LCD vs CRT display

paul wrote:

wrote:

paul wrote:

rafe bustin wrote:


There aren't too many video cards
that wil support 2048 x 1536.


My 21" Sony G500 monitor w/ NVIDIA Quadro FX Go 1000 does that but I
can't read icons & such at that size.


That's what configuring larger fonts and icons is for.
The higher resolution allows for smoother looking fonts


Hmm, I already have it set to large fonts but it seems maybe there is
custom control to make them even bigger. There are a few odd things that
slip through the cracks though. Maybe I'll give it a try now that
performance isn't an issue. That would be 132dpi!

Well, actually it won't do full 32 bit color at that scale but I can go
up to 1920x1440


BTW I've been running it at this setting for a couple days & there are
still some things that cannot be resized like certain web pages & icons.

Also my setup only allows 16 bit or 32 bit. It's actually a laptop & I
have that set to 1920x1200 but it's usually plugged in to the monitor.

wrote in message
oups.com...
....
With interlacing, a CRT which can handle a normal 2048x1536
display can theoretically handle a 4096x3072 display. I'd
love to run my plain 21" CRT at 4096x3072; at that resolution
anti-aliasing wouldn't even be necessary--it's already 256 dpi!
Unfortunately, inexpensive video cards are limited to 2048x1536.
Isaac Kuo


Isaac:

Unfortunately, the video world isn't quite as straightforward as you
imagine.
Though your video card and monitor can render a 2048x1536 image, that
doesn't mean
they can produce 2048x1536 discrete pixels. Measure your screen and look up
the
pixel pitch (distances between pixels) and see just how many pixels can
actually be
displayed. Even if you are lucky and actually have a monitor good enough to
come
close to 2048x1536, there is just no way that any monitor today is going to
produce
4 times that many pixels. You see, the limit is far more likely the monitor
than the
video card.


--
Dan (Woj...) [dmaster](no space)[at](no space)[lucent](no space)[dot](no
space)[com]
===============================
"Johnny take a dive with your sister in the rain
Let her talk about the things you can't explain
To touch is to heal / To hurt is to steal
If you want to kiss the sky / Better learn how to kneel"

wrote in message
ups.com...
....
Untrue. As I noted before, any CRT which can display
1024x768 normally can also display 2048x1536 in interlaced
mode. While this is not a display mode which Windows knows
how to do by default, the program Powerstrip can be used to
display it.

And as I said in an earlier reply, just be cause the monitor can display
"2048x1536" does not mean it can actually resolve that many pixels.
I'd guess that todays larger 19 inch monitors max out at about 1600x1200.
Older smaller monitors are unlikely to excede 1280x1024 or even 1024x768!

Just find the dot pitch of the monitor, measure the monitor's size, and
multiply.


It would be a very small minority of people who have a CRT
monitor which can't display 2048x1536.

I'd say that very, very few can actually display 2048x1536. Oh, the picture
will
be the *size* it should be at 2048x1536, but many pixels will be missing.

....
The image reproduction is smoother, because sampling alignment
effects are more or less eliminated. Most TV sets can't
resolve more than 320x240 pixels, yet they still benefit from
a 720x480 input (DVD resolution). It's like printing at a higher
dot pitch than the dot size. You get a more accurate, sharper
image.

My understanding was that analogue TVs can actually achieve more than
600x400 interlaced. That may be why a DVD at 720x480 looks better than
320x240. }


You'd probably get just as accurate a representation by scaling the
image in software. Have you done any actual testing?

Yes. I used to run my main workstation at 1280x960, on an
affordable old $500 class 21" monitor. I thought photos looked
pretty good on it (bicubic scaling with GQView). Then I
tried out 2048x1536. I was literally blown away by the extra
visible detail. There was no comparison whatsoever. Even my
wife, who is ALWAYS telling me "It looks the same to me" was
instantly impressed by the overwhelming difference.

