question about new monitor...

[Chris Hill]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008, Gary Kline wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 06:16:35PM -0700, Gary Kline wrote:
>> 	i'm on newegg.com that has a whole slew of options for narrowing the
>> 	field.
>>
>> 	q's:  is a higher contrast ratio better than a lower ratio?

Generally, yes. Contrast ratio in a display is analogous to dynamic 
range in audio.

>> 	is the widescreen better than the std?  --i think widescreen is
>> 	16x9, standard is 4x3.

Correct about the aspect ratios. As for "better", it depends on whether 
your graphics card can run at those resolutions.

> 		I've changed my mind:: if I go to 20" i can get widescreen
> 		with 1680x1050, so my current 1284x1024 would fit.

1280x1024 is actually a 5:4 aspect, but people use it on a 4:3 display. 
I'm doing that right now :^) But if you send it to a 16:9 display it 
will probably appear "stretched" unless you adjust the display so it's 
effectively not a widescreen display anymore.

Every LCD or DLP or plasma display has a native resolution, which is the 
actual number of pixels in its imaging device. Nowadays they all have 
internal scan converters so that you could, for instance, send your 
1280x1024 to a display of some other native resolution and get a 
picture, subject to some limits (e.g., I doubt any 1024x768 LCD monitor 
would display a 3200x2400 signal). But it will always look best at the 
native resolution anyway, so you're on the right track.

> 		IFF xorg know what kind of beast this is:-)

Well, yeah, that's the elephant in the room, isn't it?

--
Chris Hill               chris at monochrome.org
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