Blogs 16:10 vs 16:9 - the monitor aspect ratio conundrum

I think that simply put people who actually cares would want a 16:10, and 16:9 has been forced down on us from a TV Screen industry.

I am a bit sad though that today's announcement on new iMac is 16:9 again.

 

Don't be sad. Seriously! It's not important enough to make you sad. War, famine and child suffering can make you sad but not the smegging aspect ratio of a computer monitor!

If 16:9 is such an issue for you, then I have good news for you. The iMacs can be thought of as 16:10 2304px x 1440px screens.

(Drum roll)

It's just that Apple give you an extra 128px free on each side.

(Cymbal crash)

 

Of course a decent spec 29" 21:9 2560px screen is going to be closer in price to a decent spec 2560px 27" than a 1080 screen.

As the LG is IPS, high res, well specified, has speakers and a 4 way split screen mode I think it's safe it's not going to be the low cost option if you're looking for 'loads' of room. A 27" is still the 'sweet spot' to go for when comparing price / pixels.

I'd still love one though, even if I'm not sure what I'd do with it seeing as I wouldn't let it replace my 27" + 24"

 

I've been using a (now obsolete) Samsung SyncMaster 305T for several years now. It's native resolution is 2560x1600 - that's16x10 just to save you the calculation. I really notice the vertical real estate and have been very disappointed in LCD/LED panel manufacturers profit-trick (corporations...honestly!) resulting in a relative dearth of 16x10 panels. I for one will always choose the 16x10. I don't ONLY watch HD on my screen. Panel manufacturers: pay attention!

 

16:10 2560x1600 - I just wish companies could be a bit more exciting and hurry up with their R&D. I would love to see 3840x2160 in the 16:9 ratio at around 30". Or even add some curve to the OLED displays we keep getting promised - just a slight curve would be awesome, oh and while i'm at it, lets remove that bezel shall we, 1mm enough... oh wait - i'm in 2040

</dream>

back to boring old 2012.

 

On my work I use a 22" horizontaly and a Dell 16:10 22" verticaly.I find this to be a ideal work environment for coding, designing and previewing.

At home I use two Samsung 24" side by side. Mosty I concentrate on one of the screens to do stuff on. And the last couple of weeks it seems like we adapted to the screen estate being that the left screen is for me and the right screen for my girlfriend this was sneaked in almost automaticaly during the last month. Unless I switch the screens to my other PC that uses both screens for showing Cubase and the mixer panel, vst plugins etc.

 

Currently using a Dell U2412m. 24" 16:10 IPS - perfect. Gonna buy two more soon-ish.

27" is total rubbish in my view. They rarely offer higher pixel density, quite to the contrary. Should I ever have quite a bunch of spare money, my next upgrade step would be 16:10 30". Two of them. Three is quite silly really, imho.

Meanwhile, I am dreaming of 2020, round-a-bout when OLED-displays should start becoming affordable.. *drool* (yes, once more, 16:10!!)

16:9 is a projector-only resolution for me. there it is the perfect one (well, and in tv's). simples.

 

The thing I don't understand is why people don't make widescreen websites.

You know, kinda like on your smartphone, when you flip the phone to landscape and the page contents fills the whole of the screen, and doesn't leave half the screen empty.

This would sure help with the scrolling part. I mean even with my 1920x1200 24" 16:10 dell screen, there is still too much scrolling going on whilst reading sites like this one right here for example

Back on topic, I think the author was right when he said that 16:9 was introduced to "cut production costs". The question I would like to ask is:

Do 16:9 screens cost the same as 16:10 screens?

P.S. Love my 16:10 screen.

 

Demand is much lower for 16:10, and as it has more pixel both contributes in a higher price.
Also, as 16:10 is aimed for professionals market, they costs more as they don't really cheap out in build quality. While they are exceptions, this is the general rule.

 

What a silly thing to say. If you are comparing a 1920 27" screen with a 1920 24" screen, then yes, of course, but who the hell buys a 27" 1920 monitor anyway?

I've come to expect crapness from bit-tech when they deal with monitors though.

I do agree though... 16:10 is vastly superior. I'll only buy a 16:9 screen when I am forced to do so.

 

1,680 x 1,050 Cheesecake

 

Really? 27" 1920x1080 monitors? I don;t think so.

