The 86-Inch LG Ultra Stretch: A Digital Signage Marvel

As we gazed upon the 86-inch LG Ultra Stretch, it became apparent that this behemoth of a display was so wide that it rendered ultra-wide monitors looking decidedly square by comparison. With its staggering dimensions and modest specifications, it seemed like this particular model was more suited for digital signage than gaming. The vertical pixel count of just 600 pixels added to the sense that this was not a device designed with the enthusiast gamer in mind.

Despite the initial reservations about the display's capabilities, our curiosity got the better of us. We knew we had to try it out and explore its potential as a widescreen gaming solution. Widescreen gaming has historically been challenging, particularly when considering aspect ratios beyond the standard 16:9. The question on everyone's mind was how games would adapt to this new, wider format.

In some cases, the results were disastrous, with images stretched thin and pixelated beyond recognition. However, in other instances, we found that surprisingly well. The high-fidelity graphics displayed on screen seemed almost... surreal. It was as if the display had somehow managed to defy the laws of physics, preserving the image's clarity despite its enormous size.

We were shocked by how many games, even those from 20 years ago, could handle this aspect ratio with relatively clear and unstretched pictures. This phenomenon led us to wonder: what other secrets lay hidden in the world of digital signage? Our journey into the realm of ultra-wide gaming had only just begun.

In preparation for our exploration, we wanted to acknowledge a generous sponsor who had graciously provided us with their support. War Thunder, an immersive vehicle combat experience, offered us a wealth of true-to-life war machines to control and wreak havoc with. As we delved deeper into the world of ultra-wide gaming, it was clear that this display's limitations were matched only by its potential.

The setup itself was truly remarkable. Our hosts had managed to craft an impressive array of equipment, including a desk pad as wide as 86 inches (and built-in keyboard). This setup allowed us to showcase just how vast the LG Ultra Stretch truly was. It was a testament to human ingenuity and creativity that such a feat could be achieved.

A special thank you is owed to Pikatea, whose personal prototype of this display had been gifted to us. With its pixel count of 3840 by 600, it represented a tiny slice of a 4K display, making the LG Ultra Stretch an even more unusual piece of digital signage. As we explored its capabilities, we couldn't help but wonder what other secrets lay hidden within this extraordinary device.

The art of displaying content has always been about balance and proportion. What makes a display truly exceptional is not just its technical specifications but also how it presents the image to the viewer. In the case of the LG Ultra Stretch, it was clear that this display's unique characteristics were as much a part of its charm as its technical prowess.

As we continued our journey into the world of ultra-wide gaming, one thing became evident: there was still so much to be discovered. This display's limitations had been matched only by its potential for innovation and creativity. The 86-inch LG Ultra Stretch would forever hold a special place in the annals of digital signage history as a device that pushed the boundaries of what was thought possible.

But our journey was far from over. As we looked to the future, one thing became clear: ultra-wide gaming was no longer a fringe activity but an increasingly viable option for those seeking to explore new horizons. The 86-inch LG Ultra Stretch may have started as a curiosity, but it had evolved into something much more: a gateway to new worlds and experiences that would forever change the way we interact with our screens.

