[all2ofme]

I'm interested in buying an Apple 20" LCD but am hesitating for the following reason:

My last monitor was a 19" CRT which I kept on 1280x1024 for photo retouching. To compensate for the non-square pixels (5:4 aspect ratio instead of 4:3) I reduced the horizontal width of the screen. This gave me quite large black bands down the sides of the screen, but at least people in photos didn't look (at least artificially ) squashed and fat.

I imagine this will be a problem on 1280x1024 LCDs also.

Will it be a problem with the widescreen (i.e. non-4:3) Apple displays?

Thanks very much for any help,
Ben

[all2ofme]

Is my question stooooopid or does no one actually know the answer to it?

Surely I'm not the only person who doesn't want to have squashed images on screen.

Can anyone give me a hand here?

[Tiauguinho]

Hey,


I've own a 20'' and i do recommend it to you! there is no streching of the image at all (well, the images i work with dont strech). I think you should go out and buy one right away, you will be amazed!

[CatOne]

Originally posted by all2ofme:
I'm interested in buying an Apple 20" LCD but am hesitating for the following reason:

My last monitor was a 19" CRT which I kept on 1280x1024 for photo retouching. To compensate for the non-square pixels (5:4 aspect ratio instead of 4:3) I reduced the horizontal width of the screen. This gave me quite large black bands down the sides of the screen, but at least people in photos didn't look (at least artificially ) squashed and fat.

I imagine this will be a problem on 1280x1024 LCDs also.

Will it be a problem with the widescreen (i.e. non-4:3) Apple displays?

Thanks very much for any help,
Ben

I don't really understand the question. The resolution on the 20" is 1680x1024 (or about that). That's how many pixels it has, and there won't be black bars on the side of the screen.

[all2ofme]

Thanks for the help so far.

Yeah, I know - the question's not the clearest. I'll give it another go:

On an 800x600, 1024x768 or 1600x1200 (all 4:3) screen, a picture of a person will have the correct proportions (they won't look squashed and fat). This presume this is because the physical size of the screen is also 4:3 (i.e. the pixels are square).

However, when displaying the same image on a 1280x1024 screen (5:4), the pixels are *no longer square* (since they take up the same space). People appear fatter than they actually are, buildings appear shorter etc. The pixels are wider than they are tall.

On a CRT you can work around this by making the physical screen space used narrower (thereby making them taller again). This won't be possible on an LCD, though, as the resolutions are fixed. This creates the black bands I mentioned. I can live with black bands on a CRT if it means that I don't have to imagine that I have slimmer friends

Does that make it clearer? Will I have a similar problem on the 20" Apple screen?

Thanks so much for any help,
Ben

[jonny05]

As far as I know, non-square pixels shouldn't be a problem on an LCD, if you're running it at the native resolution. A wider display just means more pixels horizontally, rather than stretched ones. If you run it through DVI or ADC, you shouldn't have any screen geometry problems at all.

Hope this helps

Jonny05

[andrewbw]

All2ofme --

Since I'm a designer, I think I understand your question a little better than most I also went from a 19" CRT to an Apple 20" Cinema Display. The true answer to your question, however, lies in an explanation of how LCDs work.

On a CRT, the pixels are "virtual" -- they can be any size or aspect, based on at what resolution you drive the monitor. You correctly observed that at 1280x1024, the ratio changes, and is no longer the same 4:3 ratio that all other standard resolutions are. Since the 19" size of the screen is fixed, the image is stretched and you get virtual pixels that are rectangular. This is why circles look oval at this resolution, and you found yourself compensating by using the scan controls of your monitor to compress the image inward, and restore a 4:3 aspect.

LCD screens, however, work differently. They have actual, physical hard-wired, square pixel elements. A a LCD's native resolution, the relationship is 1:1. For example, the 20" Cinema Display's native resolution is 1680 x 1050. This means the screen is 1680 actual physical pixels wide, and 1050 pixels tall. A 1:1 relationship. Circles appear perfectly round, heads don't look flat, etc. Because the image is not being distorted. Make sense? Just because the physical aspect of the screen is wider than a standard 4:3 monitor, doesn't mean the image is distorted, since the pixel/native resolution relationship is 1:1.

This is the primary reason why LCDs don't look very good when you drive them at a non-native resolution. When the computer's resolution doesn't match the native resolution of the display, it's no longer operating in a 1:1 relationship, and the image distorts (looks fuzzy) or displays at the wrong aspect (assuming it's set to "stretch" to fill the screen. Otherwise, it just blocks out the unused space on the left and right to maintain the correct aspect of the chosen resolution. 4:3, 5:4, etc.)

Make sense?

-A.

[all2ofme]

Hi Andrew,

Designer here too

Yes, I see what you mean, and that does sound intuitively correct. It would be silly any other way.

How does this work with a 17" LCD at 1280x1024 then? I read a review (see here) which included a section detailing precisely that and saying that things did appear squashed.

I would assume that it's much easier to make all LCD panels with square pixels, but for this to be the case 17" LCD screens would need to be physically different in proportion to their CRT counterparts (which squash the images as you say). Is this how it works?

Thanks very much for a detailed reply - it might work out to be a good idea to get one of those Samsung 172T screens for the moment if I'm not going to have this problem. I might wait until the Apple screens drop in price again...or get a Formac at the new prices.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by all2ofme:
Hi Andrew,

Designer here too

Yes, I see what you mean, and that does sound intuitively correct. It would be silly any other way.

How does this work with a 17" LCD at 1280x1024 then? I read a review (see here) which included a section detailing precisely that and saying that things did appear squashed.

I would assume that it's much easier to make all LCD panels with square pixels, but for this to be the case 17" LCD screens would need to be physically different in proportion to their CRT counterparts (which squash the images as you say). Is this how it works?

