Talk:Display resolution

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Contents 1 POV Assumption 2 Incorrect Fact 3 Incorrect concepts throughout 4 Article Image 5 Second image is wrong 6 D1 and DVD Resolution 7 NTSC/PAL, layout stuff 8 image resolution 8.1 what is a resolution 8.2 The real definition of resolution? 9 Change titles insead of Merge 10 Individual Resolutions 11 Frame rates 12 Common resolutions 13 Laserdisc Resolution 14 D1 15 WSXGA 16 Entire Article Too Dense and Obscure 17 1280x960 18 Kicks arse? 19 UMD resolution 20 832x624 21 Template:Widescreen monitor resolutions 22 Resolution image is wrong 23 Reasons for old computer display layouts 24 Anyone know of 1088x612?

[edit] POV Assumption

"A good web site is designed to automatically size itself to the visitor's preferred resolution when viewed." I can name plenty of websites that don't, which may be considered 'good' (e.g. news.bbc.co.uk). The statement is clearly POV about design aesthetics. Should it be removed? Rossjamesparker (talk) 08:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect Fact

"Currently 1280×1024 (SXGA Super eXtended Graphics Array) is the most common display resolution"

The website that fact comes from actually says that 1024x768 is the most common, not 1280x1024.

[edit] Incorrect concepts throughout

This is from chief large-panel analyst with the largest flat panel market research firm:

"Resolution is measured in spatial frequency such as lines per inch (pixels per inch is a reasonable substitute because flat-panel pixels are rectangular).

"The writer of this entry mistakes display format with display resolution. A full HDTV display has a format of 1920 x 1080 pixels REGARDLESS OF ITS SIZE. The resolution of a 25-inch HDTV is TWICE the resolution of a 50-inch set. The smaller TV shows 88 lines per inch while the larger TV shows 44 lines per inch.

"Some knowledgeable person should re-write this whole entry."

70.112.223.53 (talk) 22:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Tell your friend that, as with most English words, "resolution" has multiple meanings depending on context. In the digital world, it refers to the number of pixels (squares) that construct the image. For example 320x200 is the resolution a Commodore 64 displays. ----- In the analog world, "resolution" can mean lines per inch (monitor specs), or lines per picture height (television specs), or line-pairs displayed on a movie screen. Alternatively resolution can be measured in terms of dot pitch (monitor specs). It all depends what subject is being discussed, which is why it is crucial to always follow numbers with units, so the reader knows precisely what is being measured. ---- Theaveng (talk) 14:46, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article Image

Someone, with good intentions I'm sure, updated the image in the article to an SVG. Either it's a bad file or the vector renderers in both Firefox 1.5 and IE 6 suck - the image doesn't appear on its own page, and in firefox it is horrendously slow at full screen. Also SVGs don't work with automatic image scaling and plugins like image zoom. Can we change it back to a PNG? I'm all for adoption of SVGs, but this is causing problems for me. GTMoogle 23:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• (added 28.6.07) how come an article about "display resolution" doesn't put on display a simple illustration to exemplify the notion? check out the parallel Hebrew wikipedia page for an excellent pic that could be implemented here.

[edit] Second image is wrong

The second image comparing aspect ratios (near bottom of article) is entirely wrong. Look at the red rectangles that are supposed to indicate an ordinary non-widescreen 4:3 computer monitor. They clearly indicate an aspect ratio considerably higher than 4:3, i.e. 'wider' and 'shorter', more widescreen.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/64/Aspect_Ratios_and_Resolutions.jpg/240px-Aspect_Ratios_and_Resolutions.jpg

Richardsaccount 19:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] D1 and DVD Resolution

I removed the Sony D1 entry, because, as mentioned in the page comments, it isn't a display resolution. I also correct DVD resolution from 704xnnn to 720xnnn. 704xnnn is a SUPPORTED resolution, but essentially all DVDs use the more common 720xnnn resolution. Alereon 09:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NTSC/PAL, layout stuff

What is this 'NTSC preferred format'? Where did you get those VHS/Digital TV numbers? Also, the NTSC and PAL resolutions should be listed as 4:3 with their pixel aspects next to them, not misrepresented as 3:2 and 5:4. Also, DVD and DVD-Widescreen resolutions for NTSC are both 720x480, 4:3 with different pixel aspects. The aspect ratios of the displays should be the true display aspect, with the pixel aspect listed if not square. --Tonsofpcs 20:00, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Nearly all the older computer resolutions have the same problem. For example, CGA and EGA were 4:3. I think we need 2 or 3 columns for aspect ratio: pixel shape, screen shape, and maybe the strange mess we have now (if only to help avoid future screw-ups). 24.110.145.57 02:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure - the border area was a significant factor on some of the older standards, particularly those with a 8:5 type aspect (320x200 etc), which would allow square pixels so long as the amount of letterboxing was properly adjusted. Obviously CGA/EGA high rez are a completely different kettle of wildly oblong fish (640x200 / x350).

Would it be useful and/or prudent to have an additional column in the table that gave total pixel count? --Lee Pavelich

[edit] image resolution

[edit] what is a resolution

Resolution can be interpreted in the visual perception sense as the amount of detail in an image or scene that can be distinguished.

The ability of the human eye to resolve detail is affected by the eye's spacing of the rod and cone elements particularly in the fovea and the size of the eye's lens and focal distances. The theoretical value is around 1/3 of minute of arc for a black-white line pair, but in practice for someone with so-called 20:20 vision it's generally accepted to be be about 1 minute of arc. Distinguishing colored detail is worse by a factor of around 3 to 4.

This means that perceived resolution of an image will change with viewing distance. A convenient way of stating ideal viewing distance from an image display is in terms of multiples of picture height. For example, a Standard Definition TV picture is normally best viewed from a distance of about 6 picture heights, whereas a HD picure should be viewed from 3 to 4 picture heights.

The application of the term resolution to various display formats refers to the grid parameters that the picture is broken into to form individual "picture elements" or pixels.

Because a picture display is manufactured as a grid array of say 1368 x 768 does not necessarily mean that a picture shown on that screen will have that perceived resolution. If viewed close enough the individual elements of the grid can be distinguished (i.e. they subtend about a minute of arc at the eye). For computer graphics from a computer with its video card specifically set to that screen resolution the graphics can be tailored to use that resolution.

However for video pictures such as television, there are a number of things to affect the resultant displayed resolution - such as the display's digital video processor (sometimes called a scaling engine) - does it overscan the incoming image? - how well does it match the original source resolution raster to its display raster (a mismatch can cause visible artefacts).

And of course there are some tricks that make the eye think the picture is "sharper" than it actually is.

[edit] The real definition of resolution?

As far as I'm concerned, display resolution should be measured in DPI or PPI. Resolution should be how much of something there is in a defined area. For example, the 30" Cinema Display from Apple does not have a higher resolution than the 23" or even 20" one - they're all 100 PPI, a hundred pixels per inch.

Why would there otherwise be "hi-resolution displays"? The image quality of the screen isn't going to improve by adding both inches and pixels. You'll have to keep adding pixels to the existing inches to get a sharper and better image.

Sincerely,

Gabriel

For better or worse, we are currently calling "that thing we measure in DPI" "image resolution".

The article on dots per inch uses the phrase "printing resolution" to mean basically the same thing.

If we used plain "resolution" to mean "that thing we measure in DPI", what word do you suggest we use to mean "that thing we measure as X pixels wide and Y pixels high" ? Pictures that come out of a digital camera are not inherently a certain physical size (in inches or mm). What word do you suggest we use when we ask "What's the _ of that picture?", if not "display resolution" ? --65.70.89.241 14:37, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I see that the FAQ for video resolutions calls it "frame size". --65.70.89.241 14:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Change titles insead of Merge

Instead of merging and creating a huge single page. It might be better to change names to better reflect each pages intent.