In conclusion, the 86-inch LG Ultra Stretch was an extraordinary device that defied expectations in many ways. Its unique combination of size, technical specifications, and design made it a true marvel of digital signage. As we looked back on our journey, it became clear that this display had opened up new avenues for exploration and innovation, offering us a glimpse into the vast possibilities that lay hidden within the world of ultra-wide gaming.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enThis 86-inch LG Ultra Stretch is so widethat it makes so-called ultra-wide monitorslook downright square by comparison.With just 600 vertical pixels, no support for HDR,and a pedestrian 60 Hertz refresh rate,it's meant more for digital signage than for gaming.But when we saw this on Facebook Marketplace,we knew we had to try it anyway.Widescreen gaming was particularly challengingin the early days, but...Even now, some games struggle beyond the standard widescreen aspectratio of 16:9.So, you must be asking yourself, how are they gonna handlesomething that is 3.6 times wider?Look at that high fidelity graphics there.Wow.As you just saw, in some cases, disastrously, but in other cases,surprisingly well.And a shocking number of games, even ones that are older than thelast 5, 10......or even 20 years, were able to handle this aspect ratio with arelatively clear, unstretched picture.Like this relatively clear and unstretched segue to our sponsor.War Thunder. Experience pure vehicle combat immersion thanks toover 2,000 true-to-life war machines to control and wreak havoc with.Click the link below to score some bonus items too.First up, I just want to say you guys outdid yourselves with thesetup here.We wanted to illustrate just how wide this thing was and Tanner notonly grabbed...the widest desk pad available at LTTStore.com, but also built akeyboard.Oh no, I didn't build this. This was built by... I forget the guy'sname. The company name is Pikatea.He did a limited run of these and actually sent us his personalprototype.At a pixel count of 3840 by 600, it's a little over one quarter ofa slice of a 4K display,making this a very unusual piece of digital signage.But what makes a display \"signage\" instead of a...\"TV\" or a \"monitor\"?Well, for one thing, the price.Instead of costing in the 30 to 40 cents per square inchrange, like a basic monitor or a TV,this costs over $3.50 per square inch.That's about eight times more.So while the actual screen area of this is less than thatof a commodity 55-inch TV, it costs 4,000 US dollars.Now...I could tell you that, oh, but that's because they use a specialpanel technology or exotic screen coatings or something like that.but unfortunately, that would be a lie. It uses the same fundamental IPSpanel tech that you've seen from LG Display for decades with, at most, some moreresilient driving electronics in order to handle a heavier duty cycle and,probably more importantly, a warranty that covers commercial use.So why does it cost so much?Well, there's the warranty support, but also a handful of featuresthat provide meaningful value to businesses, but that consumers don'tnecessarily need, so LG can hold them ransom if you don't pay the signage tax,like the robust support for picture-by-picture, picture-in-picture, the supportfor control over serial, control over network, various signage networkprotocols, and support for both DisplayPort input and DisplayPort passthrough.That last feature pairs really well with Simplink, which is aprotocol for connecting you directly to the wallet of your audience on Twitch.I'm just kidding. Simplink is pretty much CEC and allows multipledaisy-chained displays to be controlled with a single remote.Oh, and I would say the software is another area of improvement.Would you look at that? The same webOS you know and love, exceptcompletely devoid of ads.It's got other cool stuff too, like input failover,the ability to export and import settingsso that if you need to reset the device,you don't have to fool aroundand tediously adjust every setting in every sub menu.And it can even send you an email if something goes wrong.So if all that sounds greatand you really want one of these,we're gonna have it linked below like we always do,but enough chit chat, let's see how it games.Oh my God, the ergonomics of this setup are not great.It's a lot of blank space.I went into the display modes'cause I was noticing there was a lot of motion blur.Yeah.And I was thinking, oh, is there a gaming mode?No, but if I need transportation modeor a government mode or mall mode,those are conveniently available for me.I like transportation mode.Let's do it.Makes it look like you're on a bus.That didn't change much, it's a little warmer.I gotta say this pixel density, not great.Nope.It's not fantastic.You can really make out the individual pixels.'Cause this would be equivalent to probably what?Like a 75, 86 inch TV if it wasn't just all long?No, no.No, no, because 86 inches corner to corner,84 times whatever,16 divided by nine times 84,a number.Pixels per inch is 46.So what's a 27 inch 1080p monitor?81.81.Ah, and that's already at the lower endof what I would want to use for desktop use.Okay, well that explains it.That's not even as distortedas I kind of thought it would be.He looks so lonely though.There's no doubt that when you're this close to itand you're focused on what would be the normal sizeof a monitor, it not only looks fine,but it actually is a little bit more immersive.However.When you withdraw a little bit and pay attentionto just how distorted things gettoward the edge of the frame.Look at my buddy here.I'm doing battle next to wide Putin.Did you see that scoping?Actually kind of immersive.Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, get, get, get out of here.Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.Overall, I think the most remarkable thing about this gameis how unremarkable the process was to get it working.I launched it and it immediately worked.Is it providing a great gaming experience?No, not really, but the problems that I'm havingare mostly related to its mediocre specs.I mean, 60 Hertz, slow pixel response times,not to mention that this menu right nowis about 600 by approximately 1,000 or 1,100 pixels.You can barely read the text.The widescreen element of it in gameshas held up pretty well, but that wasn't always the case.Even though widescreen displays became readily availablein the latter half of the 1990s, due to their price,they failed to reach any kind of mainstream acceptancefor, well, quite a few years,and game support over those years has been spotty at best.Fun trivia fact, by the way,legendary developer John Carmackis known for using the Intergraph Interview 28HD96,a $10,000, 100-pound 16:9 CRT that he purchased in 1996 to work onQuake II,which ended up looking pretty decent on our 58:9 display.Is it because it was designed for a widescreen?Yes, but also no.It's definitely stretched, but...If it were only designed for 4:3 and 16:9, the image would be farmore stretched than it is.Instead, the game renders in a scalable manner, so it doesn'treally care what resolution you run at.And this approach probably seems like common sense today, but manyolder games were designedwith a fixed aspect ratio and, well, didn't do so well.\"Do, do, do, do, do, do... do, do, do, do, do...\"\"Do, do, do...\"Damn it.I believe I was expected to notice something.Yeah, you're also expected to get further into the game.Hey, hey, hey, hey, look, look, I...Oh, oh, no way.Whoa, what?This is a standard ROM.It's the emulator itself that's doing things differently.Okay, when the enemies start just appearing out of nowhere,six feet in front of you,and you're not expecting it as much.Okay, so it's just cachingwhatever the last thing we saw was statically then.It's not actually dynamically updating anythingthat's going on on the left,on the non-focused parts of the window.And you can actually get a good ideaof when the sprites are actually being renderedand kind of how everything is laid out this way.And it actually numbers the total,what like background draws or like scenes,or now we've got the entire level stretched out behind us.And this NES emulator shows the issueof converting 2D tile-based graphics to widescreen.The picture is going to get rendered as a whole picture with thesprite images being stored in the character memoryand the level layout being stored on the program memory.In order to change the size of the view, the entire process needsto be changedto accommodate for this new size. When you've only got 32 kilobytesof program memory,8 kilobytes of character memory, and just 2 kilobytes of RAM,keeping size down is absolutely critical. You can'tAdd in code to make it widescreen if that would mean removing alevel or a feature. So the easiest way to convert a 2D game to run in this superwide aspect ratio is to just fake it. This is not in fact the original SuperMario Brothers, but rather a complete remake that is being rendered in our webbrowser and doesn't use emulation or even sprites. Instead, everything thatyou're looking at is a scalable vector. So.I'm sorry, but you can't just throw any old ROM at this thing andsee the whole level. Now that doesn't mean that it's impossible to adapt realold 2D games to widescreen. It's just... harder.Anyway, there's a ROM hack of Super Mario World for the SuperNintendo made for 16:9 that successfully injects code for widescreen support,but such a change would need to be done for every game individually or your onlyoption would be to stretch.Thankfully, during the shift from 2D to 3D, scalable rendering likewe saw in Quake 2 became the norm, even in places where the resolution wasexpected to remain constant.Take the PSP, for example. While later models do have a TV outfeature, the launch model could only play games on its own screen so there wastechnically no need for the developers of early titles like Ridge Racer to maketheir graphics scalable to any aspect ratio, but thanks to the power ofemulators.We should be able to get it rendering in 58 by nine anyway.So we've got our PSP emulator open here and--I have never used a PSP emulator.They have some fun featuresand they can just do full screen like this.How do I even line up which thing I'm changing?Yardstick maybe?Oh.Oh yeah, there you go.Okay, V-sync.Okay, do we want that on?And now you'll see that the car looks correct.Yeah.Everything else looks wrong, but the car looks correct.And that's the difference between 2D and 3D there.So any asset that is just built at a fixed pixel countis gonna look terrible.And anything that was built using scalable graphicsactually is gonna look, I mean, overall, it looks shot.That speedometer though.Overall, this is not nearly as horribleas I would have expected though.Bomberman would be amazing on this.I think we are going to cover the history of Bombermanand Ultra Wide Screen in the Floatplane exclusive.LMG.GG/Floatplane.You see