Alienware's Curved Monitor

ViperArrow writes "Alienware has showcased a curved display prototype supporting a resolution of 2880x900, aimed mainly toward gamers, with a refresh rate of .02ms. This 3-foot-wide DLP with LED illumination will be available by the second half of 2008. The monitor is still showing some flaws, but Alienware assures us that these will be gone by release. No price has been revealed as of yet."

hmm

[wwmedia (950346)]

did everyone notice in the video the way the monitor seems to be broken into 4 with the colors being dimmer?

anyways image how pRon would look on that!

Re:

[peragrin (659227)]

I am wondering though how visible the seams are when viewing it in Real Life. sometimes Video camera's pick up subtle differences that can't normally be seen. Also Proper color correction should fix that.

I do hope those kinds of issues are sorted out before shipping.

Re:

[Smidge204 (605297)]

I noticed the seams too. It's actually a tad unreasonable to actually make one huge curved LCD panel... manufacturing alone would be a challange.

It may be an effect of the video camera, though, that makes it look so noticible. You know how LCD panels look offcolor and dim when viewed from an angle... so if you are sitting the proper distance from the unit, all the panels would be facing directly at you and it might look very nice.

What gets me is the "0.02ms refresh" thing. 0.00002 second refresh rate? 50,00

Re:hmm

[Smidge204 (605297)]

Aha. The article says 0.02ms response time not refresh rate. Very different measurement there. The incorrect summary fogged my mind when reading the article... 0.02ms response time is slightly more believable.... not my much though. It's about 100x faster than current consumer-grade units (2-3ms).

=Smidge=

Re:hmm

[mrchaotica (681592)]

What gets me is the "0.02ms refresh" thing.

Maybe the person who said that used to work for Verizon?

Re:hmm

[Amouth (879122)]

actualy DLP chips have amazingly high responce time.. and being that the industry tends to measure responce time from gray to gray instead of white to black... i can very well see .02ms response time for the DLP chip.. but at that rate it is the color wheel that will be the limiting factor as the mirror can't reflect light that isnt' there yet.. if you think about how DLP works..

you have a grid of little onchip mirrors.. that tilt back and forth.. you have a color wheel that spins at high rpm and a blub shining throuhg it.. for a specific color to be shown the mirrors in sync with the wheel tilt to allow a certin amount of the light from the wheel through. if you have a color wheel going at say 10k rpm 3 colors in the wheel (more modern ones are using 6 and 12 color wheels to help prevent rainbow effect) each mirror has a color option 500 times a second wich means 2ms to switch from solid to solid with only a 3 color wheel.. but if you had say a green then it would be blue and yellow both and no for red. which means 2ms/3 mirror movements so .66ms responce time on the mirror.. now if you double the color wheel options you must increase the responce time.. by the same factor.. 6 color wheel = .33ms responce time 12 color wheel = .166ms response time..

while i will agree that .02 responce time is insane (providing use of a 64 color wheel) i am willing to bet that it is more like 0.2 ms responce time.. as 2ms would be a very plain cheep projector..

but DLP is by far better than LCD at responce time..

Re:

[bughunter (10093)]

LED-illuminated. Meaning that the light switched by the MEMS mirrors and filtered by the color wheel originates from PN junction somewhere (i.e., instead of a lamp).

Re:

[UbuntuDupe (970646)]

Just don't try to play any rhythm games on it (or any hidef tv) from a 480i input game...

Re:hmm

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

480 is the number of lines in an NTSC picture. You probably live in an area with a slightly less primitive colour TV encoding. PAL encodes 625 lines, although only 576 are visible. Since PAL picture have 20% more vertical resolution, standard definition TV in the USA and other places which use NTSC looks terrible to someone used to PAL (the colour reproduction is very poor too, leading to claims that it stands for Never The Same Colour). It's probably one of the reasons why HD is doing better in the USA than Europe; the quality difference is much more apparent.

