The journey to controlling external monitors on M1 Macs • Hacker News Board

Re: The journey to controlling external monitors on M1 Macs

#131

Post by amelius » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #96

FireBeyond wrote: post #30

Apple seems to be making a lot of display related things difficult lately. This, and Display Stream Compression are two. Just as high refresh and HDR were becoming really mainstream, Big Sur completely broke what was working flawlessly in Catalina (and it has not been fixed as of either 11.5, or the Monterey betas so far - and by completely broke, I mean does not work, at all, for anybody, not just 'some edge case').…

Why not roll back to Catalina? Mac recovery menu has the option to reinstall the OS that shipped with the machine. What I don’t know is if you’re allowed to selectively upgrade to, say, the latest version of Catalina. But you can pick and choose updates, so maybe?

How does that work for security patches?

Re: The journey to controlling external monitors on M1 Macs

#132

Post by dividedbyzero » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #103

GekkePrutser wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and for me the problem is also that newer screens won't even go down far enough because they optimize for max brightness as that looks better on the spec sheet. Most of my monitors are way too bright at 0% at night. On my 4K I even need to work at 0% during the day and reduce contrast at night (which messes up colour depth). And yeah the OSD controls are horrible. I still work on a real VT520 CRT terminal so…

I had the same problem and used one of the dark overlay tools that the author of the article criticizes to bring it down further than 0% brightness. But that trick also messes up color depth. I've since switched to an iMac, and the nice thing is that while the display can go very bright, when you dial down the brightness to the lowest value it is very dim to the point of being hard to read in daylight.

I found putting one of those Philips Hue light strips behind the monitor helped tremendously. If I set its brightness and temperature to a dim warm setting, the dimly-lit wall right behind the monitor makes mid-range screen brightness work just fine (eyes accomodate to the higher overall brightness, so the monitor needs to be brighter to "fit in", but I still perceive the whole scene as dimly-lit) and the color temperature seems to work well for me, I still get tired and sleepy. I can even control the light using the Hue bridge's REST API, so it's easy to automate as well.

Re: The journey to controlling external monitors on M1 Macs

#133

Post by londons_explore » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:32 AM UTC

> reading brightness, contrast or volume from the monitor fails about 30% of the time

There is a good chance this is because the read is done too fast. If it gets less reliable with a super long HDMI cable then it's almost certainly the clock speed.

I2C is a clocked protocol where the host (the laptop) decides the clock speed. It isn't designed as a high speed data transfer mechanism, and requires that all the signals get to the other end of the wire and back all within every clock cycle. Since there is very little data to send, a clock speed of 10kHz should do the job just fine. But I bet the hardware is set to something silly like 10 MHz by default, since it probably uses the same I2C drivers and hardware blocks as used for communicating with other things on-chip and within the system.

Re: The journey to controlling external monitors on M1 Macs

#134

Post by Abishek_Muthian » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:51 AM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #130

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether we might get to witness audience booing again for another outrageous Apple product as pre-recorded Apple events works great for their goals.

I think the Pro Display XDR & stand were less “outrageous” and more “aimed at a niche market most of us don’t know much about.” People were expecting something consumer / prosumer and Apple made something aimed at the professional market.

> “aimed at a niche market most of us don’t know much about.”

Then Apple should have demonstrated the $1000 stand to those niche market separately instead of trying to sell the aspiration of 'Pro' devices to the consumer in an usual consumer event.

Re: The journey to controlling external monitors on M1 Macs

#135

Post by kwyjobojoe » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 10:00 AM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #129

justin66 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Telling all the people who want HDR to go buy a $5,000 display they don't need is a bit of a mean spirited move. Plus an extra $1,000 for the stand to mount it. That never stops being funny.

Seems less like it’s funny, and more like it’s aimed at a niche market.

How to does breaking existing compatibility with 3rd party products fit in to that?

