Widescreen monitors to adopt 1080p?

 

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By David Bayon

Posted on 11 Mar 2008 at 14:40

A Taiwanese LCD manufacturer claims to have produced the world's first 16:9 wide-aspect panel for desktop monitors.

AU Optronics (AUO) has announced its 1,920 x 1,080 MoniTV panel for 24in TFTs, claiming it will "lead the new trend" in widescreen desktop monitors.

Current 24in TFTs offer a standard 16:10 aspect ratio, with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200. While this is fine for desktop use it means 1080p high definition sources, such as Blu-ray players and games consoles, are either displayed with black bars at the top and bottom of the image or stretched to unnatural proportions to fill the screen.

AUO is banking on the large-format widescreen monitor increasingly becoming a hub for entertainment as well as work, and sees the IT industry gradually adopting the 1080p resolution of the consumer industry.

AUO also claims to have reduced the thickness of the new panel by more than 50%, and the power consumption by up to 50%, over a conventional 24in monitor. The picture shows the new 14mm MoniTV panel on the left, and a conventional 35mm panel on the right.

A full range of 16:9 MoniTV panels are in development, comprising 15in, 18.5in, 21.5in, 24in, 27in and 32in panels. The 27in model will arrive in Q4, with the rest coming to mass-market in Q2.