[Retired] The LCD Thread

[Doctor W]

Originally posted by: kukka
If you're interested in the Apple Cinema Display, you might want to check out the following link for WinACD. WinACD is an Apple Cinema Display Hardware Driver and Control Panel for Windows XP.

Thanks, but from what I can see it still doesn't support contrast, white point, or sharpness settings... so I guess the cinema displays are pretty useless on the PC.

I guess I'm gonna nurse my 2000FP along until people have more experience with the Doublesight 263, or until my tax rebate comes and I end up just grabbing a LCD2490.

 

[Rickover]

xtknight, thank-you for your comprehensive reply. I first want to say that I canceled the order from B&H without hassle since it was still backordered. *whew*

The confusing part for me was that since most of the pro posters here are photo editors, there was very little specific info on video, much less video color correction. In fact, this was the case on other forums too when concerning these monitors. Since the closest thing to video on your lists was multimedia, it played a large part in my decision making. When it comes to photo editing, you actually have two lists. One for print, and one for the web. Which should I use for HD Video? The multimedia list tipped the decision. I have since learned more on the subject and I was just looking to improve upon your excellent guide at the top of this thread.

There are other factors that complicate things for me. Such as the fact that I will be working with the Red camera, which uses a wide gamut, and the Matrox MXO, which might make the sRGB concerns on the 2690 moot. I'm still talking tho Matrox about that. I invite you to check out these interesting products, especially the Matrox MXO, as you seem to be quite interested in this subject.

I also want to bring up the point that oversaturation isn't always a positive, even in non color critical work. True the reds are redder and the greens greener, but is that what the film director intended? Color correction is a long process where the director and the colorist meticulously look for a color scheme that conveys the proper mood of a scene. By "raising the volume" of these colors, are you not playing the music too loudly?

 

[Rickover]

Does anyone know what type of gamut the Apple Cinema Display has? Where would this display land on your lists, xtknight, if at all?

 

[xtknight]

I've got a VX2435wm (S-MVA) on the way. At least a brief review will come soon. Probably won't be here till next week.

Won't be mine but I'll take suggestions on what you want to hear about it. I will have a few days to spend with it.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Tasiin
Well, I've requested an RMA for my LP2065.

I considered keeping it even despite the other issues, but the color problems are really getting to me. It's never looked right even out of the box -- 9300K makes white look very blue, and the default 6500K is a dark orange that's tough to see anything in. The best I could do was to set it to 76 red and 100 green/blue in custom color, but it still looks pretty strange. If I set the contrast to 100 with those settings (as many people suggest) white turns into a bright yellow across the entire screen. The bottom left and right half of the screen have a strong yellow tint too, but the upper portion looks normal. It's actually almost like a TN panel when displaying a solid color like white, and looks pretty uneven.

I'm guessing this is unusual for the HP? Maybe I just got a bad one.

edit: I never noticed this before, but if I look at a black screen with the lights off there's a lot of yellowish backlight bleeding near the areas that have the yellow tint. There's some at the top too, but it's the normal white color you'd expect from bleeding. Looks like there are a few other people that have gotten excessive bleeding in the bottom corners as well.

I'm not sure if it's unusual for the HP but your comments about it have certainly steered me away from it a little. Might want to check with the HardForum thread about this. Are you getting a refund or exchanging for a replacement?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Doctor W
My 2000FP is starting to go... it's treated me damn well over the years but the backlights are kicking it, everyone is out of stock of replacements and HD content is becoming more prevalent. The long and short is there's *absolutely* no way I'd use anything besides IPS after 6 years of falling in love with one. The doublesight and planar seem nice but wide gamut disturbs me. Between Firefox 3's color system and Media Player Classic pixel shaders being able to convert color space it's not hard to get correct color but you still lose dynamic range and can have banding. And each of the rendering intents have drawbacks.

Oh, MPC can do gamut mapping in real time? News to me, but I did see a AviSynth script to do it.

Looks like the only real options for normal-gamut IPS these days are:

Apple Cinema (no PC controls, slower response than typical)
HP 2065 (panel lottery, not widescreen & not full res for HD)
NEC 2490 ($$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$)

Am I missing any? Right now I'm leaning toward the DS or Planar 26" and dealing with the wide gamut correction problems. Maybe I can figure a way to slightly compromise say haflway between aRGB oversaturation and compressiong all the way to sRGB... halfway perhaps.

The Dell 2007FP and 2007WFP are still possibilities for a normal gamut IPS panel, but they are lotteries like the LP2065. A lot of LP2065 have gotten IPS panels lately though, but this doesn't mean much if you happen to get it from an old stock. If you order from a big place like Newegg though you probably get fresh stock which have lately been IPS.

