[Koodari]

I've been reading and researching stuff for quite a while now. The situation is that I'd like to buy a largish flatscreen monitor, stick it on my desk and use it for my iBook, (yet unbought) PC, a Playstation2, (yet unbought) Gamecube and next generation consoles / movie players. I'd like this one monitor to do it all because I live in one room, move often, and just don't want any extra crap like a TV. (I never even had one.) Another twist is that since I know it has now been in the market for quite a while, and a computer monitor gives me good resolution, I'd like to take advantage of high definition picture whenever possible.

What have I found then?
- LCD TV's in the Finnish market are overpriced, low in resolution, clunky, ugly, and I think many of them even don't support digital input. These are definitely not features I want to see in a computer monitor.
- In the field of computer monitors there has been massive improvement, but still precious few computer monitors are acknowledged to have both good color and response time. This is not what you'd ever understand from what the manufacturers claim.
- Even absolute response times, as printed on the specifications, mean nothing. In themselves they are absolutely useless, since they are "best case". It's the worst case that gets you ghosting. Only reviews and measurements show which monitor is actually fast across the color scale.
- Very few computer flatscreens have inputs other than DVI and VGA. A few 20" and 23" monitors have SVHS and composite. One 23" I know of has component. There's very little info on the web whether the builtin converters behind these inputs are good or not. Reports seem to divide 50/50, except for the component inputted HP screen but that doesn't have HDCP - more on that in a later point.
- PC's sometimes have trouble showing things through DVI. One possibility is that the pre startup status messages and/or BIOS do not show unless you purposely connect the computer with VGA. I don't know exactly how common this is, but reading the web it seems *too* common.
- Cheap VGA converters for consoles give truly awful picture - tried that.
- Expensive converters cost the same as a TV and as long as you're converting, the picture quality must still suffer some.
- Overall the different connectors, adapters, converters, signal types, etc. you are supposed to use to get a console to spew out either regular quality or HD are a confusing jumble and even after much research, I am really unsure. Not just about what is good, but what is compatible with what. That speaks volumes about how "easy" all these are to use. Reviews of most products say the picture quality is bad, and it gets worse if you have to chain multiple pieces of electronics in a chain to get things to work.
- Few PS2 titles support high definition in the first place.
- Not only is the Gamecube's high def functionality only available in the NTSC games (WTF? I can't think of a single reason why they would do this?) but since last May Nintendo even stopped including the digital video output in recently manufactured Gamecube units.
- Major PC games are starting to support 16:9 but many console games still do not. This, if anything, is nonsensical. There are very few widescreen PC monitors, but there are a *huge* amount of regular widescreen TV's.
- Whatever you buy today, HDCP (HD Content Protection) has the potential necessary to screw up everything and force you to buy new equipment if the next gen consoles demand it, or if you want to use your equipment to watch HDTV broadcast. Of course there is absolutely no benefit to you from HDCP, the manufacturers are just force feeding that crap to you. Someone will inevitably crack HDCP, probably in a few months, after which the net effect is that everyone pays for HDCP and everyone who wants to be rid of it pays for an adapter that removes the protection.
- The one thing you definitely can't do is to record any of this into a quality digital recording. Not that I'm particularly interested to, but today's technology should be able to do this with no fuss.

How the hell is this stuff so difficult? It shouldn't be. It really shouldn't.
Even Dreamcast had a plain, simple VGA output available via a simple adapter that got the pure signal out and cost only a few bucks. Why don't newer consoles do exactly that?
Just make a standard, digital connection with no crap like HDCP attached that makes it worse or more difficult to use. Since it's digital, make sure it's fast enough - make it "a little too fast", like Apple did with Firewire. Put that connection on all equipment. Just like we eventually got (admittedly a couple different) analog connections that you plug between TV, VCR, DVD player, amplifier, and everything just works. And just like we got USB2.0 and Firewire today, instead of a collection of different serial ports and proprietary connectors. I don't see USB devices asking each other secret passwords, or your printer negotiating with your digicam if you should be allowed to print something you photographed. Why do consumers tolerate any of this when it's about displays and video we have legitimately bought?
All the technology exists. And nothing works.

[autodata]

Yeah, consumer electronics totally suck. I learned long ago to just not think about it too much. It's difficult to find someone who both knows about consumer electronics and is smart (smart people have better stuff to worry about), but if you can find one be sure to make him a friend.