Samsung USB Monitor?

[Fluff]

http://blogs.pcworld.com/digitalworld/archives/2007/02/samsung_goodbye.html

[TransformX]

Call me stupid, but how can USB sustain the bandwidth needed to watch a DVD movie?
A quick (and probably inaccurate) calculation says:
720 x 480 x 2 (16bit color) x 30 (frames / sec) / 1,000,000 = ~20MB/sec.

[az]

Heise online say they've watched a 720p MPEG-4 video on a single-core notebook with 1GB RAM through this USB connection without stutter.

Samsung say they compress the signal and only transmit changes between frames.

[TransformX]

I don't want to know what this would mean for a FPS or a RTS game. No graphic card, CPU doing everything in software plus compressing the 'frames'. Riiight.. this new technology is good for grandmas that play cards and use the web for emails.

[spadnos]

As far as bandwidth, USB2, or even FireWire800, are slow dogs compared to DVI. A single-link DVI connection transfers 495 MB/sec (yes, megabytes), dual-link is 990 MB/sec. That's 165MPixel/sec * 3 bytes/pixel for each link, in case anyone wants to check my math.

USB2 has a max cable length of 2 m (I think), I don't recall the DVI cable length spec, but I know there are good extenders for DVI, that can go 100 feet or more.

So what's the use of a USB monitor? Well, I don't know It isn't a bad thing per se, but I don't see a good use for it myself.

- Steve

[Rakido]

I don't want to know what this would mean for a FPS or a RTS game. No graphic card, CPU doing everything in software plus compressing the 'frames'. Riiight.. this new technology is good for grandmas that play cards and use the web for emails.

target group are business people mainly using office applications (according to the Heise link Az provided)

[TransformX]

I hope office applications doesn't mean large spereadshits or the like. When was the last time you tried to use windows with the built in, generic SVGA driver? I think that working high-res and simply dragging a window might bring this thing to its knees. Even worse if you happen to drag a video window. Now try that with 3 monitors connected.

[az]

This is not intended as a primary display; it can't even be used as that. It's not intended for games, and it could certainly be fast enough for large spreadsheets. Dual-Core CPUs should also be fast enough to do basic stuff in software without you noticing anything when using office apps - which this is intended for.

[Fluff]

This could be good for the finance industry too. Will it not eat into Matrox's multimonitor market?

Add a touch screen and could be good for kiosks.

[az]

Will it not eat into Matrox's multimonitor market?

Very probably.

Also great for notebooks that don't have proper monitor out, or for more than two screens on a notebook.

[Tjalfe]

I see no way of using such for a primary monitor, as it will only work after the driver has loaded, which means you will have an awfull hard time installng an OS without seeing anything on the screen

[Admiral]

I thought HDMI and UDI interfaces were supposed to replace DVI, not USB

[Kooldino]

I thought HDMI and UDI interfaces were supposed to replace DVI, not USB

^ I'm with stupid.

[VJ]

^ Ditto...

Weird development, but I do see uses for notebooks: a USB connector is more robust than a VGA or DVI connector when it needs to be plugged and unplugged frequently + extending the desktop could be more automated as plugging in the monitor triggers an event.
And even for multi monitor setups that don't need to be performent (i.e. most office environments!). Come to think of it, when you look at the traditional business PC, how many of those support multiple monitors on their video card? This allows for a very easy extension to those machines.

The oddest thing (if I'm not mistaken) is that the display is USB only... Why omit VGA or DVI and not just add the USB?
I do have my doubts if the interface is fast enough to handle fast moving objects, but for most uses I don't think there would be issues.

[az]

It won't have USB only. Drivers for it are on a built-in flash drive, so driver installation could be done blind in theory.

^ I'm with stupid.

That wasn't very nice.