4k monitors arriving - who is heading this way?

[narikin]

I am deliberately posting this to the printing form, rather than hardware.

The 4k monitors are finally arriving - yay! - from Sharp, Asus, Dell, etc.  A bit pricey in the 32" size, but decent specs. The 24" 4K Dell seems favorably priced though. @$1299.  From what I hear the Sharp and Asus are the same panel, but Dell use their own it seems.  All are ARGB, but none are 10bit panels. Everyone is shocked how amazing images look on any/all of them.  Apple are selling the 4K Sharp with the new 'trash bin' Pro.

I'm almost certainly jumping in, but was hoping for NEC to release a 10bit 4k monitor in their Spectraview line, for smoother gradation.  I've been with NECs monitors for years now, and trust them, but will jump ship if they don't move to 4K soon.  Hopefully something will be announced in January at CES?

[kaelaria]

Dells 24 was just on sale for $1000, and yes it IS 10 bit.

[narikin]

Not disputing that, but funny that Dell don't say it is 10bit anywhere in the specs page, that I can see:

http://www1.la.dell.com/bz/en/corp/peripherals/dell-up2414q/pd.aspx?refid=dell-up2414q&s=corp

[hugowolf]

"four times the resolution of Full HD". let the lying start here. Try twice.

Brian A

[bill t.]

10 cubed is 1 billion colors, plus change.  Dell claims 1 billion colors in the write up.

They also claim 99% ARGB and Delta-E < 2.  So that would be better than most of the flat panels around now.

Sooo...does PS etc support that reso?  And what sort of video card does one need?  And what's the performance penalty?  And what kind of headaches will one get until 3840 is finally really sorted out a couple years from now.

Edit...that's 10 BITS (which equal 1024 decimal) cubed is 1 billion colors.  1024 * 1024 * 1024 = a billion.

[kaelaria]

Not disputing that, but funny that Dell don't say it is 10bit anywhere in the specs page, that I can see:

http://www1.la.dell.com/bz/en/corp/peripherals/dell-up2414q/pd.aspx?refid=dell-up2414q&s=corp

Sure it does:

"Color Support:
Color Gamut (typical): Adobe RGB 99%, sRGB 100%
1.07 Billion colors (8 Bits +AFRC)"

That's 10 bit support.  Note it takes a workstation grade card to go from 8 to 10 bit output.  Those cards start just over $100, and it doesn't take ANYTHING special to drive the resolution, any modern card does that even built in chipsets.

[mac_paolo]

"four times the resolution of Full HD". let the lying start here. Try twice.

Brian A

Oh no, not again. Resolution is the total number of pixels. The symbol between the numbers 1920 "x" 1080 is not "extreme", is really a multiplication.
The D7100 has four times the resolution of my old D40 (6000x4000 vs 3000x2000).
So yes: four times the pixels, four time the resolution and twice the density (pixels per inch is linear).

[narikin]

Sure it does:

"Color Support:
Color Gamut (typical): Adobe RGB 99%, sRGB 100%
1.07 Billion colors (8 Bits +AFRC)"

That's 10 bit support.  Note it takes a workstation grade card to go from 8 to 10 bit output.  Those cards start just over $100, and it doesn't take ANYTHING special to drive the resolution, any modern card does that even built in chipsets.

Well that's good to know. anyone got one of these and profiled it with Spectraview software?

(although it does sound like the Factory optimization gets things in the ballpark from get go)

I'll still wait to see what, if anything, NEC announce at CES in January.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

"Color Support:
Color Gamut (typical): Adobe RGB 99%, sRGB 100%
1.07 Billion colors (8 Bits +AFRC)"

That's 10 bit support.  Note it takes a workstation grade card to go from 8 to 10 bit output.

Hi,

But does AFRC (a display panel feature) require 10-bit input, or is this translated/interpolated with a LUT in the panel? And how much (30Hz?) flicker does that produce?

Cheers,
Bart

[narikin]

Hi,

But does AFRC (a display panel feature) require 10-bit input, or is this translated/interpolated with a LUT in the panel? And how much (30Hz?) flicker does that produce?

Cheers,
Bart

Yes, on further reading, it seems these are not true 10 bit monitors, but simulated 10 bit. 8bit plus AFRC (Advanced Frame Rate Control) is not the same thing as a true 10 bit monitor.  I suspected as much in the fact that Dell doesn't really call them 10bit, but do promote them as 8 + AFRC.   

Personally, I'll probably wait for NEC to come with real 10bit panels, hopefully (...) announced in January at CES. I didn't invest in a system with functioning 10bit pipeline to not use it! 

[Mulis Pictus]

According to tftcentral NEC used 8+afrc for their spectraview IPS displays as well in the past

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/nec_spectraview_reference_271.htm

OTOH, the Sharp and LG 31+ inches 4k panels seems to be true 10bit.

