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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

#321

Post by replete »

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…

I recently acquired a 43" 4K monitor for programming - a very boring Philips monitor, used at 100% scale. I hated it at first, but after a month I loved it.

2160p actual 'workspace' resolution at this distance (2 feet?) and size (43") seems close to a practical limit for typical use I thought, requiring with this measly 43" still a little bit of occasional head movement to see the top right corner. I noticed a tendency to sit slightly to the left of centre on this monitor, to avoid distortion and maintain clarity with what I'm focusing on (e.g. code/windows, not reference materials). Because of this I suspect at this distance a 43" with a slight curve would be optimal, at least for me.

What I wanted to ask you:

- What is your 'workspace' resolution? Is it something like 6K? I'm guessing your scaling is either 125% or 150%? Your PPI should be around 135, mine 102.

- Are you actually sat perfectly centre? I was wondering this because I keep noticing I tend to gradually shift my keyboard to the left over a day. Maybe this is years of 1440p + side portrait monitor use, I'm not sure, but eventually I accepted that I prefer slightly to the left (odd because my side portrait was on the left...)

- Do you think a curved monitor at this size/distance would improve the ergonomics? I imagine you must get a bit of a neck workout.

After getting this monitor, I'm pretty much sold on single screens again - but I had to switch my window management from keyboard-based tiling shortcuts to 'hold CTRL and move mouse' window management (BetterTouchTool on MacOS), with a tendency to stack up windows messily. I tried custom resize snap zones with BetterSnapTool - but I don't use them. I think that was the biggest challenge to switch from multi monitor to large format. It's a huge benefit to have everything in your context on one screen, but had to rethink how windows get moved around. Now I'm used to it, I want CTRL/SHIFT + mousemove modifiers on every system to deal with windows.

Also related, I bought a 4K tv last weekend for another system to use as a monitor, but found that the gaps between the pixels were unexpectedly large, creating a strange optical effect at close distance, making it unusable (but so close). There might be something different about the screen outer layer (on most TVs?) that polarizes light in a way better suited for distance viewing, but clearly not all TVs have this issue.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#322

Post by Nannooskeeska »

starkparker wrote: post #319

I used a 43" 4k TV to replace a multi-monitor setup, and the neck and eye strain was brutal for me. Even with a really nice display with a high refresh rate, viewing the corners from that close up was worse than useless. The brightness was difficult to tune down enough to reduce eye strain and from that close up reducing blue light through software wasn't very helpful. I've since switched to a 32" 4k curved display (…

I've been using a 34" 1440p curved ultrawide monitor (21:9) since 2020 and it's been amazing. Earlier this year I decided to try using a 42" LG OLED TV as my monitor and lasted about a day before deciding to go back. I 100% agree with you RE: viewing the corners of the flat screen. I'll never go back to a flat monitor/TV for my primary PC again. I think my ideal monitor is ultrawide, curved, 1440p, OLED, and 38" or so.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#323

Post by ccheney »

post_break wrote: post #318
ccheney wrote: post #306

Have been sporting a 4K LG CX48 OLED since ~Sept, 2020 best monitor decision ever. I've got two HDMI out cables, 1 going to my gaming rig and the other for my Macbook where I do my work as a developer. I haven't noticed any burn-in or dead pixels. You need to set it up for success, enable all the burn-in prevention settings the monitor provides (static image darkening, pixel shifting&cleaning). It's also a great idea…

I stole one of these from Best Buy for $500 in march. It’s just so good. I haven’t turned off the local dimming thing with the service remote so that’s still a thing but damn is it such a great monitor. And for gaming cyberpunk at 120hz with hdr melts your face.

crazy how cheap these got, I paid ~$1500 USD in 2020

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#324

Post by ClumsyPilot »

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…

> the impact of buying a new one is more than the impact of actually running the thing unless you run it 24/7/365

This is wrong for basically everything we ever use - from a house, to an electric car. And especially for small items like electronics

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#325

Post by shric »

cm2012 wrote: post #307
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…

This is a bit much. The average American household uses about 29 kilowatts of power per day (29,000 megawatts). The difference between using a 4K screen and 8k screen for 8 hours a day is about 100 megawatts difference. I wouldn't get over excited about something increasing overall energy usage ~2.5%.

> The average American household uses about 29 kilowatts of power per day (29,000 megawatts).

Ignoring the megawatts error that the sibling pointed out, it's 29 kilowatt hours per day. Watts are a unit of power consumption -- joules (energy) per second.

One kilowatt hour is the energy used by running something at 1,000 Watts for one hour.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#326

Post by jhartwig »

itronitron wrote: post #256
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…

I'm curious how much heat this thing puts off, and whether there are particular display types that generate more heat than others.

Nothing compares to the old school large dell lcds. I had one years ago that was a furnace.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#327

Post by jszymborski »

kev009 wrote: post #273
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…

I had the Dell 8k monitor you mentioned, the picture quality was great but it died after a few years not long after the warranty expired (a gut punch at the purchase price) and they said too bad so sad... ok that's fine but I will never buy another Dell product again. It was released too early to have proper displayport support and I had to use a custom nvidia-driver X11 config to make it mostly work as two monitors.…

I had a similar experience with Dell after they wanted the price of a new laptop for a replacement laptop battery. This was for the Dell Studio back when battery packs were made to be swappable by simply sliding a latch.

After that phone call to customer support, I made a similar vow to never buy another Dell product. These days, I use a Framework laptop.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#328

Post by bufferoverflow »

outworlder wrote: post #213
bufferoverflow wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days you can buy 4K/240Hz displays that have a 1080p/480Hz mode. Even 240Hz is usually enough for really good players. 480Hz is just for the 0.01% who can take advantage of it. https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Swift-Gaming-Monitor-PG32UCDP/dp... https://www.amazon.com/LG-‎32GS95UE-Ultragear-DisplayHDR-Dis... https://www.amazon.com/LG-‎32GS95UV-Ultragear-DisplayHDR-Dis... https://www.amazon.com/Predator-Monitor-FreeS…

> 480Hz is just for the 0.01% who can take advantage of it. I'm skeptical that any human can take advantage of that. Even 240Hz is stretching it.

I have a 144hz monitor and a 240hz. I can definitely see the difference.

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#329

Post by girvo »

dllu wrote: post #195
lbrito wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have fairly bad eyesight with both myopia and astigmatism (-5 sph, -2 cyl) and I wear glasses. I got glasses with 1.71 index lenses, which I greatly prefer over the more common 1.74 index lenses due to the higher Abbe number, resulting in less chromatic aberration. Anyway, I use browsers at 150% scaling usually, although the text is finer on my terminals. I don't use any scaling for UI elements and terminals. Using…

FWIW there are lenses that are high index while still having a higher Abbe number, but they're expensive and pretty specific materials. Interesting that 1.74 are more common where you are, where I am lower index polycarb are the standard (sadly)

Re: Using an 8K TV as a Monitor

#330

Post by dabiged »

Aurornis wrote: post #297
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…

> 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!) RTINGS measured the Samsung QN800A as consuming 139W typical, with a peak of 429W. Your numbers aren't even close to accurate. 8K TVs do not have 200W CPUs inside. The entire Samsung QN800A uses less power during normal operation than you're claiming…

> RTINGS measured the Samsung QN800A as consuming 139W typical, with a peak of 429W.

Can you explain why does a TV's power fluctuate so much? What does peak load look like for a TV? Does watching NFL draw more power than playing Factorio?

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