Filed under: Desktops, Hardware, Cult of Mac, iMac, Rig of the Week
Rig of the Day: My HDTV is bigger than yours
I have seemingly declared this week 'TV' week on the Rig of the Day, so I knew I couldn't post this one. Now, I know there isn't an actual Mac in this picture, but rest assured that big 91 inch screen is being powered by an Intel iMac. I wonder what movies from the iTunes Store would look like on that monster.
HTMAC2 by themer0vingian.
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![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
spil said 8:18PM on 9-13-2006
I didn't know you could get video out on an iMac.
That is one sweet setup, but with the iMac out of sight, how would the IR remote work? Point the romote bakwards?
Still, very nice.
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Query said 8:31PM on 9-13-2006
Holy crap. Me wants that setup. I feel like my iMac's 17" screen is too small, now-a-days, what with all these huge monitors and such.. May as well start saving now for an ACD and whatever other comp comes along once I save enough money to buy it. :-P
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jeremy Howerter said 8:25PM on 9-13-2006
clearly a projector....look at the ceiling.
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skeptical said 8:35PM on 9-13-2006
Looks like a photoshopped Dell monitor.....
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Dave Zatz said 7:58AM on 9-14-2006
"I wonder what movies from the iTunes Store would look like on that monster."
640x480.
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Justin said 8:48PM on 9-13-2006
LOL @ #5.
And yeah, what the hell is with TUAW and getting a pack o' Mentos over Apple's 640x480 res? Sure it's a welcome change, but frankly you can get high-res (as in, 1280x720 HD widescreen) versions of all of the iTunes Store content on good torrent sites - especially the membership ones. Free. THOSE would look good on that screen.
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Erwin said 8:50PM on 9-13-2006
How can you use something that big for anything other than movies. I mean it's got to be killer to play Warcraft on that thing
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Christopher Williams said 9:07PM on 9-13-2006
@ skeptical
It's definitely not a photoshopped Dell monitor, but a wall mounted projector display. I have one myself, although I don't have a Mac hooked up to it (yet anyways).
@ Erwin
I see where you're coming from, but let me assure you that anything at higher resolutions than TV (640 x 480) looks great. I have my Xbox and Xbox 360 as well as my digital cable with HD box hooked up to my 77" wall mounted projector display, and it rules.
Regular TV is rough, but EDTV and higher is great. Oh, and movies are as good as you might think. If you've got decent sound, it's like your own movie theater. I cannot overstate how much it rules.
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Mark said 9:27PM on 9-13-2006
Oh yeh....mine's a 110" screen. (sorry, kid at heart) :) Got a PC and Mac hooked up to it. Mainly use it for movies/sports/games though. #4 It's either a Draper or Stewart screen. Surprisingly, stadard res stuff doesn't look all that bad on them. It just depends on how good the scaler/processor is.
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Constance said 9:31PM on 9-13-2006
Now, who wants to leave their homes now? That's such a very beautiful HDTV.
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diulei said 10:17PM on 9-13-2006
Yea, 640x480...I don't know, doesn't seem all that great.
But who knows, maybe if no one told me and I had no DVD content next to it to compare I might not notice.
Great rig though!
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James Whited said 10:23PM on 9-13-2006
Um, wow, that dock is small, how can yu even tell what icon's are what that far across the room?
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diulei said 11:21PM on 9-13-2006
I would assume the owner hardly uses the dock...
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jonas said 2:24AM on 9-14-2006
HD-ready projector you mean?
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Mr Lizard said 2:49AM on 9-14-2006
I was also a bit miffed over the 640x480 resolution.
It's "near DVD" quality, which is fair enough, but it's still an almost square (e.g. 4:3) shape.
We can't buy TV shows off the iTunes Store here in the UK yet, but if they became available tommorow, would I buy the whole series of Lost?
Probably not. On my comparitively small 28" widescreen LCD, that's going to look awful, streched out to fill the wider viewing area.
On a DVD the content is encoded in 16:9, for a wide display.
I'm suprised, given all of their own displays are now wide, that Apple didn't change the resolution accordingly.
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Danny D said 5:17AM on 9-14-2006
You should maybe spend som more money on those sofas as well?
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eric e said 7:30AM on 9-14-2006
That's mine!
I haven't tried any of the 640x480 itunes videos on the screen yet, but when videos are below standard definition quality it does seem to come through.
The projector in the photo is a Infocus Screenplay 5000 connected to an imac in an office about 50 feet away via DVI. Screen is the Dalite Permwall Cinematte 91". Infrared controls are done through a hardwired Xantech IR repeater system (note the very small dot above the screen - thats the IR sensor).
And that dock... I have magnification turned all the way up and the dock scaled all the way down ;)
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Chris said 8:59AM on 9-14-2006
@ Mr Lizard
No sensible video player (iTunes, Front Row, VLC etc...) will distort a 4:3 image just to fill a 16:9 display - you'll just get vertical black stripes to either side.
It always used to amuse me when people forced their new widescreens TVs into 16:9 mode even when watching standard 4:3 broadcasts "because it's a widescreen TV!", somehow blind to the cars with oval wheels and the strangely fat people on screen.
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Brian Ashe said 9:56AM on 9-14-2006
My setup (sorry, no pics yet) is a 4:3 Epson projector running at 1024x768, 120 inches, driven by a PPC Mac Mini with Media Central. (Also our TiVo via an S-Video cable.) It's an older projector (710c) and is a bit light for daytime use (usable, but not for movies with lots of dark scenes) but it looks fine at night. The wall area it's projected onto is almost square so there's no reason to go widescreen--it's already as wide as can be, and then we gain height with 4:3 content.
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Bloggator said 10:16AM on 9-14-2006
[quote]It always used to amuse me when people forced their new widescreens TVs into 16:9 mode even when watching standard 4:3 broadcasts "because it's a widescreen TV!", somehow blind to the cars with oval wheels and the strangely fat people on screen.[/quote]
Actually, my wife likes to watch it that way so she can say, "Oh my goodness. Look at how much weight Jennifer Aniston's put on!" :-)
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