Re: The journey to controlling external monitors on M1 Macs

#136

Post by GekkePrutser » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 10:04 AM UTC

alin23 wrote: post #107

GekkePrutser wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and for me the problem is also that newer screens won't even go down far enough because they optimize for max brightness as that looks better on the spec sheet. Most of my monitors are way too bright at 0% at night. On my 4K I even need to work at 0% during the day and reduce contrast at night (which messes up colour depth). And yeah the OSD controls are horrible. I still work on a real VT520 CRT terminal so…

I love knobs (rotary encoders mostly). I wish they were in everything where you need to adjust some range like brightness, contrast, volume, color warmth. For some time I really wanted a battery powered wireless rotary encoder that I can listen to in Home Assistant and hook it to whatever I want but I couldn’t find anything like that.

Ikea made a rotary encoder (dimmer) like that with Zigbee. It works well with Home Assistant. It actually had an accelerometer to determine its position, so it could be rotated within a passive magnetic mount. Unfortunately they stopped making them. They replaced it with a square one that doubled as an on/off button. But perhaps you can still find some second-hand. It was in their Tradfri range.

Re: The journey to controlling external monitors on M1 Macs

#137

Post by garyclarke27 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 10:11 AM UTC

Yes why can’t a mac control the volume of an external monitor on usb c/display port/thunderbolt. It’s completely ridiculous when you think about it, that such a fundamental and important requirement for so many users, is completely missing, in 2021!

Re: The journey to controlling external monitors on M1 Macs

#138

Post by GekkePrutser » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 10:13 AM UTC

dividedbyzero wrote: post #132

Joeri wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same problem and used one of the dark overlay tools that the author of the article criticizes to bring it down further than 0% brightness. But that trick also messes up color depth. I've since switched to an iMac, and the nice thing is that while the display can go very bright, when you dial down the brightness to the lowest value it is very dim to the point of being hard to read in daylight.

I found putting one of those Philips Hue light strips behind the monitor helped tremendously. If I set its brightness and temperature to a dim warm setting, the dimly-lit wall right behind the monitor makes mid-range screen brightness work just fine (eyes accomodate to the higher overall brightness, so the monitor needs to be brighter to "fit in", but I still perceive the whole scene as dimly-lit) and the color tempe…

That would help indeed, and so does keeping the lights on at a high level. But my 4K is so bright at 0% that it feels too bright for me even with the brightest artificial light I have :) Only in daylight it's OK (and I still keep it at 0% then!).

But there is another reason I don't always have lights on. I live in Barcelona where it gets hot in summer and I don't have AC. So at night when the temperature outside is lower than inside I leave all the windows open to cool the house. If I have lights on it attracts bugs. So I stay mainly in the dark.

Re: The journey to controlling external monitors on M1 Macs

#139

Post by klodolph » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 10:13 AM UTC

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #134

klodolph wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Pro Display XDR & stand were less “outrageous” and more “aimed at a niche market most of us don’t know much about.” People were expecting something consumer / prosumer and Apple made something aimed at the professional market.

> “aimed at a niche market most of us don’t know much about.” Then Apple should have demonstrated the $1000 stand to those niche market separately instead of trying to sell the aspiration of 'Pro' devices to the consumer in an usual consumer event.

Apple didn’t announce it at an event for general consumers, they announced it at WWDC. WWDC is an Apple event, run by Apple, to announce Apple products. Not all Apple products are aimed at general consumers.

Re: The journey to controlling external monitors on M1 Macs

#140

Post by klodolph » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

kwyjobojoe wrote: post #135

klodolph wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems less like it’s funny, and more like it’s aimed at a niche market.

How to does breaking existing compatibility with 3rd party products fit in to that?

Are we still talking about a monitor stand? You can VESA mount the monitor if you don’t want to buy the stand. I think it’s assumed you’d use a third-party VESA mount, and the stand is there as an alternative for the few people who just don’t want that.. As far as I can tell, you can use a standard VESA mount, you don’t need some kind of Apple-specific one.