And with a good monitor that can actually display, say 1800x1400, that
would be the case. Is their any real difference *in detail* (not size)
between
the 18xx and 2048 resolutions?


If my wife was impressed by the difference, that means that
there really was a big difference. In contrast, I also
excitedly pointed out to her how much better the sharper
fonts and icons were (going from 12pt to 24pt and going from
64 pixel icons to 128 pixel icons). She said, "They look the
same to me".
....

If you weren't actually loading an entirely new set of icons, the resolution
should
have no bearing on the detail of the icons. Icons are bit maps, after all.
At higher
resolutions, they get small, and at lower resolutions they get larger,
because they
are a fixed group of pixels.


--
Dan (Woj...) [dmaster](no space)[at](no space)[lucent](no space)[dot](no
space)[com]
===============================
"Johnny take a dive with your sister in the rain
Let her talk about the things you can't explain
To touch is to heal / To hurt is to steal
If you want to kiss the sky / Better learn how to kneel"

"Confused" wrote in message
...
....
What's even more amazing is the scaling magic that
happens when a 720x480 16:9 formatted anamorphic
DVD is shown on an EDTV Plasma monitor...
absolutely stunning.
....

Jeff:

I agree that 16:9 DVDs look stunning on EDTV Plasma monitors,
but (to be pendantic) its not due to "scaling magic": EDTV Plasma
monitors are exactly the same resolution as 16:9 DVDs, so no
scaling needs to take place.


--
Dan (Woj...) [dmaster](no space)[at](no space)[lucent](no space)[dot](no
space)[com]
===============================
"Johnny take a dive with your sister in the rain
Let her talk about the things you can't explain
To touch is to heal / To hurt is to steal
If you want to kiss the sky / Better learn how to kneel"

Dan Wojciechowski wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
...

Untrue. As I noted before, any CRT which can display
1024x768 normally can also display 2048x1536 in interlaced
mode. While this is not a display mode which Windows knows
how to do by default, the program Powerstrip can be used to
display it.


And as I said in an earlier reply, just be cause the monitor can display
"2048x1536" does not mean it can actually resolve that many pixels.
I'd guess that todays larger 19 inch monitors max out at about 1600x1200.
Older smaller monitors are unlikely to excede 1280x1024 or even 1024x768!

Just find the dot pitch of the monitor, measure the monitor's size, and
multiply.


It would be a very small minority of people who have a CRT
monitor which can't display 2048x1536.


I'd say that very, very few can actually display 2048x1536. Oh, the picture
will
be the *size* it should be at 2048x1536, but many pixels will be missing.

...

The image reproduction is smoother, because sampling alignment
effects are more or less eliminated. Most TV sets can't
resolve more than 320x240 pixels, yet they still benefit from
a 720x480 input (DVD resolution). It's like printing at a higher
dot pitch than the dot size. You get a more accurate, sharper
image.


My understanding was that analogue TVs can actually achieve more than
600x400 interlaced. That may be why a DVD at 720x480 looks better than
320x240. }


You'd probably get just as accurate a representation by scaling the
image in software. Have you done any actual testing?

Yes. I used to run my main workstation at 1280x960, on an
affordable old $500 class 21" monitor. I thought photos looked
pretty good on it (bicubic scaling with GQView). Then I
tried out 2048x1536. I was literally blown away by the extra
visible detail. There was no comparison whatsoever. Even my
wife, who is ALWAYS telling me "It looks the same to me" was
instantly impressed by the overwhelming difference.


And with a good monitor that can actually display, say 1800x1400, that
would be the case. Is their any real difference *in detail* (not size)
between
the 18xx and 2048 resolutions?


If my wife was impressed by the difference, that means that
there really was a big difference. In contrast, I also
excitedly pointed out to her how much better the sharper
fonts and icons were (going from 12pt to 24pt and going from
64 pixel icons to 128 pixel icons). She said, "They look the
same to me".

...

If you weren't actually loading an entirely new set of icons, the resolution
should
have no bearing on the detail of the icons. Icons are bit maps, after all.
At higher
resolutions, they get small, and at lower resolutions they get larger,
because they
are a fixed group of pixels.


