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Here's a non-facetious, completely honest question from someone who just doesn't know why- Why is is 2012 and my new TV and monitor each have about the same hor

Here's a non-facetious, completely honest question from someone who just doesn't know why- Why is is 2012 and my new TV and monitor each have about the same horizontal resolution as my CRT monitor from 1998? It's 14 years later, and I still only have about 2000 pixels to play with. I know the obvious answer is that everyone is just matching the resolution movies are sold as, but why can't I get a professional grade monitor with a "retina" quality display for my desk?

wmf 15y ago
I guess as cheap monitors became good enough, demand for pro monitors plummeted, giving them diseconomies of non-scale. The good news is that you won't suffer buyer's remorse since prices don't go down.
- waqf 15y ago
  Right, because AIUI there are huge fixed costs in setting up and running an LCD fabrication plant. So the biggest market wins.
Splines 15y ago
I'm only postulating, but I think gains in flat-screen technology were put into other quality factors other than resolution.
fleitz 15y ago
You can, phone any medical imaging shop. Keep in mind you'll pay professional grade prices for such a device. Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors 201 DPI for the T220/221. If you think about it their pretty cheap too. Remember paying 2K for a monitor back in the 80s? It's basically the same price once you factor inflation.
- thudson 15y ago
  The T221 is a great monitor for coding -- check out the size of the "fixed" font on the wikipedia image. But with most configurations it only does 12, 24 or 48 Hz depending on how many DVI channels you can use. Also, since it is being driven as four separate 1920x1280 displays with xinerama there tends to be tearing across the boundaries with movies or video since the refresh from the cards is not synchronized. Other than that, I love mine and am considering a second one for dual head using eight DVI channels.
mjg59 15y ago
A mixture of it becoming much more expensive to produce large high-density panels with an acceptable number of defects and the disproportionate increase in bandwidth and memory required to handle larger screens. Single-link DVI only supports a resolution of 1920x1200. HDMI didn't go above 2560x1600 until a couple of years ago. Displayport's still in that ballpark.
rbanffy 15y ago
If you don't need color, a quick googling gives you monstrously expensive display with 4096 x 2560 pixels: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A5623001 http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A5.... If you need color and are willing to live with just 3280 x 2048, you can spend a lot less on a http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A5213768 http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A5.... I'd be happy with 8 of these (http://barco.com/en/product/1219/specs http://barco.com/en/product/1219/specs) arranged in two 2x2 clusters on the sides of my webcam. edit: Eizo has another cool one, color and 4096 x 2160: http://www.eizo.com/global/products/radiforce/rx840/index.html http://www.eizo.com/global/products/radiforce/rx840/index.ht.... I don't even want to know how much they cost.
- mahyarm 15y ago
  According to http://www.geeks3d.com/20111208/eizo-radiforce-rx840-a-36-4-inch-monitor-with-an-insane-4096x2160-resolution/ http://www.geeks3d.com/20111208/eizo-radiforce-rx840-a-36-4-... the Eizo is about 21'000 Euros
- Tossrock 15y ago
  My jaw literally dropped when I saw the price tag on the monochrome Barco. You could get several new cars for that much.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    But they are insanely cool, aren't they? It's the kind of money you spend to develop today against the kind of computer that will be mainstream a couple years from now. At least, that's one bet. Xerox bet correctly - GUIs, bit-mapped displays and object orientation got hot in the mid 80's but, nevertheless, they didn't collect their prize.
    - wmf 15y ago
      But better monitors won't be mainstream a couple years from now; there has been no improvement in the last five years, so why should the future be any different?
simcop2387 15y ago
