Cheap 4k-ish displays on Ebay

[Steven Veldkamp]

Just wondering if anyone has ever used those old 4k IBMs to display Red 4k footage? They usually go for sub 1000$ prices.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_nkw=ibm+t221

[Tom Lowe]

How would you drive the signal to it?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Those monitors were discontinued like 8 years ago, IIRC. Hitachi made the panel and while they had nice resolution, everything else about them was crap. The response time is terribly slow, the internal processing runs them as 4 1920x1200 segments and it's near impossible to keep all 4 inputs in perfect sync for a full display. They top out at 48Hz and the list of "do not want" continues from there. They were sold under IBM, ViewSonic and SGI labels.

Anyway, they're a relic of a time when high-density pixels looked like the future, but for some reason it didn't catch on. Mostly because video cards at the time just couldn't drive the resolutions with decent performance, so people didn't buy into them. There was also a 2400x1600 predecessor to this display, also using a Hitachi panel and sold under the same SGI, ViewSonic and IBM labels. The quality-control was abysmal on that model with most of them having a yellow tint and the screen was made by joining two 2400x800 panels and the yellow tint didn't match between top and bottom on many of them.


...I wouldn't give you $100 for one of these T221 displays, even if it had the proper adapters to hook it up to DVI thrown in. Maybe because I used to own one and found it terrible to actually work on.

They make awesome monitors for CCTV and security systems though where you might want multiple HD feeds on a 22" monitor.

[Marc Wielage]

I would also think there would be significant issues with burn-in, colorimetry, black detail, gray scale performance, and the ability to calibrate the displays.

[Steven Veldkamp]

One shouldn't expect much from an 8 year old LCD display in terms of picture quality i suppose. But looking at the video below I'd say it doesn't look that bad. Gonna give it a shot. :- )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61dtBnb-bgU