Possible new names: Computer Display Resolution and Television Display Resolution Some data would over lap but 4.2.2 information doesn't belong on the computer side and CGA EGA information doesn't belong on Television side. The resolution list would contain the same listings but the included supporting documentation would only support the pages intent.

SouthPaw 24.161.89.232 05:55, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Individual Resolutions

For resolutions such as 800x600, 1280x024, 1600x1200, would it be beneficial to have their own pages? I think that even if it is a short page, it might be helpful. Any opinions? --ʀ6ʍɑʏ89 04:57, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Frame rates

It seems to me that adding frame rate information to each of the resolutions would also be helpful. I am in the process of designing hardware to support some of these resolutions, and without knowing the frame rate, it is harder to figure out the pixel clock frequency without knowing the range of frame rate frequencies that are common for each resolution. On the other hand, most consumers could care less, probably. Maybe this information could be on the more specific pages for each resolution?
--GregGarner

Frame rates depend more on the program your running than on the resolution. I'm not sure I know what you're talking about.

Actually I see where they were coming from - the minimum supported refresh rates ("frame rates") on a typical current graphics card, for any particular resolution, are the same as the original fixed scan rates of the original standards, so that they can remain compatible with the original standard monitors should this be required... given that some of the old fixed ones are still (incredibly) knocking around (personal experience!), using of course the universally compatible VGA socket. EG "60Hz" for 640x480 VGA (59.94, or basically double the NTSC spec, with a 31.5khz line rate vs NTSC's 15.75), the somewhat inexplicable 56Hz for 800x600 (36khz IIRC - though the appearance of this horridly flickery setting seems to be dying out and replaced by the slightly better and still very widely compatible 60.0Hz...), plus 60Hz and 43Hz interlace for XGA, and 70Hz for 320, 640 & 720x400 (text modes and BIOS graphics, line-doubled C/E/VGA low rez without vertical overscan, similarly used for Atari ST mono monitors which were stripped out mono VGA units).

Soooooo... at least for the older non-VESA (generally pre-truecolour era) standards, it would be a minor point of note to include the standard fixed-frequency monitor refresh rates with them as it's another record of the gradual technological progression from basic TV-derived units to modern multistandard high-resolution high-refresh examples. The small number of standard VESA rates could even be chucked in if there's room - e.g. 60/70/75 for VGA, 56/60/72/75/85 for SVGA and so on). Nothing in the computing field ever bears up to oversimplification I'm afraid. 82.46.180.56 (talk) 21:50, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Further to this, I've started work which requires messing about with video projectors, and the manual for one particular model type has a list of supported resolutions in the back, along with a name for each (some generic 'vesa', some with standard names, some with manufacturer names eg 'mac', 'sun'). Many of them have fixed frequencies, and others a fairly standard range of supported frequencies. I may copy some of it in if i get the urge. 193.63.174.10 (talk) 13:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Common resolutions

Should list of common resolutions be merged into this page? Madda 16:08, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

A source on the 'typical screen resolution': Jakob Nielsens "Alertbox": http://www.useit.com/alertbox/screen_resolution.html

[edit] Laserdisc Resolution

According to URL:http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/EuropeLD/glossary.html Laserdisc has 7MHz of video bandwidth, which would translate to 448Hz per scanline for PAL discs (444Hz for NTSC). To represent this in the digital domain, the signal would have to be sampled at minimum 896 times per scanline (889 for NTSC), meaning the horizontal resolution actually exceeds that of DVD's!

Another source URL:http://www.in70mm.com/newsletter/1995/39/laser/disc_1.htm claims that Laserdiscs have 5,5MHz of video bandwidth, which would translate to 704 (PAL) or 698 (NTSC) horizontal pixels.

On the same website there is a conversion formula between bandwidth and pixels: 80 lines per MHz, but I don't know where this comes from. Seems like the resolution currently in the article comes from combining the 7MHz video bandwidth from the first source with the 80-lines-per-MHz rule from the second source.

Which horizontal resolution is the correct one?

(I guess all this applies to the VHS and PAL/NTSC broadcast resolutions too...)

