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Buy the 4K Sharp or wait for Apple?

J

jmac69

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 5, 2010
2
0
I've already ordered my octo-nMP. The big question now is, do I order the Sharp 4K display or wait for apple to announce one in the new year? Any ideas?

I'd prefer to wait for the apple-branded display if possible as I assume it will have a built-in iSight camera (I don't even think you can order an external iSight camera anymore, can you?). I'm pretty sure the magnetically installed external iSight on my 30" Cinema Display won't sit on top of the Sharp!

What do you think?
 
jmac69 said:
I've already ordered my octo-nMP. The big question now is, do I order the Sharp 4K display or wait for apple to announce one in the new year? Any ideas?

I'd prefer to wait for the apple-branded display if possible as I assume it will have a built-in iSight camera (I don't even think you can order an external iSight camera anymore, can you?). I'm pretty sure the magnetically installed external iSight on my 30" Cinema Display won't sit on top of the Sharp!

What do you think?
Click to expand...

Since you may be waiting until CES for your nMP, you might as well wait and see what's announced in terms of 4K displays. I suspect there may be a lot of new options coming down the pike... at more reasonable price points. However, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Apple. Their priorities are a mystery when it comes to peripherals and displays.
 
If you must have 4k now .. your only options are the sharp / asus or dell. I don't think an apple one is coming for awhile.
 
4k is pretty much consumer hype at this point.
If you are working in professional film video production you would be looking at pro level monitors by Ikegami, Sony or Panasonic with pro level features.
If you simply need a lot of screen real estate there are much better deals out there.
 
jetjaguar said:
no one knows yet .. none of the other macs were able to run higher than 30Hz ..
Click to expand...

Not particularly relevant to what the Sharp, as opposed to Mac drivers, can do.

The Dell , Asus , etc other monitors of similar size are all based off this basic Sharp product. They've been tweaked with backlight/usb etc but the basic "guts" are the largely the same.

The issue is going to boil down to whether DisplayPort v1.2 MST is enabled or not with the special variant of OS X the Mac Pro got.
 
jetjaguar said:
no one knows yet .. none of the other macs were able to run higher than 30Hz .. so we will have to see if apple releases a special update for the nMPs to be able to do 60Hz at 4K
Click to expand...

You need DisplayPort 1.3 for that, not Thunderbolt 2 (in 3D).

TB 2 is enough for 2D
 
Einz said:
I think dell used the same panel as Sharp and cheaper.
Click to expand...

cheaper not buy much.

Apple's selling Sharp 32" at $3595
Dell list price $3,499.99
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=210-ACBL

I'm sure there is some byzantine path through the Dell store to a cheaper price with some coupon/secret code word/etc, but the list prices are pretty close.

----------
cube said:
You need DisplayPort 1.3 for that, not Thunderbolt 2 (in 3D).
Click to expand...

There is no DisplayPort v1.3 yet. v1.3 is aimed at 8K displays. What going to need is DP v1.2 with the Multi Stream Transport (MST) ability enabled.

TB 2 is enough for 2D
Click to expand...

Not even close.....

The 60Hz issue for these panels is largely because the panel itself (**) can't take a whole screen at 60Hz. It isn't the other end of the cable. To get to 60Hz, two screens (each half of the display) are sent to the display panel in parallel to get a "whole" screen.

DisplayPort v1.2 is capable... (and TB v2). It is the panels that require spliting it up into two pieces. Right now the more wide spread mechanism for doing two screen transport at these pixel dimensions is DP v1.2 MST. HDMI 2.0 can but it is brand new and hardly deployed. DP v1.2 MST has technically been out for at least 2 years. It is established and deployed relative to the other possible transport solutions.

(**) not particularly seperating the technically seperate LCD panel from the controller that sends the signals. The part of the display that open/closes to let light through is only as good as the electronics backing it up. At this point 4K 60Hz has largely outstripped what those controller electronics can handle. That will probably see updates in 2014-2015.
 
Last edited:
The Dell has UBSB ports and card reader, if that matters. I haven't seen any coupons for the 32" yet.


http://www.sharpusa.com/ForBusiness/PresentationProducts/ProfessionalLCDMonitors/PNK321.aspx

For the Sharp, what the heck is dual HDMI?

mtbih0.png
 
Last edited:
Einz said:
For the Sharp, what the heck is dual HDMI?
Click to expand...

It is on the chart. Using two HDMI (presumably 1.1-1.4) ports to do what HDMI 2.0 does on a single, larger, connector. Whether DP v1.2 , HDMI 2 , two HDMI port it bascially boils down to pumping two "half" screens and then then merging them in the display.

the real question would be the OS, drivers, and GPU cards support the two independent GPU HDMI ports more so than the display device. There are some extremely early adopter systems that shipped in previous years that took that approach with early mega-expensive displays. They aren't very common and probably won't get any more common. A temporary kludge that will fade away but that some folks have a huge sunk cost in so they hobble along with it for an extended period of time.

it is probably a non-issue for OS X since probably never going to be supported.
 
jmac69 said:
The big question now is, do I order the Sharp 4K display or wait for apple to announce one in the new year?
Click to expand...

