4K TVs Used as Computer Displays

[Andrew Souter]

There was a topic on GS asking about using 4K TVs (and specifically 40"/100cm ones) as displays for DAWs. This is a topic that I think is very cool, and there is some new info on this topic that I thought's I'd share in case it is interesting to anyone. Here is what I wrote:

Yes, I am running it on a 40" Samsung 4K TV from a Mac Pro cylinder over HDMI. (30z, but it does not bother me really... and there is now an adapter that will convert thunderbolt to HDMI 2.0, which the TV supports, so 60hz is now possible too. I will try it in the next week or two..) It is really almost perfect. This is how a DAW SHOULD look. It's a thing of beauty! kfhkh Color on the monitor is quite good too if you need to do any graphic work. And it was fairly cheap. $600-700.

For DAW and general content creation, 4/5K is better at larger form factors such as 40" than putting it into a 27" screen like the 5K iMac IMHO. You get 3840pixels wide of useable desktop. Not effectively 1920 with slightly smoother rounded edges, as if the case with 5K retina mode.

Perfect might be 5K at 45-50" or so. Let's see if CES shows us anything interesting next week!

FYI this is the adapter that is needed to run 4K at 60Hz:

DisplayPort™ 1.2 to HDMI™ 2.0 4K60Hz UHD Active Adapter - Connect and do more


what is needed is:

1) 4K TV with HDMI 2.0 input. TWO POINT ZERO. Not earlier HDMI. Most (all?) newer Samsung models support this. Sony too. Check other brands to be sure.

2) Computer with Display port 1.2 or Thunderbolt 2.0 output. (They use the same physical connection.)


The TV should ideally have some kind of "PC input mode" or at least some control over settings to disable all the various Auto-adaptive-contrast and other things that are nice for watching football (and cheerleaders kfhkh ) but bad for staring at for hours of computer use.

When everything is set up properly, my experience is that the display quality of my Samsung TV, is is at least as good as my 30" (2560*1600) Apple Cinema display which cost about 4x as much several years ago.

I do DAW work, and development (coding, GUI design, web design etc.) on this setup, and it works wonderfully...

seriously guys, do yourself a favor and get a large format 4K display. It will be on the best investments you will make into your productivty in your DAW environment.

Post holiday sales on consumer electronics products like this with good economies of scale make them easy to pick up at pretty great prices now. I bet you can find a good one for $500!

Or wait for CES to see if anything cool comes out this coming week.

This adapter above is pretty incredible though as it allows any consumer 4K HDMI 2.0 TV be be used as a fully professional computer monitor. I will try it this week.

The only other trends to be away of will be high dynamic range displays (i.e. more than 8bits of color per channel), extreme refresh rates (120z, 240z), and even higher screen resolutions such as 5K and 8k. But the first two are not that important for pure DAW work. 5K is interesting perhaps if someone makes a large format panel, but 8K is generally extremely expensive (think luxury car prices) so far. Watch CES for news on this stuff if you care...

For now 4K is really quite nice! kfhkh

[aMUSEd]

Do you need a powerful computer to drive a 4K display? Also I'm not sure about the need for HDMI 2, it only came out in 2015 and I'm not sure if many displays use it yet

http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/4k-hdmi-cab ... -nonsense/

[Andrew Souter]

Do you need a powerful computer to drive a 4K display?

You need a decent video card to handle it. If you have a recent Mac with thunderbolt 2.0, it will handle it. If you have PC, check that your video card can do it, but almost all in the past 5 years can handle it fairly easily.

High-end video cards from AMD and Nvidia, can drive 3-4, or even 6 4K displays at once in some cases!

Graphics requirements for DAWs are almost nothing compared to high end PC games, which is good for us, as the gaming industry provides good economies of scale...

Also I'm not sure about the need for HDMI 2, it only came out in 2015 and I'm not sure if many displays use it yet

http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/4k-hdmi-cab ... -nonsense/

HDMI 2.0 IS needed if you want to do 4K at 60Hz. Otherwise, you will be limited to 30Hz.

This is the only adapter that I know of that will convert Display Port to HDMI 2.0 and allow 60Hz.

But yes, you should check and verify that the TV itself will accept HDMI 2.0 and allow refresh rates of 60hz. All the new Samgsungs do AFAIK. Sony too. Not sure about the rest.

I've been following this 4K TV stuff for at least 3 years now and watch this stuff closely. I ran triple monitors 1600*1200 in 1999 for example... I've been waiting a long time to find a 4K @60hz in a large (40" or so) form factor. I've been using it at 30hz already since April. I will now try this adapter and try it at 60hz...

Next I might try dual 4K displays. The only question there is how to arrange them. It becomes annoying IMHO to have a seem directly in the center so 3 displays is better for horizontal arrangement. But 3 40" displays gets to be quite wide and will likely interfere with room acoustics and mess up near field monitoring... So probably 2 displays stacked vertically is better...

anyway, I think this stuff is quite interesting/fun! One of the few remaining areas for good innovation!

