why people with normal vision can differentiate 1080p and 4k on a 127cm screen from a couple of metres back.

Re:Occulus Rift

[ArsonSmith]

Strapping something on your face may get old, but today it is better than the helmet you had to wear prior and the fixed device prior to that, the current trend is smaller faster lighter. How long before the VR solution is only slightly more uncomfortable than a pair of glasses?

Re:Occulus Rift

[lordofthechia]

as a gamer I'm no longer interested in 4K video since I know Occulus Rift (and competing VR set) are coming.

Same here, I've been due for a monitor upgrade for a while (was running a triple 19" monitors), but it doesn't make sense to do that now since the budget can be used to snatch up Oculus CV1s when they come out (for less money)!

Re:Occulus Rift

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people are smart enough to stop doing that which gives them headaches and makes them vomit.

Re:Occulus Rift

[Osgeld]

the last model I had from early 2000's actually weighed less than the rift (8 whole ounces total) had head tracking and displays on par with the then current resolutions (not to mention they only cost like 200 bucks), so the current trend seems to be a rubber band and not predictable by anyone

http://www.mindflux.com.au/pro...

Re:Occulus Rift

[Anonymous Coward]

Within five years we won't be using monitors for home use any more - we will have VERY cheap, 4k monitor 'glasses', which use milliwatts of power, and (obviously) take up no space on your desk. Come back to this post in five years' time - 2019.

Re:Occulus Rift

[Anonymous Coward]

It's headphones versus speakers all over again if you ask me.

I've never tried oculus rift or other VR tech. I have experienced the full range (budget to ultra-high-end) of loudspeaker and headphone products. For sound quality I will take a set of midrange loudspeakers over the very best headphones every time. The only reason to use headphones is a) when you want to listen very quietly (eg at night in an apartment block); b) to cut out ambient noise (trains and aeroplanes); c) portability. I'm can't say conclusively that VR tech is the same by analogy, but if it isn't can someone please explain how?

Re:Occulus Rift

[RedWizzard]

You understand that a plane can exist in a 3D space, right?

Re:Occulus Rift

[RedWizzard]

And 3D movies have been around since the 70's using of anaglyph 3D glasses. The implementation matters!

Re:Occulus Rift

[Osgeld]

and there is none for the rift as well

oh sure just like every other helmet you will get a demo disc, or since is 2014 they are too cheap to press a 1 cent CD and make you hog 8 gigs of internet bandwidth but still there will be nothing, always has

Re:Occulus Rift

[DarwinSurvivor]

Then you need better eyes.

What? I'm saying that even on standard desktop-sized displays, I can see the characters become blocky when reduced because there are not enough pixels. Someone with poor eyesight wouldn't notice a difference between a pixel display and a printout at the same physical size.

Re:Occulus Rift

[DarwinSurvivor]

80 columns is fine if you are only working with a single file. Being able to have long vertical views of code with documentation, design work, other code, compiler outputs, etc beside the code without having to switch between virtual displays is a huge productivity booster.

Call me spoiled if you like, but without people pushing for bigger and better ways of doing things, we'd still be stuck punching holes in pieces of cardstock and hoping we stacked them in order.

Re:Occulus Rift

[Anonymous Coward]

You and the parent completely misunderstand the arc-minute definition when talking about cell phone pixel densities. The only reason that definition is significant is that the letter "E" (which is used on vision charts) has 5 segments on the right of it (dark line, open space, dark line, open space, dark line) and the 20/20 visual acuity test involves distinguishing letters at 5 arc-minutes. Therefore, 5 lines/5 arc minutes = 1 line/arc minute. But. just using that as a definition is completely flawed, because humans aren't as machine-like as you might think. Basically, people recognize letters better than arbitrary lines. So, using the fact that someone can distinguish 5 arc minute letters does not imply they can resolve 1 arc minute pixels.

Furthermore the vision tests are well controlled, high contrast (black text on white background) on a reflective surface. LCD screens are not reflective, they are blasting back light at you. It's a totally different scenario. And general cell phone usage patterns do not involve this kind of high contrast, arbitrary patterns that would even be able to show any difference.

In practice, most people with 20/20 vision would not be able to distinguish between a 300 PPI and 450 PPI screen assuming the text and curves are anti-aliased. But the placebo effect is strong, as is product marketing, so plenty of people are convinced they can.

1080p screens are a little different because their size and viewing difference vary much more. So 4k might be worth it for lots of people.

The parent you are responding to doesn't understand how print media works - the 300 DPI on print media refers to different colored dots. A 300 DPI print will look way worse than a 300 PPI screen.

display port

[rogoshen1]

Displayport doesn't have the same limitations that HDMI has at those resolutions. and is available now.

Nvidia 6xx and ATI 7xxx (not to mention intel hd4000) are not exactly brand new, and available now.

IF anything, this sounds like "HDMI is showing it's age, use displayport"

Re:display port

[complete loony]

HDMI was showing it's age the moment it was designed. All of the design and planning behind HD TV's was short sighted, as if they never planned to replace it.

Re:Display Port

[sexconker]

Why is there no mention of Display Port? Current 4K LCD all accept this, and with the right GPU, you can most certainly drive at 60Hz, full resolution.

This is more about HDMI being a broken standard to me. I just don't like DisplayPort because it's sort of Apple's thing.

DisplayPort is AMD's thing, through VESA. It's not Apple's thing.

Re:display port

[InvalidError]

DisplayPort did not support 2160p60 out-of-the-box either; it needed v1.2 to get there.

HDMI can do 2160p60 too, just needs v2.0.

Re:display port

[aliquis]

Yupp.

False claims for clueless idiots - old news and dupes.

Re:display port

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no clue where the problem lies (first guess would be something about the MST handshake or similar), but using 60hz 4K monitor (Dell UP3214Q) with Radeon R9 280X can be a bit buggy. There are two common problems:

• When waking up the monitor (especially after a long sleep), there's quite high chance (I haven't measured it, but it tends to happen every other day or so) that it won't actually wake up and I need to shut down the monitor, wait a few seconds and then power it up. This also causes windows and such to move around to first half of the monitor.
• Sometimes the resolution completely fucks up and I need to unplug/plug the monitor several times to get back to 4K

Re:display port

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh you mean v1.2 which came out in 2009, and virtually every DP capable graphics card and monitor supports?

Re:display port

[Jumunquo]

Totally agree. Nvidia 6xx has been out for a long time, and a 660 costs like $150. Anyone who buys a 4k monitor for $1000+ is not going to think twice about getting a matching video card. For gamers, in all likelihood, they probably already have one. The article claims a hardware barrier that is simply not an issue.