The DoubleSight DS-263N may well be your best choice. I have wide gamut, and I deal w/ the problems. It actually isn't really a big problem for movies, at least I don't think so. Several QuickTime HD trailers looked great as well, although the ones dealing with nature specifically can look a little oversaturated.

Originally posted by: Rickover

Does anyone know what type of gamut the Apple Cinema Display has? Where would this display land on your lists, xtknight, if at all?

I thought the Apple Cinema Displays were all standard gamut (which would make sense since HD is sRGB). I certainly can't confirm that, though.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: irvinenomore
Have been looking at replacing my overly dark 17 inch CRT monitor and have been reading this great thread and the linked information but only achieved brain overload!

The monitor would be used for the following;

Mostly text and browsing.
Secondly multimedia including some HD.
Infrequently older flight simulators, Falcon 4 AF and Lock-On (not sure if Lock-on has widescreen support.)

Original budget up to $350 and was waiting for a sale at Futuresh**, bang for the buck is important.

Have relegated to second grade for the following reasons;

LG L226WTQ-SF ($270) - colour critized in a couple of reviews along with text quality.
Viewsonic VX2255wmb ($247) - power supply buzzing, I am a long time SPCR member and the monitor will sit in a living area but the bang for the buck aspect is making this one more atractive, maybe risking returning a buzzing one.

That leaves me we with the following choices;

HP w2207 refurbished ($250) - would have to play the panel lottery and hope for a good Samsung panel as is only available on line.
HP w2207h ($350) - like the glossy look in store, the portrait mode and USB hub. Concerned about reflection in daily use. Would try and cherry pick an LG panel.
Samsung 245BW ($380) - Concerned with the colour consistency for movies and the lack of output scaling for Lock-On. My other concern with this monitor and games is that I have read several comments that it needs a dual graphic card setup, so would like to understand how effective, or not, my X1950PRO 512mb will be driving it in flight sims?

I have very little idea about games and performance with video cards (keeping up with monitors alone isn't easy!) So you'd best look at benchmarks if you have questions about performance.

I thought Catalyst recently added scaling support but there's really no guarantee that you video card supports it. There have been and could be bugs with the scaling support on ATI cards. Sorry I can't really help you any further there unless I researched about the X1950 but you could do this just as well as I.

When it comes to monitors though I do think a 22" TN is a good upgrade.

I think you should try the VX2255wmb if you can get it from a store with the option of getting a refund (which means, usually not Newegg). I have heard of buzzing with several monitors and in real use I never really hear it (it might be quiet and in the back), or I have my headphones on.

The L227WT got a pretty good review from PRAD: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ol...13867539#productdetail

It's wide gamut (at least the L227WT is, this should be the US model).

You might also want to look at the BenQ G2400W. It has fill, 1:1 and aspect scaling support, and probably better image quality for the Samsung at roughly the same price. It has great default color accuracy too.

 

[Tasiin]

Refund. I'm going to consider my options after that and decide whether I really want another LCD, I guess. I was just wondering whether this is normal or not for the LP2065 in case I ever decide to try another.

I could still try the 2007FP, but it could be just as bad. I don't know whether the flickering will be any better or worse, and it will still have many of the same problems. If the 2007WFP is anything to go by it will probably have less backlight bleeding, input lag, and more natural colors out of the box. My friend still insists that there's absolutely no flickering on either of his 2007FPs, so it's a little tempting.

I've also been getting headaches while using the LP2065 (and the Dell just before I returned it). No idea what might be causing it, but I might end up having the same problem with the 2007FP. It seems to be worse when playing games, but it can happen anywhere really. I was getting a particularly bad headache one day while playing a game on the LP2065, and ironically enough after switching it over to my CRT it was gone in about 15 minutes. Are these older S-IPS displays known to cause more eyestrain than other panel types? I've never had this problem with other LCDs I've used, and they've all been more comfortable for reading text than these have, really.

I took a look at the PL2010M and 204B that you suggested, but I can't find either of them locally. Best Buy is really the only store around here with much of a selection at all, and they mostly carry just 22" and below TNs. I don't know if any of those would really be an option, though to be fair the 2232BW they had on display (in the wrong resolution, of course) didn't look too terrible.

 

[AxilX]

Well i've read through quite a bit of this thread, and i was wondering, what's the final verdict on the Samsung 2253BW I'm switching from a CRT monitor, and have actually never ever owned an LCD, so i'm very worried about the blurring in games. From what i hear the 2253BW is supposed to have very low input lag and of course it has the 2ms, with the overdrive enabled. At the same time i don't want to sacrifice everything else for shear speed, and i'd like to stay in the 22''(W) range, is there a better option i'm missing? Is the panel lottery alive and kicking in the 2253's? and if so are the non-S versions really so terrible?

