News Viewsonic debuts new iPod-enabled monitor

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/09/12/Viewsonic_debuts_new_iPod_enabled_monitor/

 

This one looks nice except that weird looking man. But what the hell do I need a iPod-ready monitor for?

 

Oh dear god thats fugly. Looks like its gonna try and impersonate Vader

 

Surely video encoded for the iPod would look terrible scaled up to the native resolution of the monitor?

 

don't tell them...ssshhh

 

slap some divx on it tho

 

What, and fix the file? It doens't work that way, unfortunately. Or else there'd be no need for the new HD media... It looks horrible scaled even to double-size (640x480), and nothing short of god-awful at the HD resolutions that PC monitors provide.

 

it is the absurd suck.
i will get one when hell freezes over.

 

Why the monitor? Just make PC speaker system that you can plug your ipod and work as a dock.

 

Because then you have to watch your video content on the tiny screen...

For those concerns about the video quality, I found this interesting quote from the live blogging of the Apple event today:

It's 640x480 H.264 now, rather than 320x240 rubbish.

 

I should imagine this will be of more interest to OEMs looking to give their systems a quirky selling point, I can't think of a single reason someone would buy one of these for an existing setup

 

I think this whole Ipod thing is getting out of hand. The base of the moniter look so bad. I think they need to do some shiny black plastic work at the bottom. The speakers need some work also. The speakers need to get some shiny plastic also and then holes for the sound to come out. The whole speaker mesh doesn't work with the Ipod.

 

Seems like i am the only one who thinks thtas a nice screen. So here i go with my defence.

- I dont own a dock as the only (good) ones are white and my setup plus Ipod is black.

- Getting rid of the USB hub on my table would clean everything up a bit.

- Card reader in easy reach is anouther nice feature.

- It just looks good!

Just my 2 cents

 

How far does the dock stick out of the front? Other wise, I like it too, good usb port position and its nice and wide. Also as antiHero said, good for black iPod setups. But I dont have an iPod.

 

I would buy it because of the colors and simply use the iPod thing as a place to rest my cell phone of beef jerky

 

Awesome idea, now if only they could design modular bases, so you could spec the monitor up with a cradle for your device, i.e.: a PDA, smartphone, etc.

 

QFT

so how much does this "feature" set you back ? £100 ? £200

lord knows, as soon as the ipod tag goes on it will probably increase in price by 1/3

 

won't be worth the extra £100+ which it oviously will cost...

 

What a fantastic waste of money.

H.264 is great, but it's 640x480. What sort of scaling would be involved, I wonder? It is a very CPU-intensive codec, after all.

 

UPDATE 13-09-2006: we have had some clarification from Viewsonic today following yesterday's press release. The ViewDock does require your PC to be on - there is no direct video link between the iPod and the monitor. The new displays will also be available sans ViewDock if you aren't interested in docking your iPod.