Setting up flat screen to work as imac screen extension

[RecordingMaster]

I have been looking into getting a 40" LED 1080p HDTV as main monitor (mounted on wall) and using my 27" iMac as my sidecar smaller monitor. But I would use it as an extension (not screen share where it's the exact same thing). So in PT (I'm on 10/11 now), I'd typically have the mix window on the larger screen and the edit view on the smaller one. Thing is, on my imac screen, I'd want stuff to fit it accordingly the way it is now, standard resolution (not giant old lady fonts), but on the larger screen, of course I'd want whatever is on it to be enlarged because it is further away and i want to see things bigger on it (the whole point of a larger monitor!!). Is that even possible?!

Since I already need to squint sometimes to see certain numerical values in PT on my current imac 27" right in front of me, it would make it impossible to see/work with if it were even further away from me (bigger screen or not). Like I don't want status bars and fonts and all that stuff to be exactly the same size on the big screen. It defeats the whole purpose. The mix window would be all tiny and rest of the screen would be blank!

How can I do this? I've seen pics all the time of studios (and other places) where what they see on their big screen is enlarged compared to what is being displayed on their smaller screen.

 

[TimOBrien]

Simple, you get the cheap Thunderbolt-to-HDMI adapter and plug the TV into it.

Osx is already set up to allow multiple displays.

 

[RecordingMaster]

Simple, you get the cheap Thunderbolt-to-HDMI adapter and plug the TV into it.

Osx is already set up to allow multiple displays.

Hi Tim, perhaps could I bother you to read my post and not just the title (I should rephrase the title)? I know I can do it (I do it now, with a 17" little auxiliary monitor). Long story short I want to extend my 27" imac screen onto a 40" LED HDTV 1080p, but have what displays on the TV look bigger, ie fonts, status bars, everything.

 

[Tadpui]

I guess that it depends on whether you can set individual resolutions on each of your multiple displays. If you have to pick one resolution and stick with it, I would go with a lower resolution so that everything appears larger (although less sharp/crisp). The drawback is that you can't fit as much stuff onscreen at once, which can be a pain with DAW software.

I'm in the Windows world and I'm running dual displays, where each display is of a different quality. I can set the resolution of each display individually, so my lesser monitor is at 900 vertical lines and my better display is at 1080 vertical lines. They're both the same size of display, but if one were much larger I could set it to a lower resolution and get a ginormous low-res desktop. Also there's probably a way to set the text size in Mac-land so higher resolution text can still be legible from a distance. No telling if that setting would translate to the objects in a DAW, but it'd be worth a try.

 

[Steenamaroo]

of course I'd want whatever is on it to be enlarged because it is further away and i want to see things bigger on it (the whole point of a larger monitor!!). Is that even possible?!

Your monitors should default to their highest or native resolution, but you can change them independently in system preferences.
Go in there and click displays then click 'gather windows'.
You should see a pane for each display. Each should have a separate list of available resolutions.

 

[Xcaliber]

Your monitors should default to their highest or native resolution, but you can change them independently in system preferences.
Go in there and click displays then click 'gather windows'.
You should see a pane for each display. Each should have a separate list of available resolutions.

This. You should be able to pick the resolutions for each display independently and a lower resolution will have the fonts show up bigger, etc.

If you're asking if you can have the high resolution, but make the fonts bigger the only way I know how to do that is using the "zoom" feature, which works like a magnifying glass. I don't think you can turn that on for only one display though.

 

[RecordingMaster]

Your monitors should default to their highest or native resolution, but you can change them independently in system preferences.
Go in there and click displays then click 'gather windows'.
You should see a pane for each display. Each should have a separate list of available resolutions.

Hmm, as always thank you Steen! Actually thanks to all that replied!

So are you saying that if I set my 27" imac monitor to 1920x1080 (1080p in 16:9 ratio) but then set my future 40" flatscreen to, say, 1280x720 (720p in 16:9 ratio), then stuff would appear bigger on the 40" (but less fidelity)?

If so, that should be fine because 720p on a 40" LED flatscreen should be more than readable from a distance of about 5' (about how far my head would be from it on the wall). In theory, since it is lower res but bigger and slightly farther away from my main mac screen, I'd probably need to squint for smaller texts just as much as I am already used to doing on the 27" right in front of me at high res (I hate wearing glasses while mixing - I leave them at work, it's just Astigmatism!), which is fine.

Hoping this is on the right path to logical thinking?

 

[Steenamaroo]

Yeah, I think that's pretty much it.

Xcaliber makes a good point about the zoom features. I've never tried but I don't think they can be set per-screen.

I have two identical screens set up right now. I just set one to 1280x1024 and the other to 640x480.
The latter is a bit cumbersome because they're only 19" 4:3 screens but, yeah, the font is much easier to read across the room.

 

[Xcaliber]

Let us know what you find RecordingMaster. I'm interested to see what solution works for you on this.

 

[Mo Facta]

I wonder if you can adjust the font sizes in System Preferences while using the HDTV at 1080p?

Never tried it before but you can do it in Windoze.

Cheers

 

[Mo Facta]

Oh, the other thing is, you can zoom in on any part of a Mac screen by holding CTRL and using the mouse wheel.

Cheers

 

[Xcaliber]

Oh, the other thing is, you can zoom in on any part of a Mac screen by holding CTRL and using the mouse wheel.

Cheers

I didn't know that. Good tip!

 

[Steenamaroo]

I wonder if you can adjust the font sizes in System Preferences while using the HDTV at 1080p?

Never tried it before but you can do it in Windoze.

Cheers

A far as I know, there's no global independent (per screen) control.
Depending what you're putting on each screen you might be able zoom within the program.
For example, you can adjust text size of any window in safari without affecting other windows. (cmd +/-)

Oh, the other thing is, you can zoom in on any part of a Mac screen by holding CTRL and using the mouse wheel.

Unfortunately this will zoom the two screens as one.
It's not a text/gui enlarger...It's literally a zoom. The extremities disappear of screen when you start zooming.
It's still a handy function, though.
It may be disabled by default. Look under sys pref/accessibility/zoom.

 

[RecordingMaster]

Yeah I do the zoom thing sometimes, but no I wouldn't have it perma-set for mixing like that. Got the flatscreen and adapter cables delivered today so i will have to see what's up. Won't have the chance to set it up for a week or two, but once I do, I will report back on my findings and how it worked/looked for PT10/11.