The real issue here is the price point. 2560x1440 27" monitors have been around for a long time, but it wasn't until it dropped under $400 that gamers started chomping them up. When they get low enough in price, then the graphics card cost can become an issue for non-gamers who are just using integrated graphics. There's also the issue of whether 2560x1440 at 27" is good enough, esp. for gamers, because given the distance from keyboard to monitor, going bigger than 27" doesn't seem that great, and at 27", 2560x1440 is already so small that most people can't find the dead pixels unless you fill the screen w/ white.

Re:Display Port

[strstr]

DisplayPort is actually Intel's and Dell's thing. They invented it.

AMD and Apple picked it up because it's the only replacement for DVI which is capped at 1600x1200 at 60Hz or 1200p at 60Hz. One display only. Requires dual-link for higher resolutions. Has large outdated connector.

DisplayPort supports up to 8K and 4K 3D or two 4K displays per connector at 60Hz. Or 4K at 120Hz which is what I want on my display. :P

You can drive multiple DisplayPort monitors by daisy chaining them together rather than using multiple ports, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Re:display port

[Twinbee]

One major consideration in the exact type of my new gfx card (750 Ti) was down to whether it had DisplayPort. The EVGA version was one of the only ones to have it.

Re:display port

[aliquis]

http://www.prisjakt.nu/kategor...
3 GTX 750 with DVI.
11 GTX 750 without DVI.

That's super surprising to me.

209 GTX 7__ with DVI.
20 GTX 7__ without DVI.

Is it some special thing with the 750? I know it's the only Maxwell card out yet.

It would be more understandable if they missed DVI because that one is abandoned and won't be upgraded. Then again lots of devices have DVI so I guess we won't get rid of it all too quickly (disturbing to have both DVI and HDMI in the first place.)

Re:display port

[Anonymous Coward]

Building on that, is HDMI 2.0 even shopping yet?

2009 vs 2015, maybe?

Re:display port

[DarwinSurvivor]

DVI != DisplayPort

Re:Display Port

[DarwinSurvivor]

Why is there no mention of Display Port? Current 4K LCD all accept this, and with the right GPU, you can most certainly drive at 60Hz, full resolution.

This is more about HDMI being a broken standard to me. I just don't like DisplayPort because it's sort of Apple's thing.

Nope

Re:display port

[aliquis]

Sorry my misstake.

In the first part it should of course had said DP.

In the last sentence it should had said DVI as it did.

Numbers still correct (if you replace DVI with DP on the lines with numbers.)

Re:Display Port

[TheRaven64]

AMD and Apple picked it up because it's the only replacement for DVI which is capped at 1600x1200 at 60Hz or 1200p at 60Hz

Not to mention that it's royalty free. You have to pay a license for every HDMI port, you can stick any number of DisplayPort ports on a machine without paying a royalty for implementing the standard.

Re:Display Port

[Carewolf]

This is more about HDMI being a broken standard to me. I just don't like DisplayPort because it's sort of Apple's thing.

It is fortunately only the silly mini-displayport port that is Apple specific. I still have nightmares of trying to buy a displayport cable at a computer store and they send me to the horror that is the Apple section of the store, which was rows and rows of incompatible crap.

Re:display port

[Sockatume]

Honestly, they didn't plan to replace it, at least not on any appreciable timescale. People don't buy TVs like they buy games consoles or phones or iPods, so the sensible thing at the time was to roll out yet another twenty-year standard and get around to thinking about succession later. Of course, if you're a Sony or a Samsung looking at your briefly revitalised TV business tailing off again as people finish upgrading, maybe you're regretting this.

Re:Display Port

[Ed Avis]

No current DisplayPort standard supports two 4k monitors at 60Hz with a single output. The latest DisplayPort 1.2 will drive a single screen at 3840x2160@60Hz, but current monitors use multi-stream transport (MST) to do so which means the video card sees it as two separate monitors which then must be tiled together - this tends to expose driver bugs. DisplayPort 1.3 will increase the bandwidth but I don't think it has been finalized yet, nor is any hardware available.

Re:Display Port

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.
The 28" Asus, Samsung, AOC and Philips are all single tile 3840x2160@60Hz.

Re:Display Port

[Ed Avis]

Thanks for the correction. A pity the Dell 4k monitors have not been refreshed with newer electronics to work as single stream.

Over 30yo+ you won't see the difference anyway.

[MindPrison]

I'm not a young person anymore, but I've been on the tech wagon since I was 8 years old. And I have to admit that I was one of those people touting the high-resolution thing and pushed it forward all the time (I even made a living in the graphics industry).

But there is such a thing as too much. After 720p...over 2 meters away from the television set, despite having Air-Pilot approved eyes, I still could not HONESTLY see the difference between a 50 inch 720p and a 50 inch 1080p, honestly - I could not!

I'd rather have a TV that can be seen perfectly from any angle, super-fast refresh rate for my gaming needs (my current LG 47" inch TV sports a 4ms refresh rate), but there is still room for improvement. And I'd love for these screens to be in the OLED department instead of the LED (Aka...TFT with LED backlight) we have now.

Re:Over 30yo+ you won't see the difference anyway.

[Jumunquo]

If you watched something with high resolution and a clean picture, like Disney's "Frozen," on a high-quality display, like a Samsung 55", then you should be able to tell the difference b/w 720p and 1080p easily. For many things, it is hard to tell the difference at a reasonable distance. Monitors are different in that you're usually much closer to one. At 24", 720p monitors look like crap compared to 1080p. 4K, however, seems like overkill at anything below 30".

For gaming, I'm totally with you. For computer gamers, what's really popular are the 27" 2560x1440 monitors that can be overclocked, ideally to 120Hz and that do not have a scalar which reduces response time (which means it can only be run at 2560x1440 and has a single dual-dvi input). Many cheaper monitors will advertise sort of bogus or software-corrected response times that are not representative of real-world use, so it's important to read the reviews. For the more mainstream models, tftcentral is a very good resource. It's trickier if you import from Korea trying to get the magic 120Hz overclock.

Re:Over 30yo+ you won't see the difference anyway.

[DarwinSurvivor]

I regularly use a 1080p monitor in the 24" range and I can tell you I would *definitely* like the resolution to be higher. I do a lot of text-based work and I can see the letters start to get blocky if I reduce the text size while I know for a fact I could easily read text even smaller when printed on a decent laser printer.

Try it one day. Use a word processor to print "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" in steadily reduced font size down the page. Print that page and hold it next to the computer screen at a comfortable viewing distance and find the smallest font size you can read on the printed version and the on-screen version. If picked the same paper and monitor sizes (as measured by a real-life ruler), you may want to see an optometrist.

Re:Over 30yo+ you won't see the difference anyway.