My understanding is that there's a few things at play in this. The first is the screen makers which you mention their reasons for doing it. The second is one of bandwidth to the display, my understanding is that that is the limiting factor here. At 2560x1600 you've got (2560 * 1600 pixels) * 24 bpp * (60 frames/second) about 5.5 Gigabits per second. at 3840x2400 (1.5x of above) you've got 12 Gigabits/s. At the moment HDMI has a bandwidth limit of 8.16 Gigabits/s after overhead, which isn't quite enough to do it. Display port 1.0/1.1 also had a limit of around 8.6 Gigabit/s. Displayport 1.2 however goes up to 17.28 Gb/s so it should allow for the larger displays but I've not seen many non-apple display port monitors myself. DP 1.2 came out in December of 2009 according to wikipedia so it should have started to filter out to people by now but I've not looked into that.
- hapless 15y ago
  Most monitors that require dual-link DVI will also have DP inputs, since DP outputs are extremely common. That's every 30" and most 27" monitors. Every laptop I've had in the last few years has had a DP output. I've read that this is because it's cheaper to license than HDMI. (But DP to HDMI conversion boxes are like $20 now.)
  - simcop2387 15y ago
    I can't say that I've seen that myself, I've got a 27" viewsonic monitor that only has HDMI, but it only does 1920x1080 so it wouldn't need a dual link dvi anyway. My laptop is the same way with a built in hdmi connector rather than a dvi.
niels_olson 15y ago
Having worked with pathologists, radiologists, military air traffic controllers, and cinematographers, they seem fairly happy with BARCO 30" 2560 x 1600 (16:10) screens. I guess the question would be what high-stakes decision is going to benefit from higher resolution? Instead of using the zoom function in your imaging tool of choice, you break out a glass and metal loupe and hold it vertical? How is that a plus? I'm sure every imaging company on the planet is well aware of the Retina display and has plans for building out higher resolution manufacturing. I just haven't met professionals who are sweating that particular detail of their workflow for several years. What industries are you seeing this problem in?
- seanp2k2 15y ago
  The human eye has much greater resolution at "typical" working distances than current PC displays, and especially TVs. It's why I like my 1920x1200 14.1" Dell D830. You can find then for about $300 on Craigslist and you can fit a module bay batt plus a 9cell which, with an SSD and the integrated video can get 6-9 hours depending on use.
  - niels_olson 15y ago
    Funny, I have one of those high-res Latitudes. It's been demoted to home juke box as my Cr-48 has proven to be a much more capable travel companion. I actually spent a summer working with Edward Tufte, lived in a guest house on his premises. Got the job in part as a physics major who then went to medical school and knew at least enough about brains and eyeballs to be conversant. I think its safe to say I'm a fanatic about transmitting as much data as possible in the eyespan. That said, what people are doing with the extra data is also non-trivial. We, the societal we, are not spending money in a vacuum: IBM discontinued the T221 monitor fleitz cited above. My question stands: what industry is suffering mission failures due lack of screen resolution?
modeless 15y ago
There are separate reasons for TVs and computers. For TVs, extra resolution just isn't all that important. Most people can't tell the difference between 480p and 720p, let alone 720p and 1080p. For computers, there are concerns about display connector bandwidth and LCD fabrication yields, but they are surmountable. The real limiting factor has actually been the terrible state of DPI scaling support in desktop operating systems. Higher resolutions make the UI elements too small to see; it's as simple as that. The future is bright, though. Apple realized that their uniquely tight control over the hardware and software environment on iOS would allow them to easily switch to a higher resolution display and scale the UI without any compatibility problems. Now that they've released the retina display there's pressure on competitors (including themselves with OS X) to follow suit.
Zak 15y ago
It's worse with laptops. In 2003, the highest resolution laptops were QXGA (2048x1536). In 2008, they were WUXGA (1920x1200). Now (with a couple WUXGA exceptions), they're FHD (1920x1080). I'm very frustrated with laptops mimicking TV resolutions. I use my laptop to make things (code), not to watch movies. I find additional vertical space more useful than horizontal and can't get a screen as tall as I used to be able to. Note also that QXGA is the widest of these, despite the others being "widescreen".
- LeonidasXIV 15y ago
  Most notably, the new Thinkpad T-Series (Tx20) has 16:9 screens instead of 16:10. You think they got smaller? No, they have the same size, just a large part is covered in plastic where vertical screen space used to be. Did I mention that it looks retarded?

