Monitor(s) -- Widescreen. Questions
 

So I bought a couple of monitors this week.

For the "old" computer, I bought an LG 19" that's very impressive, frankly. On sale at Best Buy for ~$200 and a sweet little monitor.

For the GodBox I bought the Dell 2407WFP. Couldn't bring myself to spend almost double on the 2707... (Alfa to restore... Alfa to restore...). And the 30" would have been ridiculous. But cool.... OK, enough. I bought the 24"

The 24" is, frankly, the cat's a$$! Tons of real estate, gorgeous fidelity, etc. All that and a bag of designer chips. Any larger, and I'd have to sit further away.

But.

I'm familiarizing myself with what are apparently the inherent limitations of widescreen (and, I guess, all LCD) monitors and their "native resolutions".

Is there a way to "force" video to be played in a window at (or near) its native resolution, while keeping the rest of the screen at its own res? I'm probably not asking that question the right way.

What DVD playing software works the "best" for scaling/display at the best resolutions?

I need to be edumacated.

Thanks in advance.

JP

Check a program called 'PowerStrip' ... check this --> http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=206854

that forum is the equivalent of Pelican Parts for AV gear

I had the 2407WFP for a year or so (the 30" now :D) But yeah, in the monitor set-up (on the moitor) you can set the inputs.

Press the middle putton (of the five smaller) then go to "image setting" . ."scaling" . . pick 1:1

My previous post is edited, w/ instructions.

I'll also add, that if you have an x-box 360, get the HD-DVD player. (~$200) It works great with the 2407WFP. -stunning video @ 1080p.

...and just so you don't feel bad about not getting the 30" - it doesn't have all the cool inputs, and you need a very high end graphics card to run it.

OS,

Get dual or better triple monitors. Once you get used to it there is nothing better.

Okay, JP, I re-read your post. (more carefully this time)

What you are missing is that your new screen has a lot of pixles. .. and that most DVD players will (default) open in their native (wimpy) resolution. (so it ends up looking tiny on the 2407WFP screen)

The HD-DVD, OTOH, uses the full 1920 pix wide, and 1080 high (leaves black bands top and bottom) -- completely blows away std DVD.

Powerstrip. Right. Heard of it, I'll check it out.

island -- the 30 is wicked kewl, but not enough so to justify the price for me. For less than the 2707, I got the 2407 AND a sweet widescreen 19" LG for the "old" 'puter (which is still probably faster than 95% of the computers out there --- though in the 70% range of gaming computers).

Also, I read all the reviews I could find, and the 30" is not as "ghost-proof" as the 24. LCD ghosting drives me crazy, and the reason I "need" a big monitor is strictly for gaming at ridiculous frame rates, with all the bells/whistles maxed.

Naturally, I took my first foray into ATi (X1950XTX, which doesn't suck...) 2 weeks before nVIDIA releases its 8800. Grrrr. But the ATi will still push respectable results at 1900x1200... with a little coaxing and Thermaltake HR-03 heatpipe & fan. Next is the Thermaltake (w/ 120mm fan) for the CPU and the resultant overclocking.

Geek stuff aside, the big q. is how to watch video on Internet in its "native" resolution, so it doesn't look odd on the widescreen LCDs (without having to reset the whole monitor to such res.).

Best,

JP

It's unfortunate that this "wide screen" fad has taken off the way it has since it is just a way for the monitor makers to screw us out of real estate. They convince us that a wider screen is better, but for many reasons a more square screen is better (except for movies that were shot in 16:9) for PCs (square gives more area). I suppose a wide screen would be better if you rotate it into portrait mode.

I have the dell widescreen monitor as well. I do like the high resolution and the split screen aspect - I open 2 windows side by side and they are both very useable.

But

How to you deal with some websites where the text is overlayed upon itself?
Most sites are fine but some (such as the logon screen for Sirius) have various text which overlaps itself making it hard to read and click on. I can change the page style to 'no style' but then with no formatting the pages are difficult to navigate.

Steve -
It's an adjustment, but I can get two full, page-width panes open side-by-side (which is really nice).

Now that I've given you the responsible hooey, the real reason is widescreen gaming is freaking great! And, if you want to use the monitor as part of a PC-based home theater system, the screen rocks!

I guess this is food for thought for others in the market.... ATEOTD, you can do stuff with widescreen you can't with standard 4:3 ... AND the 19" widescreen LG was cheaper (with better specs) than a 4:3 19" LCD. YMMV.

JP

I just picked up the Samsung 244T, which I believe is the same panel as the 24" Dell - the only difference I think between the two is that the Samsung is HDCP capable - not sure about Dell.

On the card side, I'm running two nVidia 8800 GTX's in SLI (Vista 32 bit - can't get 64 bit to run very stable) in my 680i machine and an ATI 9800 XT in my old P4 rig.

Honestly, honestly - even with the latest nVidia drivers, the old (snicker) ATI renders much better than the twin GTX's. I think nVidia is sucking ass with their 8800 drivers. - I'm betting you're better off with the ATI for now.

Ciao.

I run regular monitors at 1600x1200, so I'm used to getting lots of real estate. For me to get a widescreen that was an upgrade it'd need to be something like 2500x1600 otherwise it'd be a downgrade.

Weird thing, at work my previous laptop was a Dell with a 15" screen that would go to 1600x1200. The newer, faster, better Dell that replaced that old laptop is now capable of 1400x1050. And I find it weird that my old laptop with a 15" LCD was capable of 1600x1200, but if you want a freestanding LCD capable of that resolution you have to go up to at least 20".

Things are getting bigger, but not necessarily better. I guess that's what happens when the prices drop the way they have.