[twistedcubic]

Everybody says this. It has been repeated hundreds of times on Slashdot. And it is just wrong. Fuzzy text looks fuzzy whether you're 2 inches away or 2 feet away. You might not be able to see individuals pixels, but you can clearly see the resolution is not sufficiently high to allow clear and crisp font rendering. I'm over 40 and my eyesight is worse than most people, but I sure as hell know that zooming out does not make a fuzzy picture look smooth.

Re:Over 30yo+ you won't see the difference anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

best example you could come up with is a kids movie with a thought process as shallow as my toilet? holy shit let me just dump everything and get new tv's right now, fuck it its only midnight im off to walmart!

Re:Over 30yo+ you won't see the difference anyway.

[TheDarkMaster]

You need a good quality 1080p film (or picture) to be able to see the difference. I have a 1080p setup at home and I can tell for sure the difference between 720p and 1080p sources.

Re:Over 30yo+ you won't see the difference anyway.

[TheRaven64]

TFA is about monitors. The pixel density on my laptop is about double that of the 28" display on my desk. This is really noticeable for text rendering, where it's clear and crisp on the laptop screen, but looks a little blurry around the edges due to the sub-pixel AA on the bigger display. I'd love to replace the one on my desk with a 4K display once the prices become a bit less silly. And, yes, my laptop can drive a 4K display.

Re:Over 30yo+ you won't see the difference anyway.

[nmr_andrew]

Legitimate question here, truly I'm curious and don't know the answer, but there is lots of research says that at certain size/distance combos, you really can't tell the difference (too lazy to Google it).

So, are you noticing a difference because you can really tell the difference, or is it because of scaling with a 720p source and a 1080p native resolution display? Obviously, 1080 != 2x720.

Or perhaps to ask this in a different way, if you had two displays of otherwise similar size and quality but one 1080p and the other 720p (both native), with each displaying content from a source at it's native resolution, could you truly tell the difference from more than 2-3 meters away?

Re:Over 30yo+ you won't see the difference anyway.

[TheDarkMaster]

The upscaling from 720p to 1080p is the one you can tell the difference easily. When you have a 720p display and another with 1080p, with similar size, you will note the bigger pixels on the 720p display. And, you would not see the difference only if you are at a distance of the two displays where you can not discern the individual pixels of the 720p display

Re:Over 30yo+ you won't see the difference anyway.

[uninformedLuddite]

There really is a need for -1 wanker

Faggy GUI effects?

[Gothmolly]

I'm not worried about "choppy" OS animations or transitions. I want high res and decent refresh for gaming, and a nice, contrasty, good-black, clear giant work area for multiple windows.

Re:Faggy GUI effects?

[pspahn]

... clear giant work area for multiple windows.

All this.

There are way too many applications I use that fail to do anything useful for multi-monitor setups. There's a few useful features like being able to resize window panels to customize my view better, but I want to be able to tear panels off and put them on a different monitor. To me, that is so vastly more important than just increasing resolution.

I currently use two monitors. One in landscape and one in portrait and I use them exactly how you'd expect, documents on the portrait screen, video/games/etc on the landscape screen. If I use Photoshop, it's great because I can use the landscape screen for the image and the portrait screen can hold all of my panels ... nice and out of the way. Unfortunately, this is one of the few suites that supports these tear-off panels. I have yet to find an IDE/coding environment that makes me happy in this regard (while also making me happy in others). If I could stand to use Eclipse, I would ... I just absolutely loathe it.

Display Port

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is there no mention of Display Port? Current 4K LCD all accept this, and with the right GPU, you can most certainly drive at 60Hz, full resolution.

This is more about HDMI being a broken standard to me. I just don't like DisplayPort because it's sort of Apple's thing.

What?!

[RyanFenton]

I'm typing this on a monitor with 3840x2160 resolution, at 60hz right now. I posted about it weeks ago:

Clicky

It's like $600 when on sale, and it works superb for coding and playing games. Skyrim/Saints Row 4 plays fine on a GTX 660 at 4k resolution, you just disable any AA (not needed), but enable vsync (tearing is more visible at 4k, so just use that). Perhaps that's just me - but things seem fine at 4k res on a medium-cost graphics card.

A few generations of video cards, and everything will be > 60-FPS smooth again anyway (partially thanks to consoles again), so I don't really need to wait for a dynamic frame smoothing algorithm implementation to enjoy having a giant screen for coding now.

I don't see any reason why you'd want to wait - it's as cheap as two decent monitors, and if you're slightly near-sighted like me, it's just really great. See my previous post for a review link and an image of all the PC Ultima games on screen at once.

Ryan Fenton

Re:What?!

[MindPrison]

I agree, for coding - the more resolution, the better...no doubt about that.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm typing this on a monitor with 3840x2160 resolution, at 60hz right now. I posted about it weeks ago:

Wish there was a 40" class version of that. High DPI is for graphics, but it is counter-productive for text. I wouldn't mind about a 20% improvement in DPI but after that you just end up making the fonts bigger which is a waste.

Re:What?!

[Jumunquo]

Personally, I'd rather get something like this for ~$350 on sale:
http://www.monoprice.com/Produ...
The pixels are already so small, people can't find the dead pixels, and it's AH-IPS, the highest quality panel, not TN, the cheapest.

Re:What?!

[drinkypoo]

I don't see any reason why you'd want to wait - it's as cheap as two decent monitors, and if you're slightly near-sighted like me, it's just really great.

I'll wait until I can get as great a deal as I did on this 120% color 25.5" 1920x1200 IPS, which was fifty bucks. Hooray for storage lockers, I guess. And also for flea markets, so I don't have to buy storage lockers myself. Also, I just bought a used video card and it doesn't have displayport. IOW, the obvious reason is that one is a cheap bastard.

I did buy an Eye-One Display LT for fifty bucks to go with my fifty buck monitor. And the color is still spot on, amazingly. It wanted calibration, but it still has all of its range.

I'll get 4k when I can get it for $100 for the monitor and $100 for the card. That seems fair, it's twice-ish the pixels I have now :)

custom resolutions, people!

[Anonymous Coward]

you don't need an NVidia gtx 6xx series GPU or higher to run 4k. you don't even need a 4k monitor to output 4k.

in the GPU control panel, just set scaling to your GPU (instead of your monitor), create a custom resolution (up to 4k) and there ya go. Your desktop will run at this resolution, games will play at this resolution, etc.

The main thing holding back 4k right now is current spec HDMI and that's about it. 30Hz is terrible. hdmi 1.4a can run 18xxp @ 59Hz and it aint bad, but it isn't quite 4k either.

If you need more info on this just google "downsampling". For graphics whores, its a massive IQ boost. Can you play Watch Dogs at 4k + max settings? probably not, but a ton of unreal engine 3 games play at ~4k just fine on semi-beefy GPUs.

