Which monitor would you get?

[Maria]

Hi all,

I am in the market for a new computer. The one I'm interested in has an option for either a 20 inch regular monitor or a 20 inch widescreen monitor. I have been using a 19 inch regular for some time and always thought it was great. However, the more digitial photo work I do, the more I think that having a widescreen would be a better option (the palette bin for one thing could be "scooted over").

Which would you pick and why?

Also, just FYI, both monitors are "ultrasharp digital"....the lady I spoke with swore that the digital monitors are really great and make a difference. And, the video card that comes with it would be a 256MB nVidia Geforce 7900GS Turbo Cache (Russian, anyone?), which she also said would be really, really nice for digitial images/editing. Thoughts?

Thanks so much!

Maria

[Cmcburnett]

I have a 19 digital wide screen at work, and 19 digital regular screen at home, I purchased both. I actually like the wide screen best. The wide screen has the capibility to view both in regular view and wide screen, so you have the option for both views. Totally makes a difference.

[Wendy]

Hi Marie ...

I use a 20" Cinema screen and I really like it ... I like the added width that you get :)

Wendy

[Maria]

Sounds like the widescreen may be the way to go...I'm sure I'll like it once I try it.
Thanks for your input!

[johnfranklin]

Hi all,

I am in the market for a new computer. The one I'm interested in has an option for either a 20 inch regular monitor or a 20 inch widescreen monitor. I have been using a 19 inch regular for some time and always thought it was great. However, the more digitial photo work I do, the more I think that having a widescreen would be a better option (the palette bin for one thing could be "scooted over").

Which would you pick and why?

Also, just FYI, both monitors are "ultrasharp digital"....the lady I spoke with swore that the digital monitors are really great and make a difference. And, the video card that comes with it would be a 256MB nVidia Geforce 7900GS Turbo Cache (Russian, anyone?), which she also said would be really, really nice for digitial images/editing. Thoughts?

Thanks so much!

Maria A 20 inch standard monitor actually has more screen area than a 20 widescreen. This is because the size stated is a diagonal measurement (which actually breaks the screen into two triangles) and the hypotenuse travels farther sooner because of the shallower angle. I agree that widescreen movies probably look better on the widescreen monitor, if only for the fact that you are wasting less space with the big black useless and letterbox bands. Remember the formula for area of a rectangle: Area = Base times height. Photos are much,much closer to square than a wide screen movie. The net result of this,using a widescreen monitor, when you try to display a photo in the portrait orientation it will display much smaller than it would with a standard monitor. The short answer is when using the "fill screen command",(in the editor) the 20" wide screen will display about 8 by 10, the 20" standard monitor will display at almost 11 by 14 ! This is a whole bunch more picture area (almost 2 times more picture). I bought a 19" wide screen and promptly sold it because the area of the picture it would display was not very much larger than a 17" CRT which it was to replace. Now, if you want to edit pictures in standard sizes buy the standard 20, if you only want to watch movies, by all means.... There is a little more math you should consider, namely the inverse square law : when you double the length of the the side of a square you quadruple the area. The size of pictures, with respect, to area influences the pleasure of viewing quite a bit. Again, with respect to area an 8 by 10 is twice size of an 5 by 7 an 11 by 14 is twice the size of an 8 by 10 and so one. One more thing, just use >TAB< to get rid of the pallets while you're working.

[Maria]

Hmmm, you raise some good points. I do actually take a lot of vertical shots, and it would be nice to have a 11X14 size to edit/view vs. an 8X10. Actually, I will likely NOT be watching any movies on my desktop, so the benefits of the widescreen there would not be utilized. So, I will certainly give this some more thought (gee, it's no wonder I did so bad in high school geometry!) :D

Thanks for your input...much appreciated.

[johnfranklin]

Maria, Your original post tapped into one of my biggest annoyances with the electronics video industry. I hope this isn't too far off topic, but it goes to image size and perception. I'll do all the math (which isn't too much) and you can tell me what you think. You do have to understand "aspect ratio", the numerical difference between the width and the height of an object. "Cinemascope" 2:35 (wide) to 1.00 (high) was created when theatres were much larger that they are today, 1000 seats or so was not that uncommon. It made little sense to make the ceilings higher, beside aiding the hype of panoramic vistas, Cinemascope movies could fill up a wide wall without increasing ceiling height yet maintaining the same image area. I.E. you projected a persons head the same size but now the front wall was completely full of movie. The good old boob tube,for about 50 years anyway had an aspect ratio of 1.33 (Wide) to 1.00 (high) THE SAME AS THE EARLY THEATRE SCREENS. I guess you could call that "In the years B.C." The current push of marketing toward "Wide Screen " television is a retailers dream, for the simple reason that it forces customers to buy ever larger and larger televisions, because probably subconsciencesly they desire to mantain the same image AREA as their old TV. Ideally,in on our living rooms we'd like to see a person's head at actual size. Our "old" 32 inch TVs were approaching that. Here's the math, when you watch a cinemascope format movie on a Standard 32" TV, the image size is the equivalent of TWENTY inch TV. Suppose we watch a "full screen" DVD on our 32" TV. To maintain image area, in other words, for a head which was the size of a head to still be the size of a head, you would need a 55" television. Yes boys and girls, we were just forced to spend in excess of three thousand dollars for a wide screen plasma monitor to watch our movie at the same area size. The cost of a 32" CRT TV is 3 to 4 hundred dollars. A cost factor of ten to one! Now, that's what I call ripped off! Unfortunately, it doesn't end there. To convert a cinemascope movie to a full screen version "pan and scan" requires human intervention to maintain the most interesting veiw centered. To master the wide screen version requires no thought just start the machines , set a pointer to insert the black bars (there is very little digital information, there just color value 0,0,0, begin point, number of lines and end point. I smell a power lunch cooking while the video renders. By the way, the DVD is the same price as the full screen version. You can always give away screen height if you have it, you can't get it back if you don't. I'm sorry if I bored you, but thems' the facts.

