Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with monitors

Switch between fullscreen video apps?

frenetic — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:06:45 -0800

I have three (Windows) video applications and one monitor. I want to be able to switch quickly (and as seamlessly as possible) between them running full-screen on the monitor (with keyboard hotkeys). Any idea how to do this?

Help me replace my monitor

vronsky — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:53:30 -0800

My old Sony crt monitor died and I need advice on picking out a new one. I have an older 733mhz power mac G4 with an NVIDIA GeForce2 mx video card (and also a ATY88800GX video card in slot 4?) and my old Sony 20 inch monitor has died. I know next to nothing about monitors so here is what I am looking for.

a) I have bad eyesight so I like to crank the font size up as much as possible. Screen size is a must. I am using a 17" el cheapo lcd widescreen a friend let me borrow and it is torture trying to use this thing)

b) I am on a budget (would like to keep it to around 350 dollars, but could go more or less if worth it) so refurbished or off brands are fine, but I would like to know which brands and dealers I can trust.

c) googling led me to this page which has some in my price range, but would I be happy with the I-inc 28" lcd for instance? I don't really understand a lot about contrast ratios and the like. I am not a gamer, but would like to watch an occasional dvd or you tube documentary on it.

any help or ideas on where to shop would be greatly appreciated.

My games need viagra - they won't stay up!

fearnothing — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:03:57 -0800

(Vistafilter) Cannot full screen with dual monitors Please MeFi, help me before I do something violent, or have a breakdown. This is frustrating me to an obscene degree.

I use a computer with dual monitors. It's home built, and is currently running Vista Ultimate 64-bit. The issue is that when I try to run a full screen game, the screen goes dark, the secondary display flashes a few times, then it minimises the application. If I try maximising it from the taskbar, it MIGHT manage to get it to come up, usually taking a half dozen or more tries.

My google-fu has utterly failed me on this one. Currently my only solution (sort of) has been to maximise the game, set the resolution to the native res of my main screen, then close the game, edit the properties of the shortcut so that the "Run" option is "Maximised" instead of "Normal". Only then will it go fullscreen first try. I have to do this for every new game, and there are certain games which do not seem to work with a shortcut and must be run directly from the disk - these games I just have to patiently repeatedly click on the taskbar button. Games that do not have the option to run at native res are fubar, it's pot luck whether I can get them to maximise.

Changing the screens has not made a difference. If it's important, my graphics card is a GeForce 8800GT, latest drivers.

Fixing multiple monitors position changing after waking from Sleep in Vista?

wastelands — Thu, 07 May 2009 07:56:05 -0800

Annoying Vista bug: monitor positions change after waking from Sleep mode. How can I fix it? I have an external monitor plugged into my laptop via the VGA port. I use both screens (laptop + monitor), with the external on the left, and have the "Drag icons to match your monitors" in Display Settings to match and "Extend the desktop onto this monitor". Works great.

Yet whenever I wake from Sleep, I have to rearrange the monitors in Display Settings. Every single time. It's so annoying. Some googling led to this post:

http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/97955-multiple-monitors-change-position-after-sleep.html

But I do not have such a task in my Task Scheduler.

I'm running Vista SP1 with all Windows Updates installed. NVIDIA 9600m GT video card with latest drivers installed.

Help forcing non-native resolution for external monitor.

Jackie_Treehorn — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 08:00:20 -0800

Need help forcing older laptop to power external LCD monitor at a resolution of 1280 x 768. I've got a Gateway Solo 1450 laptop with an Intel 830M graphics chip inside. I need to hook up via VGA at large LCD monitor to it. The monitor has a native resolution of 1280 x 768.

My problem is that the 830M doesn't support that resolution. The closest resolutions I can choose are 1280 x 720 and 1280 x 760. The problem is that everything on the screen looks our of proportion with those.

Anything I can do?

Thank you!