Ack! I'll take muh 1080p monitor thank you.

[Anonymous Coward]

But all I really need is a LCD running 720p.
Truthfully all I really need is a super vga CRT.
In all honesty I could live with the warm glow of an ega screen.
Net net I miss a nice monochrome to get me through.
All things considered, teletype handles 99% of my day to day needs.
Actually, I feel like anything more than a single blinking indicator light is pretty decadent.

Re:Ack! I'll take muh 1080p monitor thank you.

[preaction]

To be fair, a teletype would solve 80% of what I need, with a video-capable tablet providing the rest...

Re:Ack! I'll take muh 1080p monitor thank you.

[Bing Tsher E]

You don't need lower case, you read slower than 10 cps, and you've got a storeroom in back with shelves of rolls of yellow pulpy paper? And the recyclers call frequently?

Re:Ack! I'll take muh 1080p monitor thank you.

[sexconker]

To be fair, a teletype would solve 80% of what I need, with a video-capable tablet providing the rest...

To be fair, a non-tele blow job would solve 98% of what I need.

I actually own one of these its incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

As my title says, I have a seiki 4K 50" that I use as a monitor. My biggest mistake was getting the 50", I think the 39" would have been better.

But I watch a lot of TV as well with the wife, so this is nice. The 30hz refresh rate in full on 4K means its not a 4K gaming machine, however you can drop it down to hdtv levels and it hits 120hz. But for development, or pictures, its incredible. And if you can find some 4K video the result is stunning. And google maps is incredible as well.

I still keep a second monitor around, but thats for 3D gaming. And I have a occulus rift as well. Overall these monitors really do some thing very very well. And for software development the resolution and size means you can see more code at one-which is always good.

Re:I actually own one of these its incredible

[aaronb1138]

So it sounds like it really catches the cusp of income ranges. I make an upper 5 and can pull the trigger, but this seems like a toy for the low 6 figure incomes.... A teaser for the 4k denied so long by the bulls**t adoption of 1080P in the computing space.

Wait for G-Sync vs. FreeSync to finish

[gman003]

This seems to be a time when monitor features are growing fast. I'm personally going to stick with my 1440p screen until it stabilizes a bit.

The G-Sync/FreeSync battle is going to start. For gamers, this is going to be big. Right now, G-Sync only works with Nvidia cards, and FreeSync will probably only work with AMD cards. FreeSync is much better licensed, and I expect it will probably win eventually, but I tend to prefer Nvidia cards so I'm willing to wait until we get a clear winner.

Basically, my dream monitor right now would be:
under 28" diagonal
full AdobeRGB gamut or better, factory-calibrated (if significantly wider than AdobeRGB, needs 10-bit color support)
refresh rates up to at least 120Hz, variable using either Sync method as long as it works with any card I buy
resolution of 3840x2400 or higher (16:10 aspect ratio)
no need for multiple data links (as some current 2160p monitors do)
sub-millisecond input latency

I would naturally be willing to compromise on many of those points, but the way the market is going, I might not have to. And what I have right now is plenty good enough to last me until things become more future-proof.

Re:Wait for G-Sync vs. FreeSync to finish

[Twinbee]

Which is technically better out of Gsync and Freesync?

I agree with your ideal choice of monitor btw! Apart from the size which should be bigger, but further away. This way your eyes would be more relaxed.

Re:Wait for G-Sync vs. FreeSync to finish

[gman003]

I live in a rather small apartment and would really like a triple monitor setup. So I prefer smaller hardware. I'm also nearsighted and usually take my glasses off when computing for a long period, so smaller, closer displays are actually more relaxing. But to each his own.

As far as which is technically better, I haven't seen any solid comparisons. G-Sync does use proprietary hardware in the display, which means it has the potential to do a lot more. FreeSync works with existing panels provided they support V_BLANK, which isn't many yet, and none are exposing it to the GPU.

FreeSync has been incorporated into the DisplayPort standard (as "Adaptive-Sync", an option in DP1.2a and 1.3) but no displays have made it to market yet. G-Sync has the advantage of shipping, but unless it's either far superior in a technical manner, or Nvidia flat-out refuses to support Adaptive-Sync, I expect it to die sometime next year when the competition arrives.

BUY NOW because you have to be ready

[alen]

when the 4K content starts coming out
because you know, they will stop selling these soon and you will never be able to buy one to view all the 4K content coming out soon
or they will drop in price to the point where kids can afford them on their allowance, but you have to buy it NOW and Before this happens just to be the first one to watch 4K content

Re:BUY NOW because you have to be ready

[Twinbee]

I admire those first customers, because without them and the rich, the ball would never get rolling and we'd all be without forever.

4k media?

[asmkm22]

It just seems like the options down the road for media that can store 4k are a bit limited. Streaming seems out of the question when we can't even get consistent 1080p streams out to people. Blu Ray would need some major overhauls unless people want to have 4k movies come on 10 to 20 disks, and something tells me people aren't going to rush out to embrace a new media format even if it did get that overhaul. I just can't help but think 4k tech will have to be targeted at niche industries like photo editing and maybe CAD type stuff. I could also see a push towards the medical industry. But the average consumer? Not happening.

Re:4k media?

[Jumunquo]

Yup, despite Google showing it can be done, the cable companies only put in fiber wherever Google puts in fiber just to screw with them. Most ISPs have a 200-300GB cap per month on data, so you'd better not watch more than, like, five 4K movies a month. Media, yea, I hear ya, many Bluray sets now come with DVD AND Bluray discs, and I bet it's because a lot of people don't have Bluray players but want to their purchase to be future-proofed.

Re:4k media?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just can't help but think 4k tech will have to be targeted at niche industries like photo editing and maybe CAD type stuff. I could also see a push towards the medical industry. But the average consumer? Not happening.

The good thing is for us geeks. Windows can finally stop massively resizing our 9000+Megapixel Pictures to fit our crummy 1 point something megapixel screens. YUCK! Reminds me of how until 5 years ago all video resolutions were stuck at 640x480 that was born a decade earlier.
My acquaintances over fifty still have XP computers running 4:3 monitors on single-core machines. Viewing modern camera pictures and youtube videos is heavy on those machines. My own monitor is 1600x900 and they probably will upgrade to that way before there's a replacement 10 years from now that can do 4K for their failing eyes.

The elephant in the room is digital photography. Granted, in mainstream homes I can never find people who know how to upload their cellphone photos to their PCs. That's the weak spot. At this rate phones will be on the 4K bandwagon long before people replace their expired MMX machines. Those were bought solely to bring each household to the internet back when 2-contract subsidies and sub $1000 prices were a novelty. I wonder what will be the trigger for HD on the home desktop.

