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Sad that our pixel density hasn't gone up since the 90s, really. Tv ruins people with 42" screens at only 1080p. I'm glad to see that Apple is showing people th

Sad that our pixel density hasn't gone up since the 90s, really. Tv ruins people with 42" screens at only 1080p. I'm glad to see that Apple is showing people that pixel density matters more than resolution alone, and I await their high-density MacBook displays. Hopefully they'll be out this fall, but a quick survey of the 4K-rezo landscape suggests that they'll likely have to wait another year for prices to drop :/

liquidsnake 15y ago
Pixel density isn't the real problem, it's the lack of content. Even though there have been Full HD displays for quite some time most of the HD content is only 720p, especially games on current generation consoles.
martincmartin 15y ago
TV ruins people with 42" screens at only 1080p. Actually, that pixel density is typically too high because they sit so far back. From http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/08/high-definition-television http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/08/high-definiti... "A survey made some years ago by Bernard Lechner, a television engineer at the former RCA Laboratories, near Princeton, New Jersey, showed that the median eye-to-screen distance in American homes was nine feet. At that distance, a 1080p HDTV set (with a screen 1,920 pixels wide and 1,080 pixels high) needs to be at least 69-inch across a diagonal if viewers are to see all the detail it offers." When I play games on my XBox, I need to pull up a chair so I can sit about 5-6 feet from my TV. My couch is about 10' from the TV, and I simply can't make out the detail as well from that distance.
- evincarofautumn 15y ago
  Thanks for this; I was going to bring it up if no one else did. Yes, the average human eye is sharp—acuity of just under a hundredth of a degree—but not sharp enough to need that resolution at such distance.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- DavidAbrams 15y ago
  Not to mention that everything people watch on these TVs is compressed to into a mottled pastiche of crap. You're not even getting 720P's worth of resolution on your "1080P" set while watching your 5-mbps "HD".
  - creamyhorror 15y ago
    Exactly, and 98% of people don't care or even notice the difference. It takes experience working with video to know what is actually higher quality and what is overcompressed, bitrate-starved crap.
Symmetry 15y ago
I think the problem is that laptop screens are usually marketed as "15 inches" or something, without any mention of what the pixel density is. And for older people large screens with low pixel density might be easier to use.
bo1024 15y ago
I don't care so much about pixel density; it's the ratio that bothers me. 16:9 is ridiculous for anything except watching HD television. (It also now works well for gaming, but only because developers decided to cater to widescreen.) 16:10 is the widest that makes sense for any day-to-day computing tasks, yet it's getting harder and harder to find; forget reasonable 4:3 types.
- mikepurvis 15y ago
  Usage adapts to what's available. I have two 1650x1050 displays side-by-side (so, twice as a wide as "ridiculous"), and I run three 80-char width terminals or two web browsers side by side per display, using xmonad. I like it.
- huggyface 15y ago
  A world of users seem to disagree with you. Maybe it isn't quite as ridiculous as you hold it to be.
  - tomflack 15y ago
    The users don't have a choice for the most part and it's a small enough difference that most don't know about it. That doesn't mean it doesn't negatively impact people. If you want a non-16:9 laptop you have to buy Apple.
    - jamesbritt 15y ago
      When my WUXGA-screen Dell Lattitude failed I went looking for a replacement. But Dell decided to stop offering ~15" WUXGA screen laptops; it was all "wide screen" (aka "short screen") now, which meant the loss of a row of 200 pixels. I ended up getting a Thinkpad W500 from a Lenovo outlet. I should probably start looking for replacement parts now because when this one goes bad I'll again have to fight against whatever the media-consuming, non-developer market is being sold.
    - huggyface 15y ago
      The users don't have a choice for the most part The migration of the monitor industry to 16:9 wasn't one sided. Given the option between 4:3 and 16:9, users overwhelmingly chose 16:9. Eventually the demand was so unbalanced that 4:3 became less common. Really the notion that manufacturers, except for brave Apple, unilaterally decided to force this on users is completely asinine. The GP claimed that it was "ridiculous". What horse shit.
huggyface 15y ago
I'm glad to see that Apple is showing people that pixel density matters more than resolution alone What the heck....pray tell me that this is some sort of parody or satire? Those 42" 1080p screens were "retina" displays before Apple decided to excuse lazy graphical scaling with the title. You are so off base holding Apple as the leader that you must be playing soccer. EDIT: Downvotes, yet the parent is making such an astonishingly revisionist claim that it should be obliterated purely for such fawning ignorance.
- myko 15y ago
  While correct I think it is your tone that is earning you down votes.