[Wendy]

Maria ...

Probably the best thing to do is to go into a computer store and compare the two side by side ... just see which you prefer.

Whilst a 20 inch standard monitor does indeed give you more screen space you may find that for using Elements the 20 inch cinema screen gives you more utalizable space :)

Wendy

[Tracker]

Iam thinking about going to a duel monitor set up. I have a 17" Dell flat panel now, which I would use as my "tool" area. What 17 to 19" would anyone suggest? What would be a good video card for this ? I now have a Dell Dimension 8300 with 2.5 GIG RAM, CS2, Wacom 9X12 Tablet, Corel Painter IX.5----getting a Canon 30D? I am a fun seeking senior in search of hardware
to keep me off the streets:D

[johnfranklin]

Maria ...

Probably the best thing to do is to go into a computer store and compare the two side by side ... just see which you prefer.

Whilst a 20 inch standard monitor does indeed give you more screen space you may find that for using Elements the 20 inch cinema screen gives you more utalizable space :)

Wendy Sorry Wendy, but no, it doesn't. Again, because the aspect ratio of most photographs is close to that of a standard TV or standard monitor. Wide screen monitors curtail the available height (for portrait orientation) and in landscape orientation all you will have is empty space beyond the sides of the picture. Better to have screen height. In PSE's editor, a standard 20 inch monitor displays (editing area only, not the menu bars and such)at 15 inches wide and 10 inches high. Actually this crops slightly the vertical of an 11 by 14 image in landscape orientation. The wide screen 20 will only aggravate the vertical cropping and leave more empty space beyond the sides of the picture. If you want more "utilizable" space in the editor, close the photo bin, undock the layer pallets and close the pallet bin. Use >tab< to hide the pallets while you're working and >tab< again to bring them back when you need them. These three actions will give you as much space as the editor has to offer. I recently bought three different monitors, a standard 19" ,a wide screen 19", and a 20" standard. A 20" standard monitor is as wide as a 19" widescreen and as high as a 19" standard! As I mentioned earlier, I sold the 19" wide screen because it was pretty much useless (with respect to image size) for photo editing. A 20" wide screen is so very little different from a 19" wide screen it is almost inconsequential. The 20" wide screen monitor is almost 1 3/4 inches shorter Vertically than the 20" standard, and almost that whole number will translate directly to additional vertical photo cropping. In elements full screen mode a 20" standard monitor's viewing area is a full 12 inches high by 16 inches wide. That's bigger than 11 by 14 at 100%. So, unless you can tell me that you shoot mostly panoramas, the standard 20" wins hands down for displaying standard photo sizes. To recap on the aspect ratios an 8 by 10 photo 1:00 to 1:25 a Standard TV or monitor 1:00 to 1:33 ,a wide screen monitor 1:00 to 1:85. When you subtract 1.20 from 1.85 you get .65 this equates to one third wasted horizontal space.

[NMarti]

John
I saw in your earlier post that a 20" monitor is in real viewing terms is 16" wide by 12" high. I would like to know those same dimensions for the 24" widescreen. I really wish the industry was required to post those numbers with their descriptions.

[EJB]

I don't think anyone has commented on your 'Russian bit'. That Graphics Card is as near to the top of the tree as is reasonable to go at the moment

[johnfranklin]

John
I saw in your earlier post that a 20" monitor is in real viewing terms is 16" wide by 12" high. I would like to know those same dimensions for the 24" widescreen. I really wish the industry was required to post those numbers with their descriptions.
I found an interesting mathematical relationship to establish the dimensions of any widescreen monitor, which doesn't involve crunching excessive numbers, square roots and such. Take the advertised monitor size (the diagonal) and divide by 2 ! Then multiply the answer by 1.77. Let's try a 20". 20/2 = 10.
10 times 1.77 = 17.7. So, our 20" widescreen's gonna be ten inches high, and seventeen & 3/4 inches wide. Let's try the 24. 24/2 =12. 12 times 1.77= 21 1/4.
So, the 24 incher is 12 inches high and 21 1/4 wide. This can be proved with the pythagorean rule, if you must. And it's approximate. I fudged at bit, rounded off a little.
Hey, math is boring, remember sitting in math class thinking I,m never going to need this.? Well, me too, whoops! It's a "WIDE SCREEN" they shout! Propaganda rules! This could be interesting, or not. Carpenters make square corners by making triangles 3 feet by 4 feet by 5 feet. If you do this you will get a 90 degree angle without fail. If you take the 20" standard monitor example and do this: (height) 12/4 = 3 : (width) 16/4 = 4 : (diagonal) 20/4 = 5 !
Wow, a standard TV is a 3,4,5 right triangle. Even boredom can be elegant. Pythagoras would be proud. Sorry about the math.