Displays & Projectors News - Page 65

We've been enjoying NVIDIA's G-SYNC technology for a while now, but AMD is about to join them with their own spin on the refresh rate magic; FreeSync. At the Future of Compute Event, AMD announced it had partnered up with Samsung on a slew of FreeSync-powered displays, which will hit the market in March 2015.

Samsung will release the UD590 in both 23.6-inch and 28-inch models, while there'll be a UE850 available in 23.6-inch, 27-inch and 31.5-inch models. Eventually, FreeSync will spill over onto Samsung's Ultra HD range of monitors, too. Vice President of Samsung Electronics Southeast Asia Headquarters, Joe Chan, said: "We are very pleased to adopt AMD FreeSync technology to our 2015 Samsung Electronics Visual Display division's UHD monitor roadmap, which fully supports open standards. With this technology, we believe users including gamers will be able to enjoy their videos and games to be played with smoother frame display without stuttering or tearing on their monitors".

High-definition TV and display manufacturer AOC has announced its 34" Ultra-Wide Quad HD U3477PQU monitor, featuring a 21:9 display and 3440x1440 resolution. The 34" monitor has a 5ms response time, and the HD display is equivalent to two 20" displays side by side.

"IPS technology offers extended range for brilliant and consistent color, and wide viewing angles for natural transitions between hues delivering exceptional realism," the AOC press release says. "The display also includes picture-by-picture mode, which is ideal for displaying two sources of content on the same screen, while picture-in-picture is optimized for video chat. The display comes equipped with a wide range of connectivity options, including DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI, and MHL to easily connect to devices, peripherals, smartphones, and even a second computer."

The AOC 34" UltrawideQuad HD monitor will launch on December 8 and will have an $899 MSRP price tag.

4K is barely here and getting into the market, but we already have some great monitors in the Acer XB280HK, which is powered by NVIDIA's G-SYNC technology. Forget all that, though, as news is coming out about 8K, and that both NVIDIA and AMD are looking at ways to make this insanely high-res technology happen.

PCGamesn.com talked with AMD's Chief Gaming Scientist, Richard Huddy, who said: "If we get to a display resolution of about 8k horizontally and about 6k vertically then, for a player with 20/20 vision, they will have something that is close to perfect for their visual system". After that, the human eye finds it hard to see any more detail on screen, which means we probably won't see a huge rush for 16K or 32K (can you even believe we're talking about resolutions this high?). Huddy continued: "That's about 48 million pixels to fill the field of view".

NVIDIA also had something to say about 8K, with the Head of GeForce GTX, Scott Herkelman saying: "8K, or anything above 4K is going to require multiple GPUs. 4K for most GPUs is pretty tough, the 980 handles it well but it's still one of those things that the more GPUs you have the better it looks". GPU horsepower isn't the only thing that needs to power the resolution, but imagine what kind of refresh rate is going to be there, and how much bandwidth DisplayPort, or whatever display connectivity is being used, is going to require.

Just as I'm writing an article on Acer's new NVIDIA G-SYNC powered 28-inch 4K monitor, I read about Sharp's new 8K TV that is preparing to enter the market in 2018. This is when Japan Broadcasting Corporation will begin broadcasting content in 8K.

Sharp's 8K-capable TV is a mammoth 85-inch set, with a 120Hz refresh rate, with the company being the first in the world to have an 8K TV that is compliant with NHK's requirements. NHK has been working on 8K, which by the way is a crazy 7680x4320 - four times as many pixels as 4K, and 16x the amount of pixels as 1080p, since 1995.

NHK has plans to start testing 8K Super Hi-Vision broadcasting in 2016, with the first translations of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. NHK will start commercial 8K broadcasting at 7680x4320 with multi-channel audio in 2018. What good is this TV without proper content, apart from TV broadcasts? Well, both Sony and Panasonic are working on a new optical disc technology which will have 300GB of space on it, at least, which is set to be released late next year.

The TV space hasn't had anything exciting happen to it since we shrunk down from CRTs to LCDs, but Google could be involved with the next big thing: modular, snap-on or snap-off displays. Google's secret Google X lab is working on the exciting technology.

The Wall Street Journal is behind the report, giving it some weight, teasing that the Mountain View-based search giant is working on a new display that will be made up of smaller screens that are interconnected to form a seamless image. This provides huge potential, as consumers and users alike could just snap on as many screens as they wanted to have a super-sized TV, or disconnect a few and use it as a smaller display for their monitor or gaming machine.

The biggest roadblock for Google right now is designing a seamless display that doesn't have borders, but this technical hurdle is "as large as the planned screens". The WSJ's sources have said that Google is bringing in the big guns to help them, with former MIT professor Mary Lou Jepsen leading the project. She founded three separate startups that focused on display technology, where she ended up as the head of the display division of Google X. Jepsen's team already includes ex Qualcomm and Samsung staff, among others from some of the biggest names in the industry.

