LCDs with non-square pixels \ VOGONS

LCDs with non-square pixels

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First post, by xjas

Posted on 2018-06-01, 21:40

xjas Offline

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Random brain fart thread.

Did anyone ever make an LCD panel with a weird pixel aspect ratio? I'm not aware of one.

Even on old laptops / portables with really weird screen aspect ratios, the individual pixels that made up the screen were always square. It was presumably considered more critical to maintain 80 columns of text than 25 lines, so the vertical resolution got cut for cost tradeoff. You'd think somebody would have tried stretching the pixels out to make a more ergonomic looking screen though.

Or is there a technical reason why it can't be done?

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Reply 1 of 6, by 133MHz

Posted on 2018-06-02, 05:46

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I've only known of early "HD" Plasma TV displays doing what you describe (1024x768 or 1024x1024 pixels in a 16:9 aspect ratio).

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Reply 2 of 6, by Anonymous Coward

Posted on 2018-06-02, 13:06

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How about 1280x1024 displays? Despite being as common as dirt, they used a nonstandard 5:4 aspect ratio. It always bothered me, but nobody else seemed to care.

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Reply 3 of 6, by derSammler

Posted on 2018-06-02, 13:15

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Anonymous Coward wrote:
How about 1280x1024 displays? Despite being as common as dirt, they used a nonstandard 5:4 aspect ratio. It always bothered me, but nobody else seemed to care.

1280 / 1024 = 1.25
5 / 4 = 1.25

That makes square pixels...

Reply 4 of 6, by The Serpent Rider

Posted on 2018-06-03, 09:37

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It's not practical to do non-square pixels. Also subpixels are not square.

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Reply 5 of 6, by Standard Def Steve

Posted on 2018-06-03, 19:21

Standard Def Steve Offline

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133MHz wrote:
I've only known of early "HD" Plasma TV displays doing what you describe (1024x768 or 1024x1024 pixels in a 16:9 aspect ratio).

My folks still have one of those old 1024x768 42" plasma TVs. It's impossible to get a pixel perfect display on that. Not only are 720p and 1080p broadcasts scaled to the internal resolution, but there's also no way to disable overscan. Despite all of that tomfoolery, it manages to produce a decent picture from far enough away. Similar to that of my Panasonic 34" 1080i CRT.

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Reply 6 of 6, by cxm717

Posted on 2018-06-03, 20:34

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Standard Def Steve wrote:
133MHz wrote:
I've only known of early "HD" Plasma TV displays doing what you describe (1024x768 or 1024x1024 pixels in a 16:9 aspect ratio).

My folks still have one of those old 1024x768 42" plasma TVs. It's impossible to get a pixel perfect display on that. Not only are 720p and 1080p broadcasts scaled to the internal resolution, but there's also no way to disable overscan. Despite all of that tomfoolery, it manages to produce a decent picture from far enough away. Similar to that of my Panasonic 34" 1080i CRT.

That sucks, which TV is it? I can disable overscan on my Samsung. It is really hard to get a nice picture on it, if you give it 1280x720 it gets scaled and looks bad. If you give it 1024x768 everything looks too wide. Right now I have it connected to a linux system running the AMD open source drivers. My daughter watches cartoons on it. I feel that's the only thing its good for. 🤣

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