New video monitor.. LCD or CRT

"On flat screen monitors there are only two main players in my opinion, apple and sony"

Flat Panel display quality is 99% determined by who makes the panel itself as they are basically self-contained units. So if you like Apple -- and don't want to pay Apple prices -- find out who makes their panels and buy one of those in a more prosaic box.

Generally speaking high end TN+Film or MVA screens are very, very good so whilst professional users might prefer a CRT for image quality and colour accuracy reasons I think they would be fine for most amateurs however serious.

Matthew

Derek,

You have an exellent monitor that you will find the sharpness hard to match. I see many ad agency guys with monitors that don't come anywhere near the 400PS.

My monitor has started to intermittently do strange things, so I'm looking at the moment at what's available.

There is a nice Sony for around £600ish, but I need to compare specs on it.

Count.d

RE my current monitor - I have been very pleased with it but as I am geting more into digital image manipulation I am realising that it can not seperate the shades of grey at the dark end - it tends to display my pictures too darkly and so I then brighten them up or adjust the levels to lighten the dark areas and then when I see the images on a different screen the images are tending to be slightly washed out.
The monitor at it's brightest setting blocks U to Z are one density but not truly black, and at its default setting S to Z appear the same , however the blacks are trully black.

I also find that when viewing pictures on the various photo sites that the images look to me to be underexposed - If I increase the brightness the image detail improves but the image also loses the sparkle due to the absence of a true black

On the DPNow forum, the concensus was to stick with crt monitors - the LG F900P being recommended.

I am using these images to attempt to calibrate the monitor

Photobox calibration image


and


Derek

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[This message was edited by Derek Wright on Thu 29 April 2004 at 10:17.]

For me, for watching video, the key thing is to check the refresh rate of a flat panel monitor. Contrast ratio and brightness also play a part, as people have already mentioned, but if the refresh rate is slow, you will get severe ghosting with fast-moving images. Ideally you need something with a pixel rise+fall time of <25ms.

Flat panel televisions are now widely and cheaply available - for example, Samsung now do an excellent LCD TV with mulitple inputs, built-in tuner, and a faster refresh rate than the previous top-of-the-range LCD monitor, for less than the equivalent size LCD monitor from Sony.

By the way, I've found that the best Samsung displays comfortably beat Sonys when viewed next to each other.

I don't have a regular TV, and use a Samsung LCD monitor to watch videos and DVDs, via a progressive scan interface. I'm perfectly happy with the results. CRT picture quality would definitely be better, but the neatness and portability of the LCD screen is more important to me. If I were to upgrade, it would be to an LCD TV with a larger screen.

The good news is that prices for LCD technology are continuing to fall.

I agree Samsung's MVA based panels are brilliany and easily better Sonys.

Matthew

Derek,

I have used the (and still am) 400PS for 4 1/2 years and find it excellent.

I'm looking at your A-Z calibration now and can see all ranges upto YZ, which look the same. The blacks are rich.

When I do photo retouching, I generally close the blind so I work in pretty dark conditions. I find I need to do this on images with a fair amount of shadow detail.

I've never examined a Samsung MVA monitor, but I will now.

"I've never examined a Samsung MVA monitor, but I will now"

That's better than a Sony Panel rather than a Sony CRT.

Although with CRTs I have always preferred Mitsubishi Diamondtrons to Sony Trinitrons.

Matthew

Count D

Please can we get nerdy <g> and compare monitor settings

When you press the brightness/contrast buttons on the monitor what values are shown for the settings - mine are 100 each for contrast and brightness.

It is only on this setting that can get the maximum visiblility of the greyscale.

Also at what colour temperature do you use the monitor at.

On the Tom's Hardware site there is some reviews of monitors and the Samsung SyncMaster 193P (LCD monitor) gets a good review

Derek

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Ron asked

quote:

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Do screens work better on Mana?

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It's been said on the more angle-iron obcessed of fora that this is the case. I've not tried it myself; can imagine it should help. Of course one would run the risk of RSI from looking up at the monitor at phase seven, or worse still, being pilloried from photonet for editing with exaggerated photoshop curves due to the manaeffect. Sometimes the path less travelled must be approached with caution.

I'm pleased to see my aging Taxan Ergovision 745 on my main PC easily displays the full grayscale range. In contrast (sorry, bad pun), the Mac Studio Display flat panel I have beside me (on a G4 Cube) doesn't do justice to the A-B and Y-Z differences; perhaps I'll play with the settings.

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

Surprising.

I've just changed from a 17" CRT to a 17" Philips TFT.

Everything looks better to me - images and text both have more definition, punch and clarity.

Derek,

Sorry for the late reply.

My monitor settings are 54 brightness, 85 contrast.

The colour temp is the setting between 5000k and 9300k (I've changed the indiviual settings so it just shows choice 2).

Monitors do degrade over time and if yours is 100% for both settings and your still not getting black separation, then you do have a bit of a problem. My monitor goes temporary blue for a few hours every now and then, so it's on it's way out.

I wouldn't advise buying an LCD monitor for photo retouching.

Count D

Thanks for the info

Derek

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Count,

quote:

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I wouldn't advise buying an LCD monitor for photo retouching.

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Have you seen the better ViewSonic, Sony and Apple LCD monitors? Budget LCDs really have no place in a digital darkroom, but I thought the best of the best were easily on par with the best CRTs.

Joe