Question for 30" monitor owners

[mattgmann]

How is the downscaling on 30" monitors for movie/television viewing? Do they do a nice job, or is there a level of distortion? I ask, because I know watching standard definition on a hi def screen looks like crap. Is there a similar effect while watching 1080p content on an even higher resolution screen?

I ask because I'm about to setup a secondary desktop in the house. The woman has become interested in photography and she needs something for photo editing that isn't my workstation. Her laptop isn't powerful enough, and the htpc isn't practical.

I use a pair of 24" dell ultrasharps on my workstation, which I like. But I though hooking her up with a 30" monitor would be nice so she'd have extra desktop space to work, and a large screen to watch tv/movies on occasionally in that room. I'd also like to have a 30" monitor to steal occasionally to play with around the house.

Anyway, my biggest justification in the 30" is for watching video. If they don't excel in that though, I'll probably just get a pair of the new 23" dell ultrasharps.

opinions?
thanks.

 

[Psycogeec]

When you say that SD looks like crud on HD monitors HDMI type:
that depended very highly on the "Engine" inside the TV and how it interpolated from there.
I had to get HD monitors for SD output, and it took 3 tries even after serious shopping , before finding one that interpolated SD very well. And it wasnt so much about price either, there were high end models that wouldnt do it. Still looks like crud but no where near as bad as a HD that also cant interpolate well. Thier terminology for it was the "3D engine" (nothing to do with stereoscopic viewing and not so good name for it)

When searching for a High Res Computer monitors , i realised i might have to drop-off of the Native resolution, and some of the same thing applied (but for the monitor input) . went to the store and many items were on NATIVE, which of course worked great. but only some of them would look "readable" even when interpolated. the $$$$ apple monitors at the time were looking good and coping with interpolations better. that and some other very high end ones. If you get in there to look, just jump to display and knock the res down 1 notch, like from 1920 to 1600, and look at the OS text itself. still "high res" but now it has to either slop stufff out, or process the whole image properly.

of course it would be wonderfull if they had 4x res so plopping up a signal has more pixels to get to, but untill they do the ability to interpolate what it is being fed, is the important aspect of this. just like photoshopping a pic from one resolution to another, it needs a good alogrythm.
.

 

[mattgmann]

Thanks for the inut psyco. The problems you speak of are what I feared might be the case. The 30" monitor that I'm specifically looking at is the Dell U3011. Have you had any experience in these situations with this monitor?

 

[Psycogeec]

not me, not yet
TheGreySpectre http://www.overclockers.com/forums/member.php?u=35198 has the 3008 FPW

 

[Exempt]

not me, not yet
TheGreySpectre http://www.overclockers.com/forums/member.php?u=35198 has the 3008 FPW

Yah I use the dell 3007's and HD content looks good. Just cant wait till they go LED and 120hz!