Re:hmm

[Trixter (9555)]

NTSC has many flaws, but the higher refresh rate is an advantage to a country that seems to live and die by its professional sports Since all pro sports games are transmitted/recorded at the full 60Hz framerate (ie. there is a new piece of temporal information every 1/60th of a second), they are more fluid than PAL.

That's a very minor issue, though; the bigger issue is how movies are transferred to PAL -- standard transfer is to speed them up 6% to translate 24fps to 25fps. Up until very recently, that altered the pitch of the sound! Thankfully newer transfer methods are able to speed up the audio without altering the pitch.

Re:

[ajs318 (655362)]

There are 625 lines, which are not subdivided into pixels, in the two fields which make up a standard analogue TV picture.

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[marcansoft (727665)]

Of which about 480 are actually visible, and the rest are blanking and retracing.

Re:

[192939495969798999 (58312)]

Agreed, looking at the playback it's quite clearly 4 monitors stitched together, very cheesy and disappointing. It is not at all a "seamless" curved display , and looks surprisingly dumb compared with say, the zenview 6-way monitor which has defined seams. At least the picture remains sharp besides the seams, instead of having that weird fade line.

http://www.bornrich.org/entry/zenview-announces-elite-six-screen-monitor/ [bornrich.org]

x900????

[Shivetya (243324)]

More for presentation than gaming, so why does Alienware have this product?

initital thoughts

[Fierythrasher (777913)]

This might perhaps be good for gaming, but the fact that it is curved makes me shudder at the thought of people doing, say, photoshop work on a naturally curved surface. Sure, having a 3' flat monitor would be hard to see, having it curved is going to make drawing a straight line, or anything other than gaming, really difficult I would think.

Moreover, I'm wondering if this will result in a fish-eye lens (or reverse fish-eye lens) effect even in games.

As for price...you can bet it will be steep, but Apple thinks they can charge $3k for a 32" monitor, so I'd expect a similar cost for a 36" monitor.

Re:initital thoughts

[digitig (1056110)]

having it curved is going to make drawing a straight line, or anything other than gaming, really difficult I would think.

Well, I'd like one for side-by-side comparisons of documents. Two ordinary monitors side-by-side wouldn't be as good because -- er -- give me a moment to think...

That's a lot of pixels!

[91degrees (207121)]

Can any graphics card handle the sort of fill rate required from this yet?

Re:

[quarrel (194077)]

I have a 30" Dell, running at its native 2560 * 1600. Apple makes one, lots of others.

2560 * 1600 = 4,096,000

This Alienware monitor:

2880 * 900 = 2,592,000

So this new monitor is nothing special total pixel wise..

Looks cool though.

--Q

Re:

[cyber0ne (640846)]

It's maybe half the pixils of a 30-inch cinema display (be it Apple's or someone else's). DVI connections can handle plenty more than that, and there is no shortage of video cards that can do it. Cute toy, but hardly super-high-res.

Re:

[Brad1138 (590148)]

Can any graphics card handle the sort of fill rate required from this yet?

Are there any games designed to run at 2880x900?

Re:

[Bigbutt (65939)]

And that's the $64,000 question. I have three screens at home running on two adapters (512M video ram). It'd be nice to be able to use all the extra real estate to see more of a battlefield (StarCraft or Command and Conquer for example).

The three screens work great for my programming projects though.

[John]

Wallhacker eh?

[tepples (727027)]

I have three screens at home running on two adapters (512M video ram). It'd be nice to be able to use all the extra real estate to cheat at StarCraft or Command and Conquer for example.

The number of square meters of the battlefield that each player can see is one of the game rules. If you increase an overhead RTS like StarCraft from 640x480 to 1280x960, you don't quadruple how much battlefield you can see; instead, you just increase how much detail is shown in each texture. This detail can be real (hi-res texture packs) or fake (smart line art resizer [hiend3d.com]).

Re:That's a lot of pixels!