Color Inconsistency Between Two Calibrated Monitors

roundrock — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 06:02:42 -0800

Why do two properly calibrated monitors look very different? I have a dual monitor setup -- a Samsung 216BW and a Wacom Cintiq 21UX -- with each monitor running on its own graphics card (Nvidia 8400 and 8800, respectively). I'm calibrating with an X-Rite i1Display2. According to the i1D2, both monitors are properly calibrated -- but the Cintiq is much warmer/redder, and the Samsung is considerably cooler and yellow/greener. What gives? It occurred to me that the problem could just be that I am using monitors of two different qualities (cheapie Samsung with a TN panel vs. H-IPS panel Cintiq), but shouldn't that only affect the color gamut - not the basic color tones? I'm considering dropping $2K on an NEC or Eizo to replace the Samsung, but it's only worth it if I know I that I can achieve color consistency with my Cintiq and ultimately accurate color overall.

At this point, I just have no idea if I'm getting inaccurate color from the Samsung or the Cintiq -- and, more importantly, I don't know why it's happening. Please help!

Women's Heart Rate Monitor Recommendation

angiewriter — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:32:13 -0800

I have searched through previous posts, but have not found specific info on women's heart rate monitors, specifically those worn on the wrist and that include a chest strap. I perform cardio on both a bike and an elliptical at the gym 6 days a week (4 days on the bike and 2 days on the elliptical). Because my wrist is 6.75" around, I need a heart rate monitor as small as possible. I don't care what color it is, but I do care that it measures heart rate *and* calories burned. I also want the chest strap for this monitor to be the kind that has batteries that can be replaced by the user. I don't need lots of bells and whistles; I just want some simple measurements and something that fits my small wrist. This last part may be nearly impossible, but I'd love it if this monitor costs less than $100. And yes, I realize that you get what you pay for, but the limited research I have done so far suggests that at least one model (the Polar F4) is well within my price range.

I currently use the "heart rate monitors" on the equipment I use at the gym, but I do realize that they're not as precise or consistent as a personal monitor, and because heart rate matters a great deal to me during my workouts, I'm willing to cough up the money for something that will give me the precision I need.

Thanks hivemind!!

Where the hell can I buy an new "old" Apple Cinema Display?

melorama — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:06:08 -0800

Where online can I purchase the "old" DVI-based 23" Apple Cinema HD Displays? I'm rushing to spend some of my company's end-of-year budget to upgrade one of my video editing suites, and I need to know of a guaranteed source where I can buy 2 of the 23" Apple Cinema HD displays (DVI connections) for use with my Mac Pro tower.

My normal VAR is totally out of stock of the 23"s, and I've tried to place orders at 3 different online vendors whose websites claimed to have them in stock, but every single one of them came cancelled my order because they really didn't have them in stock.

Does anyone have specific knowledge of a vendor that truly has these displays in stock (however dwindling that stock may be), and can accept my order before the end of the year?

Just to head off some possible comments:

• The displays must be new in box, or at the very least, lightly used demo/display units. In other words, eBay or Craigslist are out of the question.

• "Waiting until Macworld" to see what Apple has to offer in terms of Mac Pro compatibility with the newer DisplayPort Cinema Displays is not an option. These displays must be put into a working production pipeline as soon as possible, and for tax purposes, must be purchased before the end of the year (errr...tomorrow :P)

• Please no suggestions to buy Dell (or other) monitors. I have 6 of them in our facility and most of them are great, but I find them inconsistent and difficult to calibrate. And besides, the video hardware I'm using is specifically targeted to the color profile and characteristics of the Cinema Displays. The quality of the ACD's are known to us first hand, so we don't want to buy an alternative display unless we can see it first with our own eyes.

• Must be the 23" displays. The 30"s are way too big for the purposes I'm using them for.

• The older, clear plastic bezel Cinema Displays are also not acceptable, because...well...they're old.

I'm looking for concrete pointers to vendors that actually have them in stock. Trust, me I've tried almost every obvious to semi-obvious vendor that "may" stock this item, but every single one came up short. If you don't know know for certain that a vendor has them in stock, please do not suggest them.

Time is of the essence here--no thanks to the last vendor I tried, who took a full 11 days to tell me that they really dont have them in stock after all. Any pointers would be mega-appreciated!