Modern TVs are able to display the DVD signal, but broadcast TV is good
for only about 330x525 (interlaced 2 262.5 screens).


--
Ron Hunter

Dan Wojciechowski wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
...
Untrue. As I noted before, any CRT which can display
1024x768 normally can also display 2048x1536 in interlaced
mode. While this is not a display mode which Windows knows
how to do by default, the program Powerstrip can be used to
display it.

And as I said in an earlier reply, just be cause the
monitor can display "2048x1536" does not mean it can
actually resolve that many pixels.

And as I noted before, the amount of detail shown is not
strictly limited to a pixel size corresponding to the
dot pitch, but rather more detail is shown up until the
pixel size is about half the size of the dot pitch.

Just find the dot pitch of the monitor, measure the
monitor's size, and multiply.

And multiply again by a factor of 2 to get the resolution
which acheives the maximum amount of detail in the image.

It would be a very small minority of people who have a CRT
monitor which can't display 2048x1536.

I'd say that very, very few can actually display 2048x1536.
Oh, the picture will be the *size* it should be at 2048x1536,
but many pixels will be missing.

Untrue. Pixels don't just go "missing". They get
squeezed together and overlap, but this leads to a _gradual_
decrease in added detail--up until the spacing between
scanlines is half the dot pitch.

The image reproduction is smoother, because sampling alignment
effects are more or less eliminated. Most TV sets can't
resolve more than 320x240 pixels, yet they still benefit from
a 720x480 input (DVD resolution). It's like printing at a higher
dot pitch than the dot size. You get a more accurate, sharper
image.

My understanding was that analogue TVs can actually achieve
more than 600x400 interlaced.

It depends upon the dot pitch of the TV, among other things,
but generally a cheap TV really can't resolve anything more
than 320x240 pixels. However, there is still a benefit from
squeezing in the scanlines closer than the dot pitch would
suggest.

Let's try another analogy. Suppose you have a marker which
draws a line 5mm wide. Let's say you want to draw a picture
within a square picture frame of 50mm x 50mm. Since the
"dot pitch" is 5mm, you might be tempted to think that the
maximum quality acheivable is 10x10 pixels. Indeed, it is
impossible for you to resolve more than 10x10 pixels within
50mm x 50mm using this marker. However, you can actually
draw with more detail than is available in 10x10 pixels
because you are NOT limited to a fixed grid.

With a CRT display, the "marker" doesn't produce a hard edged
dot like a marker, but is rather somewhat smooth edged (sort
of like a gaussian distribution). If it were a perfect
gaussian, then it's theoretically provable that you get no
more actual information when going to a line spacing less than
half the dot width.

Another complication with a CRT display is the shadow mask
and the fact that there are individual red/green/blue
phosphors. However, it is a mistake to assume that the
spacial resolution is limited by the number of phosphor
triples for two reasons:

1. The spacial resolution is roughly determined by the
number of phosphors, rather than the number of triples.
This is a very well known effect among digital
photographers. In digital photography, each "pixel"
is actually just a single color sensor rather than an
RGB sensor triplet.

Since this is rec.photo.digital, I'll assume that the
reader is familiar with Preddy's thoroughly debunked
delusions that an RGB pixel is essentially equivalent
to three spacially separated R, G, and B pixels.

and

2. An individual CRT phosphor isn't actually monolithic
but can in fact be partially illuminated.

Of these two effects, it's the former which is most important.
The latter is generally overwhelmed by the screendoor effect
in a traditional shadow mask CRT (i.e. not a Trinitron).