I think it depends on the nature and urgency of your need and the price you are willing to pay.

I plan to wait a few months until after the CES show in January because I need a larger screen and I'd like to pay less. I can also live with my current monitors for quite a while.

There is no optimum solution when a new product can come out at any time.
 
deconstruct60 said:
There is no DisplayPort v1.3 yet. v1.3 is aimed at 8K displays. What going to need is DP v1.2 with the Multi Stream Transport (MST) ability enabled.



Not even close.....

The 60Hz issue for these panels is largely because the panel itself (**) can't take a whole screen at 60Hz. It isn't the other end of the cable. To get to 60Hz, two screens (each half of the display) are sent to the display panel in parallel to get a "whole" screen.

DisplayPort v1.2 is capable... (and TB v2). It is the panels that require spliting it up into two pieces. Right now the more wide spread mechanism for doing two screen transport at these pixel dimensions is DP v1.2 MST. HDMI 2.0 can but it is brand new and hardly deployed. DP v1.2 MST has technically been out for at least 2 years. It is established and deployed relative to the other possible transport solutions.

(**) not particularly seperating the technically seperate LCD panel from the controller that sends the signals. The part of the display that open/closes to let light through is only as good as the electronics backing it up. At this point 4K 60Hz has largely outstripped what those controller electronics can handle. That will probably see updates in 2014-2015.
Click to expand...

DP 1.3 is that you'll need for 1-port 8K2D60 or full 4K3D60 transport.

DP 1.2 is able of 1-port 4K2D60

Not talking about the capabilities of graphics cards, software, or current monitors.
 
jmac69 said:
I've already ordered my octo-nMP. The big question now is, do I order the Sharp 4K display or wait for apple to announce one in the new year? Any ideas?

I'd prefer to wait for the apple-branded display if possible as I assume it will have a built-in iSight camera (I don't even think you can order an external iSight camera anymore, can you?). I'm pretty sure the magnetically installed external iSight on my 30" Cinema Display won't sit on top of the Sharp!

What do you think?
Click to expand...

I don't know of any way to make an external iSight work with a new Mac Pro anyway...do you?
 
Nugget said:
Thunderbolt to FW800 adapter and then a FW800 to FW400 adapter. All told it would probably cost more than just buying a nice Logitech USB 1080p camera (that's what I'll be doing).
Click to expand...

Cool. Thanks for the input.
 
cube said:
DP 1.2 is able of 1-port 4K2D60

Not talking about the capabilities of graphics cards, software, or current monitors.
Click to expand...

What? Post #4 is all about a specific monitor. Next in sub-thread, "no ones knows" and then you thrown in "need DP v1.3 for that" and it is not about the Sharp monitor???????

No one was taking about 4K 3D until you threw it in there. These monitors can barely do 60Hz let alone 3D.
 
deconstruct60 said:
What? Post #4 is all about a specific monitor. Next in sub-thread, "no ones knows" and then you thrown in "need DP v1.3 for that" and it is not about the Sharp monitor???????

No one was taking about 4K 3D until you threw it in there. These monitors can barely do 60Hz let alone 3D.
Click to expand...

Because it is important to realize that the computer is already obsolete for some monitors that should not take that long to arrive when you're paying 10000 for it.
 
If your nMP is coming in Feb 2014 then I say wait and see what happens. After CES there will be a lot more 4K displays in retail, just my opinion but that's what you're asking for :D
 
Burn-In??

I'd be happy to buy the Sharp 4K monitor, but I am worried about the 1 review from the Amazon page (there is only 1 review so far), which says that there is serious Burn-In / ghosting of the images on the monitor. Has anybody here used this monitor yet, for an extended period of time, who can comment on this?
 
At least now we know why apple hasn't released their own screen. The market just isn't ready to produce one. The next question is, if one was ready enough to debut at CES, why wouldn't apple already have an inside track on it?
 
I am going to wait for the "cheap" Dell 28" 4K display. It will lack a lot of the features aimed at those looking for decent colour reproduction, but that means nothing to me.
 
As much as I'm tied to OSX, Apple will never be my first choice for monitors again. Far too many issues with cinema displays over the years.
 
Quu said:
If your nMP is coming in Feb 2014 then I say wait and see what happens. After CES there will be a lot more 4K displays in retail, just my opinion but that's what you're asking for :D
Click to expand...

that's what I planned on doing... why wait and have it sit in the box. Plus maybe prices will drop

theSeb said:
I am going to wait for the "cheap" Dell 28" 4K display. It will lack a lot of the features aimed at those looking for decent colour reproduction, but that means nothing to me.
Click to expand...

then why go 4k? :confused:
 
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