Questions on 2009 Mac Pro + 24-inch LED Display

[Zoowatch]

Hi all,

I have been following many posts here, and they have been great resources!

I am having questions about the 2009 Mac Pro and the 24-inch LED Display from Apple.

(1) Is the connection cable from the back of the LED display much shorter than the 30-inch ACD, so much so that the Mac Pro needs to be positioned on one's desk next to the display rather than somewhere underneath the desk? How long exactly does this cable measure?

(2) I assume that since the 24" LED Display comes with built-in iSight and microphone, it would come with IR receiver as well, right? Does that mean that I can use Apple Remote to control FrontRow without the need to buy another IR receiver?

(3) Desk is positioned in a way that direct sunlight always shine to it, almost for the whole day in the summer months, will the 24-inch perform better under bright light than the 30 ACD because of it being an LED display?

(4) On the 30-inch ACD, you have control buttons for brightness and a power button, which you can set it to switch the Display off and on while letting the Mac Pro run. I know that the 24" LED Display doesn't come with any button, but are you able to use the brightness button on the Apple keyboard to turn to the brightness down to the max, switching off the backlight almost completely (like in the case of MacBooks) and the display appears dark? How do users of the 24-inch display prolong the backlight brightness of this display without having that physical power button?

Thanks for your comments!

 

[Zoowatch]

More Questions

(5) I understand that BluRay require DRM compliant graphics card, video port and also compliant Display. If apple were to one day allow the playback of BluRay movies on Mac, then the 2009 Mac Pro graphics card would be alright but how about the 30-inch ACD? I seem to recall that the 24" ACD has the copy protection sort of verification techology built in so it should be okay with BluRay movie playback right? How about the 30" ACD, it seems that in order to license BR technology, the hardware must have some sort of DRM chip in it (a physical thing), so am I better off with the 24" LED in this aspect assuming that Apple would ever allow BR playback on Mac?

 

[Zoowatch]

Hi there.

I am not so sure about the built in IR receiver in the 24" LED display now, so I may not be able to use Front Row with Apple Remote + Mac Pro.

Anyway, no comment from those who are using 24" LED display with Mac Pro?thanks for you comments anyway.

 

[rbro]

I'd like answers to this as well. I hope the cord is long enough, because I don't have room for my Mac Pro on my desk!

 

[rbro]

Here's a relevant discussion:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1935642&start=15&tstart=0

 

[RobP]

Hi all,

I have been following many posts here, and they have been great resources!

I am having questions about the 2009 Mac Pro and the 24-inch LED Display from Apple.

(1) Is the connection cable from the back of the LED display much shorter than the 30-inch ACD, so much so that the Mac Pro needs to be positioned on one's desk next to the display rather than somewhere underneath the desk? How long exactly does this cable measure?

(2) I assume that since the 24" LED Display comes with built-in iSight and microphone, it would come with IR receiver as well, right? Does that mean that I can use Apple Remote to control FrontRow without the need to buy another IR receiver?

(3) Desk is positioned in a way that direct sunlight always shine to it, almost for the whole day in the summer months, will the 24-inch perform better under bright light than the 30 ACD because of it being an LED display?

(4) On the 30-inch ACD, you have control buttons for brightness and a power button, which you can set it to switch the Display off and on while letting the Mac Pro run. I know that the 24" LED Display doesn't come with any button, but are you able to use the brightness button on the Apple keyboard to turn to the brightness down to the max, switching off the backlight almost completely (like in the case of MacBooks) and the display appears dark? How do users of the 24-inch display prolong the backlight brightness of this display without having that physical power button?

Thanks for your comments!

(1) The cable is on the short side. Haven't measured it, but It is long enough to have my monitor on a desk and the Mac Pro on the ground with a set of drawers between the Mac Pro box and the monitor. In this position the cable is quite stretched.

(2) Alas, no IR receiver. Sigh. You'd think apple would put one in for full integration?

(3) I have a south facing window behind me and to my left, never had any problems being able to view the picture. In fact I have turned my monitor's brightness down as it is too bright when you get it.

(4) If I'm doing a long task and want to shut the screen down for the task I simply go to system prefs->Energy Saver and set Display Sleep to 1 minute duration.

Hope this helps.

RobP

 

[rbro]

Hey Rob,

Are you happy with your Mac Pro/Cinema Display combo overall? Any regrets?

 

[RobP]

Hey Rob,

Are you happy with your Mac Pro/Cinema Display combo overall? Any regrets?

In terms of the hardware, no regrets what so ever. The display is the best display that I have ever owned. The contrast and colours are just superb.

As for the Mac Pro, I upgraded from an old 2.16Ghz DUO PC and the difference in processing power both for work and games is very apparent.

My only issue with the setup is that my slipstreamed XP Pro would not work well under bootcamp, basically the drives were running in PIO mode instead of ultraDama which meant it was all but unusable. Got around this by buying Vista Premium and it works like a charm.

I guess the only downside with going to the Mac is that I seem to get a lot more frustrated with Windows when I have to use it!

RobP