Re:4k media?

[Anonymous Coward]

s/2-contract subsidies/2-year-contract subsidies/
Oops

Who needs HDMI?

[Kjella]

I got a UHD @ 60Hz single stream transport here in the Samsung U28D590D. There's not much video content yet except for a few porn sites, but for stills it's brilliant. Software support for increasing font size is mediocre in many apps, but they're usually functional just ugly. I wish there was some way to just tell Windows to draw a window at 200% size instead. Gaming is cool though my graphics card is choking on the resolution when it gets heavy, I guess it needs an upgrade now that it's pushing 4x the pixels. Overall I'm happy, yes I'm an early adopter but the bleeding edge is more like a paper cut.

Panasonic with HDMI-2.0

[TheSync]

I can confirm that the Panasonic TC-L65WT600 65" 4K UHDTV can play 60 fps 4K over its HDMI 2.0 connector (yes, I actually have access to 4K/60p content and a 4K/60p video server). I have seen it for as low as $3500 on BestBuy.com.

Future is here for some displays on OSX

[rsborg]

4K displays @ 60Hz with Retina pixel doubling = fantastic coding display [1]
Of course, I don't have this at work - I have two separate 24" monitors but my spend most of my time on my 15" retina screen.

[1] http://support.apple.com/kb/ht...

Bread, eggs, breaded eggs

[tepples]

Frame rate is for gamers. Programmers need pixels.

What do game programmers need?

Re:Bread, eggs, breaded eggs

[Cryacin]

What do game programmers need?

Sleep, generally.

Re:Bread, eggs, breaded eggs

[NormalVisual]

What do game programmers need?

Multiple displays that work well for the task at hand.

Re:Bread, eggs, breaded eggs

[houstonbofh]

What do game programmers need? Multiple displays that work well for the task at hand.

A 39 inch 4kTV is the equivalent of 4 20 inch 1080p monitors together.

Re:Bread, eggs, breaded eggs

[Anonymous Coward]

A 39 inch 4kTV is the equivalent of 4 20 inch 1080p monitors together.

Or four 5 inch Galaxy S4 smartphones.

Re:Bread, eggs, breaded eggs

[NormalVisual]

A 39 inch 4kTV is the equivalent of 4 20 inch 1080p monitors together.

But useless for when you need to run the debugged program full-screen while watching what happens in a debugger, network sniffer, etc. at the same time. There really are times when you need multiple displays not just for the added screen area, but because each display is being used for something different.

Re:Bread, eggs, breaded eggs

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some 4K screens with multiple HDMI inputs, so you can split the screen without a bezel and the OS still thinks this is 2 different displays.

Re:Bread, eggs, breaded eggs

[pla]

But useless for when you need to run the debugged program full-screen while watching what happens in a debugger, network sniffer, etc. at the same time. There really are times when you need multiple displays not just for the added screen area, but because each display is being used for something different.

You can still run a cheap 20" 1080p 2nd monitor while using a 4k as your primary.

I say this as a developer, who until recently used a 4-headed machine for most of my work - I haven't bothered to turn on a 2nd monitor since I got my 4k panel. It has the same combined screen real-estate, covers the same portion of my visual field, and has no annoying bezels between sections of screen. Not to mention, every time a single digitally-connected monitor turns off for any reason (oops, bumped the "input" button again on #3, damn!), Win7 "conveniently" dumps all your icons and programs to your primary... No longer an issue!

I don't claim that doesn't still leave situations where a 2nd head could come in useful (such as the case you mention), but I'll gladly trade a signifcant improvement 99% of the time, for a minor nuisance the three times a year it comes up. :)

Re:Bread, eggs, breaded eggs

[BlackHawk-666]

I use 3 x 24 inch 120hz monitors. The source code goes on my middle screen, the right screen has a browser open to whatever information I need to be looking at while writing the code and the other monitor usually has a mix of things open e.g. another copy of VS 2013 with another (dependant or co-related) solution open to the code I need to be viewing, designer screens parts of the game (when running the editor for that), etc.

My three screens have a combined resolution of roughly 6000 x 1080, allow me to have three separate apps running windowed fullscreen, and can do so at a refresh rate of 120 hz. Even better, I don't get a crick in my neck from looking up and down all the time. I can simply rotate a little in my chair if I need to give one of the side monitors most of my attention for a while.

Seiki 4k for $500

[Rinikusu]

I've been considering one of these bad boys for awhile now. Cheap and for what I intend to use it for (software dev and video editing where the 30Hz refresh isn't a big deal), good enough. It's not something I'd use for gaming, at least at 4K, but hey... $500.

Re:Seiki 4k for $500

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes that what my thinking - I haven't regretted it, the real estate is great and if I wanted to game I could always use my old monitor.
The Seiki's have size in their favor too - I'm not someone who gets the point of 4K in a 28" display, the 39 is ideal I think.

Re:Seiki 4k for $500

[Anonymous Coward]

They are $390 shipped nowadays. Been at that price point for a few weeks.

Re:Seiki 4k for $500

[Squash]

Really, it's fine for anything this side of gaming. Even Youtube and local media plays just fine. Very little out there has a framerate over that 30hz mark. The only real downside is that you can only fit one of them on your desk at a time.

Re:Seiki 4k for $500

[strack]

Think of it as 4 monitors with no bezels splitting them up.

Re:Seiki 4k for $500

[marked23]

39" is ok. I've had the 39" Seiki for a few weeks now. I still have a normal (1920x1200) second monitor. So I don't want to run the larger fonts in Windows. I tried, and didn't like it.

For my taste, I think 50" is probably the minimum size for a 4k monitor if you want to use the default font size in Windows.

Re:Seiki 4k for $500

[Anonymous Coward]

I currently have 3 27"s on my desk and could reasonably fit 3 30"s. I don't buy the "you can only fit one on your desk at a time" statement.

Re:Seiki 4k for $500

[timeOday]

I got one of the early Dell 4K 30 hz monitors and I can NOT recommend it. You think, "hey, 30hz isn't bad even for a game, it should be fine for web-surfing and Word editing." The problem is the mouse cursor motion at only 30 hz is downright annoying! YMMV but for me that alone ruins it. Now I run that monitor at 1080p (60hz) most of the time and only kick it into 4K to look at maps (which look great!)

Re:Seiki 4k for $500

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same problem with my mouse being laggy looking, I found it was a lot more palatable for me when I turned on the OS accessibility options to have mouse trails on. That also made it easier to see the mouse on the panel while moving it around.

TV is only 30Hz

[Anonymous Coward]

> a refresh rate of 24 Hz or 3840×2160 at 30 Hz—the latter, half that of what we're used to on TVs and monitors.

