Again, many thanks for this forum and the recommendations.
Got my ViewSonic VX2435WM - looks great. Love it. No noticable problems, except it's so stinkin' bright that if I use it at night, it burns my "visual purple" so much that I can't find my way upstairs in the dark afterwards.
1)
A question related to brightness - if I turn the brightness down 50%, where is the reduction coming from? Are they dimming the actual backlight (in which case is there a color shift?) or do they just multiply all the pixel values by 50%, thus turning the 8-bit colors into 7-bit colors? I hope they don't do the latter. I intend to turn it down to some accaptable level and then do a color calibration for photo editing.
2)
Second question, perhaps a little off topic for this forum, but still - I'm hoping one of you can help me with this mystery. When I use this monitor via HMDI directly from my video card, there is about a 1 inch perimeter around the screen that is missing. That is, the "start menu" and windows taskbar and such aren't even visible! The corners are missing - They're off the screen. This happens regardless of any monitor settings (scaling, etc), and regardless of what resolution I use. Examples: If I set scaling to 1:1, (and computer to the monitor's native 1920x1200) I see black border all the way around the screen including where the task bar should be (not just top and bottom!). If I use the monitor's full screen scaling (not 1:1), it now fills the monitor, but the windows taskbar is off the screen too - in other words, the same thing, just larger. Now, if I use the DVI-I out, with a DVI->HMDI adapter, everything works fine at all resolutions. So I belive the problem is in the computer /graphics / Windoze Vista, not in the monitor. I'd really appreciate help, because I intend to use a second montior (CRT) hooked up to teh DVI-I port, meaning I have to get this ViewSonic working with the HDMI port. I've tried web searches, but haven't found any mention of similar issues.
Here's the setup details:
HP computer, NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS,
HDMI out -> ViewSonic HDMI in
can't see the edges of screen area
HP computer, Windoze Vista, NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS,
DVI-I out -> DVI to HDMI adapter -> ViewSonic HDMI in
everything is fine.
Any help is greatly appreciated - I suppose this is a horrible Windows Vista thing, or something to do with all the video copy protection, but all I want is a working video card.
(yes, I know, I should have bought the Mac after all!!!)
- Ken.