 

[Doctor W]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Oh, MPC can do gamut mapping in real time? News to me, but I did see a AviSynth script to do it.


The DoubleSight DS-263N may well be your best choice. I have wide gamut, and I deal w/ the problems. It actually isn't really a big problem for movies, at least I don't think so. Several QuickTime HD trailers looked great as well, although the ones dealing with nature specifically can look a little oversaturated.

There's a special version of MPC called MPC Home Cinema that actually enables the pixel shaders (normal MPC does not). It also has a custom h264 decoder that supports hardware acceleration on the 8800 & I think 38xx cards. Don't know if you can do both at once.


I've been thinking about getting back into film photography. Celebrating the 75th anniversary of Kodachrome and all that... assuming it makes it to 2010. The high quality slide films are *extremely* wide gamut so I may end up doing a complete 180 here. The trick is if I can afford the DS-263 and a calibrator and a good enough slide scanner without drowning in red ink.

 

[afterblast]

I was looking for a good 22" LCD at a inexpensive price (of course ) I came across the following:

http://www.citrusmicro.com/ViewEra-V220D-p/v220d-sb.htm

It seems like a really good deal but I not familiar with viewera. Does any one know much about them?
I value any reply here.

Thanks,
T.

 

[thestain]

XT Knight,

What version of pci-e does the MSI K8NGM@-FID have, I bought two recent video cards, both pci-e 2.0 and black screen in windows xp pro sp2, but linux and dos work fine. Cards were EVGA 8800 GS and MSI 8600 GT

Mike

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: thestain
XT Knight,

What version of pci-e does the MSI K8NGM@-FID have, I bought two recent video cards, both pci-e 2.0 and black screen in windows xp pro sp2, but linux and dos work fine. Cards were EVGA 8800 GS and MSI 8600 GT

Mike

That has nothing to do with monitors

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: thestain
XT Knight,

What version of pci-e does the MSI K8NGM@-FID have, I bought two recent video cards, both pci-e 2.0 and black screen in windows xp pro sp2, but linux and dos work fine. Cards were EVGA 8800 GS and MSI 8600 GT

Mike

I'm not sure. You should probably ask in this thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

 

[TraumaRN]

Originally posted by: AxilX
Well i've read through quite a bit of this thread, and i was wondering, what's the final verdict on the Samsung 2253BW I'm switching from a CRT monitor, and have actually never ever owned an LCD, so i'm very worried about the blurring in games. From what i hear the 2253BW is supposed to have very low input lag and of course it has the 2ms, with the overdrive enabled. At the same time i don't want to sacrifice everything else for shear speed, and i'd like to stay in the 22''(W) range, is there a better option i'm missing? Is the panel lottery alive and kicking in the 2253's? and if so are the non-S versions really so terrible?

I'm wondering this too about the 2253BW, as I'm looking for a new widescreen LCD.

 

[AxilX]

Well i went ahead and got the 2253. It looks nice, there is definately some Backlight bleed, but i have a very hard time noticing it unless i turn the screen all black in which case the top half inch has a moderate whitish glow and the bottom inch and a half has a very light purple glow. Part of that is also due to my viewing angle i believe, i'm looking down on it abit because the stand is crappy, and i haven't yet found anything to wedge under it. No dead pixels, i bought a 2yr warrenty from CC anyway though, they said if i was unhappy with it for any reason at all in the next two years i could get it replaced. I've heard pix can go bad on these things months in, so i figured it was worth the extra 40$ I'm not sure if i have the blue dominance problem, all i've really done is load up WoW for about 15 minutes and surf the web. How blue is the default background in this forum, if it's supposed to be grey, i have a problem, lol.

I'd like to know how i can check my color calibration, and also how to run a latancy test. I noticed WoW seemed slightly blurry compared to my CRT, but then i was spinning my character around as fast i as i could to see if that was the case. Also, the size of the screen makes it hard to focus on it when you're spinning that fast, so that may have been part of the problem. All and all i can't same i'm either ecstatic with it, or disappointed, but then i exspect my components to work perfectly, so the thing would probley have to have a hidden hologram feature to really excite me. I"m going to watch some movies on it this weekend to see if i notice the BLB. But unless somthing else crops up (like the colors are off, and cannot be corrected) i'm probley going to keep this unit. Oh, and assembly is a breeze, the stand is kinda flimsy and not at all adjustable, but the simple design makes putting the thing together about a 45 second process.

