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Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

daniel.lawrence.lu

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Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#171

Post by bastard_op »

I've been using 50" 4K/60 TV's (3x actually) as monitors since 2015, and I love them. Prior from about 2007 on I used 6x 24" LCD's, and in wanting to upgrade, didn't make sense to bother with small LCD's to go vertical with another row for 12x displays. I found Samsung curved 4k LCD's at the time for around $650 each shipped around black friday, so it was a no-brainer. I've never looked back really, or would consider anything smaller now.

I am wondering how 8k displays would look replacing my current samsung 4k's as these are pre-HDR, but I'll probably use these until they start dying with no complaint. Plus no one does curved displays now, which I'll miss from my current TV monitors.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#172

Post by chankstein38 »

jrflowers wrote: post #114

I love this blog post. “It can display seven equally spaced vertical columns of text (critical importance), has driver issues (minimal importance), wake issues (who cares), it costs as much as four smaller monitors (this is good), I need a huge desk (hell yeah), there are multiple image quality issues (well it’s not like I have to look at it all day)…” It is like “I spent fifteen hundred dollars on a multitude of has…

I chuckled at "The 8K display is only $1500 at BestBuy!" the "only" lol I spent $400 on my projector that I use for my main screen and it works great. But when I did that I had previously only bought $200 projectors. So even that was not an "only" for me.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#173

Post by ponty_rick »

bastard_op wrote: post #171

I've been using 50" 4K/60 TV's (3x actually) as monitors since 2015, and I love them. Prior from about 2007 on I used 6x 24" LCD's, and in wanting to upgrade, didn't make sense to bother with small LCD's to go vertical with another row for 12x displays. I found Samsung curved 4k LCD's at the time for around $650 each shipped around black friday, so it was a no-brainer. I've never looked back really, or would consider…

If its not too much of an intrusion, can you share a picture of your setup?

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#174

Post by dllu »

Author here, ask me anything!

Apart from programming, one of the motivations for getting the 8K display is to look at lidar point clouds. For example the desktop background in my post is a lidar map of Bernal Hill in San Francisco, which I've here downsampled to only 13006 x 7991 px for your convenience [1].

Admittedly, when I bought it at first, I didn't realize there would be so many random issues, as manufacturers all advertised their gear as "8K Ready" even in 2021. As I incrementally fixed the problems, I decided to document my journey in this blog post.

btw I posted this in the past but it got caught by the spam filter and disappeared [2], not sure how to appeal that when it happens. Thanks ingve for posting it again!

[1] https://pics.dllu.net/file/dllu-lidar/tldr_707_all_c_fine_50... (13006 x 7991 px)

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41102135

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#175

Post by srid »

dllu wrote: post #174

Author here, ask me anything! Apart from programming, one of the motivations for getting the 8K display is to look at lidar point clouds. For example the desktop background in my post is a lidar map of Bernal Hill in San Francisco, which I've here downsampled to only 13006 x 7991 px for your convenience [1]. Admittedly, when I bought it at first, I didn't realize there would be so many random issues, as manufacturers…

To get retina quality display, you need to match the PPI right? For 5K, 27" is the sweet spot. For 8k, what would be the optimal size of TV?

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#176

Post by r00fus »

jamesyun wrote: post #117
bdcravens wrote: post #100

> The bezels and gaps in between the monitors introduce distractions and one is limited in how one may arrange terminals and windows across multiple displays. To me, the segmentation is a feature. It lets me offload information density and focus. For example, I commonly have an editor on one screen, a browser on the second, and something like a chat app, terminal, etc on the laptop screen.

I use a single ultrawide at home and dual-monitors at work. Initially thought having one monitor experience was more seamless, but I do miss implicit window organizational aspect that dual monitors provide. And screensharing on the ultra-wide is a pain.

A decent window management tool (e.g. Rectangle.app) should resolve most of your window management issues - set up many drag points to easily divide windows by half, thirds, quarters, sixths, etc.

Most screen share apps should support sharing by window. Also best for privacy (so your viewers don't see the side channel chat notifications pop up).

Also an ultrawide monitor is preferable for spreadsheet warriors.

I will not give up my 49" 21x9 for anything lesser.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#177

Post by layer8 »

zokier wrote: post #140
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #54

I am excited for 8k monitors in the future, because they give you a lot more options for integer scaling than current 4k displays. I know this a nerdish hill to die on, but I hate fractional scaling with the blazing fury of a thousand suns. To get a 1440p sized UI on a 27" 4k display, you can't just divide by 1.5x the OS has to 3x/2 for every frame. OS X does this best as they've had retina displays for a while, but…

That's why we have so-called 5k monitors in 27" size class? Being exactly 2x pixel density of conventional 1440p

27” 1440p at 100% is too small for me, so 5K at 200% has the same problem. More generally, the available PPIs combined with integer scaling only yield relatively few options at a given viewing distance. More choice would be nice.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#178

Post by dllu »

dylan604 wrote: post #145
jrflowers wrote: post #114

I love this blog post. “It can display seven equally spaced vertical columns of text (critical importance), has driver issues (minimal importance), wake issues (who cares), it costs as much as four smaller monitors (this is good), I need a huge desk (hell yeah), there are multiple image quality issues (well it’s not like I have to look at it all day)…” It is like “I spent fifteen hundred dollars on a multitude of has…

I didn't see any mention of how many times he has to pick up his mouse when it gets to the edge of the pad to get the mouse from one edge of the screen to the other.

Author here: I use a Logitech G Pro X Superlight but also I use the i3 window manager and rely on keyboard shortcuts for a lot of the navigation. I have the mouse sensitivity set so that the cursor can traverse the width of the screen when moving the mouse about 13 cm, without any acceleration. This is still precise enough that I can move the mouse pixel by pixel if needed.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#179

Post by r00fus »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #126
dmd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody's stopping you from segmenting one big monitor into different regions; and you get to choose how big those regions are from day to day rather than being forced into it.

That's too much extra work. With multiple monitors you can maximize primary apps while still having manual management of smaller supporting apps on another monitor. You also get more edges for rapid snap to the sides of a monitor.

You're not using the best window managers - most have customizable drag points or keybindings to get exactly what you want.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#180

Post by Toutouxc »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #134
jrflowers wrote: post #114

I love this blog post. “It can display seven equally spaced vertical columns of text (critical importance), has driver issues (minimal importance), wake issues (who cares), it costs as much as four smaller monitors (this is good), I need a huge desk (hell yeah), there are multiple image quality issues (well it’s not like I have to look at it all day)…” It is like “I spent fifteen hundred dollars on a multitude of has…

Once you no longer see pixels you'll never want to go back.

I went back from using different displays in HiDPI to using a single 43” 4K screen set to 100 % scaling. Screen estate trumps invisible pixels [for me, at the moment].
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