[mac_paolo]

I'd love a 10 bit per channel display, though I'd love more a 10 bit support in OS X 

[DeanChriss]

At the moment I see 4K monitors as:

1. Essential if you edit 4K video, for obvious reasons.

2. Fantastic if a 4K monitor is the ultimate destination for viewing your still image files, again for obvious reasons.

3. Of little or no consequence if prints are your ultimate output destination. Since a properly sharpened print appears less over-sharpened on a 4K monitor, sharpening prints based on monitor appearance will take some re-education. Everything gets smaller as dpi increases so magnifications of around 200% in Photoshop are needed to see what you're currently used to seeing at 100%.

4. Somewhat of a detriment if you produce web output, until 4K monitors are used by the majority. Optimizing an image for viewing on a 4K monitor will make it over-sharpened for those without 4K monitors. It's possible for websites to be resolution aware and display differently processed images for different monitor resolutions, but what a hassle!

It has nothing to do with images, but until everything else catches up there could be sizing issues with fonts and the like.

Human vision can perceive less than 10 million colors. 8-bit color yields around 16.7 million colors. It's important to edit images using the highest bit depths to minimize rounding and other errors, but for viewing there isn't much to be gained.

[Graham Clark]

At the moment I see 4K monitors as:

1. Essential if you edit 4K video, for obvious reasons.

2. Fantastic if a 4K monitor is the ultimate destination for viewing your still image files, again for obvious reasons.

3. Of little or no consequence if prints are your ultimate output destination. Since a properly sharpened print appears less over-sharpened on a 4K monitor, sharpening prints based on monitor appearance will take some re-education. Everything gets smaller as dpi increases so magnifications of around 200% in Photoshop are needed to see what you're currently used to seeing at 100%.

4. Somewhat of a detriment if you produce web output, until 4K monitors are used by the majority. Optimizing an image for viewing on a 4K monitor will make it over-sharpened for those without 4K monitors. It's possible for websites to be resolution aware and display differently processed images for different monitor resolutions, but what a hassle!

It has nothing to do with images, but until everything else catches up there could be sizing issues with fonts and the like.

Human vision can perceive less than 10 million colors. 8-bit color yields around 16.7 million colors. It's important to edit images using the highest bit depths to minimize rounding and other errors, but for viewing there isn't much to be gained.

Have you ever used a high-density panel on a Retina MacBook Pro?

Graham

[Graham Clark]

I am deliberately posting this to the printing form, rather than hardware.

The 4k monitors are finally arriving - yay! - from Sharp, Asus, Dell, etc.  A bit pricey in the 32" size, but decent specs. The 24" 4K Dell seems favorably priced though. @$1299.  From what I hear the Sharp and Asus are the same panel, but Dell use their own it seems.  All are ARGB, but none are 10bit panels. Everyone is shocked how amazing images look on any/all of them.  Apple are selling the 4K Sharp with the new 'trash bin' Pro.

I'm almost certainly jumping in, but was hoping for NEC to release a 10bit 4k monitor in their Spectraview line, for smoother gradation.  I've been with NECs monitors for years now, and trust them, but will jump ship if they don't move to 4K soon.  Hopefully something will be announced in January at CES?

The jump from 1080 to 4k is a huge difference compared to 720 to 1080. DPIs are getting closer to the printed page, which is pretty remarkable.

Currently the 13" and 15" Retina MacBook Pros are some of the best photography tools, not just for the build quality and specs, but just for these Retina panels. You can get right up to the screen as close as you need to and not lose detail when inspecting an image.

It's quite a shame Apple didn't announce a Retina Thunderbolt with the advent of the new Mac Pro shipping... but with these Dell panels and 4K displays being cranked out of China hopefully we can see a Thunderbolt variant sometime in the near future : )

Graham

[hjulenissen]

Personally, I'll probably wait for NEC to come with real 10bit panels, hopefully (...) announced in January at CES. I didn't invest in a system with functioning 10bit pipeline to not use it! 

If you have 10 bits up until the monitor, and the monitor does 8 bit physical + dithering, I would still argue that you are "using" your 10-bit pipeline. The monitor will still respond in a perceptually meaningful way to changes in the 2 lsb of a 10-bit word (hopefully).

The question is if you are noticing the drawbacks of the dithering. "creeping ants"?

-h

[narikin]

According to tftcentral NEC used 8+afrc for their spectraview IPS displays as well in the past

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/nec_spectraview_reference_271.htm

OTOH, the Sharp and LG 31+ inches 4k panels seems to be true 10bit.

Thanks for clarifying. Good site, have bookmarked it.  Keen to see what they will make of the Dell panels.

If you have 10 bits up until the monitor, and the monitor does 8 bit physical + dithering, I would still argue that you are "using" your 10-bit pipeline. The monitor will still respond in a perceptually meaningful way to changes in the 2 lsb of a 10-bit word (hopefully).

The question is if you are noticing the drawbacks of the dithering. "creeping ants"?

-h

No creeping ants at all. You simply see the tiniest of lags when an image is moved or resized, (so no good for gaming, of course) then in a fraction of a second the 10bit kicks in and gradient steps disappear.  NEC provides a test image for checking 10bits is working, though its very easy to make yourself with a simple gradient.  You need a Pro workstation graphics card, of course, and to enable it in Photoshop and the Graphics software.

Set up steps (if you have a 10bit monitor) are here: