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I use a Seiki 50" 4K display for coding and it was a revelation. I love all the bezel-free screen real estate and I would never go back. For watching full scre

I use a Seiki 50" 4K display for coding and it was a revelation. I love all the bezel-free screen real estate and I would never go back. For watching full screen video, I just drop the resolution down to 1920x1080 to overcome the 30hz limitation the display currently has. More competition in the ~50" 4K space is welcome news.

xur17 12y ago
I use a 39" 4k Seiki, and I've been very happy with it too. Paid $420 about a month ago (it's $500 from Amazon right now), and it's a pretty amazing amount of real estate without a bezel. 30hz is a little annoying for some tasks, but for coding and other static applications, it really doesn't bother me.
- dmm 12y ago
  If you flash the 39" with the 50" firmware you get true 120Hz at 1080p. It also changes the scaling to a simple 1 pixel to 4. Anybody considering the Seiki should know that it uses an unusual pixel format, BGR. So to get subpixel rendering to work be sure to run the subpixel setup program if you use windows or configure fontconfig if you use linux.
- xhrpost 12y ago
  I've recently done the same. Still trying to get my work environment set up decently. We need some sort of user group for people doing 4k programming to exchange ideas, tools, methods, etc.
  - alex_c 12y ago
    Seems like a good idea: http://www.reddit.com/r/4kmonitors/ http://www.reddit.com/r/4kmonitors/
- silasb 12y ago
  What do you mean "without a bezel," do you just take it off?
  - Bud 12y ago
    He means without the several sets of bezels you'd normally have from the normal way of getting this much screen area, i.e., by having several monitors.
    - RobotCaleb 12y ago
      How does one handle window placement in a single monitor setup like that? I quite often use Windows' fill right, fill left, maximize, fill height options for window arrangement.
      - alex_c 12y ago
        I use a 39" Seiki with my MacBook, and managing windows is a relatively minor but real annoyance. I just drag and resize manually, and usually end up with overlapping windows of different sizes all over the place. I still love the display and would never go back, but it feels like I'm not using it quite as effectively as I could. I suspect this is a gap that will be filled pretty quickly once these monitors become more common.
        sixothree 12y ago
        And on Windows running both AllSnap and AllSnap64 help me a great deal, even though I'm still on smaller monitors.
        pwython 12y ago
        Have you tried BetterSnapTool? It's one of the most useful apps I use. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?mt=12 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?m...
        math0ne 12y ago
        Check out divvy: https://mizage.com/divvy/ https://mizage.com/divvy/
      - robterrell 12y ago
othello 12y ago
How far do you sit from the display ? Do you simply use it as a substitute for a multiple-display setup or do you sit further away from the screen?
pedrocr 12y ago
>For watching full screen video, I just drop the resolution down to 1920x1080 to overcome the 30hz limitation the display currently has. Why is 30hz a limitation for video? Most video is 24 or 30fps, so 30hz should be fine, no? I can see 30hz being a limitation for gaming but you wouldn't be able to get good fps at 4K resolution anyway. So basically you should be able to run this at 4K all the time.
- reitzensteinm 12y ago
  24fps video on a 30hz display isn't going to be smooth. Every fourth frame of the video will last for twice as long as the rest. I haven't seen it in person - one of the downsides of being in rural New Zealand is no friends with cool toys :) - but I've seen much less severe problems on paper be quite nasty. In game development, my day job, the industry has recently been cracking down on micro stutter, where even randomly skipped single frames at 60fps can destroy the appearance of smoothness.
  - pedrocr 12y ago
    >24fps video on a 30hz display isn't going to be smooth. Every fourth frame of the video will last for twice as long as the rest. I see what you mean. Doesn't the HDMI standard have a way to fix this? It could just have a mode where you have 30 frames per second sent to the screen with the indication of which 60hz or even 120hz timeslot to use them in. It might need a little more/faster memory in the screen but should work fine.
    - dmm 12y ago
      That sounds like what Nvidia's G-Sync does. A in-monitor computer buffers frames and displays them at a rate specified by the computer. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7436/nvidias-gsync-attempting-to-revolutionize-gaming-via-smoothness http://www.anandtech.com/show/7436/nvidias-gsync-attempting-...
      - pedrocr 12y ago
        It sounds like it indeed. Although that particular implementation won't go below 30hz so wouldn't fix this particular case.
alexkiritz 12y ago
That completely contradicts my experience and everything else I've read from others. Less than 60 hz is generally annoying when trying to use a screen as a monitor because of cursor lag, but almost all video is at 30 fps or less so 30 hz is fine for video.