I was going to make a section (still might) taking issue with certain parts of the article as it stands ATM, this being one of them. Whoever was doing the part about the horizontal resolution vs bandwidth was either pulling semi-random but sort-of fitting numbers out of their a... er, out of the air, or were copying verbatim someone else's dodgy maths. I'd like to see the calculations for why we have 330 lines from 3Mhz, 440 lines from... 4.2Mhz, and 660 lines from 7Mhz. That just doesn't make any sense. Seriously. And what's with DVD giving a 7Mhz bandwidth (and 720 lines)? It's a/ digital (storing each pixel 1:1) and b/ has a defined horizontal resolution of 704 or 720 pixels (i.e. effective resolution of 352/360 discrete black lines, and 'virtual' bandwidth of (720 + sync/flyback area) x 15.625/15.750khz line rate). It's all getting really confused, and I think that's ultimately what's led to these figures being arrived at - with luminance-pixels-per-cycle (ignoring sync width and taking an average line rate of 15.6875khz) values of ~1.73, 1.64 and 1.48 respectively (and 1.26 for the "80 lines per Mhz" statement --- or 2.0 for the 5.5mhz laserdisc at a 701 "pixel" (350.5 discrete black line) average).

It should be quite easy to figure the theoretical line resolution (as discrete from the effective resolution stated by manufacturers, which instead describes the pixels (or black AND WHITE vertical lines) across a SQUARE segment in the middle of a TV set's screen. We already have the typical bandwidths (coulda sworn it was 4.33mhz, and 3.58 made an appearance somewhere, but eh) and the well defined scan rates, we just need to know what the sync width is on a typical line. In the given examples, it ould be anywhere from "nonexistant" (2.0 pixels/cycle) to "huge" (1.48... so the sync width takes up over 25% of each line? I somehow don't think the engineers would have stood for that). Something like 10%? I dunno. I used to, from messing with CRT monitors to eke a few more pixels and higher refreshes out of cheap units with customisation software, but I've long since forgotten since getting first a decent CRT then a succession of LCDs. (10% would be 1.8 pixels per cycle equivalency, or 5.4 mpx per second for 3mhz - 344 B/W lines, 172 discrete black, 482/241 for 4.2, 631/316 for 5.5 and 802/401 for 7mhz, all of which fit at least reasonably well with the typical 352, 480, 640 and 720 (ish) column standards)

This is all listed somewhere e.g. on the PAL and NTSC pages anyway (some of my source material is misrememberings of those), so the need for its inclusion is moot from the get-go. 82.46.180.56 (talk) 22:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] D1

The display resolution article has two lines in the table that mention

"D1 720×480 (576 for PAL)" "D1 (NTSC with square pixels) 720×540"

I found that a little confusing, so I clicked on the link to the D1 (Sony) article.

The "D1 (Sony)" article seems to say that D1 is a format for recording CCIR 601 raster format digitized video on a kind of cassette tape, and doesn't even mention this "(NTSC with square pixels)" thing. Is there some other article that explains it? So ... should I change the name of the "720×480" line to "CCIR 601" ? Or should I change the "D1" article to also describe the use of that term as a "720×480" resolution? --65.70.89.241 14:37, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Someone's made a cockup somewhere. 720x540 WOULD be the resolution IF it was 4:3 standard, with square pixels, at a 720 width. But it's not. Not really sure what they were getting at, unless it was an attempt to express the same concept in a cackhanded way. What we have instead is NTSC 720x480 with tall pixels, and PAL 720x576 with fat ones. This is one of the reasonings for 704 pixels (CCIR rez) as far as I'm concerned, as well as it simply being VCD x2: ease of calculation. The average of 480 and 576 is 528. 528 x 4/3 = 704. Though I'm a bit too tired and inebrated to properly explain all the background to my reasoning here, I've used the same pattern with "352x264 = square pixels" to prepare multistandard stuff for VCD playback without things appearing squashed in NTSC or PAL vs the other version. Just prep it as 264 line (or 528) with your 4:3 display, then subject it to a simple and low-impact vertical resize for the final version. Similarly making it to 720x540 (but some things such as Nero actually don't like that and WANT 704 instead... and it's no longer exactly between 480 & 576 so the calculation factors are asymmetric) for DVD playback, but as that's meant to intrinsically include horizontal overscan anyway (which even an LCD set will trim, as its harder to define the edges than for vertical height) you may as well keep to the narrower and easier standard :)