[t3toooo]

T
seriously guys, do yourself a favor and get a large format 4K display. It will be on the best investments you will make into your productivty in your DAW environment.

I doubt that.First of all 4K's are far too expensive atm,so recommending them is hilarious because they are not worth the money.
I'm all for sharpness too so for me a smaller 1080p monitor is sufficient.

Second,4K is nice but it's nothing i seriously need for audio work.

Third. I don't want a big monitor i want a small sharp monitor.It's more energy and cost efficient too.

[aMUSEd]

What's it like at 30hz?

I doubt my MacMini is up to it though.

[t3toooo]

What's it like at 30hz?

I doubt my MacMini is up to it though.

1080p at 30" looks ugly.Yeah put it far away,lol.

[Andrew Souter]

T
seriously guys, do yourself a favor and get a large format 4K display. It will be on the best investments you will make into your productivty in your DAW environment.

I doubt that.First of all 4K's are far too expensive atm,so recommending them is hilarious because they are not worth the money.

Your data is not up to date.

$500-600 will get you a good one.

My 2560*1600 30" Apple Cinema Display cost me something like $2,500 8-10 years ago!

I'm all for sharpness too so for me a smaller 1080p monitor is sufficient.

Second,4K is nice but it's nothing i seriously need for audio work.

Third. I don't want a big monitor i want a small sharp monitor.It's more energy and cost efficient too.

It's not about "sharpness" or not. It is about "usable desktop area". 4K (in a large format display) is like having FOUR 1920*1080 displays! Imagine what you can see of your mixer and your arrange window at the same time without scrolling...

Sharpness is about "pixels per inch". Cell phones are pushing insane pixels per inch now. It's become an inverse d**k measurement contest now. "Mine is smaller than yours!" Some display makers are pushing this to desktops too, including apple. 5K iMac for example, is 4x the number of pixels of a standard 27" iMac. But both are 27". Pixels per inch were already pretty good at the standard iMac. 150-200 pixels per inch is enough for a desktop display. doing 400 or more is silly. It is MUCH better to have a larger physical display where the pixels are usable than it is push crazy pixels per inch so that we can use hairline fonts, and have perfect circle etc.

4K at 40" or so it like taking 4 of your standard 1920*180 monitor and putting them into one without any seems. And pixels per inch (sharpness) can remain the same. It does absolutely help productivity... no question...

[Andrew Souter]

What's it like at 30hz?

I doubt my MacMini is up to it though.

1080p at 30" looks ugly.Yeah put it far away,lol.

Actually, I suspected the same thing. My bias was exactly that. I expected it to suck! And in the days of Analog monitors over VGA connections, I got severe eye irritation and headaches when running monitors at 60hz refresh rates, and had to run them at at least 85hz.... So I am sensitive to this stuff.

and these days I happen to do our GUI design, and make a product that uses pictures to control sound, and generate tens of thousands of "pixel art" images for such purposes, so it's safe to assume I am fairly attuned to this stuff... I'm a guy that "counts pixels" both in dimensions and in color levels on a daily basis in my work... in summary I am VERY obsessive about this stuff...

but! I have to tell you, i've been running a Samsung 4K TV over HDMI 1.4 at 30hz since April, staring at it for 10-12-15 hours per day, and I really do NOT notice any difference compared to 60hz so far. For DAW and development work, it seems perfectly acceptable. I notice zero difference compared to my 30" Cinema Display that is running at 60hz. Maybe if you play action games you will notice...

But anyway it is now possible to do at 60hz, so I will try that as soon as I receive the adapter and I will report my findings...

[t3toooo]

It's not about "sharpness" or not. It is about "usable desktop area". 4K (in a large format display) is like having FOUR 1920*1080 displays! Imagine what you can see of your mixer and your arrange window at the same time without scrolling...

Sharpness is about "pixels per inch". Cell phones are pushing insane pixels per inch now. It's become an inverse d**k measurement contest now. "Mine is smaller than yours!" Some display makers are pushing this to desktops too, including apple. 5K iMac for example, is 4x the number of pixels of a standard 27" iMac. But both are 27". Pixels per inch were already pretty good at the standard iMac. 150-200 pixels per inch is enough for a desktop display. doing 400 or more is silly. It is MUCH better to have a larger physical display where the pixels are usable than it is push crazy pixels per inch so that we can use hairline fonts, and have perfect circle etc.

4K at 40" or so it like taking 4 of your standard 1920*180 monitor and putting them into one without any seems. And pixels per inch (sharpness) can remain the same. It does absolutely help productivity... no question...

Well 4 x 1080p displays are horrible for audio production,i would have to throw my neck and therefore i still prefer scrolling.