xur17 12y ago

I use a 39" 4k Seiki, and I've been very happy with it too. Paid $420 about a month ago (it's $500 from Amazon right now), and it's a pretty amazing amount of real estate without a bezel. 30hz is a little annoying for some tasks, but for coding and other static applications, it really doesn't bother me.

dmm 12y ago
If you flash the 39" with the 50" firmware you get true 120Hz at 1080p. It also changes the scaling to a simple 1 pixel to 4. Anybody considering the Seiki should know that it uses an unusual pixel format, BGR. So to get subpixel rendering to work be sure to run the subpixel setup program if you use windows or configure fontconfig if you use linux.
xhrpost 12y ago
I've recently done the same. Still trying to get my work environment set up decently. We need some sort of user group for people doing 4k programming to exchange ideas, tools, methods, etc.
- alex_c 12y ago
  Seems like a good idea: http://www.reddit.com/r/4kmonitors/ http://www.reddit.com/r/4kmonitors/
silasb 12y ago
What do you mean "without a bezel," do you just take it off?
- Bud 12y ago
  He means without the several sets of bezels you'd normally have from the normal way of getting this much screen area, i.e., by having several monitors.
  - RobotCaleb 12y ago
    How does one handle window placement in a single monitor setup like that? I quite often use Windows' fill right, fill left, maximize, fill height options for window arrangement.
    - alex_c 12y ago
      I use a 39" Seiki with my MacBook, and managing windows is a relatively minor but real annoyance. I just drag and resize manually, and usually end up with overlapping windows of different sizes all over the place. I still love the display and would never go back, but it feels like I'm not using it quite as effectively as I could. I suspect this is a gap that will be filled pretty quickly once these monitors become more common.
      - sixothree 12y ago
        And on Windows running both AllSnap and AllSnap64 help me a great deal, even though I'm still on smaller monitors.
      - pwython 12y ago
        Have you tried BetterSnapTool? It's one of the most useful apps I use. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?mt=12 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?m...
      - math0ne 12y ago
        Check out divvy: https://mizage.com/divvy/ https://mizage.com/divvy/
    - robterrell 12y ago

othello 12y ago

How far do you sit from the display ? Do you simply use it as a substitute for a multiple-display setup or do you sit further away from the screen?

pedrocr 12y ago

>For watching full screen video, I just drop the resolution down to 1920x1080 to overcome the 30hz limitation the display currently has. Why is 30hz a limitation for video? Most video is 24 or 30fps, so 30hz should be fine, no? I can see 30hz being a limitation for gaming but you wouldn't be able to get good fps at 4K resolution anyway. So basically you should be able to run this at 4K all the time.

reitzensteinm 12y ago
24fps video on a 30hz display isn't going to be smooth. Every fourth frame of the video will last for twice as long as the rest. I haven't seen it in person - one of the downsides of being in rural New Zealand is no friends with cool toys :) - but I've seen much less severe problems on paper be quite nasty. In game development, my day job, the industry has recently been cracking down on micro stutter, where even randomly skipped single frames at 60fps can destroy the appearance of smoothness.
- pedrocr 12y ago
  >24fps video on a 30hz display isn't going to be smooth. Every fourth frame of the video will last for twice as long as the rest. I see what you mean. Doesn't the HDMI standard have a way to fix this? It could just have a mode where you have 30 frames per second sent to the screen with the indication of which 60hz or even 120hz timeslot to use them in. It might need a little more/faster memory in the screen but should work fine.
  - dmm 12y ago
    That sounds like what Nvidia's G-Sync does. A in-monitor computer buffers frames and displays them at a rate specified by the computer. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7436/nvidias-gsync-attempting-to-revolutionize-gaming-via-smoothness http://www.anandtech.com/show/7436/nvidias-gsync-attempting-...
    - pedrocr 12y ago
      It sounds like it indeed. Although that particular implementation won't go below 30hz so wouldn't fix this particular case.

alexkiritz 12y ago

That completely contradicts my experience and everything else I've read from others. Less than 60 hz is generally annoying when trying to use a screen as a monitor because of cursor lag, but almost all video is at 30 fps or less so 30 hz is fine for video.