[Rev-O]

30" displays with the "GPU upgrade" (read: 6800 ultra) are in stock at some Apple stores. Picked mine up last night.

The display is just... huge. Absolutely freaking huge. I set my old school 23" display next to it during the change over, and it seemed so tiny next to the 30" monster. I'm one happy camper.

Anyone interested in a year old 23" hdcd? Figure it's going on the market in a day or two.

[reader50]

Plug them both into the 6800 and enjoy. At least until you can add the 2nd 30".

[Mafia]

i'll give you a cookie for it and you can have the satisfaction of knowing that you made someone else happy ^^ SAVE ME FROM MY CRT!!!!

[Cadaver]

So, where are the pictures?

[the_glassman]

[Crusoe]

I saw the 30"er in the U Village store in Seattle last week. I had to pay the store back for breaking the keyboard when my jaw dropped. It's soo awsome in person. Soo much real estate in crystal clear view I started to grasp what inifinity really is.

Congrats on your purchase, as mentioned you should double up and buy a second 30". Then post some pics.

[michaelb]

Originally posted by Cadaver:
So, where are the pictures?

They don't make a camera lens wide enough to fit it in!

But better not let the people in the Peripherals thread hear anyone is foolish enough to buy an Apple monitor, they've all convinced themselves that Dell monitors are better at half the price.

[Rev-O]

Originally posted by Crusoe:
I saw the 30"er in the U Village store in Seattle last week. I had to pay the store back for breaking the keyboard when my jaw dropped. It's soo awsome in person. Soo much real estate in crystal clear view I started to grasp what inifinity really is.

Congrats on your purchase, as mentioned you should double up and buy a second 30". Then post some pics.

Sorry about the lack of pics... three reasons:
1) I am lazy.
2) Digital Camera is cooked, am buying a new one today.
3) KOTOR is so freaking cool on a 30" display, I can't stop playing it!

...and yah, right. Two 30" displays. I couldn't sleep for a night because of the anxiety generated by my impulse purchase. Wouldn't sleep for a week if I had bought 2!

[SafariX]

I'll sleep with you for 2. Hmm, wait a tick...

[the_glassman]

Yeah just buy another 30" display already why don't you? lol
It would be nice to have two though, I would use on just for movies and TV and the other for actual work! (if thats what you want to call it)

[UnixMac]

Originally posted by SafariX:
I'll sleep with you for 2. Hmm, wait a tick...

Are you a good looking woman with a nice ass? Cause, I'll buy one for you for that!

[Pierre B.]

May I ask a question? How is DVD playback on this (30") display?

[Rev-O]

Originally posted by Pierre B.:
May I ask a question? How is DVD playback on this (30") display?

Full screen is a bit fuzzy, as the video source (the dvd) is getting blown up considerably to fill the entire screen. Still quite watchable, tho. Watched The Empire Kicks Ass (my name for episode 5) and it was pretty damn groovy. Haven't really spent a lot of time watching movies on it tho. Been playing Kotor, Nwn, Myst 4, and (sad but true) Princess & The Pauper Barbie.
I need to buy some kicking speakers for my G5, but I think my wife has forbade me from visiting computer stores for awhile. New display, new graphics card, new digital camera, new printer... eek.
If I can get my act together, I'll post some pix.

[Pierre B.]

Originally posted by Rev-O:
Full screen is a bit fuzzy, as the video source (the dvd) is getting blown up considerably to fill the entire screen. Still quite watchable, tho. Watched The Empire Kicks Ass (my name for episode 5) and it was pretty damn groovy.

Not sure if I get what you mean: do you say that the display resolution is so high, that the "modest" video/image information on a DVD disc is insufficient to produce a crisp image? Would we need DVDs of higher detail (which translates to higher capacity discs) in order to obtain clear image? And how it compares to watching a DVD in a 30" TV monitor?

[Graymalkin]

The 30" Cinema display is 2560X1600 pixels. A DVD frame is only 720x480 pixels. For every pixel in the DVD video the Cinema display has roughly eleven pixels to fill at full screen. As such the DVD video run at full screen has to interpolate eleven pixels for every one pixel of video information on the DVD. A 30" television display doesn't have as much of a problem because widescreen displays are either 720p or 1080i capable (720x1280 and 1080x1920 respectively). Even when HD televisions hit 55" or more they still only have 720 or 1080 vertical lines.

