Supersize my letterbox

[ffutures]

With 40" TVs around the £400 mark now, and even 50" going for around £750, I suppose that this is inevitable. New form factor, bit of marketing to say how crap all the old ones are, and you're selling like hot cakes...

I'd imagine that someone somewhere has house room for this thing - it certainly isn't me...

http://www.richersounds.com/product/lcd-tv/philips/56pfl9954/phil-56pfl9954

What worries me is that if the aspect ratio catches on, sooner or later most computer monitors will be made that shape, and it's going to be a bastard finding anything that has a decent height and resolution that isn't too wide to fit onto my desk.

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know a lot of people now who have tvs that are far too large for their rooms. When you have to turn your head to see what's happening in all four corners of the screen? Its too damned big.

Mind you, I think the new thing isn't going to be tvs this size and shape, it'll be these new 3Dtvs that they're marketing hard as the big new thing, and the old tellies are all crap.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've looked at the 3D, it makes my head ache.

How's the foot?

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

The 3D makes my head ache too, I just can't see people spending 3 grand on a tv, and having to wear glasses to sit down and watch their programs. If 3D tvs take off, I'll be amazed. Which probably means they'll take off. (Was surprised to see such heavy advertising for them at the World Cup.)

The foot is much better today, thank you for asking, I can walk almost without a limp. And the bruising and swelling has mostly gone down. So I think I had a lucky escape.

Used to it

[nojay.livejournal.com]

My main computer screen is a 23" 16:9 letterbox LCD (Samsung 2343BW) now. I switched over to it from a couple of 4:3 (i.e. 16:12) format CRTs and it felt a little odd for a time but I'm used to it now. The shape is less important than the screen area and detail it can provide. I tend to keep two or more windows or documents up on it side-by-side, something that would be difficult on the squarer 4:3 CRT display.

A lot of the media I watch on this screen is Japanese broadcast anime which is released in 16:9 or 16:10 format these days. That means the screen image fits the shape of this monitor more that it would on an older CRT.

Re: Used to it

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

This. I like having side-by-side documents open, for which 16:9 is great as long as the documents are letter-sized pages (which most of mine are).

21:9 would be useful for editing panoramas, though :-)

Re: Used to it

[armb.livejournal.com]

At work I use two standard monitors side by side. It would be nice not to have the frames in the middle, but it does let me angle them. I believe there are extra-widescreen monitors which curve around you, but I hate to think how much they cost.

Ah, here we are, $8000. (Though it is also larger than my two put together.)

Re: Used to it

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've rarely got more than one main document open at a time, and for the average work in progress I'd prefer a high screen to a wide one.

Re: Used to it

[nojay.livejournal.com]

The screen I've got swivels into portrait mode -- I don't use it that way often but I could see the attraction of a second screen permanently set up in portrait mode. I've consindered putting one of my big CRT monitors on its side and running it in portrait mode for that purpose -- most modern video cards and their driver software can handle oddball H and V pixel settings (1200x1600 for example) if you stand over them with a big enough mallet.

Re: Used to it

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

My current monitor doesn't swivel, I'm tempted to try it anyway but there's no ventilation at the sides which suggests it wasn't designed to be used that way up.

[raygungothic.livejournal.com]

I fear we're already most of the way there - basic 16:9 monitors are much cheaper than basic monitors of other ratios. The older 16:10 "computer widescreen" standard (which is what I have right now) seems to be reduced to top-end panels. Even small19" non-widescreens are quite a lot more expensive than low-end wides.

I really like paired portrait screens for work (have them in the office - code on one screen, alternate between documentation and results on the other) but it would be a bit of a pain for films & games, whose creators seem to insist on putting interesting bits right in the middle where they split across the bezels. The solution would presumably be to triple portrait - I have an eyefinity graphics card that supports this but it needs at least one DisplayPort screen and they're still overpriced.

It seems like it would be really easy to give a screen a smoother pivot and a USB-connected orientation sensor so that you could change on the fly...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've seen monitors like that but there weren't any at a reasonable price over 19" when I was last shopping for one. I ended up with a 22" wide screen that doesn't swivel.