wmf 15y ago

I guess as cheap monitors became good enough, demand for pro monitors plummeted, giving them diseconomies of non-scale. The good news is that you won't suffer buyer's remorse since prices don't go down.

waqf 15y ago
Right, because AIUI there are huge fixed costs in setting up and running an LCD fabrication plant. So the biggest market wins.

Splines 15y ago

I'm only postulating, but I think gains in flat-screen technology were put into other quality factors other than resolution.

fleitz 15y ago

You can, phone any medical imaging shop. Keep in mind you'll pay professional grade prices for such a device. Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors 201 DPI for the T220/221. If you think about it their pretty cheap too. Remember paying 2K for a monitor back in the 80s? It's basically the same price once you factor inflation.

thudson 15y ago
The T221 is a great monitor for coding -- check out the size of the "fixed" font on the wikipedia image. But with most configurations it only does 12, 24 or 48 Hz depending on how many DVI channels you can use. Also, since it is being driven as four separate 1920x1280 displays with xinerama there tends to be tearing across the boundaries with movies or video since the refresh from the cards is not synchronized. Other than that, I love mine and am considering a second one for dual head using eight DVI channels.

mjg59 15y ago

A mixture of it becoming much more expensive to produce large high-density panels with an acceptable number of defects and the disproportionate increase in bandwidth and memory required to handle larger screens. Single-link DVI only supports a resolution of 1920x1200. HDMI didn't go above 2560x1600 until a couple of years ago. Displayport's still in that ballpark.

rbanffy 15y ago

If you don't need color, a quick googling gives you monstrously expensive display with 4096 x 2560 pixels: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A5623001 http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A5.... If you need color and are willing to live with just 3280 x 2048, you can spend a lot less on a http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A5213768 http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A5.... I'd be happy with 8 of these (http://barco.com/en/product/1219/specs http://barco.com/en/product/1219/specs) arranged in two 2x2 clusters on the sides of my webcam. edit: Eizo has another cool one, color and 4096 x 2160: http://www.eizo.com/global/products/radiforce/rx840/index.html http://www.eizo.com/global/products/radiforce/rx840/index.ht.... I don't even want to know how much they cost.

mahyarm 15y ago
According to http://www.geeks3d.com/20111208/eizo-radiforce-rx840-a-36-4-inch-monitor-with-an-insane-4096x2160-resolution/ http://www.geeks3d.com/20111208/eizo-radiforce-rx840-a-36-4-... the Eizo is about 21'000 Euros
Tossrock 15y ago
My jaw literally dropped when I saw the price tag on the monochrome Barco. You could get several new cars for that much.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  But they are insanely cool, aren't they? It's the kind of money you spend to develop today against the kind of computer that will be mainstream a couple years from now. At least, that's one bet. Xerox bet correctly - GUIs, bit-mapped displays and object orientation got hot in the mid 80's but, nevertheless, they didn't collect their prize.
  - wmf 15y ago
    But better monitors won't be mainstream a couple years from now; there has been no improvement in the last five years, so why should the future be any different?

simcop2387 15y ago

My understanding is that there's a few things at play in this. The first is the screen makers which you mention their reasons for doing it. The second is one of bandwidth to the display, my understanding is that that is the limiting factor here. At 2560x1600 you've got (2560 * 1600 pixels) * 24 bpp * (60 frames/second) about 5.5 Gigabits per second. at 3840x2400 (1.5x of above) you've got 12 Gigabits/s. At the moment HDMI has a bandwidth limit of 8.16 Gigabits/s after overhead, which isn't quite enough to do it. Display port 1.0/1.1 also had a limit of around 8.6 Gigabit/s. Displayport 1.2 however goes up to 17.28 Gb/s so it should allow for the larger displays but I've not seen many non-apple display port monitors myself. DP 1.2 came out in December of 2009 according to wikipedia so it should have started to filter out to people by now but I've not looked into that.