[Pierre B.]

Originally posted by Graymalkin:
A DVD frame is only 720x480 pixels.

Thanks Graymalkin. I did not was aware that the DVD frame has such a low resolution. So, if we want for example frames at 1152 x 768, we need discs of at least 2.5 times more capacity than the common, single and dual layer, DVDs (20 GB or more). Is there already something like that in the market today?

[Graymalkin]

Nope. The next generation of video discs will be one of two formats, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Both offer full resolution HD video (1080x1920) but use different types of discs, readers, and compression formats. HD-DVD discs are virtually identical to standard DVDs yet hold about 15GB per layer (a DVD holds about 4.7GB per layer) due to using a smaller laser wavelenth than typical DVDs (405nm vs. 650nm). Blu-Ray discs are a bit different from DVDs but use 405nm lasers like HD-DVDs. Blu-Ray discs however can hold 25GB per layer.

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray as whole standards use different video encoding schemes. Blu-Ray uses MPEG-2 for HD video. An HD stream in MPEG-2 requires about 25Mb/s so the 25GB of space a BD-ROM offers will only hold about two and a half hours of video per layer (one layer per side) so about five hours tops of HD video on a BD-ROM. HD-DVD uses MPEG-4 Part 10 (h.264/AVC the one in Quicktime 6.6 in Tiger) which can encode HD video at about 10Mb/s. Even with the lower capacity HD-DVD will get a bit more video per layer than Blu-Ray.

Either way these formats will actually have HD video on them rather than the SD video DVDs have currently. As full size HD televisions come down in price the availability of HD video discs of whatever format will be more important. As of right now your HD television/monitor has a derth of actual HD material to display. Smart people however are producing entirely in HD and then downsampling to SD to distribute on DVDs and normal television.

[Lee33]

When I first read this thread a few days ago saying the 30" was FINALLY in the stores I just HAD to take some time off work to go look. OMG!!! Some how, some way, I gotta get me one of those. . . . .

[Rev-O]

Sorry it has taken so long to get a picture up... but pictures just don't do it justice! I've had it for almost a week now, and everytime I walk in the room and look at it I think "My God, that's freaking huge!"

I likey!

[angelmb]

the wait was worthy

the desktop shown in the 30" is fantastic

[Rev-O]

...and if anyone cares: a 5 mp digital camera on it's highest capture setting has roughly the same resolution as a 30" display (2560x1600). Keeps your desktop wallpapers nice and sharp.

[macaddict0001]

not quite the screen is actually 4.096 megapixels
for comparison a standard definition tv is 0.3072 megapixels

[V12]

im interested in your 23" if you are looking to get rid of it, om me with details and such

[UnixMac]

Originally posted by Rev-O:


Sorry it has taken so long to get a picture up... but pictures just don't do it justice! I've had it for almost a week now, and everytime I walk in the room and look at it I think "My God, that's freaking huge!"

I likey!

Looks great...30" contrast it with the 23".. I even have the Lacie to contrast!

[Rev-O]

Don't EVEN compare desktops! I have a spiffy light up USB Xmas Tree! Okay, so you have an iSight and I don't...

Seriously, tho. The new style displays are smokin' nice. The 23" looks killer!

[sworthy]

Is your Lacie HD upside down on purpose?

[himself]

I went to the Michigan Ave. Apple store in Chicago to check out the new displays... they actually had two 30" displays connected to one G5. It was just too much. I had to make broad sweeping motions with my entire arm to get the mouse across both displays. Plus, I kept losing the mouse when going between screens, the expanse was so great.

For kicks, I downloaded a dual-display desktop from pixelgirlpresents.com and loaded them on the displays - gorgeous. The images scaled up really well, too. I was gawking for at least 30 minutes.

[UnixMac]

Originally posted by sworthy:
Is your Lacie HD upside down on purpose?

Yes... cable de-clutter... The idiots placed the power cable on the top of the drive if you mount it right.. but lets face it... with these type of things, there is no up or down.