85-inch screen towers over 3 Cinema Displays under glass [Setups]

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This custom-made desk and screen setup is mind-boggling.
This custom-made desk and screen setup is mind-boggling.
Photo: ZombiePhysicist@forum.macrumors.com

Occasionally a computer setup crops up that just makes you say, “WTF?” That’s what a colleague said about a DIY extravaganza he came across in which three 30-inch Cinema Displays were mounted under glass inside a desk.

The Cinema Display imagery shows up on a mammoth 85-inch screen above — all in a huge, homemade desk assembly. WTF, indeed.

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DIY project mounts 3 Cinema Displays under glass projecting on 85-inch screen in custom-desk setup

User ZombiePhysicist (“ZP”) posted an image, a description and links on forums.macrumors.com. He’s overhauling an office but elected not to show the whole thing. Instead, he showed the desk, which he said he built from his own design.

“So the desk is my own design and if you look closely there are three 30″ cinema displays built into the desk (about 4 megapixels each) and the big screen is an 8k 60hz 85″ display (about 33 megapixels). So about 55 megapixel display. Honestly, this is the first time in my entire computing history when I have ‘enough; screen real-estate,” he said.

He noted the custom-made desk has some conduits for routing cables.

“More of an engineering feat than it seems,” he said. “Has USB3, firewire, ethernet, telephone (yes, old telephone) … and several outlets built in and hidden. My KEF speakers are still boxed up so not out right now. Too many to-dos.”

How does he use the displays?

ZP pointed out that the displays under glass in the desk have been “ultra useful.”

“I always have my multiple finder windows on the middle screen that nothing ever covers them,” he said. “Then I have notes, contacts, to dos, stocks [and] some control panels on the lower screens, again that never get obscured. The screens are tilted at just the perfect angle.”

And the 85-inch behemoth of a screen up top can move, too.

“The big 85″ screen is on these massive brackets and actually can tilt and swing out and move around,” he noted.

‘Massive productivity boost’

The main result of this considerable DIY project, according to ZP, is a “massive productivity boost,” thanks mainly to the giant 8K screen showing what’s on his three Cinema Displays. An earlier version of the project involved six 30-inch Cinema Displays. You can see and read more about that here.

Here’s more of his description of the custom-made desk, the giant screen and the results of the project:

The desk was a prototype (8′ wide, 3′ deep, with the very top of the big screen being a little over 6’2″ high) and I was planning on building and offering it, but got bogged down in other more pressing ventures/projects. There are 2 other parts to the the desk. Also, not in this image, I had this connected to 4 65″ screens that I rotated vertically to essentially make a 21×9 165″ screen up in a wall, with glass panels over it the entire size of the wall for white boarding. That way I just drag a document from my Mac to what essentially was just a really big extra screen and we can whiteboard/write over the screens to work on projects.

Anyway, this part of the desk along with the white board are the most life changing for me. The 8k screen has been a MASSIVE productivity boost. It’s weird how quickly I got used to it, going from giggling at its ridiculous proportions to thinking, yes, this is normal and totally reasonable. You can see it’s really no wider than the three 30″ cinema displays, so people who think it’s too big, it’s not. Of course it takes up more vertical space, but unless you have really low ceilings, that is irrelevant. The screens in the desk are really super useful too, as it’s really great just having set places for all my productivity tools and many tool pallets that show up. To get a sense of scale I put the system settings screen, so hopefully that gives a better sense of scale.

An early version of the project used six 30-inch Cinema Displays.
An early version of the project used six 30-inch Cinema Displays.
Photo: ZombiePhysicist@forums.macrumors.com

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