(er, i think i digressed a lot there. sorry) 82.46.180.56 (talk) 22:00, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WSXGA

There is definitely a problem in this page. WSXGA is quote as both 1440x900 & 1600×1024. Furthermore, the WSXGA page redirects to SXGA+ (1400 × 1050)!! There is definitely a problem to solve here, guys. --Le Sage 13:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Entire Article Too Dense and Obscure

This article immediately jumps into dense and obscure issues about resolution, without first explaining the subject to someone who knows nothing about it.

Start by explaining what pixels are, how they are arranged in grids, and how there are a confusing number of different standards.

Make a list with the most common resolutions divided into ratio classes -- 4:3, 5:4, 16:9, 16:10, misc others -- list the common XxY resolutions within each class, with a description for each of where that resolution is typically found. "640x480: obsolete CRT computer monitors", "1280x1024: Current 17" LCD computer monitors", "PAL: European analog television sets".

Mention prominently that higher resolution does not necessary mean a larger screen -- and that higher PPI density actually makes images look smaller on screen. Cross-reference the Wikipedia PPI article.

Describe "native resolution" on digital monitors, and what happens when you don't use that.

Describe different pixel shapes, and why that doesn't distort the aspect of, say, the same photograph, viewed on monitors with different pixel shapes.

Help users understand the strange anomaly of the all-too-common 5:4 ratio 17" LCD monitors, in a special section.

There is nothing wrong with 5:4 on an LCD. You still get square pixels. Such screens are not good for people addicted to badly-designed games, but they work great for properly-designed games and everything else. 1280x1024 on a 4:3 CRT is quite wrong though, because most software will quite reasonably not compensate for non-square pixels. Desktop software developers all cheered when 640x350 EGA was killed off, then covered their eyes when the 1280x1024 4:3 CRT reintroduced the abomination of non-square pixels. The 1280x1024 LCD really is 5:4, so it's fine -- certainly no worse than a widescreen anyway. 24.110.145.57 03:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Describe, so to speak, that no one has a clue why the computer industry decided to use 1280x1024 on a 17" monitor -- which produces a PPI too dense (106 ppi or whatever) for reading most Web sites (designed for 96 ppi), etc. -- and how this has produced a huge problem of people setting the monitor to a lower resolution -- and getting distorted aspect and blurred text. Recommend making sure the monitor is set to maintain the 4:3 aspect of the lower resolution if this is done -- there should be black bars above and below. Have an illustration of a 17" LCD with a small round circle on it at 1280x1024, and then a 17" LCD with a larger, distorted circle at 800x600. Explain how to set text resolution higher in Windows -- but that this still leaves raster images small.

Yeah, TCO need a kicking for setting that standard. I thought it was all nice and cool to have such finely-pixelled monitors ... til i was having to look after some PCs at an open access college that had 17" LCDs, and a lot of the less 20:20 clients had lots of trouble reading poorly made materials (IE those which used a fixed-size and usually tiny, oh so trendy pixelly font) which were rendered miniscule because of it. Then some clever bod taught them all a way to reduce the rez to make it bigger (using the accessibility tools, as some dink of an admin locked out the resolution control) - not bad, you think, sure it blurs but it's only for their benefit. Problem is it doesn't reset to the previous size, so after a couple rounds of this and their usual process of picking a random machine each time, all the screens are down to XGA or even SVGA, and every one else complaining about the quality. Big job became quietly installing VidRes on all machines and scooting them all back up to SXGA using remote desktop. Without this dumbass standard having been set (and why didn't they use 1280x960? I know 1024 pixel height was a well-worn standard from wayback in CAD and pro DTP times (I have 1994 and earlier video cards that implement it), but couldn't they have just set the MINIMUM at 960?), there would have been some affordable large-panel, low rez displays on the market (ie not being more expensive/less available as they're not "standards compliant") which could have been reserved for these students' priority use, instead of the current headache.

