hayaku on 7/6/2007 at 07:28
Yeah I will second that ^^^
Even now with HDTV becoming mainstream and the analogue signal with a very real use by date on it, combined with the anomaly that is 16:9 LCD TV phasing out CRT, quite soon 4:3 will simply no longer exist.
I mean right now you have widecreen as a default in moves, ALL new TV programs, all new pc games, all 3rd generation console games... the list goes on.
negativeliberty on 17/6/2007 at 13:12
Well, I just received and installed my Samsung SM226BW. Downloaded a custom colour profile for this panel, which works and looks like a charm using WinColor as loader.
However, it seems it has trouble with the darker scenes in Deus Ex (but since I'm using WinColor, the gamma slider in the DX video menu has no effect anymore). I've tried adjusting the gamma and brightness for 3D manually in Catalyst Control Center, but it seems it doesn't have an effect either.
Anyone here with a LCD panel got any tips on how to make DX a little brighter/more visible without too much washed out gamma? I didn't have any trouble "seeing in the dark" on my CRT (or at least I saw enough to play it well), but on this LCD it's almost impossible to see anything in the dark scenes (which is like 50% of all DX so..), at least without flashlight. Playing with the LCD's OSD settings has little effect, so I'm kind of hoping there's a setting aside from gamma that you can manually tweak in an INI somewhere.
Thanks in advance (and sorry if you consider this a thread hijack, didn't want to open a new thread).
DaveW on 28/6/2007 at 17:59
Quote Posted by hayaku
Even now with HDTV becoming mainstream and the analogue signal with a very real use by date on it, combined with the anomaly that is 16:9 LCD TV phasing out CRT, quite soon 4:3 will simply no longer exist.
No it won't, since it's still the most common aspect ratio of computer monitors, and so there's no reason for companies to stop making them - nor standard computer users to change to widescreen.
Also PC game's don't default to widescreen. 1024X768 is often the "standard" setting.
Papy on 28/6/2007 at 19:26
Quote Posted by DaveW
No it won't, since it's still the most common aspect ratio of computer monitors
Have you been to a store lately ? Most computer monitors on display ARE widescreen.
Ok, some home made statistics from Best Buy web site :
19" LCD : 15 items - 11 widescreens / 4 "standard"
20" and larger LCD : 14 items - 13 widescreens / 1 "standard"
So much for "standard".
Laser Eyes on 28/6/2007 at 22:52
Here's a statistic for you from the Steam Hardware Survey:
4:3 Aspect Primary Displays (559365 of 654972 Total Users (85.40% of Total)
16:9 Aspect Primary Displays (92769 of 654972 Total Users (14.16% of Total) )
(
http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html)
It's clear that 4:3 will dominate for many years to come.
DaveW on 28/6/2007 at 23:54
Hahaha, cheers Lazer Eyes :D
Papy, even if there may be more widescreen monitors being produced (well, one website is hardly definitive) - that doesn't prove anything whatsoever. Most people still use 4:3.
Pyrian on 29/6/2007 at 02:19
Quote Posted by hayaku
...quite soon 4:3 will simply no longer exist.
I'm vaguely curious as to what "quite soon" means in this context. If they stopped making 4:3 altogether, there'll still be some in use a decade later, I guarantee it.
Papy on 29/6/2007 at 08:22
Laser Eyes : Do you have the same statistics for last year ? It would be very interesting to see how fast widescreen is replacing 4:3.
DaveW : That's not only one website, that's every stores. I'm serious, go check to a local store and you'll notice most monitors are now widescreen. Last year, widescreen models were an exception, now they are the norm. 4:3 monitors are disappearing very fast from the market. The transition is even faster than the one from CRT to LCD.
Also, the same way people replaced their perfectly working CRT monitor for a trendy 17" LCD, they are now replacing their 17" LCD for a 22" widescreen. I would be very surprised if widescreen do not reach 50% in less than three years, particularly if prices continue to drop.