liquidsnake 15y ago

Pixel density isn't the real problem, it's the lack of content. Even though there have been Full HD displays for quite some time most of the HD content is only 720p, especially games on current generation consoles.

martincmartin 15y ago

TV ruins people with 42" screens at only 1080p. Actually, that pixel density is typically too high because they sit so far back. From http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/08/high-definition-television http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/08/high-definiti... "A survey made some years ago by Bernard Lechner, a television engineer at the former RCA Laboratories, near Princeton, New Jersey, showed that the median eye-to-screen distance in American homes was nine feet. At that distance, a 1080p HDTV set (with a screen 1,920 pixels wide and 1,080 pixels high) needs to be at least 69-inch across a diagonal if viewers are to see all the detail it offers." When I play games on my XBox, I need to pull up a chair so I can sit about 5-6 feet from my TV. My couch is about 10' from the TV, and I simply can't make out the detail as well from that distance.

evincarofautumn 15y ago
Thanks for this; I was going to bring it up if no one else did. Yes, the average human eye is sharp—acuity of just under a hundredth of a degree—but not sharp enough to need that resolution at such distance.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
DavidAbrams 15y ago
Not to mention that everything people watch on these TVs is compressed to into a mottled pastiche of crap. You're not even getting 720P's worth of resolution on your "1080P" set while watching your 5-mbps "HD".
- creamyhorror 15y ago
  Exactly, and 98% of people don't care or even notice the difference. It takes experience working with video to know what is actually higher quality and what is overcompressed, bitrate-starved crap.

Symmetry 15y ago

I think the problem is that laptop screens are usually marketed as "15 inches" or something, without any mention of what the pixel density is. And for older people large screens with low pixel density might be easier to use.

bo1024 15y ago

I don't care so much about pixel density; it's the ratio that bothers me. 16:9 is ridiculous for anything except watching HD television. (It also now works well for gaming, but only because developers decided to cater to widescreen.) 16:10 is the widest that makes sense for any day-to-day computing tasks, yet it's getting harder and harder to find; forget reasonable 4:3 types.

mikepurvis 15y ago
Usage adapts to what's available. I have two 1650x1050 displays side-by-side (so, twice as a wide as "ridiculous"), and I run three 80-char width terminals or two web browsers side by side per display, using xmonad. I like it.
huggyface 15y ago
A world of users seem to disagree with you. Maybe it isn't quite as ridiculous as you hold it to be.
- tomflack 15y ago
  The users don't have a choice for the most part and it's a small enough difference that most don't know about it. That doesn't mean it doesn't negatively impact people. If you want a non-16:9 laptop you have to buy Apple.
  - jamesbritt 15y ago
    When my WUXGA-screen Dell Lattitude failed I went looking for a replacement. But Dell decided to stop offering ~15" WUXGA screen laptops; it was all "wide screen" (aka "short screen") now, which meant the loss of a row of 200 pixels. I ended up getting a Thinkpad W500 from a Lenovo outlet. I should probably start looking for replacement parts now because when this one goes bad I'll again have to fight against whatever the media-consuming, non-developer market is being sold.
  - huggyface 15y ago
    The users don't have a choice for the most part The migration of the monitor industry to 16:9 wasn't one sided. Given the option between 4:3 and 16:9, users overwhelmingly chose 16:9. Eventually the demand was so unbalanced that 4:3 became less common. Really the notion that manufacturers, except for brave Apple, unilaterally decided to force this on users is completely asinine. The GP claimed that it was "ridiculous". What horse shit.

huggyface 15y ago

I'm glad to see that Apple is showing people that pixel density matters more than resolution alone What the heck....pray tell me that this is some sort of parody or satire? Those 42" 1080p screens were "retina" displays before Apple decided to excuse lazy graphical scaling with the title. You are so off base holding Apple as the leader that you must be playing soccer. EDIT: Downvotes, yet the parent is making such an astonishingly revisionist claim that it should be obliterated purely for such fawning ignorance.

myko 15y ago
While correct I think it is your tone that is earning you down votes.