Originally posted by: QueHuong
Thanks for the quick reply, xtknight. When you calibrated your [glossy] NEC monitor, how does a photograph look on a side-by-side comparison with a non-glossy LCD? Or even CRT?
The only CRT I have here is an HP 15" shadow mask that's at minimum five years old. Probably very poor reference. Also inconvenient to setup. Colors are vibrant on it but details are quite obviously crushed compared to the NEC. The CRT does still have a better black level, but that's about all it has going for it. That does matter in a few cases.
I sent you a PM about the photos (just making sure you're OK with me posting dumpy camera reproductions of them). Great collection BTW.
Both displays were calibrated and were hooked up via one DVI port each.
My testing indicated that the 20WMGX2 surpassed the VP930b for photo quality. The NEC displayed a brighter, more pleasing picture without any crushed blacks or details. It delivered that sort of quality at every angle, something the VP930b couldn't deliver at any angle. Although the VP930b appeared to produce a faithful picture, all you had to do was move your head before the dark details vanished out of your sight. Besides that, its big dot pitch made compression artifacts very ugly when the photo was shown fullscreen, and its dithering certainly didn't help. The ViewSonic had a higher dynamic range, but it was unable to use it to its advantage. The NEC appeared brighter, more balanced, and you didn't feel like you were "missing something" due to technological flaws of the panel (MVA) or electronics (6-bit dither).
How the glossy/matte panel factors into this? It really doesn't, that much. I'm sure it helps the NEC look nicer when you have the right lighting environment. It makes things pop out, but any more than you'd expect. In fact, a DiamondTron CRT would probably be able to make things pop out even more due to much higher dynamic range, and that's a reference quality display. Details and colors popping out isn't a bad thing.
Patterns on the anti-glare panel are more obvious than with the NEC's crystal clear coating. I don't notice this problem as much with certain matte panels, though. The VP930b seems worse in particular.
When you look at the VP930b (matte), it looks like you're looking at a display. When you look at the 20WMGX2, it looks like you're looking at pure, uniform, smooth colors.
Sometimes the NEC is too perfect/sharp and you get gradation. Not too often, though. Twinkling in movies is one thing the NEC has trouble with because it's so accurate. Sometimes you want displays to blur or gloss over imperfections. Of course, if the media was perfect it wouldn't be a problem. You could call the NEC a twinkling star, as I'd still prefer to be looking at it over the VP930b during movies.
The following photos are 5-exposure HDRs (-2.0, -1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 2.0 on this Kodak). Some differences were exaggerated and they don't really represent how the displays reproduce the image in real life in an "absolute" manner (e.g. color saturation is off). But, they are great relative comparisons.
20WMGX2 (AS-IPS, glossy)
VP930b (P-MVA, matte)
Again, pretty much all the difference is in the panel type, not the coating. But you can see my hand reflection a bit on the NEC pic. It was taken in a "dark room" so reflections were somewhat more apparent.
You couldn't really see the darker corners/areas of pics at all with the VP930b unless you moved your head where everything else would also get brighter. So, they were visible in some cases (the monitor was processing them), but due to the structure of the VA panel you would only be able to see them at horizontal angles other than that in the perpendicular plane.
Bricks on the S-IPS were brighter, more visible, and more important. You didn't feel like you were "missing something". The VP930b had this rorschach inkblot (all credits to Zebo for this brilliant term) sort of look in it when you feasted your eyes on the darker elements. The 20WMGX2's image was like Stonewall Jackson. It just never moved, never ever at all. No particular elements got brighter in a nonlinear fashion when you looked in other directions.
Aside from these silly terms I have to think up to describe how they compare in more minor ways, I can say that the NEC's image is more lifelike and pure. I have also seen a matte S-IPS and its purity was also great. It just didn't quite have the clarity, or the visibility of darker tones, for that matter. Both of the LCDs were calibrated (very close to) the same targets so it's understandable that the differences don't really scream at you. You must thoroughly examine the images to understand them. But, that's what photo editors do, right?