LCD Buyer's Guide

[speedlever]

I see. That's good to know.

BTW, here's another review of the 970P I found:
http://tinyurl.com/cgkle

Edit to add:
Here's a more in-depth review with good photos that show the dongle I've heard about:
http://tinyurl.com/ccopa

And a tutorial for Magic Tune:
http://tinyurl.com/9vgrw

 

[xtknight]

Oh, the 970P just has one input that fits both VGA and DVI? That's interesting. I would have needed two inputs for my HD tuner and PC. So in a way I don't have regrets now.

http://www.xyzcomputing.com/index.php?o...w&id=482&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=1

 

[speedlever]

Here's some interesting trivia.
According to this site:
http://tinyurl.com/b568d
MagicTune is not compatible with my GeForce 6600GT video card.

And according to this page:
http://tinyurl.com/duc8c
MagicTune is not implemented for the 970P!

Somehow, I'm not too worried by this... perhaps the manufacturer is always the last to know. ?? !!

 

[speedlever]

Some people really seem to be bothered by 6 bit vs 8 bit panels. Here's representative quote from one commenter here:
http://tinyurl.com/d93pp
**********
re the 6 bit 8 bit question.

The dithering is quite annoying.

The 8 bit being 2^24 has 16.7 Million Colors
the 6 bit bing 2^18 has only 262,000 Colors. (The other 16 million are dithered).

So there is a SIGNIFICANT difference in color reproduction.
**********

I personally wonder if it's really THAT significant and THAT annoying. I doubt it, but don't have any experience one way or the other with which to judge.

xtknight, I see that you mention dithering several times on page one of this thread. But other than mentioning it, I see no explanation of what dithering is nor why you would or would not want to have it.

Here's a definition of dithering:
dithering - the process of representing intermediate colors by patterns of tiny colored dots that simulate the desired color

Would you care to elaborate?

 

[darXoul]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dithering

See it here, with examples.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: speedlever
Here's some interesting trivia.
According to this site:
http://tinyurl.com/b568d
MagicTune is not compatible with my GeForce 6600GT video card.

It worked fine with my GeForce 6800/Samsung 710T.

And according to this page:
http://tinyurl.com/duc8c
MagicTune is not implemented for the 970P!

Somehow, I'm not too worried by this... perhaps the manufacturer is always the last to know. ?? !!

Likely an outdated page. Here it says MagicTune. http://www.samsung.com/Products/Monitor/LCD_Digital/LS19VDPXHQXAA.asp

That's the only way to control the monitor so I hope it implements it. There is actually other software to do it based on the same principle.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: speedlever
Some people really seem to be bothered by 6 bit vs 8 bit panels. Here's representative quote from one commenter here:
http://tinyurl.com/d93pp
**********
re the 6 bit 8 bit question.

The dithering is quite annoying.

The 8 bit being 2^24 has 16.7 Million Colors
the 6 bit bing 2^18 has only 262,000 Colors. (The other 16 million are dithered).

So there is a SIGNIFICANT difference in color reproduction.
**********

I personally wonder if it's really THAT significant and THAT annoying. I doubt it, but don't have any experience one way or the other with which to judge.

xtknight, I see that you mention dithering several times on page one of this thread. But other than mentioning it, I see no explanation of what dithering is nor why you would or would not want to have it.

Here's a definition of dithering:
dithering - the process of representing intermediate colors by patterns of tiny colored dots that simulate the desired color

Would you care to elaborate?

Yeah, they really are quite different. Dithering is just a simulation. There is going to be a trade-off, like a flickerly or noisy image, though usually extremely subtle. But even dithered, the 6-bit is still missing ~500,000 colors. Going from 6-bit TN to 8-bit VA was worlds different from me. Maybe it was the contrast, maybe it was the color accuracy. I have a feeling most was the color accuracy. With dithering, you can't set one pixel a color out of the range. Dithering involves at least two pixels. So if it needs to set that one pixel a specific color it's going to have to discolor the adjacent one. There is something called frame rate control most LCDs do (that can set one pixel a certain color by flickering it), which isn't too bad, but it's no substitute for an 8-bit panel.

Edit: yeah, I edit my posts a lot.

 

[speedlever]

On the referenced pages, your 6800 is not listed but your 710T is listed. [shrug]

IAC, I'll soon know. UPS just brought the 940B and the 970P. I refused the 940B and am just about to open up the 970P.

Wednesday should see the Viewsonic VA721 arrive.

 

[xtknight]

Cool. Let us know how you like the 970P compared to your Samsung CRT.

