7 ms·

Suppose your desk is 36" deep. A 48" wide screen at the back of it occupies 41 degrees of your world. The THX recommendation for cinema is 40 degrees. This is a

by dsr_ 10y ago

Suppose your desk is 36" deep. A 48" wide screen at the back of it occupies 41 degrees of your world. The THX recommendation for cinema is 40 degrees. This is as immersive as you're going to get without strapping a screen to your head. 20/20 vision is about 60 pixels per degree, depending on which study you want to believe. 41x60 is 2460 pixels across -- you've already reached the max required pixels with a 3840x2160 display.

wongarsu 10y ago
That is if I stay fixed in my position. If I lean forward to see some detail, I again profit from better resolution. And screens bigger than my viewing field (disregarding peripheral vision) may be unnecessary for entertainment but are certainly useful for work. Head movements are fast and precise and much better than software solutions for switching between windows.
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  I'm picturing a future where people get out a magnifying glass to see some detail on a digital screen.
  - jamiek88 10y ago
    Pinch to zoom!
  - LgWoodenBadger 10y ago
    When I was at the security office for the medical division of an at-the-time-German-company-owned software company I noticed a security officer comparing digital scans of fingerprints on an LCD monitor using a magnifying glass.
vegabook 10y ago
I run a 40" Philips 4k monitor as my primary desktop which sits 3 feet away from me, and I can guarantee you that I can see every single pixel still. It's nothing like a 5k iMac, for example, which at 40 inches, would basically be 8k. 4k is nowhere near the end of the game yet. Even for a TV 6 feet away. Until I can't distinguish my TV from my window, there is room for improvement.
- dsr_ 10y ago
  You're not facing a resolution problem so much as a brightness and contrast problem. Bright sunlight is about 120000 lux. That's about 38000 nits -- and the brightest specialty monitors I know of go up to about 10000 nits. A typical "wow, look at that" display is 2-3000 nits.
  - bhauer 10y ago
    I do not want to downplay that we have a lot of improvement to do on contrast and brightness before we can match an actual window to the outdoors, but vegabook specifically called out his ability to resolve pixels on his 40-inch 4K. Resolution is still a problem. In fact, I feel we have a lot of improvement still to do in desktop displays and that resolution and size remain the most significant hurdles. I run two of the Philips 40-inch 4Ks on my desk and although these are fantastic displays for the price, there are many areas for improvement. Most importantly, and easiest to fix: they should be fully matte rather than semi-gloss. My contention is any display used for work should be matte unless you work in an environment with absolutely no lighting. Lighting glare is the most frustrating issue with computing, in large part because it's so easy to fix. In the early 2000s and before, monitors, including the highest-resolution monitors of the time, were almost exclusively matte. During the malignant era when living room displays converged into desktop workspaces and "HD" reigned terror on computing, we also accepted glossy/mirror displays. Although we have recovered from that period of resolution regression, matte remains marginalized. 40-inch at 4K is too small to use singularly and too low-resolution. I feel ideal is ~55 inches, concave, 10 to 15K horizontal resolution. For what it's worth, here is a blog/rant I wrote in 2014 about ideal desktop displays: http://tiamat.tsotech.com/ideal-desktop-displays http://tiamat.tsotech.com/ideal-desktop-displays
    - slantyyz 10y ago
      >> I feel ideal is ~55 inches, concave, 10 to 15K horizontal resolution. I'm with you on that. I run a pair of 27" 4Ks at native scaling, and I feel like I'm looking at a 10 year old monitor. 27" was about the smallest screen my eyes could tolerate at 1:1 scaling - I was driven by real estate more than sharpness. All other things being equal, I'd prefer a pair of 27" 8K monitors so that I can get my 4K equivalent real estate with crisper text.

by dsr_ 10y ago

wongarsu 10y ago

That is if I stay fixed in my position. If I lean forward to see some detail, I again profit from better resolution. And screens bigger than my viewing field (disregarding peripheral vision) may be unnecessary for entertainment but are certainly useful for work. Head movements are fast and precise and much better than software solutions for switching between windows.

matt_wulfeck 10y ago
I'm picturing a future where people get out a magnifying glass to see some detail on a digital screen.
- jamiek88 10y ago
  Pinch to zoom!
- LgWoodenBadger 10y ago
  When I was at the security office for the medical division of an at-the-time-German-company-owned software company I noticed a security officer comparing digital scans of fingerprints on an LCD monitor using a magnifying glass.

vegabook 10y ago

I run a 40" Philips 4k monitor as my primary desktop which sits 3 feet away from me, and I can guarantee you that I can see every single pixel still. It's nothing like a 5k iMac, for example, which at 40 inches, would basically be 8k. 4k is nowhere near the end of the game yet. Even for a TV 6 feet away. Until I can't distinguish my TV from my window, there is room for improvement.

dsr_ 10y ago
You're not facing a resolution problem so much as a brightness and contrast problem. Bright sunlight is about 120000 lux. That's about 38000 nits -- and the brightest specialty monitors I know of go up to about 10000 nits. A typical "wow, look at that" display is 2-3000 nits.
- bhauer 10y ago
  I do not want to downplay that we have a lot of improvement to do on contrast and brightness before we can match an actual window to the outdoors, but vegabook specifically called out his ability to resolve pixels on his 40-inch 4K. Resolution is still a problem. In fact, I feel we have a lot of improvement still to do in desktop displays and that resolution and size remain the most significant hurdles. I run two of the Philips 40-inch 4Ks on my desk and although these are fantastic displays for the price, there are many areas for improvement. Most importantly, and easiest to fix: they should be fully matte rather than semi-gloss. My contention is any display used for work should be matte unless you work in an environment with absolutely no lighting. Lighting glare is the most frustrating issue with computing, in large part because it's so easy to fix. In the early 2000s and before, monitors, including the highest-resolution monitors of the time, were almost exclusively matte. During the malignant era when living room displays converged into desktop workspaces and "HD" reigned terror on computing, we also accepted glossy/mirror displays. Although we have recovered from that period of resolution regression, matte remains marginalized. 40-inch at 4K is too small to use singularly and too low-resolution. I feel ideal is ~55 inches, concave, 10 to 15K horizontal resolution. For what it's worth, here is a blog/rant I wrote in 2014 about ideal desktop displays: http://tiamat.tsotech.com/ideal-desktop-displays http://tiamat.tsotech.com/ideal-desktop-displays
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    >> I feel ideal is ~55 inches, concave, 10 to 15K horizontal resolution. I'm with you on that. I run a pair of 27" 4Ks at native scaling, and I feel like I'm looking at a 10 year old monitor. 27" was about the smallest screen my eyes could tolerate at 1:1 scaling - I was driven by real estate more than sharpness. All other things being equal, I'd prefer a pair of 27" 8K monitors so that I can get my 4K equivalent real estate with crisper text.