[Have Blue (616)]

Many modern games will let you specify arbitrary pixel dimensions and aspect ratio, either with the console or by hand-editing the config file. I imagine it'll make the HUD look a little weird.

on behalf of all of slashdot, i would like to say

[circletimessquare (444983)]

DROOL

Re:on behalf of all of slashdot, i would like to s

[teslar (706653)]

Naw, I'm not drooling, so please don't speak for me. In fact, the resolution leaves me distinctly unimpressed, given the size of the beast. The only wow-factor is the curved form, but I'm not yet sure how much, if at all, that will improve gaming experience. Not sure it's useful for working at all, as others have pointed out. Also, if you need screen estate, it's probably cheaper to put 3 1920x1200 monitors or so next to each other.

Gah, DLP

[Neon Spiral Injector (21234)]

Does anyone else feel like they are going to be sick or at least get a huge headache when looking at DLP displays?

If I sit perfectly still it's OK. But even little movements cause my eyes hurt. Turning my head to talk to the person next to me is likely to cause me to puke into their lap.

I don't suffer from motion sickness or anything like that. It is just these displays, front or rear projection don't seem to form a stable picture to my eyes.

Flight Simmers

[PowerEdge (648673)]

I can see this product geared towards flight simmers. Figure out how to drive four of these displays (front, left, right, back) and I'll be happy. That and I won't have to worry about installing a furnace in my new house.

Oh great! Four of these...

[sfled (231432)]

set up around me and I'd never leave the house.

Oh, wait, how much is the video card?

So it's like a CRT...

[mushadv (909107)]

but backwards?

Useful Only For Gaming?

[MrCrassic (994046)]

Will this monitor serve any productive purpose outside of enhancing gaming experience? I can personally see myself having a curved monitor as a hinderance for writing applications or anything that closely resembles writing on a flat surface (i.e. code, documents, spreadsheets, etc.).

Wiiiidddeeee Windows.

[ErroneousBee (611028)]

So will Gizmodo take a hint and develop a website that looks good in a short and wide window?

I get sick of having to scroll vertically stacked content into view when I'm on a wide-screen display.

Maybe someone could memo the BBC and Ars about this too.

Differing specs

[clegrand (1082829)]

Eh.. Gizmodo sez .02ms refresh ... wow.. Macworld sez 2ms refresh ... sounds more reasonable

Okay, this one still resides in the land of dreams, but tell me the mere sight doesn't set your salivary glands into overdrive. Alienware's working on a curved monitor that actually helps simulate peripheral vision in gaming. The resolution on this truly remarkable feat of engineering is an astounding 2880x900 and it's run off a Dual Link DVI set up (with some serious graphics horsepower). As if that's not enough, it uses DLP technology, is backlit by LEDs, and has a 2ms response time.

http://www.macworld.com/article/131451/2008/01/gboxces1.html [macworld.com]

not very curvy

[Oktober Sunset (838224)]

it's not exactly wrap around, with that shallow curve, it wouldn't fill your field of vision much more than a flat monitor of the same size. They nee to make it even wider and even more curvy.

Re:not very curvy

[berashith (222128)]

Is that you Sir Mix-a-lot?

Gaming on RPTV

[Jaktar (975138)]

I'm not sure how many other people have done it but I've attempted to game on my rear projection HDTV. It looks like poop. Their refresh rate is based on 60hz which is where they got their .02 refresh rate (1/60hz). I'll pass on this one.

Re:

[Brad1138 (590148)]

Their refresh rate is based on 60hz which is where they got their .02 refresh rate (1/60hz)

The article says .02ms not .02s. hz is cycle/second not per Millisecond.

Wait a Minute

[trongey (21550)]

I thought I was supposed to be excited about a perfectly flat screen in a super thin frame. Now I'm supposed to go back to being all googly about a curved screen with big bulge in the back again? This is too hard, I give up.

Rubbish

[Spad (470073)]

My two 17" LCDs do 2560x1024 - they may not be seemless, but that doesn't really bother me. 2880*900 is pretty poor, especially when you consider the size of the thing.