BTW 1280x1024 on a 17", 5:4 is pretty much 96 ppi, FYI. If you want 105 ppi or higher, you'll need a 12.1", XGA laptop screen such as what I'm typing with right now. 82.46.180.56 (talk) 22:50, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Then, have a final section in which you refer readers to other articles on more technical and obscure subjects: the history and issues of analog television resolution, etc. -- anything that someone trying to figure out the computer monitors and TVs at their local store really doesn't need to know.

This article is America-centered. It says SDTV is 480i, which is only true for USA, Japan and some other obscure countries, while the rest of the world uses much better 576i. Also, Commodore 64's borders were very much visible even with a normal TV - at least with PAL, maybe not NTSC, which again proves this article is not general. --80.220.68.44 (talk) 22:11, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 1280x960

Huh... where's 1280x960? it's a very popular format for wallpapers, as well a valid resolution on most 4:3 monitors. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.38.235.198 (talk) 15:01, 7 February 2007 (UTC).

Unfortunately, although it's 4x VGA and offered on various graphics cards (almost at random it seems), it's nonstandard and can't even be called QVGA in the same way QXGA is - as that would clash with 320x240. Plus you find me an LCD monitor that does it natively, or a CRT that has a preset list of valid refresh rates for that rez (so it doesn't default to 60Hz). I think you'll have a time. It's a nice rez for wallpaper as it represents a bit of an interchange size. SXGA'ers can display it with only the slimmest of letterboxing (small enough to practically disappear at the bottom, on MS Windows), those with 1280x800/768/720 can trim to fit accordingly without having to resize, and people using XGA/UXGA can do a simple up or down resize with a small scalefactor deviation from 1.0, no worries about cropping or aspect ratio. Plus it's fairly high rez and won't look particularly fuzzy even when sized up to 1600x1200 or more, unlike an XGA paper which will start to suffer by that point (starts out 80% of the size), but isn't huge enough to cause a storage problem. Therefore you can please a lot of people at once without much effort or having to store lots of versions, or super large files.

Just my 2c of course, but that's the reason I'd use it and I'd wager is why it gets used a lot.

(Now I just wait for you to produce a 1280x960 Apple screen or something, and look stupid) 82.46.180.56 (talk) 22:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kicks arse?

"Many people tend to like CRT HDTV's more than LCD/Plasma HDTV's because CTR TV's kick arse"

I don't think this is appropriate language for Wikipedia.

Indeed, three misused apostrophes in one sentence.

[edit] UMD resolution

According to this[1], the resolution of UMD Video is not 480x272. That is the resolution of the PSP's screen, however the PSP was not originally going to be UMD's sole target platform. UMD video is encoded most frequently at a resolution of 720x480, the same resolution as NTSC DVDs. The standard does offer other lower resolutions, however 480x272 isn't supported.

[edit] 832x624

This was a common setting for Macintosh computers. Very useful to eke a bit more room out of a 15" display without causing eyestrain. ⇔ ChristTrekker 19:51, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed as far as I'm aware that was (a) standard rez* for a 15" apple CRT - sure I saw it listed when playing with a poorly administered 15" iMac's settings when at university some years back.

