Ideal resolution of displays ("Why 4K TVs are stupid") | Hacker News Reader

Ideal resolution of displays ("Why 4K TVs are stupid")

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2 pointsrubidium6 comments

I sit with three monitors at my desk, one for debug and testing, the other two for code and I'm still fighting for space for my image editing software and 3d modeling software. If i could have two monitors at 4k each I'd be in heaven.

The idiot problem is with how fonts are still scaled with pixels. I hate seeing aliasing in my 3d apps, if the resolution was high enough that when anti-aliasing is turned on the edges of my meshes shouldnt look thick.

I want real hair line edges as it is with most modern anti-aliasing systems you end up with lines that can be three pixels thick (sort of) and that's just ugly.

At 300pixels per inch that problem would be eliminated and still result in a clean hair line edge (awesome)...

Article assumes 1 arcminute resolution. This means at 6 inches distance you need 44 micron pixels, which is a bit smaller than 78 micron iPhone retina displays. The caveat is that that's ideal resolving ability of the human eye (black/white with good eyesight). For colors a lesser resolution is needed.

Takeaway for those of us using computers everyday. If you have a big monitor with good resolution and your eyes still hurt, perhaps you're leaning in too close. Take advantage of your eyes' limited resolution, increase your font size, and sit farther from the monitor.

As a 2560x1440(or 1600) resolution monitor user, I think a 4K monitor would be fantastic. Yeah it would cost an arm and a leg, but cost aside I would use it in a heartbeat.

For anyone who has used 2 30 inch IPS screens at the same time, that's roughly the same total pixels as a 4k monitor.

I can easily keep that much space filled up and productive using a tiling window manager.

It would be a 44inch screen at the same resolution of Dell's 30inch IPS monitors.

I agree, but he is talking about Television sets. They are further away, thus you wouldn't see all those pixels (which is the Articles whole point). I used the same formula a few months back to calculate that on my bedroom TV i wouldn't even see the difference between SD and HD (27" TV, 2m away). These calculations are basicly the same Apple used to coin the term 'Retina Display'. By the same reasoning, my 560i CRT-TV is a 'Retina TV'.

True. I'm a blu ray fan, even on my 30 inch LCD. Resolution aside, I do find the picture to be clearer and the colors more vivid on a blu ray vs a dvd. It may be just due to cleaner compression / encoding, but there is a noticable difference.

Another problem with increasing resolution - it makes everything more resource intensive. If you can't see the difference - it's burning more energy, or programs/games running slower for nothing.

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