It's even more obvious for businesses. Dell did a promotion on a 22" widescreen last month, one of my clients saw it and decided to replace all of his monitors. There is another who will do the same after summer vacation. Widescreen is not a good idea for something like Word, but most of them still insist to have it. They don't need to replace their old monitors, but they do it anyway. If you add to that the fact that most businesses are on a 4 years replacement budget, you can guess how much time it will take to send all those 4:3 monitors to recycling. It won't be 100% in 4 years because there are some who will still buy cheap 17" monitors for another year or two, but unless something unexpected happens, 4:3 monitors will become dinosaurs pretty fast.
Pyrian : Of course, there will be people who will still use 4:3 monitors 10 years from now... The same way there are people who still use a 15" CRT with a PIII/450Mhz. So ?
negativeliberty on 29/6/2007 at 16:47
Thanks@Laser Eyes; but I already have a book under my monitor :D I was thinking more of a gamma-control somewhere in an INI file which I could change (since now that I have an LCD, the gamma bar slider in the DX menu does nothing), anyway, it's barely just playable on dark levels, guess I'll have to use my augs&flashlight more eh.
@DaveW; there IS one major reason for panel producers like AUO and LG to stop making 4:3 (and by "stop making", really I mean for the mainstream market, it'll probably always exist in the high-end LCD segment - for CAD/CAM, graphics designers, video editing etc. - look at those 5000€ Eizo monitors for instance, and yes, I know, 5000€ is cheap for a pro-LCD) - it's cheaper to cut panels in a 16:9 or 16:10 AR because that way you can get more panels from a single glass sheet (which is what the panels are cut from) - ie, there's less "wasted" glass sheet on the edges. So instead of cutting 90 4:3 panels from a sheet, they can now get 110 16:10 monitors (of the same diagonal size!). Also, with the prices of 22" panels at a low, many companies are replacing their 17" 4:3 LCDs with 22" 16:10 LCDs (for roughly the same price they purchased the 17" LCDs years before) thinking that it'll allow for more productivity (and going from 1024x768 screen space to 1680x1050 must have a positive effect on productivity). Also, don't forget many widescreen monitors can pivot into a "longscreen" (1050x1680), which is perfect for Word processing.
@LaserEyes; CS 1.6 is still being played all over the world, including in a LOT OF CYBERCAFES (of which there are hundreds of thousands in China alone), which pretty much ALL still have 4:3. That does not mean that it's not set to change. CS 1.6 is one of the lowest spec multiplayer games people are still playing today (hell, you can play it on a Riva TNT2), and it also has a LOT more players than for example CS:Source. The fact that only 0,00001% of all computer users currently has a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray drive doesn't guarantee that that number won't rise dramatically as both formats drop in price (as is the case with widescreen monitors - I can remember drooling over a 20" widescreen a couple of years ago - unfortunately it cost over 1000€ - in contrast, I just bought a 22" widescreen for 300€). Sure DVD will dominate for years to come (hell we still use CDs), but how does that impede the spreading of HDDVD and/or Blu-ray? I mean, the next time one of my standalone DVD players breaks (say it's in a year's time), I'll probably get a replacement capable of doing both DVD and something like HDDVD/BR since it's only a 20€ premium by then.
And if we're talking about widescreen gaming - well if that was an issue I wouldn't have gotten one. All my favourite games have either native ws support or there is some sort of manual tweak that enables it. I can even play oldschool 4:3 adventure games (the point&clicky ones) and choose to stretch the image (doesn't look too bad on most games, hell they're already pixelated :cheeky: ) or keep it in it's original aspect ratio. It even feels more natural playing first-person games since the wider FOV is a lot more closer to the human eye's FOV (don't get all semantic and technical on that, it's just my personal impression having played a couple of first person games on it).
@Papy: exactly. It won't disappear definitively, but it'll definately become the standard for the mainstream consumer & business market. Professional 4:3 LCDs will probably be around for a long time, but hey, they usually cost more than our first 4 cars put together anyway.