Uh no. The vast majority of TV content is 30Hz or less. Films and basically anything that isn't "live" is 24Hz, the live stuff is 30Hz (60Hz interlaced, but that is still only 30Hz on the wire). The only place where we regularly have actual 60Hz content is for sports and then it is only 720p anyway because of bandwidth limitations in the ATSC broadcast spec.

So, if what you care about is current tv/film content, one of these HDMI 1.4 spec displays is perfect. Maybe in the future it won't be. But 99.999% of the content available to you now will work just fine. Plus, actual 4K content of any refresh rate is also rare as hen's teeth. Netflix has a couple of series and there are demo clips floating around (the Blender guys have some like Tears of Steel).

4K is nice but...

[the eric conspiracy]

Having a full color gamut is important too. And a really good contrast ratio.

So I'm saving my pennies for a OLED 4K display. At 80". And none of that curved bullshit.

Re:4K is nice but...

[NemoinSpace]

Yeah, curved! Man who buys this stuff? 3d sucks too and beta.

Re:4K is nice but...

[Areyoukiddingme]

Having a full color gamut is important too. And a really good contrast ratio.

Check out the reviews of the Asus PB287Q. Very nearly full color gamut. These ain't your daddy's TN panels.

Yeah OLED would be nice, but I'd be surprised if an UltraHD or 4K OLED display is affordable this decade.

Re:4K is nice but...

[timeOday]

There is progress though, the new Samsung Galaxy Tab S has a 10.5" 2560x1600 AMOLED.

I know I don't want to upgrade my TV until I can get a 50" 4k OLED for about $1K. My crystal ball says that will happen in 2018 :)

I'd settle for

[rossdee]

A 30 inch monitor, 16:10 aspect ratio , and 2560 x 1600

The only reason I would want much higher resolution that that is to overcome the problem of scaling on digital displays, in the old days of analog monitors we could run differehttp://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/06/17/224208/4k-monitors-not-now-but-soon#nt resolutions wothout it looking like shit.

I currently have a 28 inch 1920 x 1200 monitor, but they don't make those anymore,

Re:I'd settle for

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I used to have a 24" 1920x1200 display, but I upgraded to a 27" 2560x1440. It's 16:9, but I find it I can just about fit three browser windows side by side (or two for wider layout pages). It's not the aspect ratio that's important, it's the number of vertical pixels you have available. I put the main KDE tool par on the left-hand side of the screen to make the most of the vertical resolution, it's working pretty well for me.

I've finally reached the point where I don't feel like I have to vertically maximize every window to make full use of my desktop resolution.

Re:I'd settle for

[BitZtream]

This isn't what your asking for exactly, but it's close:

Apple thunderbolt and whatever they call the normal display port ones are 2560x1440@27", of course they cost $999 too :(

I don't know that they are "worth the money". But I definitely approve of mine.

Great for Presentations

[Anonymous Coward]

We recently bought a 65 inch 4k monitor to replace an HD projector. One major downside with a projector, you have to turn out the lights to see it, and that is not a problem with a 4k monitor. The problem with older large screen tv's is that the text on them was horrific, but that's not the case with the 4ks, they are crystal clear. So for a presentation device, a 4k monitor is an awesome tool.

I admit though, I wouldn't game on one as they sit now, but they do have their uses.

Ow, the ignorance

[jtownatpunk.net]

Was that summary written by someone who's never used a 30Hz 4k display?

A 30Hz feed to an LCD panel is not like a 30Hz feed to a CRT. The CRT phosphors need to be refreshed frequently or the image fades. That's why 30Hz was all flickery and crappy back in the 90s. But 30Hz to an LCD isn't like that. The image stays solid until it's changed. A 30Hz display on an LCD is rock solid and works fine for a workstation. I know. I've seen me do it. Right now. There are no "transition" issues, whatever that is supposed to mean. Nothing weird happens when I switch between applications. Multitasking works fine. I'm playing multiple HD videos without a hitch. Same way the 30hz 1080 programming from cable and satellite plays just fine on LCDs. Gaming's not great but turn on vertical sync and it's not terrible. I'd rather be running at 60Hz but I got my 4k panel for $400. It'll hold me over until displays and video cards with HDMI 2 are common.

Re:Ow, the ignorance

[strstr]

30Hz display would work but with high refresh rate. He's talking about motion looking like shit, bleeding together, or looking as if it's not smooth.

It's noticeable especially when you play games and use your mouse. Video not so noticeable because it's 30fps except in HD at 60fps where motion is fast like sporting and action shots.

Moving a screen around on your desktop fast will have noticeable jumpiness when done rapidly. Anything where motion happens fast.

Re:Ow, the ignorance

[AmiMoJo]

30Hz is terrible for scrolling. It's not so bad in a text editor but for web pages it's annoying. At 30Hz you can't read text while it is moving, at 60Hz you can and you don't have to pause while the page moves up. It's a small thing perhaps, but was one of the reasons why I switched away from Firefox to Chrome originally.

Re:Ow, the ignorance

[Ed Avis]

Yeah, I wish that there were better alternatives to the normal way of scrolling. Even at 60Hz refresh (and with pretty big font sizes on a 180dpi screen) it is not exactly easy on the eyes to read text as it scrolls. I like the old school way of hitting Space (or PgDn) to move down one screenful. But then you can lose track of where you were in the text. I'd like to see a horizontal red line showing the previous start of the screen, which would fade away over a second or two.

Re:Ow, the ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

The latency sucks because of the low refresh rate and if you turn on vsync, you increase that latency even more! I'm missing my CRT because the input was RAW and wouldn't cause a 100ms latency between my mouse movements and the cursor moving in my games... LCD is just an awful technology compared to the far superior CRT technology for gaming, it's just too bad that they had to be that big and heavy to be a good size.

My computer can but no interest right now

[EmperorOfCanada]

I don't know any of my tech friends who are breathlessly awaiting 4K monitors. If I go to staples to replace my monitors some day and see that the 4K one is $50 more than the regular one, then OK I'll happily buy one. But it if it is $200 more then, no, I'll wait.

I am not saying that 4K is a stupid idea, or that I hate 4K, if it turned out that one of my present monitors had a switch on the back that would switch it to 4K I would be delighted, but when it comes to budgeting my money there are a huge number of things that would make my workflow a whole lot better that I would rather spend my money on. 4K is nice but just not needed. I think that I speak for most people who aren't doing video editing.

But I suspect that for the next 3-5 years that I am going to be reading various tech blogs and they will breathlessly review the latest 4K monitors as they drop lower and lower in price. But again the spread between regular and 4K will have to be pretty small before I will make the jump.

