LCD/TFT Screens and 4:3 viewing
 

I am considering a new computer but monitors are causing me some confusion.
My digital images are in 4:3 proportion and I want naturally to preserve
that layout on a new LCD/TFT. But the vast majority of monitors today are
widescreen. I do not want images to be stretched. However, the information
I am getting suggests that if you have a widescreen monitor then inevitably
a 4:3 image will be artificially stretched to fit. I am leaning towards a
computer from Cougar Computers, and I have asked the question of them. They
seem to be uncertain, but are suggest that a wide-screen monitor will
stretch the images. One option they have to offer is a Yuraku TFT MA9BBK,
but although that is not widescreen it has a 1280 x 1024 display, which also
of course not 4:3.

I am totally mystified by the whole thing. Does anyone have advice? Thanks.

LCD/TFT Screens and 4:3 viewing
 

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:58:15 +0100, John Lee wrote:

I am considering a new computer but monitors are causing me some
confusion. My digital images are in 4:3 proportion and I want naturally
to preserve that layout on a new LCD/TFT. But the vast majority of
monitors today are widescreen. I do not want images to be stretched.
However, the information I am getting suggests that if you have a
widescreen monitor then inevitably a 4:3 image will be artificially
stretched to fit. I am leaning towards a computer from Cougar
Computers, and I have asked the question of them. They seem to be
uncertain, but are suggest that a wide-screen monitor will stretch the
images. One option they have to offer is a Yuraku TFT MA9BBK, but
although that is not widescreen it has a 1280 x 1024 display, which also
of course not 4:3.

I am totally mystified by the whole thing. Does anyone have advice?
Thanks.

I don't understand why that is an issue. I've been using a widescreen LCD
for a year or so now - the photo editing software is intelligent enough
to maintain the proper aspect ratio.

LCD/TFT Screens and 4:3 viewing
 

In article , John Lee says...
I am considering a new computer but monitors are causing me some confusion.
My digital images are in 4:3 proportion and I want naturally to preserve
that layout on a new LCD/TFT. But the vast majority of monitors today are
widescreen. I do not want images to be stretched. However, the information
I am getting suggests that if you have a widescreen monitor then inevitably
a 4:3 image will be artificially stretched to fit. I am leaning towards a
computer from Cougar Computers, and I have asked the question of them. They
seem to be uncertain, but are suggest that a wide-screen monitor will
stretch the images. One option they have to offer is a Yuraku TFT MA9BBK,
but although that is not widescreen it has a 1280 x 1024 display, which also
of course not 4:3.

I am totally mystified by the whole thing. Does anyone have advice? Thanks.

First of all there are lots of monitors with a 4:3 aspect ratio.

But even if you get a wide screen monitor your images will display
properly with some black bands at the left and right side.
For instance, if you get a 1920x1200 monitor, the (horizontal) images
will display in a central 1600x1200 area and there will be two black
stripes at the left and right each 160 pixel wide.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 8080, E3X0, E4X0, E5X0 and E3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

LCD/TFT Screens and 4:3 viewing
 

John Lee wrote:
I am considering a new computer but monitors are causing me some
confusion. My digital images are in 4:3 proportion and I want
naturally to preserve that layout on a new LCD/TFT. But the vast
majority of monitors today are widescreen. I do not want images to
be stretched. However, the information I am getting suggests that if
you have a widescreen monitor then inevitably a 4:3 image will be
artificially stretched to fit. I am leaning towards a computer from
Cougar Computers, and I have asked the question of them. They seem
to be uncertain, but are suggest that a wide-screen monitor will
stretch the images. One option they have to offer is a Yuraku TFT
MA9BBK, but although that is not widescreen it has a 1280 x 1024
display, which also of course not 4:3.
I am totally mystified by the whole thing. Does anyone have advice?
Thanks.

As other have mentioned, normally, your display software will display the
4:3 image without distortion and with borders at left and right on a 1.6:1
aspect ratio display, or at top and bottom on a 5:4 display. You can get
1600 x 1200 displays if you want to display 4:3 images without borders.
For example:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...s&sku=320-4687

Cheers,
David

LCD/TFT Screens and 4:3 viewing
 

"John Lee" writes:
I am considering a new computer but monitors are causing me some confusion.
My digital images are in 4:3 proportion and I want naturally to preserve
that layout on a new LCD/TFT. But the vast majority of monitors today are
widescreen. I do not want images to be stretched.

It's normally not a problem on PCs. Standard LCD monitors for PCs all
have square pixels, whether the screen aspect ratio is 4:3, 5:4, 16:9,
16:10, or something else. In normal use, you set the graphics card
resolution to exactly match the display, so one pixel in the graphics
card is exactly one pixel on the display. And the pixels in your camera
images are *also* square. So when you display your photos on the
screen, the display program uses however many pixels it needs (possibly
after reducing the image size, if it won't fit) and it ends up the right
shape - but not totally filling the screen. Depending on the display
program you use, you can have the rest of the screen black, or grey, or
just outside the image border.

One place where you *can* get weird results on a PC is if you set the
graphics card to a different resolution than the monitor. In that case,
the monitor may have different methods to handle the "wrong sized" input
image. I have a Dell monitor with 3 choices:
1. always stretch to fill the screen, both horizontal and vertical
2. make the image as large as possible while preserving aspect ratio
3. use 1:1 mapping from input to display pixels

The first of these can distort the image shape; the other two do not.
For example, the monitor's native resolution is 1920x1200 (16:10). If I
set the graphics card to 1024x768, then in mode #1 the monitor would
stretch that to 1920x1200, badly stretching the 4:3 source out to 16:10.
In mode #2, it would stretch the image to 1600x1200, preserving the 4:3
aspect ratio (and leaving black bars on the sides). In mode #3, it
would display the image using the centre 1024x768 pixels, with black
bars on all 4 sides - no interpolation at all.

The other place where you have to watch out is digital video, where most
standard formats do *not* have square pixels.

Dave