 

[AxilX]

*edit* double post

 

[MR STROKE]

Originally posted by: irvinenomore

That leaves me we with the following choices;

HP w2207 refurbished ($250) - would have to play the panel lottery and hope for a good Samsung panel as is only available on line.
HP w2207h ($350) - like the glossy look in store, the portrait mode and USB hub. Concerned about reflection in daily use. Would try and cherry pick an LG panel.
Samsung 245BW ($380) - Concerned with the colour consistency for movies and the lack of output scaling for Lock-On. My other concern with this monitor and games is that I have read several comments that it needs a dual graphic card setup, so would like to understand how effective, or not, my X1950PRO 512mb will be driving it in flight sims?

I have used all three of those monitors in the last 2 weeks and IMO I would go with the 245bW...started out with the w2207h and it had some banding issues, returned that and tracked down a 2207 open box w/ a sammy pannel. The 2207 looks great instore with the glossy finish but as soon as I got it home after 3 days of use it was giving me a headace and the viewing angles were the worst I have ever seen(even worse than my cheap 17 acer monitor at work)...went with the 245bw after reading the recomendation here, and can not be happier, viewing angles are MUCH better than the HP's, fast(no lag), 3 year warranty, and text just looks so much better overall with the 245bw...

good luck

 

[Gatss]

Originally posted by: xtknight
I've got a VX2435wm (S-MVA) on the way. At least a brief review will come soon. Probably won't be here till next week.

Won't be mine but I'll take suggestions on what you want to hear about it. I will have a few days to spend with it.

I purchased that same model and have pm'ed you a few times with questions which you answered. I would be curious how you set the monitors display values for what you think are the most accurate. Contrast, Brightness, Color Adjust, Opticolor Mode, Opticolor Skin Mode. I am not sure if you can test it with a Vista OS and Nvidia Control Panel but I would like to know how you set Vista's Color Management and Nvidia's Desktop Color Settings. I still don't know how to turn off Nvidia's Control Panel Desktop Color Settings.

Thanks!

Oh and an xtknight approved ICC Profile might be nice!

 

[pilafi]

I've recently bought the VX2435wm too, based on the recommendations here. I'm quite satisfied with it. I had a 17inch LCD before (Samsung 173P) and the extra 7 inches are a big jump for me. I was considering the Dell 2408WFP too, but it's ~150 euros more expensive here. A few points worth mentioning:

1. The backlight emits a faint hum/buzz if the brightness is set below 100. It's not loud, but it's there and you can hear it at night when it's quiet. I don't think it's a defective unit, as it was mentioned before in this thread. It's not annoying, my PC fans drown it out anyway.

2. The opticolor modes seem useless to me. Most of them make the brightest colors look the same, which is very evident in color gradients. Someone recommended the game mode. It's probably the lesser of all evils, but still, the standard mode is the best. Some modes look sharper than normal, as if they artificially boost the sharpness of the image. Text looks really bad in those modes, another reason to avoid opticolor. I have cleartype enabled, mind you.

3. Setting the contrast above ~70 will also crush the brightest colors. I've tested it with a black-white gradient. I keep the contrast at 70.

4. The monitor is very bright, brighter than my old Samsung. I'm used to dim lighting and I keep my monitor's brightness between 5-20, depending on ambient lighting. I don't think anyone would tolerate the maximum brightness to stop the buzzing noise.

5. Backlight uniformity is good, but it could be better. I've tested black, white and dark grey. Black and white look perfect. Grey reveals a few areas in the center of the screen that are slightly darker. It looks the same with other (pale) colors. Black level is on par with the 173P, slightly better, maybe.

6. Input lag/responsiveness: I don't really notice any lag during normal use. I had to use both monitors (my old samsung and this one) side by side and extend a window to both of them to really notice the lag. Still, I had to try hard to notice it and I think it's 2-3 frames, just like most VA panels with overdrive. Response time is very good. I fired up UT3 and played a couple of maps, ghosting is no issue for me with this monitor. On the other hand, my previous monitor was a PVA (w/o overdrive) with a response time of 25ms.

I have installed the digitalversus ICC profile, but it seems to me that blue is darker/worse than with the standard RGB profile. I use standard RGB now. I tried to calibrate my monitor with Quickgamma. My current setup is (R=2.2, G=2.3, B=2.6). OSD settings are 6500K and R, G and B set to 50 (default values, which look best in my opinion). I'd really like to use a hardware calibrator with this monitor, but I don't have one, at the moment. I believe it has room for improvement.