Thanks very much for a detailed reply - it might work out to be a good idea to get one of those Samsung 172T screens for the moment if I'm not going to have this problem. I might wait until the Apple screens drop in price again...or get a Formac at the new prices.

A pixel is a pixel on an LCD. And they're square. If an LCD is running in its native resolution (really, you always want to run it this way) then nothing will ever change.

If you got a 17" (1280x1024) and went up to a 20" (say, 1600x1024), the same image on the latter wouldn't fill the entire screen. You'd have unused space (likely, desktop) there.

[andrewbw]

Originally posted by all2ofme:
I would assume that it's much easier to make all LCD panels with square pixels, but for this to be the case 17" LCD screens would need to be physically different in proportion to their CRT counterparts (which squash the images as you say). Is this how it works?

Bingo! Hooray!

The actual, physical demensions of the 17" studio display are in a 5:4 ratio, to match the 5:4 ratio of its resolution: 1280x1024.

Think about what CatOne said: on an LCD, a pixel is a pixel. Think about what I said: An LCD display is made up of thousands of tiny little individual pixels -- just like the scoreboard at your favorite sports stadium, just on a much smaller scale. If the screen's resolution is 1280x1024, that means it has 1280 square pixels across, and 1024 square pixels down. The physical aspect of the display itself is 5:4. This is in contrast to a normal 4:3 CRT which cannot display a 5:4 aspect resolution without squashing it slightly. If you look at a 17" Studio Display in person, you'll notice the screen appears more "square" than your standard computer display. again, this is due to the different physical aspect.

Make sense? the native resolution of an LCD display is always a direct 1:1 ratio to the number of physical pixels that make up that display. You get distorted images on an LCD when you drive it any any other resolution.

That help clear things up better?

-A.

[all2ofme]

<hopefully_final_stages_of_numbskulledness>

What was the chappie in that review I posted a link to on about then? I mean about the squashed people on screen...

Is it because with square pixels it's surely impossible to have both a full screen 4:3 image (telly) AND a full screen 5:4 image (the computer's display) BOTH display on the same monitor in their correct proportions without black bands?

Thanks for the clarification on this, you lot. I'm almost there

</hopefully_final_stages_of_numbskulledness>

You might save me some cashish on this. �330 instead of �1099 is a decent saving and it's not that much of a step down in resolution, either...

Originally posted by andrewbw:
Bingo! Hooray!

The actual, physical demensions of the 17" studio display are in a 5:4 ratio, to match the 5:4 ratio of its resolution: 1280x1024.

Think about what CatOne said: on an LCD, a pixel is a pixel. Think about what I said: An LCD display is made up of thousands of tiny little individual pixels -- just like the scoreboard at your favorite sports stadium, just on a much smaller scale. If the screen's resolution is 1280x1024, that means it has 1280 square pixels across, and 1024 square pixels down. The physical aspect of the display itself is 5:4. This is in contrast to a normal 4:3 CRT which cannot display a 5:4 aspect resolution without squashing it slightly. If you look at a 17" Studio Display in person, you'll notice the screen appears more "square" than your standard computer display. again, this is due to the different physical aspect.

Make sense? the native resolution of an LCD display is always a direct 1:1 ratio to the number of physical pixels that make up that display. You get distorted images on an LCD when you drive it any any other resolution.

That help clear things up better?

-A.

[andrewbw]

Originally posted by all2ofme:
What was the chappie in that review I posted a link to on about then? I mean about the squashed people on screen...

I have no idea what that review is talking about, since I don't have any experience with that particular monitor. I can only speak for what Apple has done with their LCDs, and how the 17" Studio Display achieves a 5:4 ratio without squashing the display.

While this seems bizarre and unlikely, I can only assume that the monitor in that review uses rectangular pixels (rather than square) in order to fit that resolution in a 4:3 physicalspace. That would then, of course, cause the image to be slightly distorted. That's the only way I can think of they could offer a true television mode without using black bars at the top and bottom. At the same time, that just doesn't make any logical sense -- why would a monitor manufacturer purposefully create a slightly flawed product? I can only assume either someone at Samsung is on drugs, or the reviewer is. In either case, it would make me cross that product off my list.

All that being said, if your goal is to be able to watch TV on your computer monitor, I think it would be a lot smarter to buy the best monitor for your computing needs, and then augment it with a product like El Gato's EyeTV. This way you have the best possible monitor for work, and can still enjoy using it as a television.

Have you achieved clarity?

-A.

[all2ofme]

I think that it's more likely that what you said originally still holds true in this case, but that this time it's full screen TV which is stretched, not the signal from the computer. The correctly proportioned, square pixelled computer image would be fine, but the maximised TV image would be at a non-standard (and therefore stretched) 5:4 instead of 4:3.

If that's the case, I couldn't care less. I'm not buying this for use as a TV, it's just that that was the only review I found which mentioned the stretching of images.

In short, though, I'm going to take my Powerbook to the shop and try it on a couple - I'll find out for sure

Thanks for your help!
Ben

Originally posted by andrewbw:
I have no idea what that review is talking about, since I don't have any experience with that particular monitor. I can only speak for what Apple has done with their LCDs, and how the 17" Studio Display achieves a 5:4 ratio without squashing the display.

[Mac Zealot]

on LCDs you just have a large array of pixels and they are exact.

If 1280x1024 is a 5:4 resolution than the 17" studio display is 5:4, see all displays only have the exact amount of pixels needed.

And apple LCDs ,along with most modern ones, have pixels that are kinda 'bubblish', but overall square.

[firefly]

Why didn't 1280x960 become the standard resolution instead of 1280x1024? It's 4:3 rather than 5:4 so why would anyone want to deliberately choose an awkward aspect ratio at a time when everyone's monitors were 4:3 CRTs?