Re:

[vimh42 (981236)]

Not sure if I'm ready to call it rubbish. I'd have to sit down in front of the thing. Looking at the pictures, I'm not sure I'd like the curved screen.

Re:why do screen resolutions keep going down?

[Alioth (221270)]

Turn the display on its side.

No seriously. We have monitors like that at work that have a stand that allow them to be turned on their sides to view or use "sheet like" programs like web browsers, word processors etc.

Re:

[KillerBob (217953)]

Likewise... I switched from a 21" CRT @ 1920x1440 3 years ago, when I bought a Gateway 2185W 21" widescreen LCD at 1680x1050. I love it. My new laptop has a 15.4" screen at the same resolution...

It's not that resolutions are going down. It's that the standard aspect ratio has changed. I can't remember the exact name of it, but there's a general rule out there which describes how a widescreen aspect ratio is more aesthetically pleasing than the old standard 4:3. Has something to do with how the eyes themselv

Re:

[Bender Unit 22 (216955)]

Indeed.
"Alienware has showcased a curved display prototype"

prototype
(pr't-tp') pronunciation

n.

1. An original type, form, or instance serving as a basis or standard for later stages.
2. An original, full-scale, and usually working model of a new product or new version of an existing product.
3. An early, typical example.
4. Biology. A form or species that serves as an original type or example.

[French, from Greek prtotupon, f

Re:

[Fieryphoenix (1161565)]

TFS says it is not an LCD at all. As stated in the video, it's a rear-projection DLP. It has four elements, the joins of which are not currently seamless. Common LCD sizes have no relevance in this case, but at least you're thinking.

Re:Here's a picture...

[Joe Snipe (224958)]

since the linked article doesn't have one...

No, they didn't have one. They had nine. And a video.

Re:Here's a picture...

[crymeph0 (682581)]

GP's probably running NoScript [noscript.net] in FireFox. I had to temporarily allow scripts from gawker.com to see the pictures and video.

Re:Here's a picture...

[DaFallus (805248)]

My bad, I use NoScript and I didn't realize you had to allow scripts to run from 5 different sites to get the pictures/video to load...

Can't find the images for the scripts

[HTH NE1 (675604)]

Come on, if your site needs to be able to run scripts from:

1. 2mdn.net
2. digg.com
3. doubleclick.net
4. gawker.com
5. gizmodo.com
6. googlesyndication.com
7. gridskipper.com
8. quantserve.com
9. sitemeter.com

just to convey a one-paragraph story with pictures, there's something seriously wrong with your site design, your privacy practices, and the lack of respect you have for the security of your readers. Sorry, Gizmodo, but your content is not compelling enough for me to drop my shields for all your friends. We are not one big happy fleet.

Re:Can't find the images for the scripts

[Kingrames (858416)]

And if you've seen the picture, the first thing that pops in your head SHOULD be "Shields up! Red Alert! Battle Stations!"

Re:

[HTH NE1 (675604)]

IMO this is exactly why noscripts is as silly as Norton or almost any other addon security tool. Its like breaking your toy so the bully doesn't play with it. Its your browser's job to make your browsing safe. And yours of course.

No, it is the site's responsibility to use the NOSCRIPT tag to provide alternative content when the script does not run for whatever reason.

So many sites so in love with Web 2.0 forgetting basic HTML principles like graceful degradation. Or at very least, <noscript><p>You need to enable scripts from gawker.com to view the images accompanying this story.</p></noscript> for the totally lazy but not quite totally inept.

Seems only DoubleClick even bothers to use the NOSCRIPT tag, just

Re:

[WK2 (1072560)]

NoScript is a tool. Using it has advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages: the internet is less annoying. And faster. And you are safer from Javascript exploits (which are quite common in Firefox)
Disadvantages: some poorly written pages don't work, or work poorly.

I feel that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, so I use NoScript. Sites that require Javascript and don't say so are probably lame and annoying anyway.