Can I use my studio monitors as live sound monitors or speakers also?

bingwah — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:27:18 -0800

Can I use my studio monitors as live sound monitors or speakers also? I'm looking into buying a small PA system to play live. I have a pair of studio monitors. Can I use them as my live sound monitors or even as speakers or would I run into problems with them(feedback, etc.)?

What sort of heart rate monitor should I buy?

Jack Alucard — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:19:06 -0800

Could someone please give me advice on buying a heart rate monitor? I’m thinking of buying a heart rate monitor. I used one on an exercise bike once, where there was a clip which attached to the ear and the bike then displayed the heart rate. Is there a standalone version of that sort of technology?

If so, how does that type of hear rate monitor compare to ordinary heart rate monitors with a chest strap? I’ve read somewhere that there are strapless hear rate monitors which don't attach to the ear. Are they as accurate as those heart rate monitors that do have a chest strap?

Thanks for any advice you can give me on the above.

Three Monitors, One Linux (I know obscenity when I hear it)

SlyBevel — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:23:40 -0800

Please help me: Make my triple monitors work in Ubuntu ----OR---- Find a distro that will gracefully handle three monitors. Either one is fine, but this is killing me and I really need to get it done.

I'm currently running Hardy Heron. I used the open source driver for a while, but I was only able to get the two monitors on the first vid card working when I switched to the ATI driver.

I think part of the problem is that I have two cards: Radeon X1600 Pro AGP 8x, Radeon 9600 PCI. So far, Ubuntu is only using the primary card.

I've Googled extensively, and I've tried many xorg.conf tweaks, but none of them seem to get me to where I need to be, ie: Running a current distro of Linux with all three of my monitors functional.

Please help!

increase my productivity!

jak68 — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:15:01 -0800

multiple monitors filter: How can I launch a program directly into second monitor without buying Ultramon? Is there a command line tag I can put into the shortcut for instance? Situation: 2 monitors.

Problem: I want my text editor to always launch into the second monitor when I launch the program. Right now it always launches into the first (primary) monitor. (Its a weird program, other programs will launch into second monitor if I close them once they're on second monitor, but not this program).

Ultramon has a way to do this but costs 40 bucks. Is there a command line thing or some other way I can do this that you know of? Thanks!

Help me help my friend make her website juuuuust right

iamkimiam — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:38:15 -0800

Looking for a solution for a flash based photography website to not look small on big monitors, and not look too big on small monitors. Asking for a friend:
She has a flash-based photography website. It is often viewed on large monitors, but sometimes on smaller ones. When art directors look at her site on a large monitor, it shows up rather small, because the site is in a fixed width/height frame. If she were to have this site built at a bigger fixed-width, ADs looking at her site on small monitors would be forced to scroll left/right and up/down to see all of the content. She talked with several programmers about the option of having the flash site scale according to monitor size/browser window, and the response has been that this is too hard, or they don't know how to, or if they do, they're an sky high expensive design firm.

What are her best options for the site? Is having the site scale feasible (both programming and cost-wise)? Should she have it built bigger for better photograph viewing on large monitors (and not worrying about the scrolling on smaller ones), or leave it as is?

Thanks!

Using a monitor to advertise

zzazazz — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:22:54 -0800

We are looking to purchase a flat screen monitor or television that can cycle through files so we can advertise programs at a library. We want to be able to hook a flash drive up to it and use word documents. Any suggestions? Essentially we want to do this without having to ask our IT guys to hook up another PC for us.

I gave up TV. Now help me buy a TV. (...Or a humongous monitor for my computer/dvd player.)

jkl345 — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:43:11 -0800

A couple months ago, I sold my old Sony Trinitron and gave up TV. It's been fantastic and I haven't really looked back. But I *have* been missing watching movies on a screen bigger than my 15” laptop. I've also always wanted a bigger monitor for my laptop, so I can juggle more projects at once. So I'm starting to look around for a large LCD monitor or sizable HDTV to serve these needs. I've had a couple co-workers at previous jobs tell me they use an LCD TV as a monitor and they swear by it for cost savings and multi-functionality. I'm kinda clueless though and need your advice. I've read through some similar AskMeFi questions, but most of them were from 2005 and 2006, so (in theory) the technology should be getting better. I won't accept anything short of a 1920 x 1080 resolution, so that should help with the resolution issue... or maybe I just totally misunderstood the problem with using a TV.