 

[nemesiz]

I've also been getting headaches while using the LP2065 (and the Dell just before I returned it). No idea what might be causing it, but I might end up having the same problem with the 2007FP. It seems to be worse when playing games, but it can happen anywhere really. I was getting a particularly bad headache one day while playing a game on the LP2065, and ironically enough after switching it over to my CRT it was gone in about 15 minutes. Are these older S-IPS displays known to cause more eyestrain than other panel types? I've never had this problem with other LCDs I've used, and they've all been more comfortable for reading text than these have, really.

You might be susceptible to a number of problems caused by the LCD panel. A minority of users notice the inherent blurring caused by higher response or lag times. As an owner of an HP LP2065 display, I find it has a tendency to highlight and exacerbate the inadequacies with animation, films, and first person shoot-em up games (Bioshock, Quake etc). Whether replacing the S-IPS with a TN panel with lower response times, and possibly lower lag times will help with eye strain it is difficult to say. Maybe visit you local electrical / computer store to see first hand other makes and models of panels.

Eye strain can be caused by poor image quality, high contrast and brightness levels or direct sunlight / artifical light on the monitor. To reduce or alleviate the problem the panel must be configured properly, HP provide the Display Assistant and Adjustment Pattern Utility software to help callibrate the monitor.
(http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizs...Id=1815933&taskId=135). Also make sure you download the latest drivers for your graphics card as past LCD problems have been caused by poor implimentation and programming by Nvidia, Ati (AMD), Intel, S3 etc. Finally as a further precaution try to avoid using any type of monitor when tired or dehydrated as it can only further cause eyestrain that leads to headaches.

 

[Tasiin]

I don't actually notice the ghosting that much in games, surprisingly enough. What I do notice is being limited to 60 FPS thanks to the 60Hz refresh rate and that is definitely contributing to the eyestrain a little, but I knew it was going to be like that going into this.

On the whole games look significantly better on the LP2065 than they do on my CRT, though the LP2065 really does have a tendency to look too dark and destroy any detail in dark scenes as some have pointed out, and I think that may be adding a little to the strain. At sane brightness/contrast settings squares 1-5 are basically indistinguishable from each other at this site, and there's barely any difference between 6-9. I never tested my 2007WFP here, but I felt that it was much brighter. My other LCD (an old TN) shows clear differences between each level and I get basically zero eyestrain working on it, so I'm not sure if there's any connection between the contrast/black level and that for me.

I guess the bottom line is that I bought this for working with text, web browsing, and some light gaming and I'm really not enjoying using it for any of those things. My other LCD is more comfortable for text, and my CRT naturally performs much better in games. The (mostly) flicker-free 1600x1200 screen is nice for watching videos, but that's really all I've found myself using it for for the past few days.

Of course, it's entirely possible that I just got a bad LP2065. Others seem to love it, and the problem I'm having with the yellowish bottom half of the screen is obviously a defect and can't be helping. The entire screen has a light purple-yellow cast to it at the factory default settings too -- particularly at the bottom -- and I can't imagine that pleasing too many people. The 2007WFP looked pretty normal (i.e similar to other monitors I use throughout my day) to me on the other hand out of the box, though it was a bit greenish until I switched it over from "PC Normal" to custom color at 100 R/G/B.

Maybe I just need to buy a cheap 20 or 22" widescreen TN or a 19" 5:4 and use it for all of my desktop work, and switch my CRT over to just gaming duty until there are better options available.

 

[TraumaRN]

Ok so after reviewing this thread and reading some reviews, I either want a Samsung 2253BW or the BenQ2400W.

I like the price on the BenQ for sure, but I like that the Samsung can do the Aspect Ratio Control for games that dont support widescreen. And I guess is the extra $90 for the 24 inch screen worth it considering I have an 880GT.

Really I think 1680x1050 is the sweet spot for the 8800GT.

My uses would be mostly gaming and movie watching, with light photo editing.

 

[muppet22]

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
Ok so after reviewing this thread and reading some reviews, I either want a Samsung 2253BW or the BenQ2400W.

I like the price on the BenQ for sure, but I like that the Samsung can do the Aspect Ratio Control for games that dont support widescreen. And I guess is the extra $90 for the 24 inch screen worth it considering I have an 880GT.

Really I think 1680x1050 is the sweet spot for the 8800GT.

My uses would be mostly gaming and movie watching, with light photo editing.

drivers for nvidia and ati can put black bars on the side for non-ws games

 

[Deinonych]

Originally posted by: muppet22
drivers for nvidia and ati can put black bars on the side for non-ws games

Only problem is, that ability has been bugged in NVIDIA's drivers for quite some time now. Don't know about ATI, though.