A 4K TV on the other hand would be pretty cool and I think that Netflix has some programming 4K ready so I would probably make that leap long before a monitor.

Re:My computer can but no interest right now

[Areyoukiddingme]

A 4K TV on the other hand would be pretty cool and I think that Netflix has some programming 4K ready so I would probably make that leap long before a monitor.

You have that pretty backwards. UltraHD is immediately useful for a monitor, if you actually do work with a computer and aren't one of these people who think work can only be done in a maximized window. There's not much video in that resolution yet and at any distance it's not immediately obvious what resolution a TV is, but you can put all the text you want on screen at that resolution and you sit within arm's length of your monitor.

colour space

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than resolution, I'm curious to see the expanded colour space that is defined by ITU Rec. 2020:

http://wolfcrow.com/blog/say-hello-to-rec-2020-the-color-space-of-the-future/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rec._2020

Currently, HDTV (Rec. 709) covers about 35% of the CIE 1931 color space—which is basically the totality of what the eye can see. UHDTV/Rec. 2020 will cover about 75% of CIE 1931. A lot more shades of green will be visible on standards-compliant screens.

Single-tile too

[Namarrgon]

The other nice thing about the Samsung UD590, apart from 4K @ 60Hz, is that it presents itself as a single 4K monitor, rather than two half-size monitors tiled next to each other. That can make a big difference to some uses, like running games at lower resolutions. The Asus PB287Q is another such single-tile 4K monitor.

Won't buy new until 8K monitors

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been running a 30" 2560x1600 for many years now. Why would I want to pay a bunch of money for only double the pixels and a screwy aspect ratio. No Thanks. I'll wait for something more along the lines of 5120 x 3200.

multiple inputs for 4k?

[Touvan]

Computers can handle multiple monitors at 60Hz, so why not 4K with duel inputs? Is that feasible, and are there some models on the horizon that have multiple HDMI, dual-dvi, or dual-display port (pre-thunderbolt-2 display port - I don't know the version numbers)? It seems it could be possible.

Re:multiple inputs for 4k?

[Areyoukiddingme]

Computers can handle multiple monitors at 60Hz, so why not 4K with duel inputs? Is that feasible, and are there some models on the horizon that have multiple HDMI, dual-dvi, or dual-display port (pre-thunderbolt-2 display port - I don't know the version numbers)?

The Asus PB287Q has two HDMI and one DisplayPort and supports dual simultaneous input from any two of them. They call it Picture-by-Picture mode. They put two HD displays side by side, with black bars above and below, from two different machines. It's slightly silly, since it's not exactly convenient to switch to that mode, but it's available. It will also do Picture-In-Picture mode, displaying one input across the full screen and the other in a window up in the corner, all rescaled in software transparently to the machines outputting the signals.

Re:multiple inputs for 4k?

[Touvan]

I was thinking more of a half of the screen from one cable, half of the screen from the other to effectively use the whole screen from one machine.

Re:multiple inputs for 4k?

[Areyoukiddingme]

I was thinking more of a half of the screen from one cable, half of the screen from the other to effectively use the whole screen from one machine.

That's effectively how some versions of UltraHD monitors have worked. It's called tiling, though it generally uses only one cable. Your proposed method with two cables has been done, but it's pretty rare. Timing becomes an issue.

Re:multiple inputs for 4k?

[Ed Avis]

That's how the later model IBM T221s worked (with additional converter boxes dangling off the monitor). Each half of the screen was seen as a 1920x2400 display. Some newer 4k monitors work similarly using multi-stream transport (MST). The video card sees two 1920x2160 displays. But there is only one DisplayPort cable. Dell's 24" and 32" 4k monitors are like this. Video drivers usually have special support for gluing the two halves back into a single display, but the extra complication can expose bugs in either the driver or the monitor's firmware.

HDMI 2.0 is available on a lot of these monitors

[jzatopa]

Not sure why this post doesn't even mention that HDMI 2.0 is already built into all but the lowest end of 4K monitors.

What about colour depth? And more gamut!!

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a monitor with 10bit or 12bits per pixel in colour?

The current 8bit colour channels are weak with many monitors not even doing that (many will only do 16-239 or similar.)

More colours!

Updated information

[wye43]

The TFA is quite outdated. Those Seiki and 24/30hz stories are so 2013.

There are now at least 9 manufacturers making 4K monitors based on the 28 inch TN panel from Innolux and at least 4 manufacturers making 4K monitors based on the 31.5 inch IPS IGZO panel from Sharp. Both TN and IPS panels are capable of 60hz and 10bit color(8bit native+2bit FRC) at 3840×2160.
They come with a wide range of connectivity, including HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2, both of which are capable of 4k @ 60hz,
Two G-SYNC 4k monitors have been announced so far(AOC and Samsung).

The competition is fierce and prices have dropped significantly: for the TN panel prices go for about 500-600$, for the IPS one range is 1600-3000$.

Don't expect to run Assassin's Creed 4 at ultra settings on 4K at 60fps+ unless you are driving a couple of 295X2 in 4xSLI. But if you adjust settings to medium/lower settings 60 fps is not that hard to reach is most games already. And G-SYNC will help a lot with those spikes when the fps drops below 60.

So yeah, mass-media will always do what they do best: scare mongering with cheap info they got in 30 seconds of google searches.
I'm been following the 4K phenomenon closely in the last 4 years. This year has been an amazing year for advancements in 4K and surpassed any of my expectations. I expected these low prices only in 2015 or maybe 2016.
Is it the time for 4K now? It depends what type of person you are. For me, I've been having a 2560x1600 monitor for the last 5 years and yes, its time for 4K.
But if you the type of person are looking for a "hand-me-over" monitor for 50 bucs, possibly second hand, fvck no. Actually, maybe even 1080p is too much for you :)

Cheers

waiting for 8K

[hooiberg]

The first prototypes for 4K and 8K were demonstrated at the same time, somewhere about 2010. I think we are moving a bit fast through the standards, hence I will skip the 4K hype and perhaps I will hop back on the pixel train when 8K monitor enter production, in about 5 years. Moreover, edgelit panels will likely have vanished completely, by then.

Re:waiting for 8K

[Ed Avis]

The IBM T220 was announced in 2001 and had a 3840x2400 resolution, effectively what marketing now calls "4k" plus a little bit extra vertical space. It was limited to 41Hz refresh, though its replacement the T221 a year or two later increased that to 48Hz (and the last model can be overclocked to 55Hz or so). Sadly there were then the monitor Dark Ages when the T221 was discontinued and the world seemed to regress to crappy resolutions like 1440x900. You're right that 2010 was the time things started to look up again, and 8k has been demonstrated as a prototype. 5 years sounds about right; the difficulty with an 8k monitor is not so much the panel (high-dpi panels exist already, and could be cut to a larger size like 30 inches) but driving it. With the current DisplayPort spec several independent cables would be needed to drive 8k at 60Hz.

