2007WFP gradient banding

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: guidryp
Edit:
I notice someone posted a gradlin pic from the viewsonic:
http://users.pandora.be/Ryuen/gradlinpic.jpg

Ah, which ViewSonic is this?

Looks like it is the VX2025WM.

Oh, whoops didn't see that someone already answered you. Sorry.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Originally posted by: spronkey
Use a 'magic wand' tool in any image editor with a colour tolerance of zero, and you'll see where the dithering comes into play

Ok, I see it now, that is subtle. I would barely call that dithering in the usualy sense, there is little mixing of adjacent tones. You just have an irregular start to each section. And since we are looking at 1/256 of the tone step, it is impossible for most of us to see.

Even the banding is almost identical if I switch to 16bit on my CRT. I can see a small bit of smoothing on the sharpest edge of the bands in the dithered zone. But when looking at the dithered, not dithered squares, There essentially appeared to be no obvious difference. probably since they don't line up, it is harder to notice.

Anyway it cant hurt and should add more info. I will include a shot of the dither/non dither band at the top when I get my monitor and any other areas of interest. Though my order seems to be held up for a few days now. Possibly they are halting shipments while they are investigating. Last time I ordered a monitor it shipped almost as soon as it entered their system.

 

[spronkey]

Apparently there's a worldwide shortage. Or at least thats what I was told when I enquired. Mine were meant to arrive a couple of weeks ago, now they are arriving on Friday.

*sigh*

They'd better have fixed the problem...

 

[Heartbreaker]

My estimated delivery changed from monday to friday now. Though I don't put much stock in it. It shows as still in production.

I ordered the fp and I worry that they are switching to a PVA screen which I don't want. That would be a worse case for me. A working PVA with no banding, means no legitimate defect and no reason to return it without paying the restock fee. I would rather a banding IPS than a non banding PVA.

http://aryarya.net/wassyoi/lcdmemo.html
Dell 2007FP = 20.1 inch 16 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips LM201U05) panel.
Dell 2007FP ver2 = 20.1 inch 16 ms S-PVA (Samsung LTM201U1) panel.

 

[against]

Originally posted by: guidryp
My estimated delivery changed from monday to friday now. Though I don't put much stock in it. It shows as still in production.

I ordered the fp and I worry that they are switching to a PVA screen which I don't want. That would be a worse case for me. A working PVA with no banding, means no legitimate defect and no reason to return it without paying the restock fee. I would rather a banding IPS than a non banding PVA.

http://aryarya.net/wassyoi/lcdmemo.html
Dell 2007FP = 20.1 inch 16 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips LM201U05) panel.
Dell 2007FP ver2 = 20.1 inch 16 ms S-PVA (Samsung LTM201U1) panel.

Can you explain your reasoning for wanting a defective IPS panel vs. a non-defective PVA?

If they are revisioning the FP, do you think they will revision the WFP?

Seems only reasonable as both the FP & WFP were defective.

 

[JMWarren]

PVAs are second rate, espcially when it comes to viewing angle and color reproduction.

 

[against]

Originally posted by: JMWarren
PVAs are second rate, espcially when it comes to viewing angle and color reproduction.

Hmm, so i guess if Dell revisions the WFP there is a good chance they'll switch to a PVA panel in order to cut costs (not surprisingly).

Oh well, i guess i'll continue to play wait and see.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Because I already sold one PVA panel at a loss and don't ever want another.

PVA panels have color shifts with small viewing angle, tend toward greater input lags. Mostly it is the color shifts which create all kinds of other wierd viewing artifacts.

The PVA switch is probably more random than anything, nothing to do with issues. Simply a constant search for the cheapest components.

 

[oddity]

guild, please be sure to let us know how the monitor is when you get it, on the off chance that they've fixed it while trying to act like there was never anything wrong in the first place =/

 

[against]

If they 'fix' the 2007WFP while switching to a PVA panel i'll definitely look elsewhere.

Thanks for the heads up on the PVA technology.

 

[Ryan Norton]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFT_LCD#Types

if Dell is taking the 2007WFP to an inferior LCD panel, I guess I'll buy a VX2025. After I return the 2007 =^)

 

[orion23]

I had a chance to test both the 2007WFP and the 2007FP and both panels had the same problem (banding)

I tested my brother's "old" 1901FP (Dell's first 19" LCD) and colors appeared perfect (no problems there)

I also tested my friend's 2005FPW and that one showed banding as well (not as bad as the '07 models though)

 

[Dethfrumbelo]

Originally posted by: orion23
I had a chance to test both the 2007WFP and the 2007FP and both panels had the same problem (banding)

I tested my brother's "old" 1901FP (Dell's first 19" LCD) and colors appeared perfect (no problems there)

I also tested my friend's 2005FPW and that one showed banding as weel (not as bad as the '07 models though)

Sounds like they're going backwards. They're obviously confident that the Dell logo is strong enough to carry sales all the while as they cut manufacturing costs by using inferior quality parts.