My budget:
I'd be willing to pay around $500, up to $1500 for a perfect device, although I'd prefer to go cheaper. 40" is probably the perfect size for the room it'd be in. (I don't need a 60 inch monitor necessarily but I kinda feel more comfortable paying $1000+ for a 60” DLP HDtv with tons of hook ups and multiple HDMI inputs, than paying $1000+ for a 32” LCD computer monitor. Am I missing some huge advantage over the 32” monitor?)

My needs:
- Widescreen, HD resolution
- Over 30 inches, ideally (Uh, less than 60”, I think)
- Able to plug my laptop into it to use as a big monitor
- Able to plug my DVD player into it (so I don't have to keep using my laptop as a DVD player)
- Able to plug a possible future Blu-Ray or Xbox device into it and get full HD quality
- Cheaper is obviously better, but I don't mind splurging for something really cool or high quality that will last me forever (No plasmas! I don't want to derail things but I've had 3 friends with horrible experiences using Plasmas. So, no plasmas.)

Would be cool:
- Thin profile (LCD's are cool, but not mandatory)
- Having the whole TV tuner/remote/speakers option might be good for resale and useful in special cases (Superbowl or entertaining guests)
- The ability to rotate (from portrait to landscape) is cool too. (I realize this contradicts the previous request since I don't think any TV's can do this. But wouldn't it be cool?!)

Any specific recommendations on models, tutorials/guides that have been helpful to you or general real world anecdotal advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Why won't external monitor set as primary?

jesirose — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:50:37 -0800

I can't set my external monitor as the primary monitor on my Dell Laptop in Windows XP, what is wrong? This worked before with a Compaq laptop. I am following these instructions: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307873
I have it plugged in and everything, and I can extend my windows desktop to it. But I want the start bar on the bottom of the large external monitor. When I choose "Use this device as the primary monitor" the external monitor turns off, and the settings display shows it is no longer being used, and I have to extend the desktop onto it again.

I googled it and found someone with the same problem but they never got an answer :/ http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/53220-3-make-external-monitor-primary-display

Any ideas what is wrong?
Thanks

FTW USB hubs on monitors

zackola — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:19:19 -0800

Is there any way that the USB hub built into one of my monitors can remain on, while the monitor screen is turned off? I have a Dell 2007WFP and a BENQ fp241w. Both have USB hubs built into the monitor. I'd like to use them to charge/sync my iPod overnight, but when they are turned off, there is no power flowing to the USB hubs built into them. Setting the screen saver to blank is not an option as that still gives off a lot of light (in a studio apt). What am I missing here? This seems like a huge design flaw.

How do I track and display team projects like airports track flights?

Milkman Dan — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 11:39:02 -0800

You know the arrivals/departures screens that hang out in airports? I want one of those for my team, to help track the status of projects. What software do I need? I'm thinking it would be cool to have a tangible way to keep all team members informed about the status of our projects. My fictitious set-up is this: A monitor in a central location displays ten or so projects. On the screen, we have the following information for each project:
Project # | Project name | Date started | Date due | Status

It will display similarly to the airport monitors: different colours for different statuses, urgent projects on top.

My imagination suggests that with the right software running on a spare computer, hooked up to spare monitor, this should be easy. My question is, what software do I need? Is there any free airport tracking software that can be customized? Is there specific project tracking software that would do this?

We already have all of the data on each project in an Excel file. It includes extra fields that wouldn't be necessary for the display: person in charge, initiating department, project notes, project category, etc. If the software could read from this Excel file, beautiful; if not, manual data entry will work.

Does anybody have any useful contributions? I'm all ears.

How wide is too wide?

