Don't buy the hype on using a 4K TV as a computer monitor

houkouonchi said:
I have been waiting 10 years for for resolutions to finally increase... I ran 2560x1920 back in the CRT days and it was a painful wait before LCD's finally did 2560x1600 and were acceptable resolution for me to upgrade and shortly after that went to 3840x2400 on a smaller 22 inch and literally 9 years after that they *finally*, *finally* are getting more 4k displays.

Some people have good vision and don't have to 'blow things up' to see them. On the 39 inch side I could easily still read stuff at default font sizes even if the display was 8k at that size.
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I agree,.....

Although I prefer to run at 3840x2160 most of the time on both the 28" Samsung and the 39" Seiki without scaling I can see how some people would like to run scaling. In OS X, the scaling modes look really quite good IMO. So if someone wants to run a scaled / effective 1920x1080 because it looks good to them for some things I don't blame them. This IMO opens the door or lends a great deal of legitimacy to 24" 4K monitors for some people in some cases. 24" is smaller then I would personally prefer though.

I think some people just have trouble understanding / acknowledging anything that doesn't suit their specific wants and needs so they just don't get it.

BTW, I haven't had the opportunity to run red text on a black background on the Seiki yet but I will make a point of trying it now. I have a fairly good DSLR camera so maybe I can get a decent shot when I do. As for black text on a white background and white text on a black background, the Seiki 39" really looks quite good IMO (with sharpness turned down to zero).

I guess basically everything the OP has said here doesn't really apply to me and my Seiki 39" (pending the red text black background test which I don't even necessarily care about for my use case).

For what its worth I don't move my head / neck around in order to take in the screen of the 39" Seiki. Therefore no head or neck discomfort and no eye discomfort either,....
 
Octavean said:
So if someone wants to run a scaled / effective 1920x1080 because it looks good to them for some things I don't blame them. This IMO opens the door or lends a great deal of legitimacy to 24" 4K monitors for some people in some cases. 24" is smaller then I would personally prefer though.

I think some people just have trouble understanding / acknowledging anything that doesn't suit their specific wants and needs so they just don't get it.
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Indeed. I am very thankful to apple and its retina crap and the scaling because if that's what the masses want then fine, either way it means higher resolution displays (and more desktop real-estate) for me!

I think its just a matter of being acclimated to it. I know many people who can read the text on my 22 inch 4k display but they just say its too small and not comfortable even though its readable for them. I have had a few people who have said its awesome and they would love the desktop real-estate and then the other 70% of people who say 'how can you even read that'
 
Yet i wonder why manufacturers still don't make what those 70% want even when all required technology bits are there and there certainly is demand. Maybe they want to play evolution game longer with getting extra profits from minor size growth in subsequent small increments? But it's enough for just one vendor to break the tide and start selling at affordable prices large size 4K displays. Seiki did that for 1st gen 4K TVs .. and if their announced lineup with HDMI 2.0 & DP 1.3 will be out, i guess other vendors also will finally have to rise max size from sharp 31.5" clones & also drop prices. Still, demand should drive supply, and if it doesn't, it will be lost business opportunity/profits. It can do, when there are no alternatives, but just one manufacturer enough to change stagnation and all those frozen marketing choices.
 
It is not the first time some misinformed user complains about bad text rendering on the Seiki 39".

For starters, SEiki is not and RGB display, but a BGR one. So any OS that uses subpixel rendering, like Windows cleartype, NEEDS TO BE ADJUSTED.

In other words:
you are using it wrong.

A step by step guide:

1-visit http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/subpixel.php
Decide which kind of subpixel layout your monitor uses. Seiki uses BGR.

2- type ClearType on windows search box
Start the guide and enjoy crispier text.

About bad color reproduction. Well, after calibration Seiki 39" is the best sRGB monitor on is price point. actually i believe dispalys costing 10 times the seiki price can not match the Seiki in pre3cise color reproduction over sRGB.

J72oqjz.jpg


Having true 120Hz at 1080p, about 3 times the contrast of 30" IPS and a near perfect sRGB coverage it is hard to dismiss the Seiki as a monitor option at its price point.
 
geok1ng said:
It is not the first time some misinformed user complains about bad text rendering on the Seiki 39".

For starters, SEiki is not and RGB display, but a BGR one. So any OS that uses subpixel rendering, like Windows cleartype, NEEDS TO BE ADJUSTED.

In other words:
you are using it wrong.

A step by step guide:

1-visit http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/subpixel.php
Decide which kind of subpixel layout your monitor uses. Seiki uses BGR.

2- type ClearType on windows search box
Start the guide and enjoy crispier text.

About bad color reproduction. Well, after calibration Seiki 39" is the best sRGB monitor on is price point. actually i believe dispalys costing 10 times the seiki price can not match the Seiki in pre3cise color reproduction over sRGB.

J72oqjz.jpg


Having true 120Hz at 1080p, about 3 times the contrast of 30" IPS and a near perfect sRGB coverage it is hard to dismiss the Seiki as a monitor option at its price point.
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+1

And on linux of course I have my font sub-pixel hinting set to BGR...
 
I'd also add that often those products costing way more then Seiki don't allow precise gamma tuning, hiding such "not user friendly" things in UI, exposing in UI only few insufficient generic presets like warm/cold and alike. Well, technically Seiki does so as well, but we know how to get into service menu to tune such things.
 
