Extending your mac screen

[matthewgla]

Im looking to extend my mac screen. I have a 40inch flat screen linked to my mac. I work on film editing and the application screen I use STILL dont fit on there. I want to extend the screen in some way. Have a scroller on so I can fit more on the desktop if possible. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

What editing application do you use then?
What about a 27" display with 2560 x 1440 pixel or a 30" display with 2560 x 1600 pixel?

I do not know about such pan & scroll feature though, but I have had experienced it on my iBook once or twice, but I do not know how or why anymore.

 

[Comeagain?]

Are you mirroring your desktop, or do they appear as separate displays? You'll want to have them as separate displays so your mac can fully use the resolution available to you, instead of using only the smaller of the two resolution available.

 

[matthewgla]

I use Final Cut Pro and its kinda squashed even wihen using a 40 inch display. I have my screens mirrored not extended and my resolution as high as it will go. Just saw someone using some sort of screen scroller on a YouTube video and thought how cool that must be to fit everything you need on a scrolling desktop. My Final cut uses about six application windows not counting the tool bar. Any ideas?

 

[heehee]

I use Final Cut Pro and its kinda squashed even wihen using a 40 inch display. I have my screens mirrored not extended and my resolution as high as it will go. Just saw someone using some sort of screen scroller on a YouTube video and thought how cool that must be to fit everything you need on a scrolling desktop. My Final cut uses about six application windows not counting the tool bar. Any ideas?

I believe a Apple laptop screen has a 16:10 ratio, where as a typical TV has a 16:9 ratio. You should try extending your screens and not mirrored.

Also, a TV has a much lower resolution than a 27" Monitor. A HDTV has 1920 x 1080 pixels, where as a 27" has 2560 x 1440 pixels.

Hooking up a computer to TV for movies and Youtube is fine, but I wouldn't want to use it for applications.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I use Final Cut Pro and its kinda squashed even wihen using a 40 inch display. I have my screens mirrored not extended and my resolution as high as it will go. Just saw someone using some sort of screen scroller on a YouTube video and thought how cool that must be to fit everything you need on a scrolling desktop. My Final cut uses about six application windows not counting the tool bar. Any ideas?

What Mac do you have then? And if you use FCP professionally, a dedicated computer display is much better than an oversized TV.

 

[matthewgla]

I have a 2009 pro. 250 gb hdd and 8gb ram. I couldn't afford a computer screen right now but I don't believe this will make much difference to the space. There is a lot of space I just need more. I've seen screen strollers but I guess these operate on pc's. thought this sort of request might have been common.

 

[samiwas]

I use Final Cut Pro and its kinda squashed even wihen using a 40 inch display. I have my screens mirrored not extended and my resolution as high as it will go. Just saw someone using some sort of screen scroller on a YouTube video and thought how cool that must be to fit everything you need on a scrolling desktop. My Final cut uses about six application windows not counting the tool bar. Any ideas?

This is your problem. Do not have them mirrored and you gain a lot more space.

But I'm a little confused, you say you have your screens mirrored, but then say you have a 2009 pro. Do you have a Pro, or a MacBook Pro? If you have a MacBook Pro, don't mirror the screens. You can then put all of your content browsers, timeline, effects windows, etc. on your macbook screen, and the viewer and canvas on the monitor.

When I used to do some video editing this is what I would do. Working on a single 1920x1080 space would get crowded in my world.

 

[matthewgla]

This is your problem. Do not have them mirrored and you gain a lot more space.

But I'm a little confused, you say you have your screens mirrored, but then say you have a 2009 pro. Do you have a Pro, or a MacBook Pro? If you have a MacBook Pro, don't mirror the screens. You can then put all of your content browsers, timeline, effects windows, etc. on your macbook screen, and the viewer and canvas on the monitor.

When I used to do some video editing this is what I would do. Working on a single 1920x1080 space would get crowded in my world.

1600 x 900 resolution gives me a bad colour offset on my screen though. Max i can get to is 1280 x 768 for best colour results.
tried changing the colour profile to custom and that didnt work either.
Im using a flat screen signia with 60Hz.
Ive tried playing with the settings for brightness, contracts etc but cannot get it looking like the lower resolution.
this is really frustrating as I used a television as my monitor before I immigrated and it worked like a charm.
lost.
this is why i wanted to extend my screen. would solve all my problems.
could try extending to my macbook monitor but its too small for what i need. 40inch screen next to a 15inch macbook doesnt work well.

 

[samiwas]

1600 x 900 resolution gives me a bad colour offset on my screen though. Max i can get to is 1280 x 768 for best colour results.
tried changing the colour profile to custom and that didnt work either.
Im using a flat screen signia with 60Hz.
Ive tried playing with the settings for brightness, contracts etc but cannot get it looking like the lower resolution.
this is really frustrating as I used a television as my monitor before I immigrated and it worked like a charm.
lost.
this is why i wanted to extend my screen. would solve all my problems.
could try extending to my macbook monitor but its too small for what i need. 40inch screen next to a 15inch macbook doesnt work well.

Set your 40" monitor at 1280x768, and leave your Macbook monitor at its default resolution (1600x900). You are correct in that the external will freak out if you try to send it 1600x900. And if you keep mirroring, then you will have to accept a lower resolution on your MacBook. Do not do mirroring.

Before I bought an iMac, I worked almost exclusively on a 17" Macbook Pro with an external 23" display (sometimes used bigger displays, up to 100" projection). The size of the external doesn't matter as much as the resolution. I would put each of the displays at native resolution and not mirror them. Toolbars, pallets, etc would go on the macbook screen and the main working windows would go on the big monitor.

Now that I have a 27" iMac, I use it with two external 23" monitors. All three are different sizes and resolutions. It all works out.

If you do that setup, without mirroring on your MBP and 40", you'll have 1280x768 PLUS 1600x900 instead of just one. Much more real estate. I don't know of any solution that allows a huge desktop that you can then scroll around. I would also think that would drive me absolutely insane.