 

[speedlever]

Let me start a new thread dealing specifically with the 970p. Any reason not to?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: speedlever
Let me start a new thread dealing specifically with the 970p. Any reason not to?

Go ahead. LOL, we've been talking for ~5 pages out of 16 in this thread.

 

[speedlever]

No kidding!

Well... it was only a partial hijack since we sorta stayed with the subject material... just specifically so!

 

[noname4498]

I am glad I found this thread, I am really thinking about buying a 970p, but it is a little slower in games than the VP930B. Some say the VP930B has worse color and ofcorse the X backlight issue. I had a vp171b-2 and hated it, viewing angle was terrible top was dark bottom was too bright. Also its movie playback was even worse, the worst I have seen, even DVD looked like krap, I know TN panels are not very good with movies and are 6-bit, but will the 970 or the VP930B make a big difference or not. I watch a lot of tv shows and movies, but also play alot of games. I really would like to get away from big crt screens as they give me bad headaches even at 120HZ.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: noname4498
I am glad I found this thread, I am really thinking about buying a 970p, but it is a little slower in games than the VP930B. Some say the VP930B has worse color and ofcorse the X backlight issue. I had a vp171b-2 and hated it, viewing angle was terrible top was dark bottom was too bright. Also its movie playback was even worse, the worst I have seen, even DVD looked like krap, I know TN panels are not very good with movies and are 6-bit, but will the 970 or the VP930B make a big difference or not. I watch a lot of tv shows and movies, but also play alot of games. I really would like to get away from big crt screens as they give me bad headaches even at 120HZ.

Welcome to the forums.

Well, what do you mean DVD look like crap? Both colors and viewing angles? Bad blacks? Yes, viewing angles should be a little better on the 970P and VP930b.

 

[speedlever]

I just had to post this here.

My wife checked her email (first time since I hooked up the 970P) and I asked her what she thought of the new monitor. She said she really liked that 14" CRT we'd been using. She didn't have to move the mouse so far to make her choices.

Sigh. Sometimes you just can't win.

 

[noname4498]

Originally posted by: noname4498
I am glad I found this thread, I am really thinking about buying a 970p, but it is a little slower in games than the VP930B. Some say the VP930B has worse color and ofcorse the X backlight issue. I had a vp171b-2 and hated it, viewing angle was terrible top was dark bottom was too bright. Also its movie playback was even worse, the worst I have seen, even DVD looked like krap, I know TN panels are not very good with movies and are 6-bit, but will the 970 or the VP930B make a big difference or not. I watch a lot of tv shows and movies, but also play alot of games. I really would like to get away from big crt screens as they give me bad headaches even at 120HZ.

Welcome to the forums.

Well, what do you mean DVD look like crap? Both colors and viewing angles? Bad blacks? Yes, viewing angles should be a little better on the 970P and VP930b.[/quote]



Well when I watch a video I can see a lot of artifacts and pixelaztion, the colors do not seem to blend well together, same shades of the same colors mostly. You can see large clumps of color in the walls and shirts of the people. Could a 8-bit panel make a big difference in this area?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: noname4498
Well when I watch a video I can see a lot of artifacts and pixelaztion, the colors do not seem to blend well together, same shades of the same colors mostly. You can see large clumps of color in the walls and shirts of the people. Could a 8-bit panel make a big difference in this area?

That just sounds like compression to me, so no it wouldn't. It's probably a software problem.

 

[noname4498]

Its not a software problem, because everything looks fine on the crt, I use a lot, DIVX/XVID MPEG1/2, and have the same problem with all nomatter what compression is used to encode.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: noname4498
Its not a software problem, because everything looks fine on the crt, I use a lot, DIVX/XVID MPEG1/2, and have the same problem with all nomatter what compression is used to encode.

Quite odd. Probably some bad 6-bit dithering then. Yes, an 8-bit would fix that because there's no dithering required at all.

 

[noname4498]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: noname4498
Its not a software problem, because everything looks fine on the crt, I use a lot, DIVX/XVID MPEG1/2, and have the same problem with all nomatter what compression is used to encode.

Quite odd. Probably some bad 6-bit dithering then. Yes, an 8-bit would fix that because there's no dithering required at all.

Yes, I was really wondering about that dithering since it just simulates some colors. Its not full "true" color.

All the people at viewsonic seem to know about 6bit vs 8bit LCD's is they all have color.

Now just the choice between the 970p and the VP930B.

Thanks.

