OT Flatscreen with adjustable resolution - ever?
 

bugbear wrote:
Ian Stirling wrote:
In short, it's just that CRTs have a silly resolution of phosphor dots,
say 3000*3000 or something, and the lines the electron gun paints over
them doesn't pay any attention to the exact position.

This implies that CRT's aren't fully "analogue", but that
interpolation from supply resolution (e.g. vertical 625)
to display resolution (e.g. 3000) is approximated
by beam spread.

Actually dots can be partially illuminated by different lines, if they
overlap somewhat, so it is pretty much analog.

The "dimension" of the beam would be interesting :-)

LCDs on the other hand have each pixel individually addressible, so make
the resolution truly flexible would involve both extra electronics, and
a dramatic reduction of resolution, to blur the line over several
pixels.

Yeah - no argument.

OT Flatscreen with adjustable resolution - ever?
 

The message
from "Paul D.Smith" contains these words:

"BillL" wrote in message
. ..
Hello all,

Just musing really but is there ever likely to be a flat screen
technology
(say in the next 30 years) that allows different resolutions with no loss
in image quality? Its the one thing I miss now that I use a LCD PC
monitor instead of a CRT one - the ability to change resolutions, without
stretching or compressing the image. Or is this limitation inherent
in all
flat screen technology?

BillL

Now this makes we ask "how do CRTs achieve different resolutions"? With
LCDs, you HAVE TO process the signal and figure out how much toe
switch each
LCD pixel "on/off" but presumable CRTs simply fire the gun at the
appropriate bit of screen and the beam lights up as many phosphors as fall
under it. The result is that the phosphors themselves do the
"averaging/conversion" simply by virtue of being hit "full on" or "off
beam".

Is it really that simply?

Pretty much, but, unlike CGA, there is no 'full on' or 'full off' beam
current (as you've implied above) in the current VGA based system of
analogue display.

The actual dot pitch of the phosphors on a CRT doesn't represent a hard
limit on scanned image resolution as the fixed pixels of a flat panel
display do. A CRT will anti-aliaise the phosphor dot pitch effect on the
analogue raster scanned image generated from a digitally stored image
regardless of the resolution it was stored in (within the refresh rate
limits accepted by said monitor).

Of course, the dot pitch of the phosphors will spoil the clarity of
overly high resolutions but it won't (unlike a flat panel) spoil the
clarity of overly low resolutions:-)

IOW, you get anti-aliaising for free in a crt, hence it's fabulous
flexibility regarding choice of display resolutions (as well as display
angles and colour rendering qualities). For the serious gamer, this
benefit will often outweigh the 'advantages' of flat panel technology.

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

OT Flatscreen with adjustable resolution - ever?
 

Johnny B Good wrote:

IOW, you get anti-aliaising for free in a crt, hence it's fabulous
flexibility regarding choice of display resolutions (as well as
display angles and colour rendering qualities). For the serious
gamer, this benefit will often outweigh the 'advantages' of flat
panel technology.

Not to mention that at least some LCD panels buffer the pictures (for
whatever image processing and display optimisation reasons) and
introduce a slight delay when compared to a CRT screen. That may not
matter much if you're only ever running Office and browsing the web but
it could be a matter of (virtual) death and life in games.

--
znark