NVIDIA is finally entering the market with multiple G-SYNC monitors, with 1080p, 1440p and 4K-powered G-SYNC monitors, but AMD is nowhere to be seen with its Project FreeSync technology. The company has just announced it is collaborating with MStar, Novatek and Realtek to build the scalar units that are required by the FreeSync-powered monitors.

Where NVIDIA's G-SYNC technology requires propietary licensed hadware in your monitor, as well as a GeForce GPU, AMD's FreeSync technology has no communications overhead, as it "does not need to poll or wait on the display in order to determine when it's safe to send the next frame to the monitor". AMD will be building FreeSync support into specific Radeon GPUs, with the new FreeSync-powered monitors hitting the market early 2015.

According to AMD's CVP of Graphics Business Unit, Matt Skynner, the FreeSync monitors will arrive with "lower prices and wider adoption" than its competitors' gaming monitor technology. Vice President of Realtek, Yee-Wei Huang, has said that customers in the channel are "really excited about AMD's FreeSync technology" and reiterates that "adopting the DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync industry standard by VESA is the best approach" in order to provide gamers with smooth, stutter-free gaming experiences. We should expect the first wave of FreeSync-powered monitors to be offered in three resolutions, with multiple display sizes, featuring 1920x1080, 2560x1440 and of course, 3840x2160 or 4K.

4K monitors are great and all, but you need some serious horsepower to drive 60FPS on them at 3840x2160. NVIDIA's G-SYNC is the perfect technology to help that, with Acer unveiling its new XBO series of monitors, with the first being the XB280HK, a 28-inch 4K-capable monitor at 60Hz, with NVIDIA's G-SYNC technology.

The other, is the XB270H, which is a 27-inch monitor with a Full HD resolution, but a 144Hz refresh rate. Both displays have a 1ms response time, NVIDIA's G-SYNC technology, "comfortable ergonomics and excellent connectivity". Both of the new XBO series displays feature DisplayPort connectivity, and multiple USB 3.0 ports.

When it comes to pricing, Acer has priced the 4K-capable XB280HK at an MSRP of $799, while the 1920x1080-capable XB270H is priced at an MSRP of $599. Both of Acer's XBO series of monitors will be available in the US and Canada next month.

With the home entertainment industry's attempts to prolong the lifespan of plasma and then LCD by the introduction of 3D technology falling flat on its face and the move to force 4K as the next best thing being resisted, in part due to little content and high prices has seen some manufacturers redouble their efforts into OLED technology. Now, LG has bought both technologies into one device for the first time.

LG will ship two models to the US next month, coming in 65 inch and 77 inch varieties, for $10,000 and $25,000 respectively (although will be expected to be discounted significantly) both utilising the faddish 'curved' design. There has been no word yet on availability in Australia.

OLED technology has been in deployment for some years in smaller devices, such as mobile phone displays and in the initial PlayStation Vita model and has been heralded for its spectacular image quality and brightness, superb black levels and lowered power consumption but has proven difficult and costly to manufacture at bigger sizes at a large scale, whilst also battling poor half-life life expectancy.

Dell has just taken the wraps off of its new 5K monitor, with a resolution of 5120x2880 - yes, you read that right - higher than 4K. Dell will be selling its new UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K Monitor for $2500 when it launches in the holidays.

All of these pixels will be firing onto a 27-inch screen, with 16W integrated Harmon Kardon speakers, and six USB ports, too. Dell's UP2715K monitor will use two DisplayPort 1.2 ports, with the company running the monitor from a single NVIDIA Quadro K5000 card at the event. There are 70% more pixels on Dell's new 5K display than a 4K panel, which is an insane amount of pixels. The video above from Maximum PC shows off the 5K panel.

Samsung has announced that its 4K ultra-high definition 31.5-inch monitor, the UD970, will be released later this month with a $1999.99 MAP price. The UD970 features support for a 3840 x 2160 resolution and has 40 percent more viewing area than a regular 27-inch monitor - and is designed for digital imaging and video professionals. Live demonstrations with the monitors revealed bright, clear and vivid pictures, thanks in part to the screen's 10-bit color processing capability.

"For today's professionals, UHD display technology unlocks a new dimension of rich and detailed imagery, enabling them to take their creativity and productivity to a new level," said Tod Pike, Samsung Enterprise Business Division SVP. "Samsung has a long history of leadership in display technologies and we're excited to bring this new advancement to creative professionals and enterprise users."

The cost of professional UHD displays are steadily dropping - as they were drastically more expensive just one year ago - but are working their way closer to mainstream consumers.