we've got a couple different cheats here.We've got PSP 16x9, Ultra Wide, Super Wide,and then I've added my own Stupid Wide here.Yeah.Go to actually edit cheat file here.Yeah.We can see we've got a couple different cheats here.Now, the first part is the section in memorywe want to change.So in this case, this memory holds.just the aspect ratio.Oh, very cool.The second number is a hexadecimalof the aspect ratio itself.So in our case, we've got 6.4 because it's 58 divided by nine.Yep.That's basically how this and a bunch of other consolesjust handle aspect ratio.It's one spot in memory.It's the result of dividing the big by the little,the width by the height.Anyway, the point is for years,the PC side of things was full of similarhalf implementations of scalable graphics.And while many modern games have been designedin anticipation of weird resolutions,like on a Microsoft Surface or on one of these,older titles are full of issues during the transition yearsfrom square to wider displays,issues that will obviously be hilariously exaggeratedon this thing.Oh no.It's a good thing the doors in this hospitalare super wide, otherwise I would have no hopeof fitting through them.Oh my God, this car.It looks like six people are sitting abreast here.\"Hitman: Blood Money\" supports widescreen,but you would never know itfrom the ultra cinematic view of the cut scenes.Nor would you know it from the configuration menu.The issue in this case, and in many,is that the developer just couldn't be arsedto expose the option to the user.So it supports the resolution,but there's actually nowhere to change it in this menu.And this isn't because it was necessarilya ton of extra work to add those options,but it's because any added features.It's gonna add development and testing time,both of which cost money.And money is a thing that the corporate overlordsare not quick to spend unless they absolutely have to.So in the early days of widescreen,it basically came down to how many peopleare gonna be using one like this?Enough to bother?Oh, well then forget it.I also couldn't help noticing that this particular gameappears to be a vertical minus game.Rather than a horizontal plus game.Even though everything is rendered proportionally accurately,we can't see for sh*t.We just have a slice of about a third to a quarter of what weshould be able to see.Before you ask, by the way, yes, there is a configuration menuoutside of the game,but as you can see, that's not gonna help us.No. To get help, we're gonna need a site like Widescreen GamingForum..They were a godsend back in the day, and while they're kinda deadnow, they were an invaluable resource for hacking your way into widescreengaming bliss.Sometimes literally.Lara Croft in The Guardian of Light is an excellent example ofthis.A registry edit might not be a \"hack\" in the literal sense, but assomeone who went through the frustration of trying to get my beloved older gamesworking on my new widescreen gaming monitor,it definitely \"feels\" a little like hacking the Gibson when youfinally see everything load up and you're like, \"aww yeah!\"And the same goes for the classic .ini edit.Many games have a configuration file that tells the game which in-game settings to use by default.For games that had engine level support, but just didn't expose theoption for a widescreen resolution in the menu,this was often, not only, the only solution, but also apretty easy one.And fun fact, by the way,if you ever accidentally configure your game settingson a modern game, just ignoring the whole widescreen thing,into an unusable state,say you turned on DirectX 12 combined withsome other setting that I still haven't figured outin Anno 1800, well, you can go into the .ini fileand fix it, launch the game again,and then go back to your trial and error.Now, not all of these hacks were so notactually hack. And in fact, some games like Lara Croft and theTemple of Osiris required theuser to replace the executable itself with a modified one,hopefully downloaded from a trustedsource in order to add widescreen functionality. That threshold oftrust was up to you to decide.And I think 2024 me probably would have told 2007 me to be a bitmore prudent.I also would have told myselfthat sometimes it is just plain not worth it.See, there are two possible waysfor a game to scale your viewwhen trying to accommodate a super wide monitor.It can extend the horizontal viewlike we saw with our racing games.And actually it looks like Temple of Osirisextends horizontally.Or if the engine doesn't support itor the game's own implementation doesn't support it,it can just shrink your vertical viewto match your aspect ratiolike we saw in Hitman: Blood Money.Oh, apparently we get to play another game like that now.Oh boy, this doesn't seem like the kind of gamethat should do that.Yep, that's definitely a problem.I mean, obviously there's an argument againstjust seeing an endless expanse of waterto the side of this island that we're all fighting over.But on the other hand,I can't even see the context of anything below me.I can't zoom out.That's maximum zoom.This isn't only a problem in games either.There are folks out therewho have started collecting DVDs again,just so they can see visual gags that were lostwhen their favorite shows went widescreenfor online streaming,like that famous Duff beer gag on \"The Simpsons.\"I think \"Seinfeld\" has some really bad ones as well.Here's what I'm talking about,the episode called \"The Pothole.