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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

#281

Post by maccard »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #275
williamDafoe wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You COMPLETELY missed the elephant in the room : 8K TVs have really, really massive CPUs that waste a TON of power (150-200w for the CPU, 300-400w for the TV, often!) Think 8 cores of the fastest arm 64-bit processors available plus extra hardware accelerators! They need this extra processing power to handle the 8K television load, such as upscaling and color transforms - which never happen when you are using them as…

How does it compare to working from home as opposed to driving to the office? E.g. let's say I drive 10 miles a day to get to the office vs use an 8k TV at home? If I go out of my way to work from home, would I be ethically ok to use 8k monitor? Back of the napkin it seems like 8k monitor would be 10x better than driving to the office?

I don't think this is an honest question.

There's no "fixed budget" of energy that is ethically ok to use. The parents point was that these devices are woefully inefficent no matter which way you look at them.

The "best" thing to do would be neither, and is usually to just use the device you have - particularly for low power electronics as the impact of buying a new one is more than the impact of actually running the thing unless you run it 24/7/365

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#282

Post by dllu »

williamDafoe wrote: post #272
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…

You COMPLETELY missed the elephant in the room : 8K TVs have really, really massive CPUs that waste a TON of power (150-200w for the CPU, 300-400w for the TV, often!) Think 8 cores of the fastest arm 64-bit processors available plus extra hardware accelerators! They need this extra processing power to handle the 8K television load, such as upscaling and color transforms - which never happen when you are using them as…

Anecdotally my house draws 0.4 kW when idle and 0.6-0.7 kW when both my 8K screen and my computer are on. Since my computer draws 0.1-0.2 kW, I surmise that the QN800A doesn't draw 300-400 W total --- maybe 100-200 W.

I run my screen on a brightness setting of 21 (out of 50) which is still quite legible during the day next to a window.

Also, I have solar panels for my house (which is why I'm able to see the total power usage of my house).

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#283

Post by mewpmewp2 »

maccard wrote: post #281
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it compare to working from home as opposed to driving to the office? E.g. let's say I drive 10 miles a day to get to the office vs use an 8k TV at home? If I go out of my way to work from home, would I be ethically ok to use 8k monitor? Back of the napkin it seems like 8k monitor would be 10x better than driving to the office?

I don't think this is an honest question. There's no "fixed budget" of energy that is ethically ok to use. The parents point was that these devices are woefully inefficent no matter which way you look at them. The "best" thing to do would be neither, and is usually to just use the device you have - particularly for low power electronics as the impact of buying a new one is more than the impact of actually running the…

> There's no "fixed budget" of energy that is ethically ok to use.

Not even 0.00001 W? How is it ethical to live in the first place in such case?

> The parents point was that these devices are woefully inefficent no matter which way you look at them.

It's always a trade off, of productivity, enjoyment vs energy efficiency, isn't it? If I find a setup that allows me to be more productive and enjoy my work more, certainly I would need to balance it with how much potential waste there is in terms of efficiency.

> The "best" thing to do would be neither, and is usually to just use the device you have

That's quite a generic statement. If my device is a budget android phone, do you expect me to keep coding on it, not buying better tools?

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#284

Post by MaulingMonkey »

> TLDR: If your job is to write code all day [...], buy an 8K TV instead of a multi-monitor setup.

Counterpoints:

• All my keyboard muscle memory is setup for multi-monitor setups. Theoretically fixable with the right tiling window manager... which I would presumably have to install, since I do too much Windows stuff to go full time Linux. Or perhaps develop. Buying more monitors is a better use of my time.

• I curve my monitors inwards, intentionally, for better viewing angles. Also lets me hide a tower in one of the corners behind the curve on a straighter desk.

• I do too much multi-machine development (e.g. testing refactoring of multi-platform abstractions.) HDMI switches are super convenient, your TV's picture-in-picture functionality... may or may not be. Dual Windows PCs for testing on nVidia and AMD simultaniously, or remaining unblocked when busy reformatting/reinstalling/compiling/linking/syncing 100GB+ on one? Yes please. It's often interactive enough to want to keep open, yet passive enough to need something else to do. OS X for iOS and Linux for debugging server code? Sure. iOS and Android? Well... those have their own monitors. Consoles don't though, and I've targeted those too..

For an entertainment setup, I can usually scrape by with 2 or 3 monitors (1 landscape for fullscreen game, others typically portrait for chat/wiki/etc). Right now, I'm on a 75" 4K chonker. I have good eyes, but 8K would be a waste of pixels, and I'm already close enough that the viewing angles are noticable. Yet, I still hauled out a second monitor: an old 2.5K to exile junk I want to monitor off the main screen.

For a development setup, I've bought or brought a 4 x 27" 4K setup if one isn't provided. A 5th monitor has occasionally been useful (1 landscape for console, 4 portrait for console IDE, devtools, devtools IDE, and docs/wiki/jira/chat/notes. Replacing the 4x portrait with 2x 8K landscape... would probably work, at least, although I'm not convinced it'd feel like much of an upgrade, if any.)

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#285

Post by omnibrain »

At home I use 2 28" 3:2 4k displays and in the office I use the same setup and 2 additional 24" WQXGA-Displays and I like the ability to spatial arrange windows and corresponding tasks. My mind just doesn't work the same with one huge display. I even noticed this back in the day when multiple displays meant 2 17"-19" 4:3 or 5:4 displays and the first colleagues started to use the first 30" displays with 2560x1600.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#286

Post by wrs »

deergomoo wrote: post #240
appleiigs wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general advice is to have top of monitor at eye level, but it's been wrong advice for me personally. I now put the middle of the monitor at eye level. Keeps my head up and posture better. Leaning back instead of stooping.

I do this too, though mostly out of necessity. I use a 27" screen a couple feet away. To get the top of the monitor level with my eyes I'd either have to lower it so the bottom of the monitor was almost flush with the desk (which my current monitor's stand won't do anyway), or get a taller chair/lower my desk, both of which would leave my legs rubbing up against the desk underside and my arms at an uncomfortable angl…

I switched to a VESA arm so I can put the bottom of the monitor flush with the desk and leaned back at a bit of an angle. It’s fantastic.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#287

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

lbrito wrote: post #194
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…

Do you have 20/20 eyesight, and how tall are you? I use glasses (myopia) and can kind of tolerate the edges of my 32" 4k monitor, but I can't fathom craning my neck all the way up to the edges of a 55"+ display. Not to mention font sizes.

Isn't it good for a little exercise? Maybe we should have 300" monitors so we jog from one edge of the screen to the other as we type code :)

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#289

Post by mastazi »

Assuming that those audio speakers are at ear height (I assume they are since those IsoAcoustics stands allow tilting but there is no tilt in the picture) then IMHO the display is placed too high, ideally you want your eyes level just below the upper edge of the screen. I don't blame OP though, I just think with this type of screen size, it is challenging to achieve that.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#290

Post by Arubis »

If you’re looking for a monitor with high pixel density and a ton of real estate, you can also buy a monitor. 5k2k’s are pretty sweet. I’m driving one of these nowadays and it’s fabulous, without all the quirks of adapting a huge TV for computer use: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-ultrasharp-40-curved-th...

HiDPI, two 4k monitors without a bezel, 120Hz, and no need for a separate thunderbolt hub.

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