(* given that it was still the era of limited video ram encroaching on display settings - i think that was 16-bit, and there was some higher XGA-ish rez at 8-bit, and a lower VGA-type one at 24... but it was 832x624 not 800x600, for whatever odd reasons apple had. I think also it persists from quite some time ago, possibly concurrent with or even predating SVGA and merely being concurrent evolution as it's a handy, sensible size for making best use of, e.g., a 512k VRAM (for 8 bit colour - 507kb, even better than 800x600 at a wasteful 469kb) whilst not stressing the monitors much (only needing to scan 4% "faster" - and some of the lines could maybe be garnered from reducing the sync area if using a standard vga monitor rather than a bespoke apple thing... or, you could use 72hz in place of 75hz, both being "legally" speaking "flicker free") 82.46.180.56 (talk) 22:40, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Widescreen monitor resolutions

Please help me spruce up this template:

Name	x (width)	y (height)	Pixels (x1 Million)	Aspect Ratio	Percentage of difference in pixels					Typical sizes	Non-wide version	Uses
					Wide XGA	WSXGA	WSXGA+	WUXGA	WQXGA
Wide XGA	1366	768	1.04	1.77	N/A	−19%	−41%	−54%	−74%	15"–19"	XGA	Normal use; viewing 720p video content.
WSXGA Wide XGA+	1440	900	1.29	1.6	24%	N/A	−27%	−44%	−68%	15"–19"	XGA+
WSXGA+	1680	1050	1.76	1.6	68%	36%	N/A	−23%	−57%	20"–22"	SXGA+
WUXGA	1920	1200	2.3	1.6	120%	78%	31%	N/A	−44%	23"–28"	UXGA	Viewing two full pages of text side by side; viewing 1080p video content.
WQXGA	2560	1600	4.1	1.6	290%	216%	132%	78%	N/A	30"	QXGA	Advanced graphic design; other professional applications.

[edit] Resolution image is wrong

It says TV is 3:2 which is not accurate. It's 4:3 ratio (just pull out a ruler and measure). - Theaveng 20:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reasons for old computer display layouts

I'm highly skeptical of the reasoning given in this section, it smacks somewhat of conjecture and hindsight. Wouldn't a large factor also be the very limited memory available for display data (limiting it in some cases to e.g. a 32x24 matrix of monochrome (pseudo-)ASCII text, needing only 0.75kb), and the limited processor power? (If the CPU is responsible for controlling the display circuitry as well as calculating - e.g. the ZX80/81 - then blank areas provide extra free time for actual computing, and the same holds for synched updating of display data even when the actual output is being handled by dedicated chips... the more Hblank/Vblank time you have, the more stuff you can make happen per frame). Of course there would always be some allowance for overscan, but borders persisted in some machines that never originally had an RF adaptor and were meant for use with dedicated monitors (e.g. Atari ST), and as I remember were typically WELL inside of the overscan of any particular TV (ST, Spectrum, various 8bit consoles - the 16s typically had less, at a time where CPU and RAM completements and speeds had picked up but TV hadn't changed a great deal), and it would have to be an exceedingly poor or broken set that would make even part of single edge disappear. More often the borders were size-tweaked with monitor controls to the absolute minimum, or had scrolltexts etc embedded in them (in demos, pirate discs etc). It may also be that it was simply convenient - a 200 line picture may display at 400 lines height with 80 lines (+20%!) of border, and its 320 pixel width take up a fair amount of a 3.58mhz carrier at 2 pixels/cycle with the remainder being border.

Staying within underscan would have been a consideration but there were probably various other pressing concerns other than how poorly adjusted a user's ancient and rarely-if-ever serviced TV set was.

All the above is of course informed inference and intuition as well, but I haven't put it in the article! 82.46.180.56 (talk) 23:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Atari ST and Commodore Amiga has borders because (1) it was convention established by the earlier Atari and Commodore 8-bits, (2) not all monitors were adjustable (hence the need to make sure the text did not "fall off" the TV or monitor screen), and (3) they produced NTSC or PAL-compliant screens which require a certain amount of overscan to border the picture. ---- Theaveng (talk) 18:18, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anyone know of 1088x612?

This has come up on a few video cards I've seen, a widescreen rez, but I can't find any monitors/projectors/tvs that have this as a native or suggested resolution. Any clues? And why would it be this rather odd arrangement (the vertical rez is a multiple of 4, not the 8 or even better 16 that's recommended for various purposes), rather than the 16-square 1024x576 which would be more compatible with both PAL and XGA displays? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.63.174.10 (talk) 13:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)