\"You can't see \"The Pothole\"if you watch \"Seinfeld\" on Netflix.As bad of an experience as this isin your TV shows or games though,it can be even worse.In a game menu.Now, this is an issue that is obviously accidentaland honestly doesn't come up that often,but with this particular display being only 600 pixels tall,the fact that menus have a minimum heightin order to be usable is something not to be overlooked.Borderlands, in fact, plays just fineonce you can get into the game,but in order to do that,well, you're going to have to, I don't know.Look at this.See, I can't move my mouse above options.So I just need to, ah, yes.Use the keyboard to navigateand either have a picture for referenceor have memorized how many clicks.Maybe that one.Ah.Oh no.A common but thankfully less game-breakingwidescreen implementation issue is aspect-locked FMV videos.These show up in games where otherwisethe support is perfectly fineand the game is perfectly playable,but you reach a point in the storywhere it's time for a little bit of exposition or dialogue,and all of a sudden, either the aspect ratio shrinksto 16:9 or, heaven forbid, 4:3,or, worse than that,it takes a pre-baked scene and then just stretches it across yourentire screen.Thankfully, all it really does is break immersion, and it'simproved a lot in recent years,but it does still show up quite a lot.Of course, just because a game supports any resolution and avoidsthe dreadedvert-minus-view syndrome doesn't mean that it's going to be withoutissues.Parkitect, for example, looks great. Very playable, except, oh mygoodness,my UI is so far away that I'm having difficulty reading it.It's playable, it's not the end of the world,but when HUD and UI elements are anchoredto the sides of the screen,they can end up so far out of viewthat in order to see them,you have to completely take your eyes off the actionin the middle of the screen.And while it might seem impossiblefor anyone in their right mindto be using a 58 by nine monitor,in fact, NVIDIA Surround and iFinity setupsusing three 16 by nine monitors arepretty common and they form a view that is awfully similar to oursjust withbezels down the middle. One iFinity League of Legends modder wentso far as to build a tool thatmoves the HUD over from the sides of the screen and then resizes itto the user's liking. The toolhas been long abandoned but it was a great idea and a feature thatreally should be baked intomore games. There are a number of hacky tools that gamers have usedover the years to fixwidescreen issues like custom resolution utility but there are toomany for us to demonstrate allof them today.Fortunately, it's far less of a problem these daysand most games won't outright breakif you try to launch them on weird resolution monitors.But it's obvious from a game design standpointthat it's just not possible to offer a perfect experienceat every display size and shape.Oh, here's an example.On the first level of this game,you've got the farmer, right?Yeah.Or the gardener.And there's a lot of times where the camera wantsto attach the gardener and it can actually movethe goose outside of the view of the camera.It doesn't really cause any major issues,but you end up moving the goose aroundwithout it being on screen,which can become very confusing very quickly.It's clear that there's just gamesthat aren't gonna benefit from a super wide monitorand are gonna look kind of silly if you have one.Yeah, I don't think I would choosean ultra, ultra, ultra wide monitor to play this game.You're not always given the choice.Some modern games don't support ultra wide resolutionsfor gameplay reasons.Starcraft 2 isn't the most recent example,but it's a very famous one of a gamethat supports various aspect ratios and resolutions,but no wider than 16 by ninein order to prevent owners of ultra wide monitorsfrom getting a greater view of the battlefield,giving them a competitive advantage.This has been a source of considerable frustrationfor owners who are sick of looking at blank spaceson the edges of their match,especially when other competitive Blizzard gamesdo support the feature.So in summary, monitors and TVs,they're probably wide enough at this point.And even for digital signage,we honestly had a hard time coming upwith any use for this thing.We were thinking maybe like a menufor the concession at the badminton center or something,but like it's so skinny and the resolution sucks.So wanna buy the widest monitor?No?How about something from our sponsor?War Thunder. What could be more satisfying than watching largevehicles get destroyed in a video game?Maybe watching over 2,000 vehicles get destroyed?War Thunder is a free-to-play PvP with a focus on realism.The combat is immersive, with every tank, plane, and ship beingmodeled after their real counterparts,right down to how it feels to pilot them and the sounds they make.There's a game mode for everyone, from the casual to the mosthardcore players.One of the cooler features is the damage x-ray view.When you destroy an enemy vehicle, you can see where the damage wasdone,how it affected the vehicle, and what ultimately led to yourvictory,making strategizing for the next time easier.So join over 70 million players from around the worldand start playing War Thunder free today at the link below.If you guys enjoyed this video, maybe check out our video on theSamsung Odyssey Arc.It is absolutely huge and maybe somehow less impractical than thismonitor.What are we doing with this thing?Okay, it's for sale.\n"