If I go LCD, it certainly won't be Dell. Most likely NEC (20WMGX2) or Viewsonic (VX2025).

 

[spronkey]

Any developments on this? Things seem to have gone quiet in the last few days..

 

[JiOwon]

I called support and got a replacement monitor in no more than one and a half days - very impressive turn around time I thought - 5 stars.
Unfortunately the replacement monitor had identical banding plus a small cluster of bad pixels just to the left of the middle of the screen ( 4 pixels that would show as white on black - dark grey - they were not visible on any other colours ).

It's fairly quiet over at the Dell forums as well - perhaps Dell are thinking up a response

I'll probably speak with support again tomorrow.

 

[josh6079]

Why'd you get a replacement? Has anyone recieved a replacement yet that did not have the defect? I'm curious if some have exchanged monitors and at least experienced less of a problem. Seems like that would indicate improvments at least.

 

[JiOwon]

The reason for the replacement was the gradient banding. They wanted to make sure it wasn't just the cable - they also wanted to send out a monitor with that just to be sure.
Can't complain about the delivery times and the fact I still have my existing monitor.
One could hope that in their own way they're collecting data about this issue.
I'll return this replacement (otherwise i'll be billed for it) sometime this week.

 

[yacoub]

No, he means why did you bother getting a replacement when we already know they arent fixed.

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: yacoub
No, he means why did you bother getting a replacement when we already know they arent fixed.

Exactly. I'm wondering if anyone has gotten a replacement that has at least been an improvement from their other ones. At least to the point where they feel comfortable enough with it not to ask for another replacement again.

 

[JiOwon]

ah I see - well I wanted to oficially log a fault before the 15 day 100% satisfaction guarantee passed.

 

[josh6079]

Oh, okay. How many replacements will that be for you again?

 

[JiOwon]

in case someone was looking for yet another gradient test try the "Deep Freeze" demo from 3dmark06 - the banding in the sky and snow can be quite distracting. When using the VGA port there was quite an improvement over the DVI here.


fyi - I haven't been overly distracted by the banding issue in the games I'm playing at the moment (ut2004, guild wars, quake4, counter strike). Mostly because it's hard to see or in an area that isn't the main focus (ie. the sky) - however in this 3dmark06 demo you can't help but notice it. I guess that is what it's like for the EVE players.
I've also found that gradient issue becomes much more noticable in animations / moving gradients.

 

[JiOwon]

Originally posted by: josh6079
Oh, okay. How many replacements will that be for you again?

just the one - just wanted to make it official.

 

[Ryan Norton]

I'm in the same place as JiOwon-- got monitor 1, had banding, went through support, they determined monitor 1 was bad and sent me monitor 2. Monitor 2 has the same problem, as we all (except Dell) knew it would. I'm going to chat with support again today; I was so sick of them I couldn't bring myself to do it this weekend...

 

[dnd728]

Originally posted by: cmge

Originally posted by: spronkey

Originally posted by: cmge
my mistake and i do apologize for the confusion... the pictures were screenshots.. ... i will try and some pics later with my digicam.... and ill post it again for some opinions.. ill try it with both AGP and DVI setup and post my test setup as well...

If those pictures were screenshots, i'm now concerned about the gradlin program (if that's what you used), because there is clear banding in them that shouldn't be there.

Unless you compressed them too much but it was vertical banding and JPEG from memory ...

Hmm.

i took some pics with my digicam fujifinepix F10, no flash, iso 800

my setup is seen in my sig below... the LCD was made in China, March 2006 and the model is 2007WFPb... i dunno wat the "b" stands for... ...

panel model from setup
http://www.fileh.com/cmge/panel.jpg

16-bit native resolution DVI connection
http://www.fileh.com/cmge/16bit-blue-grey.jpg
http://www.fileh.com/cmge/16bit-red-green.jpg

32-bit native resolution DVI connection
http://www.fileh.com/cmge/32bit-blue-grey.jpg
http://www.fileh.com/cmge/32bit-red-green.jpg

i havent tried it out with games yet.. i will do that on the weekend... i heard F.E.A.R looks horrible..

I don't know too much about LCDs and those photos aren't too clear, however applying some common sense to these photos, as they seem, makes me guess this:
16bit R:G:B probably use 5:6:5 bits of color, respectively.
The 2007s are showing double the greens and reds and quadruple the blues, hence they are 6:7:7 = 20 bit of color = 1M colors (<16.8M colors = 24 bits).
Is that what you're all seeing?
If so, then it doesn't look like a matter of quality, but rather a bad design. I can only hope 24 bits can be activated by software, otherwise they may still make the PC use 20 bits + dithering.