serious help choosing (cinema) display for my G5..

alexandr

alexandr

kosmonaut
i've finally decided to jump on the wagon, and by a G5 powermac. i'm just gonna hold out until the next rev(wich wont be long, i hope..)

anyway, i need some display(s) to go with it, but since i know squat about the LCD/plasma/flatscreen-technology, i figured to ask here;

i have following possibilities cash-wise;

* get two 20" apple cinema displays
* get one 23" apple cinema display(and maybe get another one a bit down the road??)
* get a bigger, -> 30", combined TV/display
* go with other, more cheap brands

my needs is the following;

at the moment i use two screens whenever i'm home - the 12"-screen on my iBook and a hyundai 17" CRT(wich i am soooo longing to throw out!) - in split-screen-mode using screen doctor expaner(or whatever the name is)
thing is, i really like the comfort of dual displays, so letting this go would be hard. but i also plan to get either the elgato TVEye or the alchemy TV-card so i can watch and record tv-programs, using the display as my main TV kind of.
and thats where it kinda crashes - 20" seems really small, watching TV on such a small screen gives me no great pleasure.. by getting the 23" i lose the ability to work splitscreen.

anyone have any experience, or comments to share about this? what would you go with?

and what about the possibility of going with a display with integrated tuner(a TV)? is there any flatscreens out there at the moment wich will offer me the same pleasure as a display with the purpose of being a computer-display??
and what about graphic-cards, do they all support TV's, or should this be a concern?
i figured so far i should get a TV with either a VGA-in or a DVI-in, to avoid adapters wich may cause quality loss, or is this not really important?

and last; the apple displays look the best, no doubt, but do they offer their price? i mean, maybe other displays look more like.. eh.. displays, but have greater specs picture-wise? on a scale, where would you put apple-displays if you look away from their cool appearance..?

please, share your comments, thoughts, photos(if anybody has one of the set-ups mentioned above). i deeply appreciate any help - i've been loosing sleep over this question ;)

alex.
 
Assuming you are planning to locate yourself quite a distance from the displays I would suggest one large display rather than two 20" ones. I have a user who has a similar setup on their desk and are starting to suffer neck problems from the amopunt of head turning needed to cover a desktop that large.

If you are in the UK you will get better results from a hard disk/DVD recorder and a digital box than trying to set things up through a computer (PC or Mac).
 
apple's displays are by far the best you can get at the moment - i've researched this and they really are that good.

if you look for a 23" lcd anywhere else, they'll be possibly even more expensive, look a lot worse :)P), but crucially, will only run at a maximum of 1280x1024 screen res. this is awful when you consider the 20" runs at 1680x1050 - there's just that much more room to work, you no longer need dual screens! the resolution for their 30" is something silly like 2480x1920 which is like having dual screens anyway (in fact, the 30" cinema display is two 20"ers 'glued' together, hense the need for two monitor dvi cables...)

i have a 20" and as you can see in my sig. it really is the best thing i've ever spent £800 on - if i could have stretched to the 23" i would - it's possibly the best screen on the market today (the fact that the 30" is two displays can only really cause problems, as far as i can see, and are kinda beset with dead pixel already, be careful).


buy the 23", i would say.

PS it will also run full resolution HD movies in full screen (HD1920x1280)
 
wait. i'm talking out of my arse (again) when i was looking around for my monitor, everything all the way upto 30" 3rd party displays were all 1280x1024 native resolutions apple pioneered the use of 100ppi screens but the marjet has caught up now (since october) with the 5 major rivals all offering very good alternatives all running at HD resolution, and all around the same price as apples (£1100/1200). the only benefit therefore is the Jonathan Ive design (which is sumptuous - i often stroke my screen. am i sad? it IS very smooth and solid though - a dream of well manufactured 2mm aluminium and touch buttons) and the fact that there are 2x usb2 and 2x firewire400 ports in the back of it - mine are full.

the choice is yours, and apple prices are very good at the moment. you will only buy the apple for it's looks and build quality - from a technical standpoint they have been caught up by the rivals (though not surpassed, yet)
 
thanks alot, lt major burns and bobw, for the comments. please keep em coming..
interessting views concerning the evolution of apples sompetitors.. who exatcly do you mean by apples 5 rivals, btw?

alex.
 
only considering Apple displays (I've not researched others, but the quality is definitely up there with Apple), 2 20" displays is the best bang for the buck, hands down. 40" combined for $2000? yeah, that's the way to go IMO.

That's what I've been planning for a while (and will continue to plan until my wife talks in her sleep and gives me the ok. ;))
 
yeah, i get your point, 40 inches and all, but i still can't use more than 20" at once watchin the telly, now can i...?

thats the only thing holding me back..

btw, is it possible to use the 20"/23"-displays as a second display with my G3 iBook? thats might be a + if it just might be able to power the 20" and not the 23" f. ex..

alex.
 
