OT: Biggest LCD monitor with MacPro and PTHD

[brianjanthony]

I currently have two 19" monitors connected to my Mac Pro (2008). My health and etc have taken some bad turns... and all that stuff is making it necessary for me to reconfigure my control area. Here's the prob, I need to move my LCD monitors higher and farther away from my face. My eyes are bad enough so as it is. So I need to make the viewing area bigger, and what's on screen appear bigger to compensate for the distance.

Are there any of you who run 38-42+" monitors out there? A 42" monitor won't help me if the mix window and fonts stay the same size as they are on my 19" monitors. The screens will be farther away. So I need things to just be bigger.

Anyone else have these issues? Any suggestions?

[albee1952]

Running a 32" Vizio 1080P TV as a main screen on my friend's HD rig(Mac Pro). About 4 feet away and it looks great. Running it at 1920x1080 now. Not sure about a non-1080P set running at 1366x768 but I think(if you need things on the screen to be really big) you could run any resolution below that. I run a home PC on a 52" LCD at 1366x768 so I can surf the web on the couch(about 7' away). The 52" is also a 1080P set but the PC can run any resolution the video card supports and the screen shows fine.

[ajv205]

I use a 42" Toshiba LCD TV in addition to a 20" Samsung LCD. Just go out of the Mac Pro using a DVI to VGA adapter. The fonts stay the same relative size, everything is just bigger, like using a projector. I use it in 'mirror' mode (the 20" and the 42" show the same thing). You can even use the built in speakers of the LCD TV to check mixes on by using the audio-in part of the PC input (mine has 1/8" stereo input). Works like a charm.

[Vaporhead]

I use the Apple 30" display and it looks amazing. Whenever I have used an LCD display in other studios the resolution looked all wrong to me. The P Tools mixer never fit on the screen properly as it was either missing things around the edges or it was stretched and distorted. Each time I experimented with the resolution settings I could never find one that looked like the proper images of the mixer and edit page's.

That's just my experience though. I may have been missing something that has worked better for other people.

[25ghosts]

I've tried many many monitors. In the range between 0 $3000 the 30" Cinema Display from Apple is unbeatable. Awesome.

Bought a Dell first after browsing the web. Got the 30". Had it one day and sent it back.

Me Cents

[BradLyons]

Well the Cinema Display IS cool---however he's talking about farther away. If he wants it up close then the Cinema Display would be an excellent choice, HOWEVER....it's a 30" display for $1800 that has a very high resolution, the higher that resolution---the smaller it is and that's not what he's asking for. I have an Insignia 46" LCD/TV that is 1080P and gives me a resolution of 1920x1080. It's roughly 6ft-7ft in front of me and is amazing. At that resolution I can see 24-faders in FULL VIEW on the screen and it's HUGE (which matches up perfectly with a Control24/C24 mind you). If I go to narrow view I see about 44-faders or so. The cost was about $1,100 and allows me to see a great deal of information BIG as opposed to even more information small.

If you go to my website @ www.theaudioprofessional.com and click on the STUDIO link, then go to the very bottom---I put up a picture I took shortly after mounting the display.

[brianjanthony]

Interesting Responses. So about 44 faders on the one above? That's about what I get on one of my 2 now (that makes sense when factoring in res and etc).

I guess what I am really after is a way to get a new screen about 4 feet away, and have enough screen real estate to feature everything I'm used to seeing now on my two 19" monitors... only the image would be bigger so that I don't have to lean forward and squint to see the waveforms and edits, etc.

So I guess for lack of a better example, how could I see 84 faders across the big screen. And is it even possible to see 84 faders and full mixer (faders with plugins, inserts etc) window in a magnified view about 4 ft away.

Not that I need 84 faders... that's just a spacing example. hopefully I'm being clear enough.

brian

[BradLyons]

That many faders isn't going to happen, sorry. Do you have a Control24 or C24? If so, it won't matter to have that many up there at once.....

[WernerF]

I get about 50 faders on the Apple Cinema 30" and it is extremely bright which makes it quite easy to see from a distance.

[Eric Lambert]

The 30" Cinema Display is great for distant viewing as well. It's sharp focus is easy on the eyes, even when using lower resolutions for larger icons. LCD TV/monitors at the same resolution give me headaches after a short while because the image isn't as sharp.