Re: Monitor dimensions

HEMI-Powered wrote:
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David, I learned a lot the last time this stuff came up. I've
come to think that I maybe accidently bought a 4:3 monitor when I
bought my Samsung 21" 213T, which I run at 1280 x 960.

I'm vaguely considering a 24" Samsung 244T. Now that I know the
right thing to look for, I can go to their web site and maybe
find out what screen resolutions it supports and/or call their
customer hot line.

My question to you is this: suppose the 244T or whatever 24" I
eventually buy (26" is too big for my desk, 24" will be quite
tight even when I move my PC mini-tower to the floor) has square
pixels and would run as you suggest at, say 1280 x 1024. What
happens when I display a 1280 x 960 image which I'd previously
cropped 4:3 so as to completely fill my monitor screen? I've been
doing that for years, starting from my scanning days.

I assume that what I will see is a black band at the top and
bottom but NOT a distorted image. Am I right about this? It would
really surprise me - and tick me off - if tens of thousands of
images are not crap.

BTW, where did square pixels come from? I understand the 4:3
thing having its roots in the old time-sharing non-graphics
terminals, then moving to the PC under DOS. I believe 4:3 was
chosen partially because it made the 80 x 24 line displays work
better and because it true roots are in commerical TV. You always
have great info and insights, so you can probably set me straight
- and ease my mind!

BTW, why am I a Samsung "bigot"? Good question. When I looked
locally at the very best the stores carried, it had the best
overall display of photographs of any other brand, and that
included the lower end Sony's. I thought a high-end, read: much
more expensive, Sony could best my Samsung, but I've been
immensely satisfied with it, I've looked AGAIN at competing
brands, and concluded I have a winner. You have any comments as
to my preferences? You can discuss my sanity in these issues as
well, we're OK with each other. <grin>

Thanks in advance for any info you might be able to provide.

Jerry,

As the Samsung has a native resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels (I believe),
that is the resolution I would run it at. If the text from Windows is
then a little small, use one of the Large Font options. I can just
survive with standard fonts on a 1600 x 1200 display (Dell) with a viewing
area of 16 x 12 inches, although it was a bit of a struggle to start with.

Any interpolation in the monitor is likely to degrade images very
noticeably, and I have no idea what it would do with an input which was
not in its native 1920:1200 (1.6:1) input format. It might try and
stretch the input to fill the screen width, and thereby distort the
images. You'd be best to check this before purchase. Perhaps you can
download the manual?

If you work at the monitor's native 1920 x 1200 resolution, your 4:3
images (1280 x 960) would display either as a 4:3 aspect ratio rectangle
in the middle of the monitor or, if your display software interpolates the
image to best fit the screen, it will end up being 1200 pixels high and
1600 pixels wide. So a black band at left and right of the image. The
image itself should not be distorted (no oval wheels!).

4:3 aspect ratio comes from domestic TV and is a world-wide standard. Or
should I say was, now that HDTV is with us. Square pixels simply makes
the maths easier. Oh, and in Europe the pixels actually aren't square!
They use 576 lines with 720 pixels per line. That's one I've never
completely understood (unless it's to do with sampling the colour
components as well as the brightness signal, but let's not go there!).

In front of me I have a Dell 2007FP (20-inch 1600 x 1200) which I chose
without seeing the image quality, just because it had more pixels while
keeping a 4:3 aspect ratio, a Samsung 713BM (17-inch 1280 x 1024) which
came bundled with a system, and an Acer AL1912 (19-inch 1280 x 1024) which
I chose after looking at many monitors in a local store. I do like the
Dell quality, and the bigger spreadsheets you can display, although I now
produce more 3:2 images than 4:3 ones, but none of the screens is perfect.
Mind you, none were expensive either. I hardly print, so colour matching
isn't an issue, just what's on the display. When showing to friends, I
use my portable attached to the 26-inch TV (1366 x 768 pixels, IIRC).

With each monitor, I use the brightness, contrast, and gamma adjustments
in the display driver to produce the "best" results on photos. I wrote a
program which displays a testcard, and one which displays a greyscale, so
that I can set up the monitors (and TV) consistently. The results are
more than satisfactory for me and other viewers. So if you like the
results from Samsung - go for it!

Cheers,
David


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