Church said:
Yet i wonder why manufacturers still don't make what those 70% want even when all required technology bits are there and there certainly is demand. Maybe they want to play evolution game longer with getting extra profits from minor size growth in subsequent small increments? But it's enough for just one vendor to break the tide and start selling at affordable prices large size 4K displays. Seiki did that for 1st gen 4K TVs .. and if their announced lineup with HDMI 2.0 & DP 1.3 will be out, i guess other vendors also will finally have to rise max size from sharp 31.5" clones & also drop prices. Still, demand should drive supply, and if it doesn't, it will be lost business opportunity/profits. It can do, when there are no alternatives, but just one manufacturer enough to change stagnation and all those frozen marketing choices.
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I remember asus annoucing 4k 39" display which everyone assumed uses same panel as Seiko but it gone MIA since then
 
Asus had that .. already long time ago, at CES, yet they decided to not release it back then. And i'm sure they were able to manufacture it, just like i'm sure that they could have found lot of buyers for it. I guess their marketing droids vetoed production to keep overpriced IGZO PQ321Q (sharp PN-321 clone) afloat. Though i wonder why they didn't saw possibility of 39" that costs 4x less then that 31.5" one being bought 10+ times as much as those more expensive ones, thus bringing same profit by larger volumes sold (.. and conquering market alongside). I smell some conspiracy & agreements between manufacturers behind scene, to keep prices high :), it's easier to sell expensive crap, when that is only available choice with no alternatives/choice in market. Chinese 39" 4K TVs costs $400-500. Add to that max $100 board for PC input/displayport (but probably less then that). It's by far cheaper then $3500 of sharp 4K clones.
 
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Where can I find red text on a black background,.....?

Edit:

I guess I figured it out but this is more like red text on a dark gray background. Maybe I can work something out in MS Office but I'm not sure since I don't use Office that much. Nor do I have office on every system.

Edit:

Maybe the background is dark enough here in the forums but I would have preferred black for better contrast and insight into the supposed problem.

Edit:

So I guess I'll use IE and Google Chrome for the test and take a shot with my Canon DSLR but with the naked eye I think both red and green text look just fine on my Seiki 39".

Edit again:

OK I took the photos of the screen and I can say that the photos IMO only confirmed my assertion that red text on a dark background look fine on my Seiki 39" model. It was a bit tricky getting the shots I wanted but I think I got them and they look fairly good IMO. I'm not sure how to post them up here though as I would think I would need ImageShack or something similar to host them and link them here.

I guess I can do that if people really want to see it but as I said there doesn't seem to be a problem here.
 
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Octavean, you can use the pictures in the first post for reference:

http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-167428.html

The first picture is 4:4:4 (full color resolution, no downsampling), and the second picture is 4:2:0 conversion to RGB.

Here is a technical explanation of the differences in color encoding. My apologies if you know all this already - I don't follow this forum very often so I have no idea what your knowledge base is.

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/166-l...official-4-4-4-chroma-subsampling-thread.html

You may want to look at post 24 as well in the above thread.

I hope this helps you figure out the seiki performs.

(another great test is the Spears and Munsil 2nd Edition Blu-ray test disc - if you have this disc or find the test patterns online, you can use that to check the seiki - try to use 1:1 pixel mapping in your graphics display program if possible)
 
Octavean said:
Where can I find red text on a black background,.....?

Edit:

I guess I figured it out but this is more like red text on a dark gray background. Maybe I can work something out in MS Office but I'm not sure since I don't use Office that much. Nor do I have office on every system.

Edit:

Maybe the background is dark enough here in the forums but I would have preferred black for better contrast and insight into the supposed problem.

Edit:

So I guess I'll use IE and Google Chrome for the test and take a shot with my Canon DSLR but with the naked eye I think both red and green text look just fine on my Seiki 39".

Edit again:

OK I took the photos of the screen and I can say that the photos IMO only confirmed my assertion that red text on a dark background look fine on my Seiki 39" model. It was a bit tricky getting the shots I wanted but I think I got them and they look fairly good IMO. I'm not sure how to post them up here though as I would think I would need ImageShack or something similar to host them and link them here.

I guess I can do that if people really want to see it but as I said there doesn't seem to be a problem here.
Click to expand...

Please post your pictures, along with the color settings you're using (both under the picture menu and factory menu -> others -> color temp). I find imgur to be an easy picture host to use. Thanks.

On my Seiki 39", I have a little blur with red text on a dark background, but green text is fine. Red text on a dark background doesn't come up that often and text looks crisp otherwise, nothing like the picture in the OP. 30 Hz is fine in Windows, movies, and some games. I haven't noticed any "keyboard lag." Native 4k content looks ridiculously nice. For $300, I'm very satisfied and don't really miss my Catleap 2B.
 
I use the 39" as a daily driver monitor as well. For the price its amazing and fantastic. I sit with my eyes approximately 2 and a half feet from the screen and I can just about take in everything without having to turn my head. I don't notice lag from it running at max 30Hz at all (though I should say I am not a power user or anyone that thinks anything less than 120Hz is unusable). Color is not the best, though its acceptable to me and I didn't put much effort into calibration (which I probably should). Its awesome for having 10 word/acrobat/excel windows open at legible sizes side by side - which is the main reason why I got it - and I've lately discovered its not too shabby at certain kinds of non-twitch gaming as well. Diablo III and other RTSes work fine, but WoW is a mess.

My 2 main complaints is that it takes forever to startup, and it will occassionally the display will turn black for a couple of seconds before coming back on again. The first problem occurs exactly once a day which I can deal with, and I'm still trying to figure out the second but doesn't come up often enough to become a dealbreaking annoyance.

This monitor is not for everyone, but seriously, at $300 (for the 39") what were you expecting??
 
Oh and I should add, to me, the hype is in using 4K as a TV. WHERE IS THE CONTENT???
 
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