Any plans for higher quality LCD screen?

[Mark77348]

I read that the Model S centre LCD screen resolution is 1080x1920.

Are there any plans to upgrade is to a higher pixel density? The iPad "Retina" and other devices these days display at "double density @x2" for extra clarity. To match that, the Model S screen would need to display 2160 x 3640 but still on the same physical size screen. In fact I read that the new iPad Pro is rumoured to be @x3. So that would equate to 3240x5760 on the Model S.

 

[scottm]

There's really no need for higher resolution for this application.

Personally, I doubt you'll see higher resolution. Unless those screens become cheaper to make than the old ones.

 

[DriveMe]

From its normal viewing distance, Tesla's LCD display is probably already "Retina" in Apple's terms. The Retina resolution concept is not about the total number of pixels on the screen and is not about the pixel density (pixels per inch), but is rather about the angular pixel density (pixels per degree). So, if you are sitting twice farther away from the screen (than you would from a laptop display), you can have twice lower pixel resolution and still achieve the Retina (angular) resolution. I think the present display resolution is quite adequate for the purpose. Most eyes won't be able to tell the difference without getting much closer to the screen.

 

[Derek Kessler]

The 17" 1920x1080 display in the Tesla Model S achieves a "retina" pixel density at just 27 inches away. Most drivers sit a little bit further than that from the screen, so they'll never have to worry about seeing too many pixels. This is compounded by the part where we're not exactly spending a lot of time _staring_ at the screen, and when we do we're not looking at tiny text or highly detailed imagery or videos where having extreme pixel density would be beneficial.

 

[scottm]

we're not looking at tiny text

Actually, quite often we are looking at text that is too small.

Tesla needs to plus size all the text ... there's plenty of real estate to do so... even within the given UI constraints we have today.

It's just that the designer kids are doing this on a computer monitor at their desks with everything in front of their faces all day... they have not yet gotten the idea of what at-a-glance usage of the UI needs to be while operating a car that is in motion.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Why do you need higher resolution? You can't see the individual pixels on the current screen anyway.

 

[lunitiks]

Perhaps someone has special usage of the mcu

 

[immolated]

It's already too laggy. Doubling the resolution exponentially increases GPU load.

 

[Mark77348]

From its normal viewing distance, Tesla's LCD display is probably already "Retina" in Apple's terms. The Retina resolution concept is not about the total number of pixels on the screen and is not about the pixel density (pixels per inch), but is rather about the angular pixel density (pixels per degree). So, if you are sitting twice farther away from the screen (than you would from a laptop display), you can have twice lower pixel resolution and still achieve the Retina (angular) resolution. I think the present display resolution is quite adequate for the purpose. Most eyes won't be able to tell the difference without getting much closer to the screen.

I understand what you are saying though if people are using the display as a web browser I would have thought by definition they would be using it from a distance similar to what they would use an iPad since they are tapping and swiping screen elements all the time. So that has to be at a maximum the length of person's arm, and some smaller Asian females would have arms that aren't as long as bigger men. I guess I had originally thought why didn't Tesla just go to the manufacture that made the iPad screens and purchase from them. I thought that by doing that they could benefit from the already existing high dpi, already existing gpu built in and theoretically already existing economies of scale and resulting lower cost per unit from the 360 million iPad screens already sold.

 

[DriveMe]

why didn't Tesla just go to the manufacture that made the iPad screens and purchase from them...

The Tesla screen is twice the size of that in the iPad. And 22% bigger than the one in the iPad Pro.

And as immolated correctly pointed out, rendering higher resolution graphics would require faster CPU and GPU - computing resources that would be better spent on the AutoPilot.

It's not like you would be spending much time browsing the Internet on the road. If a passenger wants to browse the Internet - you should just take an iPad with you!

 

[jelloslug]

Why do you need higher resolution? You can't see the individual pixels on the current screen anyway.

When I activate Autopilot, I tend to just lean forward and use my nose to work the center screen. I agree, the resolution could be higher....