hapless 15y ago
Most monitors that require dual-link DVI will also have DP inputs, since DP outputs are extremely common. That's every 30" and most 27" monitors. Every laptop I've had in the last few years has had a DP output. I've read that this is because it's cheaper to license than HDMI. (But DP to HDMI conversion boxes are like $20 now.)
- simcop2387 15y ago
  I can't say that I've seen that myself, I've got a 27" viewsonic monitor that only has HDMI, but it only does 1920x1080 so it wouldn't need a dual link dvi anyway. My laptop is the same way with a built in hdmi connector rather than a dvi.

niels_olson 15y ago

Having worked with pathologists, radiologists, military air traffic controllers, and cinematographers, they seem fairly happy with BARCO 30" 2560 x 1600 (16:10) screens. I guess the question would be what high-stakes decision is going to benefit from higher resolution? Instead of using the zoom function in your imaging tool of choice, you break out a glass and metal loupe and hold it vertical? How is that a plus? I'm sure every imaging company on the planet is well aware of the Retina display and has plans for building out higher resolution manufacturing. I just haven't met professionals who are sweating that particular detail of their workflow for several years. What industries are you seeing this problem in?

seanp2k2 15y ago
The human eye has much greater resolution at "typical" working distances than current PC displays, and especially TVs. It's why I like my 1920x1200 14.1" Dell D830. You can find then for about $300 on Craigslist and you can fit a module bay batt plus a 9cell which, with an SSD and the integrated video can get 6-9 hours depending on use.
- niels_olson 15y ago
  Funny, I have one of those high-res Latitudes. It's been demoted to home juke box as my Cr-48 has proven to be a much more capable travel companion. I actually spent a summer working with Edward Tufte, lived in a guest house on his premises. Got the job in part as a physics major who then went to medical school and knew at least enough about brains and eyeballs to be conversant. I think its safe to say I'm a fanatic about transmitting as much data as possible in the eyespan. That said, what people are doing with the extra data is also non-trivial. We, the societal we, are not spending money in a vacuum: IBM discontinued the T221 monitor fleitz cited above. My question stands: what industry is suffering mission failures due lack of screen resolution?

modeless 15y ago

There are separate reasons for TVs and computers. For TVs, extra resolution just isn't all that important. Most people can't tell the difference between 480p and 720p, let alone 720p and 1080p. For computers, there are concerns about display connector bandwidth and LCD fabrication yields, but they are surmountable. The real limiting factor has actually been the terrible state of DPI scaling support in desktop operating systems. Higher resolutions make the UI elements too small to see; it's as simple as that. The future is bright, though. Apple realized that their uniquely tight control over the hardware and software environment on iOS would allow them to easily switch to a higher resolution display and scale the UI without any compatibility problems. Now that they've released the retina display there's pressure on competitors (including themselves with OS X) to follow suit.

Zak 15y ago

It's worse with laptops. In 2003, the highest resolution laptops were QXGA (2048x1536). In 2008, they were WUXGA (1920x1200). Now (with a couple WUXGA exceptions), they're FHD (1920x1080). I'm very frustrated with laptops mimicking TV resolutions. I use my laptop to make things (code), not to watch movies. I find additional vertical space more useful than horizontal and can't get a screen as tall as I used to be able to. Note also that QXGA is the widest of these, despite the others being "widescreen".

LeonidasXIV 15y ago
Most notably, the new Thinkpad T-Series (Tx20) has 16:9 screens instead of 16:10. You think they got smaller? No, they have the same size, just a large part is covered in plastic where vertical screen space used to be. Did I mention that it looks retarded?