So what, I want COLOUR GAMUT

[Anonymous Coward]

4k, big deal, what really matters is getting rid of sRGB and at the very least, Adobe RGB, or even ProPhotoRGB colour gamut.

AMD A10-7850K - DP - Samsung S28D590D

[jcdr]

I just buy this setup last week and it work perfectly well at 3840 x 2160 @ 60 Hz with Debian Jessie and the last fglrx-14.20 driver. The monitor is packed with a DP cable (and a HDMI cable by the way) so it worked out of the box with a FM2A88X Extreme6+ motherboard. I have see 30 Hz display before, but sorry, I can't enjoy them to test 1080p60 applications in a window while having code and debug around others windows.

Electronics schematic and hardware routing is a pleasure on UDH monitor, as coding side by side to the full documentations and output results. On the fun side, Google Earth is probably the most impressive with so much details that it's a bit like an immersion. The APU is still capable by itself to yield a few frames per second in full screen mode. Really need a powerful GPU if you expect more...

The monitor have a little bug in the power management that require to cycle his power to sometime weak it up, but this is a minor issue for me.

High dpi isn't necessarily better

[DrXym]

The DPI in some tablets / laptops is so high that applications running on desktop operating systems (Windows, OS X and Linux) render like postage stamps with tiny fonts, toolbars and other buttons. To counter this the OS can upscale any non-high-dpi-aware app's window but that makes everything looks blurry.

So that shiny new 4K monitor may end up delivering an inferior desktop experience and requires a GPU working 4x as hard. That might change as more desktop apps become high dpi aware but obviously any legacy app is never going to get fixed.

Re:High dpi isn't necessarily better

[rjstanford]

The DPI in some tablets / laptops is so high that applications running on desktop operating systems (Windows, OS X and Linux) render like postage stamps with tiny fonts, toolbars and other buttons. To counter this the OS can upscale any non-high-dpi-aware app's window but that makes everything looks blurry.

I'm with you on Windows and Linux. OSX has been doing this natively, with no blurriness, since they first started shipping retina laptops. It really is amazingly nicer than the old low-res screens. Source: been using it personally since 2012.

Re:High dpi isn't necessarily better

[Ed Avis]

It depends on how the upscaling is done. If you choose exactly 200% font scaling in Windows, and turn off Aero, then almost all applications scale up crisply. A few such as the command prompt window remain unscaled, but none turn into a blurry mess.

Re:High dpi isn't necessarily better

[DrXym]

Yes you could go for a poor man's scaling by bumping up the standard font sizes but that will do nothing for toolbars and other elements in the application. So you'd have big fonts and tiny toobar buttons. That's why 8.1 upscales the whole window surface and in doing so it uses some algorithm that blurs the contents.

Re:High dpi isn't necessarily better

[Ed Avis]

Try it. Set 200% font scaling and the toolbars, icons, etc double in size. This is with Windows 7 - perhaps in Windows 8 it doesn't work as well, but my guess would be if you turn off Aero and just use the old-fashioned font size scaling it should still be fine.

Will 4k give us better GUIs and windowing?

[swb]

The problem I have with super high res displays is the limitations of window management. I have yet to find a decent tool for Windows that allows for virtual monitors that lets me subdivide a very large display into multiple displays. You end up with maximized windows that make poor use of screen real-estate, like this dinky box on a mostly empty window I'm typing in.

And what about window content scaling? I'd be nice to scale the content of a window so that I could display more in the same window or make it larger, especially when combined with a way to scale subdivided display regions.

UHD is already here, with caveats

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had Dell's UP2414Q for a few months. It has an amazing panel with high ppi (of course), covers 99% of AdobeRGB and has very accurate colors - important for photographers, not so much for gamers.

The main issue is patchy support for UHD by OSs and programs. I mainly use Linux Mint, and it does a pretty good job of scaling fonts up to a readable size. Windows 7 is a bit limited, but I've heard latest 8 does a better job.

Adobe Photoshop CC is almost unusable, though. The icons are tiny as they don't scale. Adobe and nVidia have been trying to get a fix to this, but been blaming each other since at least last fall. Similar issues with other programs which rely heavily on icons. Browsers are ok on both platforms, but some websites look fugly when font scaling is high.

Another issue is that 60Hz support is patchy on Linux Mint. Latest nVidia drivers from repository don't really work on Mint at 60Hz, some beta drivers sometimes do, sometimes don't. So I run at 30Hz, and turn on 60Hz when I game in Windows. You need DP for 60Hz, HDMI doesn't support it.

For photography editing and viewing a 4k monitor is pure bliss, especially on a high-quality color accurate panel like the Dell has. I really don't want to get back to HD days for browsing or photo viewing. Diablo 3 looks amazing (AMAZING) at 4k, and works smoothly at my mid-range i5 computer. Can't wait to play Elite: Dangerous at 4k!

Just give me back 16:10

[neminem]

I don't really have any pressing need for 4k. I mean, I'd take it, though I feel like it would require not only sufficient hardware, but also an OS with a UI better designed for it (I imagine there'd be a lot of times, with a screen that large, that you would want to tell windows to "maximize" onto only one quadrant, for instance.)

What I would really like is for monitors to just not have *regressed*. My laptop's about 3 1/2 years old. I'd be tempted to buy a new one sometime kinda-soon (was looking, and drooling over the fact that affordable laptops these days finally generally come with bays for both a ssd and an hdd, often even a ssd and *two* hard drives)... but screw 16:9. All I want is the choice of 1920:1200. That's 1200, not 1080. (Though it's also surprising how many mid-level, desktop replacement laptops don't even have 1920:1080.)

Previous gen prices

[Anonymous Coward]

As a side effect of the cheap new 4K monitors entering the market, the previous generation of monitors (27" 2560x1440) are undergoing significant price drops. Right now is a very good time to get a good deal on some of the older 27" displays. IMO, 27" 2560x1440 offers a good all-around compromise for games and productivity, and avoids some of the DPI scaling issues on Win7 machines with the 4K monitors.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236294

I haven't paid 4K for a monitor in 15 years

[ToddInSF]

Oh boy, I can't wait !

The current version of HDMI is 2.0

[Shirley Marquez]

The HDMI 2.0 spec was released in 2013. Products that support are beginning to become available. HDMI 2.0 supports 4K@60Hz, color depth up to 16 bits, and improved color subsampling. (The supported formats depend on refresh rate and color depth.) Reference: http://www.hdmi.org/manufactur...