 

Neither. I want 2.37:1

 

I'd honestly be all for 16:10 if there weren't black bars. It's just a complete deal breaker for me who watches hundreds of hours of media on a regular basis. If it was up to me we'd all be using 4K resolution screens right now but alas it was not to be. That said, I'm sitting on a 19" 1440x900 screen at the moment, which gets the job done in all honesty. I think this aspect ratio argument is a bit pointless in all honesty. Our time would be far better spent applying pressure to manufacturers and screen designers to just give us better resolutions already. The 16:9 standard won't change, so why not ensure that we do it right next generation.

 

1- You have black lines on both. As the great majority of movies are filmed in higher aspect ratios, and the ratio varies based on what the director want to show and prefer. Unless you buy exclusively 16:9 cropped and zoom-in movies, as they did with non-wide screen version of movies back in the old days.

2- I see 16:9 monitor has a super thick frame around them, because they are cheap monitor, and those are glossy, so that's more annoying.

3- Black lines are 0 issues, as you don't focus on them or even visible (unless you buy those crummy TN panels, where you have back light bleeding like no tomorrow)

Then you'll complain that all your movies even Blu-rays are super pixelated, it will be like a 240p YouTube video full screen. Good luck. And you'll STILL have black lines.

 

Quick analysis of a random "1080p" movie shows a resolution of 1920x800... Sure doesn't look like 16:9 to me, so black bars anyways.

 

1. Saying little here, we already know that we get the aspect ratios that directors want to release. Fact is they want to release a certain standard and that isn't 16:10

2. This is just nonsense. The fact that 16:9 monitors may tend to be cheaper by and large has no bearing on the actual aspect ratio itself. It's not inherent and thus pointless to point out.

3. It's a problem for me. It distracts from the viewing experience.

4. This is bleedingly obvious. Who said I wanted merely an upscale? The underlying point I thought would be obvious was that in order for 4K resolutions to work we need multiple industries to change. Yes, we need movies to be recorded in higher resolution, a communications network to handle the extra bandwidth requirements associated to streaming this new resolution space and lastly the screens to utilize it. What is your point here?

 

I've lamented the adoption of 16:9 as the standard for high definition TV for no other reason than the fact that it destroyed the 16:10 monitor market. It's crazy that large, high quality 16:9 monitors can be purchased in the $160 range, but 16:10 monitors stay priced artificially high because so few are made.

However, the 16:10 monitors that are out there tend to be very high quality compared to the gambit of crap panels in the 16:9 market. Same goes for 4:3 monitors. If people insist on 4:3 it's because they have a good reason to want it, and the quality of the monitors reflects that.

I use 3 Dell 24" 1920x1200 monitors in portrait mode. I love it. Scrolling web pages makes a ton of sense with vertical monitors. Any program in the Adobe Master Suite . . . not so much.

 

1. Sure isn't 16:9 though: Anamorphic widescreen (which is most movies) is 2.35:1 = 23.5:10 = 21.15:9, so you're still getting black bars on a 16:9 screen anyways.

2. It does actually. Due to 16:9 panels being all the rage, pretty much all current 16:10 monitors are high-end IPS monitors as opposed to the piles of of cheap, shitty TN 16:9 panels.

3. Fair point, but you're still getting black bars on 16:9, even on your 80" HDTV.

4. 4K resolution output exist already:
4.1. The RED Scarlet (a fairly popular 4K camera) is selling quite well to both pros and semi-pros, so recording into 4K is not an issue.
4.2.1. File networking is covered: a 1080p movie can at most max at 42Mbps (that I've seen), straight scaling by a factor of 4 give a required bandwidth of upto 168Mmbps. We then round up very generously to, say, 250Mbps. At this point in time we have 1000Mbps deployed in LANs (my computers are wired using gigabit ethernet most of the time) and many WANs. Curent Wifi tech could theoretically provide the necessary bandwidth, but we all know how that works in practice.
4.2.2. Signal output is covered too: HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2 both support 4K at 24-30Hz and 60Hz respectively. Decoders/Encoders already exist as well, so no issue there either.
4.3. 4K panels already exist. Bloody expensive though, you're looking at US$ 2.5k+ for a single desktop-class monitor.
4.4. Theatres already use 4K.

At this point, we need releases and screens. By the looks of it, 4K screens should reach high-end around 2015-2016. Hopefully the movie industry can adopt tech quickly for once... otherwise we end up having in the HD situation where people had 1920x1200 screens in their computers (Like the 15.4" latitude D830 from 2005) and had to watch SD content only...

On that note, I'd like 3 nice 30" 120Hz 5120x3200 (precise doubling on 2560x1600) IPS screens. With Thunderbolt.