Incidentally, the principle of increased resolution from
separate R, G, and B pixels can apply to LCD displays
also. On a typical LCD display, each pixel is actually
three side-by-side rectangular pixels--a red, a green, and a
blue pixel. Sophisticated font renderers take advantage
of this to essentially triple the horizontal resolution of
text (this is called "sub-pixel rendering"). Unfortunately,
current operating systems and software don't use this
principle to improve resolution for images. Imagine a
1600x1200 LCD display with a spacial resolution of
4800x1200! Current software is geared toward square pixels,
though, so it's not obvious how to really take advantage
of the extra resolution. Maybe when everything moves to
vector graphics and GL objects...

If my wife was impressed by the difference, that means that
there really was a big difference. In contrast, I also
excitedly pointed out to her how much better the sharper
fonts and icons were (going from 12pt to 24pt and going from
64 pixel icons to 128 pixel icons). She said, "They look the
same to me".

If you weren't actually loading an entirely new set of icons,

I use 128x128 pixel icon sets. With the KDE desktop, icon
sets can feature multiple native resolutions. Some icon
sets don't have 128x128 native entries to reduce download
sizes, but others do.

Also, image thumbnail icons are 128x128 rather than 64x64.
For performance reasons, thumbnail downscaling uses the
low quality "nearest pixel" algorithm. 128x128 thumbnails
are thus a lot better than 64x64 thumbnails (not that my
wife noticed).

The biggest eye candy effect of the increased resolution
was actually the little menu icons. Since they started
off with such minimal detail to begin with, the extra
detail was more notable. The "cut" icon actually looks
like a pair of scissors, and the "delete" icon actually
looks like a trash can, rather than a cluster of pixels.
Bookmark website icons are actually recognizable.

Isaac Kuo

Dan Wojciechowski wrote:

"Confused" wrote in message
...
...

What's even more amazing is the scaling magic that
happens when a 720x480 16:9 formatted anamorphic
DVD is shown on an EDTV Plasma monitor...
absolutely stunning.

...

Jeff:

I agree that 16:9 DVDs look stunning on EDTV Plasma monitors,
but (to be pendantic) its not due to "scaling magic": EDTV Plasma
monitors are exactly the same resolution as 16:9 DVDs, so no
scaling needs to take place.


Are DVD movies really that low of a resolution (720x480)? I've got a
1024x768 projector & that looks pretty gritty to me with movies or
pictures. It's amazing how much better computer monitors are.

Dan Wojciechowski wrote:
"Confused" wrote in message
.. .

What's even more amazing is the scaling magic that
happens when a 720x480 16:9 formatted anamorphic
DVD is shown on an EDTV Plasma monitor...
absolutely stunning.

I agree that 16:9 DVDs look stunning on EDTV Plasma monitors,
but (to be pendantic) its not due to "scaling magic": EDTV Plasma
monitors are exactly the same resolution as 16:9 DVDs, so no
scaling needs to take place.

It's the same vertically, but not horizontally.
A typical Plasma will have a native resolution of 853x480,
so scaling only has to be done horizontally. With a
resolution of 853x480, the pixels have a square aspect
ratio. For pillarboxed display of a 4:3 program, this
leads to a resolution of 640x480.

I suppose it's theoretically possible for a plasma to have
a native resolution of 720x480, but then the resolution
for pillarboxed 4:3 programs would only be 540x480.

Isaac Kuo

paul wrote:
Dan Wojciechowski wrote:

"Confused" wrote in message
...
...

What's even more amazing is the scaling magic that
happens when a 720x480 16:9 formatted anamorphic
DVD is shown on an EDTV Plasma monitor...
absolutely stunning.


...

Jeff:

I agree that 16:9 DVDs look stunning on EDTV Plasma monitors,
but (to be pendantic) its not due to "scaling magic": EDTV Plasma
monitors are exactly the same resolution as 16:9 DVDs, so no
scaling needs to take place.



Are DVD movies really that low of a resolution (720x480)? I've got a
1024x768 projector & that looks pretty gritty to me with movies or
pictures. It's amazing how much better computer monitors are.

Well, they have more resolution than the DVD signal at 720x480 not
interlaced, can use. That is MUCH better than the 330x262 interlaced to
525 that broadcast TV gives.


--
Ron Hunter