 

[xtknight]

speedlever: So what did you decide on doing? You're waiting for a new 970P at this point? Didn't you say you owned 193P before and loved it? Well the good news is the 970P is the exact same thing with better contrast (IIRC) and much better response time (for sure).

 

[speedlever]

Hey xtknight,

I bought the 193P for my MIL. SHE's enjoying it.

My 970P has a line of bad pixels and I received an email today from J&R with a tracking number on the replacement 970P. It should be in tomorrow. They also sent separately my return label for the bad 970P being RMA'd.

I'm still using the 970P that came in Monday. Other than the short line of bad pixels (1/4 inch long), the monitor colors and clarity are wonderful. I've settled (for now) on these settings: (as you can see, I'm still fumbling around with MagicTune)
***************
(MagicTune 3.6)
Brightness:45 (set when I chose internet, I think)
Contrast:50 (set when I chose internet, I think)
MagicBrite:Custom (not sure why this is going there... after cycling through the options, I chose Internet, but something else I did must have changed it to custom)

Color tone: warm1
Color control: default
Calibration: haven't yet figured out how that's supposed to work
Magic color: off
Gamma: +0.3
Sharpness: default (60)
*********************

I'm ruined. That little 14" CRT that I've used for the past month while I've shopped and researched did its job. But the transition from that CRT to this 19" LCD doesn't allow me to provide an objective perspective. I love it!

(note: I posted my wife's comments in an earlier post ... what can I say.)


BTW, I also got that 17" Viewsonic VA721 (VGA connection) in and hooked it up to the spare computer. It's driven by a PII/400MHz... 384 Mb ram... nvidia Riva/TNT2 video card, VGA out (32MB) on XP/pro/sp2. It can't touch that 970P on my main PC (eVGA 6600GT video card with DVI).

I don't know how to objectively compare the two LCDs. It's hard to know if the 970P would change much with the VGA input rather than the DVI. And I don't know how the different video cards affect the display either. The difference is more obvious than I thought it would be (which is a good thing).

In any event, they both serve their purpose. The 970P is awesome. The VA721 recovered a huge amount of desk space and is at least equal to the 17" CRT it replaced. It doesn't look as good as the one I saw in OD running that aquarium screensaver... but that may have more to do with the rig running it (compared to the old HW running my VA721).

Maybe my power bill will drop a bit with the loss of 2 CRTs in the house.

 

[xtknight]

I know I ask a lot of questions but how would you compare the 997DF(?) in its heyday to the 970P? VGA/DVI doesn't make that much difference on these resolutions. The only difference is blurriness and a possible lack of contrast (though rare I think). Glad to hear you're happy with the 970P (except the unfortunate pixel problem). I'm more enticed to recommend it now.

Edit: by 997DF I mean your old Samsung 19" CRT. For some reason I thought that was the model number.

 

[speedlever]

xtknight,

My 19" Sammy CRT was the 900nf.

I'm not sure how to objectively compare the two. It's been over a month since it died... so I can't compare them from a recent perspective.

I ran the 900nf at 1152x864... which seems pretty close to the 1280x1024 on the 970P. But the 970P has a fair amount more screen real estate than did the 19" CRT... as expected. the LCD is bright and sharp.

My applications are not that demanding so I can't comment about ghosting (haven't noticed any). The colors don't stand out markedly improved over the CRT, but I'm very pleased with them thus far. I haven't had a chance to really put it to the test yet... do some digital photo editing, etc.

From what I've read, one can tweak LCD screens quite a bit before deciding on a particular display configuration. If that's the case, then I may be tweaking for a while before I get it to a point where I either say I quit... or it just doesn't get any better than this!

IAC, what little bit of tweaking I've done I've very happy with. Again, I don't quite know how to qualify the difference, but the 970P appears markedly better than the VA721 and an improvement over the 900nf.

I pretty much echo what ricster had to say except that I haven't tried any games and don't have a dvd rom on this PC so I can't confirm his squawk. I don't see that the triple hinge is problematic at all... seems pretty sturdy to me.

The 970P is heavier than I thought it would be. It certainly seems to be a quality built product.

I'll have to say that thus far with my bad pixel issue, both Samsung and J&R appear to be responsive.

It would be fun to run the 970P alongside some other monitors for comparison purposes.

 

[noname4498]

I wish I could find someone who had a 970p and a VP930b side by side so I could compare inperson, but I am really thinking about buying the VP930b over the 970p now. I used to have a 997df crt and could not believe what junk it was, the first 2 died on me, and the third never looked colorfull like it should. I think the days of good crt are at the end.