Two 20" displays does not add up to the real estate that a 40" display would. You'll have a lower total pixel count with 2x20" than you would with one 40".

For example, Apple's 20" displays have a native resolution of 1680 x 1050. That amounts to 1,764,000 pixels. Multiplied by two and you get 3,528,000 pixels.

Apple's 30" (10" shorter than our hypothetical 40") display has a native resolution of 2560 x 1600. That amounts to 4,096,000 pixels -- about half a million more than 2x20". That's like losing an extra 800x600 monitor.
 
like two 9" pizzas doesn't make an 18" pizza :p

by rivals i meant companies like sony, HP, philips, LG, samsung etc - other monitor/display makers. they're aren't really *THE FIVE* rivals, just a choice 5.

30" though, is out of the question without a G5 tower with the high-end GeForce, or a brand new 17" pB - it requires dual DVI support to power "both" displays for it.

i would personally go for a 23". the 20" is very widescreen (?) and two stood next to each other would be a chiropractors nightmare - try now moving your head nearly 45 degrees back and forth - it'll add up to rsi in about two weeks of intensive pro graphics...:p. you get far more usable desktop -real-estate with the HD 23" - and full HD support for the revolution in video which you can tap into that i can't (not all the way anyway)


happy shopping - the choices are fun when you have this much too spend on sexy hardware (shit - geek in the room. can i be forgiven? i'm just going to stroke my mac for a bit now. mmmmm 3mm aluminium :))
 
the only thing i have to say is this:

they all look and feel very sexy.

but. apple use different manufacturers. from what i understand, the industry rated "best" LCD manufacturer is samsung, who "make" the 20".. the 23 and 30 are from someone else and hence they have had issues with colour reproduction being off (sometimes way off) and not being replaced by apple. I suggest a 20" for the computer and then save for a DLP projector with DVI-in.
 
23inch Apple Cinema Display = HD TV.

That alone makes it the obvious choice above the 20inch (plus, now that we have Expose, I don't believe anyone really needs two displays).

The 30inch display is beautiful, but it costs too much and you need a pro level Mac to run it (which just adds to the cost factor).

Kap
 
can somebody please give me a fast round-up on what HD exactly does..?
several have mentioned this, but i do not know what i means.

alex.
 
HD is very high resolution video - where as video now is blurry and smudgy compared to a high quality image (still camera photo), HD (High-Definition) runs at 1920x1200 all the time, and the stills are like camera stills - it is very impressive to say the least - most people claim it to be 3D, it's that good, and film studio's are having to remaster films again, simply for the reason that HD highlights EVERY nuance in the original film (star wars for example it's so obvious apparently that the sets in the millenium falcon are made out of filing cabinets in HD DVD that they'e are digitally altering the set to accomodate!). HD is a very exiting thing indeed - especially for us geeks... :p
 
great! thanks alot Lt Major Burns / Ceroc Addict.

anyway, i just went ahead an had my father place an order of the 23", all through his firm, meaning I save 23% off the price. norwegian tax'es are quite steap, i know ;)

anyway. question now is, since the new powerMac rev isn't out yet, i still have to struggle with my G3 iBook. will this work at all, or am i stuck with an unusable display until i buy my G5??? :)

ordered an iSight aswell.

thanks alot for all help, comments and thoughts!

alex.
 
a lot of people are wierded out by the clarity of the images - it's scarily clear, and people have been known to think it's like 3D. sort of. it's incredible when done properly
 
Thanks for the 'lesson' Diablo. hadn't thought about the specifics.
I hadn't meant it as a pixel-pixel comparison though. I just meant that on a basic level, 2 x 20 is gonna beat out a 1 x 40, or 1 x 30 in pricing, hands down.

I like having the dual displays more for auxiliary stuff that I want to ref as I work. I usually put my main stuff on one screen, and 2ndary stuff on the other for when i want quick ref access. so 2 x 20 would be SO nice IMO.

HD is nutty awesome. A couple friends have huge HD TV's and I hate playing xbox over there, cuz then I go home and see everything I was missing on my tv... I'm like, "Whoa! I've never seen that in this game before!" haha, sad, but true.

HD is sick. the 23" order was a good move I think...
 
um. HD isn't always 1900x1200. thats why you have 480i (this is not really considered HDTV), 720p and 1080i.. the "number" in the HD refers to the number of vertical lines. ie:
eg: 1024x720 or 1920x1080..

the i or p is for interlaced or progressive.. progressive will give you a better picture but 1080i obviously has more lines of resolution than 720p..

also. True HDTV is always 16:9 Widescreen aspect ratio.. (the Apple Cinema Displays are 16:10)
 
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