The new Gateway FPD2185W is a really nice 21" widescreen (16:10 ratio) high definition HDTV/computer monitor with a retail price of $599.99. It allows one to connect up to 5 video sources at once and switch between them; it has one each of DVI/HDCP, VGA, Component Video (YCbCr/YPbPr), Composite RCA, and S-Video ports. The monitor allows picture in picture between any two of the ports.

I quickly discovered one important thing about this monitor. You really need to have a video card that supports the monitor's native 1680x1050 resolution or one of the other resolutions listed in the manual (1680x1050, 1440x900, 1152x864, etc). Something like a cheap nVidia GeForce4 MX400 works fine. The monitor seems to automatically scale the image to fit the screen. At lower resolutions the auto-scaling in the monitor causes irritating color bleeding and smudging of the picture. Interestingly, I've noticed that my HDTV box runs the monitor at 1920x540 at 60 Hz (with the 1080i HDTV setting).

The monitor also has proprietary Windows-only software which claims to rotate the desktop when the monitor is rotated from landscape into the portrait configuration. It would be really nice if one could read the rotation sensor and do the same on Linux using xrandr (X resize and rotate). I was unable to find any sensors listed on the USB port. So maybe the signal is sent down the cable via the DDC line? I haven't a clue.

The monitor even supports the insane, pointless, trivially defeatable, extraordinarily inconvenient, and surprisingly expensive HDCP copy-prevention specification required by certain high definition video equipment and future PCs that will be running Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system.

Labels: technology