 

[Derek Kessler]

I guess I had originally thought why didn't Tesla just go to the manufacture that made the iPad screens and purchase from them. I thought that by doing that they could benefit from the already existing high dpi, already existing gpu built in and theoretically already existing economies of scale and resulting lower cost per unit from the 360 million iPad screens already sold.

When Apple places an order for parts for iPhones or iPads, they do it at such scale that their contract suppliers often have to purchase new equipment simply to meet the quality and quantity demands of Apple. Sometimes Apple has even purchased the equipment for them, just so they could get the quality they wanted. Samsung ran into this frequently in the early days of trying to compete against the iPhone — they wanted to order the same parts, but couldn't because Apple had sucked up all the available capacity. And thus Samsung embarked on a great cross-conglomerate journey of building up huge manufacturing expertise and scale so that now they can rival and even exceed Apple's hardware chops.

Heck, Samsung was frequently Apple's supplier — their Exynos mobile chips are only as good as they are because they were and still are frequently contracted to build Apple's custom processors.


All of that said, the choice of using a 17" 1080p display in the Model S and X was a smart move on Tesla's part. The resolution is adequate for the size and use case of the display. But more importantly, it's a standard size and resolution that manufacturers are already producing for monitors. I don't know if it was an off-the shelf component (I suspect Tesla at the very least specced a brighter backlight because the screen has to compete with the sun). By going with the components they did, Tesla leveraged existing and unmonopolized manufacturing capacity and expertise while not spending too much on an adequate product.

And as immolated correctly pointed out, rendering higher resolution graphics would require faster CPU and GPU - computing resources that would be better spent on the AutoPilot.

The center screen is powered and processed entirely separately from Autopilot. Currently there's a pair of circa-2011 NVIDIA Tegra 3 processors powering the displays (one for the center screen, another for the instrument display), while a new Drive PX self-driving-specific processor is used for Autopilot 2.0 and up.

 

[Mark77348]

When Apple places an order for parts for iPhones or iPads, they do it at such scale that their contract suppliers often have to purchase new equipment simply to meet the quality and quantity demands of Apple. Sometimes Apple has even purchased the equipment for them, just so they could get the quality they wanted. Samsung ran into this frequently in the early days of trying to compete against the iPhone — they wanted to order the same parts, but couldn't because Apple had sucked up all the available capacity. And thus Samsung embarked on a great cross-conglomerate journey of building up huge manufacturing expertise and scale so that now they can rival and even exceed Apple's hardware chops.

Heck, Samsung was frequently Apple's supplier — their Exynos mobile chips are only as good as they are because they were and still are frequently contracted to build Apple's custom processors.


All of that said, the choice of using a 17" 1080p display in the Model S and X was a smart move on Tesla's part. The resolution is adequate for the size and use case of the display. But more importantly, it's a standard size and resolution that manufacturers are already producing for monitors. I don't know if it was an off-the shelf component (I suspect Tesla at the very least specced a brighter backlight because the screen has to compete with the sun). By going with the components they did, Tesla leveraged existing and unmonopolized manufacturing capacity and expertise while not spending too much on an adequate product.


The center screen is powered and processed entirely separately from Autopilot. Currently there's a pair of circa-2011 NVIDIA Tegra 3 processors powering the displays (one for the center screen, another for the instrument display), while a new Drive PX self-driving-specific processor is used for Autopilot 2.0 and up.

That's informative. Thank you.

 

[scottm]

That's informative. Thank you.

There's a button for that, you hit the little i-circle thingy on the post you find informative to upvote it.

Go ahead and try it anytime on any post you find informative, like this one,

 

[wayner]

I would agree that it would be nice to see Tesla do more to improve the quality of the hardware, such as maybe a slightly better or bigger screen with better "HDR" colours.

But even more than that they need to upgrade the software. Last fall EM promised that improvements in the browser were coming in December. And it would be nice if it would do stuff like store the last 30 minutes of the rear cam. And fix the Nav which is still very weak.