The 5K Retina iMac’s screen runs at 60Hz at 5K resolution
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
It was initially a Win32 exe that I created 5 years ago [1] with a simple idea to display very distinct frames, back when people were using all kinds of silly less accurate methods like timers to do these things. Blurbusters did a great job of making the tool more accessible to more people (visit website vs. download and run an unknown exe). They were even respectful enough to ask for my permission before adding it their website (which I of course was happy to give permission to, and not that I would mind too much if they didn't, it's a very simple idea after all).
One step at a time, hehe.
You should be, it's a good trick and at least uses external hardware which makes it more trustworthy than trying to measure what the system is doing from within the system. (e.g. 'it can be confirmed with apps that measure your refresh rate') Usually that's fine, but still a 60Hz refresh doesn't mean that whatever program is rendering onto the screen is capable of getting 60 frames per second effectively being put out by the screen without dropping any frames. Which is ok for most everyday usage, but e.g. for neurosciences doing research of the visual system that is hardly sufficient. You really want to be 100% sure that whatever you tell a program to display, it does this correctly frame by frame. And the only way to make sure that happened is to use external, continuously recording, hardware (photodiode or high speed cameras).
What feature exactly is supported on Windows and OSX but not Linux that provides correct vsync?
It does work fine on ChromeOS, so it's a "generic Linux" thing, not some specific problem with the Linux kernel itself.
So they used Blur Busters multiple times with multiple display configurations and not a single time did they actually think to read any of the bright red instructions.
This is not what I've come to expect from Ars Technica.
The instruction is on the top
Created by the person running Blur Busters, who is doing really neat stuff.
The forums have some fascinating discussions:
http://forums.blurbusters.com/
I think a lot of other HN'ers would like it.
But hey, at least the standards committees are working on new forms of DRM so the NSA can't tap your video cable and see your screen. Or something.
I think he was referring to the fact that industry fails to provide end-users with good, ubiquitous and easy to use cryptography for privacy, while on the other hand video standards have repeatedly been delayed through industry mandating ubiquitous cryptography for digital rights management.
e.g. one of the (likely: many) topics that are being discussed in the committees designing the next generation of DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort standards likely is how to encrypt the video signalso that a customer is barred from recording a movie. Which delays the availability of future standards describing how to drive your 5K monitor at 60 Hz over then-improved HDMI/DisplayPort connections.
It's of pretty dubious effectiveness, and quite honestly has screwed me in the past more than a few times even when I was doing something 100% legitimate (like renting a movie on iTunes and trying to use my MacBook's HDMI out to the TV... and it refusing to play).
Not to mention there are many, many more ways to record HD content from a source than tapping the video output.
That doesn't mean they have stopped preventing people from watching their just bought content on a beamer or display without HDCP support. Oh no, that stuff continues right now.
In the history of DRM, this is probably one of the most bizarre failures. You can reasonably assume it never stopped anyone from making illegit copies (capturing very high bandwidth interfaces like HDMI is decidedly non-trivial and simply not worth the time investment if there are much easier sources), while denying people who just seconds ago shelled out cash for your product access for a reason they will not understand and will certainly not appreciate.
No, the NeTV does NOT do any kind of decryption. What it does do is encrypt its own image using the same key in parallel, so that it can overlay its own display on top of the incoming display stream.
It does include an implementatiom of HDCP that could be used for decryptioon if you work hard enough at it (and I would guess someone worked hard enough at it), but as it comes out of the box, NeTV cannot be used to strip off HDCP.
That's a fragile attack anyway, as I imagine the key they're using would be revoked. The only attack that works is one that uses the master key to generate keys that haven't been revoked, which I doubt their hardware does. (Illegal and all that. Just being an HDCP endpoint is easy; take the chips from your TV product and stick them in the splitter. "Oops, sorry." But then you get revoked.)
That's why it's news.
1 - http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&c....
Dell makes plenty of high end monitors, they just don't give them away at loss-generating prices.
The 3008WFP-HC (not 4K) is a 30", 2560x1600 monitor, 30 bit, S-IPS panel.
I'm not sure why anyone is surprised that a $400 4K monitor is not running at 60Hz. It's not like Apple would offer that? You're right. But their solution would also not be anywhere near the same.
Hell, they haven't even updated the Thunderbolt Display. Even today, it requires a MagSafe to MagSafe Adapter to work with ANY Macbook currently on sale (seriously, Apple? You can't replace the connector with MagSafe 2?) and doesn't support USB3.
http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-SE39UY04-39-Inch-Ultra-Discontin...
But until we have DP1.3 and external matching 5K thunderbolt display this really isn't for me. The authors comments regarding the previous thunderbolt display "However, the Retina display does make things on the other 2560x1440 displays look… a little grody." really do put me off.
If you're due for an upgrade anyway, then I skip the Apple store. Instead, I'd simply order it and get that "OMG" moment when you unpack it :-)
Do you have the 2012 15" Retina MacBook Pro? Some of those (those with LG screens) were suffering horribly from image retention. I got the screen exchanged twice on mine. Now I luckily have the Samsung screen.
There are currently no known cases of image retention with this iMac. It looks as though they got the issue under control and this was really a first gen (large screen) retina tech problem. (Retina iPads were or maybe still are suffering from image retention, too, though, strangely, with my iPad 3 I care much less about that, for whatever reason. It’s also a bit more mild.)
On that last point, how do things like Xwindows or Qt apps work out? Qt should be ok because it tends to use native widgets, as I understand it, but I imagine it depends on how the app is written.
I noticed an odd quirk when I got my first retina iPad. Some iPhone apps did render some content at full resolution. I first noticed with iPhone camera apps. The app interface would render at iPhone resolution, but the photos were at full native display resolution. Has anyone noticed any quirks like that with the 5K iMac?