[expletive deleted] — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:59:47 -0800

Will I be disappointed with a 19" widescreen LCD? My monitor just died. It was nothing special, just a high end 17" CRT. I dislike running at resolutions below 1280x1024, and I prefer 1600x1200+ for photoshop--my eyes don't seem to be bothered by how tiny things are at that resolution on a 17" CRT. I would like to replace it with a widescreen LCD, preferably one that will be a decent upgrade for watching movies.

The monitors I am considering are this Acer 22", this Samsung 22" and this Samsung 19"

My concerns are primarily if the contrast ratio and refresh rates are significant here, and if being constrained to 900 pixels in the vertical will frustrate me on the 19", especially in Photoshop. This is especially important because I am likely going to be using it for work in the near future. I am also somewhat obessive about image quality. I'm the type of person that will make a photo lab redo a print three times.

Thanks.

What should my screen resolution be?

creative — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 07:28:34 -0800

I'm having some trouble figuring out what my screen resolution should be. My monitor is the Dell UltraSharp Widescreen 2007WFP... which is a 20 inch widescreen. Its native resolution is 1680 x 1050. At this resolution everything is very clear and normal and good. However, everything is a bit too small for me to read comfortably. The monitor is maybe 2 - 2.5 feet away from my face, which I think is normal, but everything is still just a little on the too small side. Because of this, I've been using a 1280 x 800 resolution with a 96 DPI. Everything is easily and comfortably readable for me like this. The only problem is I lose a lot of screen real estate vs its native resolution, and everything becomes just a slight bit less clear. So, what I'm wondering is, what should my settings be? Thanks in advance for any help.

Dual monitor question

worker_bee — Fri, 04 May 2007 05:22:10 -0800

Dual Monitor and wallpaper question. I have an external monitor plugged into my laptop and my desktop stretched across both the laptop screen and the nice big flat screen monitor. My wallpaper is duplicated on both, but I would like to have one wallpaper on the laptop monitor and a different one on the external. Is there a simple method of achieving this, or an application that will do it?

Help me give my monitor a split personality

empedia — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:24:57 -0800

I have a PC running Windows XP. For 2 different reasons I want to split my monitor into two independent screens which Windows would then see as completely independent i.e. in Control Panel display there are two separate monitors etc. There are two reasons why I want to do this.

The first is that I am using something called the Psychophysics Toolbox for Matlab which takes over the entire screen. Unfortunately when its running on a single screen it makes it impossible to debug the Matlab code. It works really well in dual screen mode with one screen displaying the output whilst the other screen displays Matlab. Unfortunately I don't have the physical space to put another screen on my desk so I'm trying to find some software which will split my current monitor in half instead.

The other slightly more trivial is that I have a very large widescreen display 1900x1200. This is too wide to be useful for some apps - e.g. web browser's, Acrobat etc. If I could split the screen somehow so I could maximize apps in each half then it would be a lot more useful. I realise I could do this by just carefully resizing each window but some kind of virtual display driver would just make it more convenient.

So anyone know of any software which might make this work?

Thanks a lot in advance.

Dual monitors - working independent - on a laptop. (more inside)

bradth27 — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:39:20 -0800

Dual monitors - working independent - on a laptop. (more inside) ( I am asking for a patron where I work - a public library.)

The Laptop is a Toshiba MX 151, about 3 years old.... 340 M Celeron, 512 RAM, and an ATI video card.
Here's what I want to do... I want to, say, surf the internet on one monitor, while working with Word or surf a different site on another. Is this possible? What kind of equipment do I need?

How can I hook up a second 17 inch LCD flatscreen monitor to my Power Mac G4?

brokekid — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:49:00 -0800

How can I hook up a second 17 inch LCD flatscreen monitor to my Power Mac G4? What's the best and cheapest way to do this? I can't quite figure out the best way to do it, even the guys at the Apple Store were kind of clueless.

wants more knob

wumpus — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:44:42 -0800

why did monitors switch to buttons with menus for controlling brightness and contrast, rather than knobs? knobs are so much faster and easier - it was like a dimmer switch for your desk!