Deciding on a new widescreen monitor

[vhelp]

Once a upon a time, I updated my old 15" tube monitor for an NIC 15" lcd monitor. When that happend, nothing different had changed. All the video aspects (black/brightness levels) stayed the same. Anytime I looked at my desktop or webpage, photos, etc. etc., nothing changed. And if I had a video playing along side the browser window for instance, nothing would change. The video was spot on and so the gamma. I never, ever, ever, had to change/adjust anything on those monitors.

Then, some time after, I decided for yet another upgrade, so I got a widescreen 19" Westinhouse 1680x1050 to replace the NIC 15" lcd. That's when the sh_t hit the fan. In short, I've spent months fiddeling around with the ajustment settings, including a stand alone utility that I can load. Unfortunately, that avenue has problems as well. There are some minor side-effects to that. But I mostly hate it when I'm browsing on the web and I can't see most of the images, particulary the ones that are video-related, such as snap shots or posted demos of people's works, etc. These all come out dark, and the only way I can see them is to turn up the gamma beyond that normal setup of my previous monitors. Like I said, I never had to this before with my previous monitors. So, it must be just this brand/model that screwy.

So, like I said, the problem with my latest minitor is the poor gamma levels it features.

And, I'm tired of my current 19" Westinhouse and poor gamma and video quality. I've gone through many different monitor adjustment scenarios, to no avail. The gamma (black/brightness level) are just too far off. Either the monitor background is too bright after the adjustment or too dark, or the display is too glary, etc etc. I would have to adjust the monitor for every light level during the day. I never had to do that on my previous monitors, ever.

Now, I'm researching new monitors. And, its come down to two different brands under my $250 limit:

* HP HD-237HPB (HF237) 21"
* Hanspree HP2159m 23"

The goal is to get a true 1920x1080 under $250 dollars, and be able to do so by walking in a store and picking one up. Online is just not in my interest. This time, I'm hopping to get one with good and user-friendly controls, too. The one's on my current monitor are touch-sensitive and behind the monitor and difficult to adjust.

The downside is that in addition, I would have to upgrade my currently new ATI HD 3450 card because it only supports a DVI-I output. So, I'm looking at keeping costs down, and so far, considering the ATI HD 4350 pic-e card, selling at bestbuy for $69 bucks.

Now, my question, haha:

Besides the two I'm considering, are all the latest monitors in need of user-adjustments per scenario, or one setting fits all ?

I would like to just plug the darn thin in and be done with it, like my old NIC 15" LCD monitor. I mostly don't want to fiddle with the gamma or brightness levels. I just want to be able to surfe the web and not have to fiddle with my browser or the monitor controls or anything, and be able to watch video, side-by-side w/out any user intervention. Is that possible ? If so, what monitors would you suggest that is, perfect ?

Thanks for any comments,

-vhelp 5117

[minidv2dvd]

why would you need anything but dvi output for a 1080 lcd monitor? you'd only need dual dvi for output for over 1920x1200. samsung is my lcd of choice, never had one need any adjustments, second choice would be an lg.

[johns0]

why would you need anything but dvi output for a 1080 lcd monitor?

Hdmi output for lcd tv.

[edDV]

I'm happy with my two Samsung monitors. Both are 1680x1050.

[minidv2dvd]

hdmi is not required. all you need is dvi-d.

vhelp - you switched the brand/model numbers up, but if i were going to choose one of those 2 i'd go with the 23" hannspree, at 1920x1080 res so text would be a little bigger on the screen.

but i'd still say the 23" samsung at best buy with a faster 2ms response time would be better, especially if you play any fps games at all.

[lordsmurf]

I have this one at one workstation -- my newest addition -- and absolutely love it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2F...reative=390957

The merchant TD has the best price, and I got it within 2 days. 8)

[vhelp]

* I upgraded to the 23" Hannspred, Model HF237, 1920x1080 resolution LCD monitor.

Ok. I picked up the 23" Hannspree, model HF237. Its stated as 1920x1080 full HD, but then I read somewhere later on, that it is actually 1920x1200 maximum resolution. So, I'm confused about that aspect. They make it confusing and difficult to believe any of the specs these days on these montiors. But, I've been trying to stay away from the HDTV sets because they all incorporate their specially formualted Image Processor features, and I've seen them make hovic out of certain videos I've made and fed into some of these sets..vhs->dvd is the worse case scenarios thus far. But played on a standard monitor and things are true-er to the (worth-doing) conversions. Anyway.

I'm acnxious to get it setup and test it out but I'm all tired out and I found that its larger and might not fit in my regular monitors place. Plus, I found out that I would not be able to KVM the two pc's if I connect this upgrade monitor if I'm going to be going full HDMI with it.

Plus, I also picked up an upgrade for my gradphics card: ATI Radeon HD 4350, and it supports: DVI-I, HDMI, and VGA

But the only problem is, I've run out of HDD space to install. Being down to 260mb (today at least) its not enough to install most software. So, I'm hesitant to battle this aspect out, too.

But, I'm more concirned with my KVM setup. I dont' know what to do: give up KVM and use only one computer, or..

How do you guys live w/out KVM ?

-vhelp 5119

[edDV]

If you bypass hardware "processing" in the monitor you end up with display card hardware processing or software player processing. No escaping "processing" unless in a window that can be smaller or larger than your display.

Sounds like you have a compact theater (theatre*) there.


* I'll never forgive my Georgia seventh grade teacher for marking me down for my British spellings.

[vhelp]

Yes, this I realize, but this gives (sometimes) better results than the hdtv's image process. YMMV in each circumstance of course. If I encode an MPEG (I usually encode them pretty well, in terms of quality) (or h264) I would much prefer that I disable my hardware image processor (in my graphics card) then let it auto-kick in (which is will do if fed an mpeg or h264 video and detected properly) it will over-process the videos. If I already incorporated filtering, then I don't want any of these viewing devices to filter over or on-top-of the already filted video. With VHS->DVD conversion, these have proven the worse case scenario. The faces, for instance, looks plastic-ky or something, or like Odoo (check spelling) from the DS9 series. Member his face. That what vhs->dvd videos look like on most of these viewing devices. But, by simply disabling the image processor on these devices, those videos should play as-is w/out any quality hit. About the only thing to worry about is how much of your efforts went into the vhs->dvd processing, from the encoding viewpoint.

I have found that when you are viewing a video who's origin is (a commercial) BluRay, then you will not notice as much a cerious impact, but lets not kid ourselves, even (though bluray) this HD medium goes through image processing, period.
(Course, I know you know this, edDV, but others prob do not)

-vhelp 5120

[Krispy Kritter]

Having too little HDD space can cause slowness, random crashes, and sometimes BSOD. Windows typically wants much more than your current 260MB for the page file.

As for the KVM issue, I've used two and had issues with both of them. I simply set up my desk where I can access both. As I do 98% of all my work on only one of my PC's, it's not a big deal.

[edDV]

There are two types of processing done in a display card. Decode and scaling. If scaling is turned off, your DVD is going to play in a 720x480 window in your 1680x1050 display.

[on30trainman]

Used to use a KVM switch and never really liked it. My monitor (Samsung) has two inputs - one digital and one analog. Run a USB keyboard, USB trackball and USB Wacom tablet into a small USB hub. To switch from one computer to the other I move one USB cable between computers - both have front panel USB ports - and switch video inputs with the front panel switch on the monitor. Very fast process. The digital video input is from the video processing, picture editing and such programs computer. The analog video computer is used for email, web surfing, forums and such. Both computers connect to their own set of small speakers near the monitor. Don't care if the audio is lo-fi. Works well for me.