I's all about readability and there it goes,almost only opinions about big over sized display's in the internet which consumes loads of watt only to place them feet's away (because otherwise one would throws it's neck,right?) to make everything small again,no thanks.

[whyterabbyt]

T
seriously guys, do yourself a favor and get a large format 4K display. It will be on the best investments you will make into your productivty in your DAW environment.

I doubt that.First of all 4K's are far too expensive atm,so recommending them is hilarious because they are not worth the money.

I can find 40" 4K monitors for under £500. That's less than I paid for my 27" 2560x1280 monitor which absolutely was, and continues to be, worth the money.
I can find smaller 4K monitors in the 27-30" range from £200-£350, which is less than anyone will have paid for anything larger than a 21" 1920x1080 monitor only a handful of years ago.

And having recently set up some 4K-based 3-monitor setups for video editing, I know for a fact that a 4K screen would give me a vastly increase in what I can see onscreen, which for my own audio work, is always 'worth it'.

So, no, I thoroughly disagree; in fact they're much cheaper and more than twice as much 'worth the money' per million pixels than monitors have ever been.

Bitch about 'not worth it' when you've had to pay over £1k to get a 22" 1600x1200 CRT screen and nearly destroyed your back getting it out of the box.

[Andrew Souter]

a VERY IMPORTANT point is that many TVs have various visual DSP happening to enhance TV watching for sports, and action movies. Generally all of this stuff SUCKS, is HORRIBLE for using the TV as a computer monitor. It will make text unreadable, it will severely mess up contrast and brightness levels, etc etc.

You need to disable all of this stuff in your TV settings if you intend to use it as computer monitor. Once this is done, you should have a visual experience almost identical to dedicated "computer monitor". Certainly a 2015 4K TV is at least as good as a 2005 professional Computer Monitor in terms of pure visual characteristics, and color accuracy etc. ...and that is about the timeframe when computer monitors stopped getting any better...

the next trend for professional computer monitors to differentiate themselves from consumer TVs, is "high dynamic range" displays that offer 10, 12 or more bits per color channel so that instead of 16.7million possible colors, we will have 2^30 to 2^36 or so possible colors... IF this happens, then there is still some difference between monitors and TVs, otherwise, it is generally a marketing distinction at this point, and a TV generally has more electronics built into it, but sells for a cheaper price do to economies of scale...

"computer monitor" is like the word "wedding" these days. It's a code word to tell vendors to charge 10 times as much of the same product/service.

[t3toooo]

1080p at 30" looks ugly.Yeah put it far away,lol.

Actually, I suspected the same thing. My bias was exactly that. I expected it to suck! And in the days of Analog monitors over VGA connections, I got severe eye irritation and headaches when running monitors at 60hz refresh rates

Why? A good CRT monitor is not exhausting at all,what has this to do with refreshing rate?
Although CRT would be too big too much power hungry and small for me.

[Andrew Souter]

1080p at 30" looks ugly.Yeah put it far away,lol.

Actually, I suspected the same thing. My bias was exactly that. I expected it to suck! And in the days of Analog monitors over VGA connections, I got severe eye irritation and headaches when running monitors at 60hz refresh rates

Why? A good CRT monitor is not exhausting at all,what has this to do with refreshing rate?
Although CRT would be too big too much power hungry and small for me.

I had some of the best ones available at the time. NEC professional whatever series. Not cheap! Designed for graphic designers and video editors... WAY overkill for normal DAW needs. I had the best mac. I had the best video cards. etc.

For me personally I could NOT tolerate even 60hz refresh rate on analog displays. I could "see" or at least feel the refresh rate, and it caused me definite physical health issues. Analog CRT displays are redrawn one pixel line at a time. You can see this happening in some cases. I had to go to 85-100hz on CRTs for this to be unperceivable for me...

Digital displays LCD/LED/OLED etc connected via DVI, Display Port, Thunderbolt, HDMI etc refresh the entire screen at once, not one line at a time. It is much harder to perceive.

60hz on an flat panels of any kind have never given me any issues. Do to my experiences with lower refresh rates on analog CRTs, I feared 30hz on the 4K TV would irritate me, but I am telling you, it does not. I do not notice any issue.

It will be technically even smoother at 60hz, and I am curious if I will notice any difference at all...

[jdnz]

What's it like at 30hz?

I doubt my MacMini is up to it though.

1080p at 30" looks ugly.Yeah put it far away,lol.

The current swathe of 34" 3440x1440 monitors (LG/Dell etc) is a nice middle ground

Philips do a 40" 4K monitor with displayport inputs, so 60hz without needing hdmi2.0 (which few cards can output), it's not an IPS panel but is as cheap if not cheaper than a 40" 4k tv

[Andrew Souter]

Yes the Philips 40" looks promising also. It was ~$1,500 but seems approximately ~$750 on Amazon at the moment. Not bad indeed. And yes 60hz over Display Port.