Need advice on buying a new monitor

[lordsmurf]

In any event, folks . . .I think LS would agree with this advice for the O.P., which is what he/she is likely asking for: I'd recommend that you leave cheap LCD's behind and look for a good big-brand monitor. Check the reviews (but stay away from CNET).

Yes.

I'd still suggest IPS panels for accuracy.
And then get a good calibration hardware tool to go with it.

[Ennio]

Heard good things about EIZO and LaCie flatscreens. Expensive though.

I have an older EIZO CRT. Never gonna replace it with LCD, LED backlit or not. Black = black. It can only handle analogue input though.
If you don't want to spend to much money (on the monitor, not your electricity-bill), buy a good 2nd hand CRT. Maybe you care to throw in some $$ and get it ISF calibrated. You'll see the difference. And try to monitor & edit in a dimmed room, if that's your goal. Just my 2 cents.


Cheers

Ennio

[lordsmurf]

Eizo is indeed nice, but overkill for most folks coming to this site.
I know a few photographers that either use these, or want to use these.

Not sure about LaCie, however.
LaCie is just a rebadger anyway, they don't manufacture anything.
The brand is largely overrated, and overused by Apple/Mac fans.
Mostly good stuff, yes, but definitely NOT all.

[Ennio]

...LaCie is just a rebadger anyway, they don't manufacture anything...

Does "rebadge" mean that they assemble their hardware with other manufacturer's products? I don't know the term, lordsmurf.


Cheers

Ennio

[sanlyn]

The terms mean that the seller either assembles their product from other sources or (more usually) has the entire product made elsewhere with their own logo on it. Actually most front-panel displays are manufactured by only 2 or 3 major panel makers. Many of the popular new IPS monitors from Viewsonic, Eizo, Dell, HP, NEC, ASUS, etc., use display panels made by LG. The same is true for HDTVs. SONY no longer makes its own front panels; they are made by Samsung or others to SONY's spec.

[hello_hello]

Rebadging usually means company "A" buys product "X" from company "B" and sells it as their own product. It happens a lot, but I'm tired and for the life of me can't think of a single example.

[jagabo]

Rebadging usually means company "A" buys product "X" from company "B" and sells it as their own product.

And puts their own logo on it, or on the packaging. Hence the term "re-badge".

[Ennio]

Slightly off-topic, but does this also go for Pioneer dvd-burners? Many, many years ago I bought a Pioneer dvd-burner that still works flawlessly today. Never had problems. Don't know which one it was but something with 108 or so (I'm @ my girlfriend's house now so I can't check). Back then Pioneer and Plextor were recommended brands.

Anyways, one of the pc's over here has a Pioneer DVR-218L burner that I think is garbage. Very - not to say too - cheap.

Still hearing good things about the Plextor burners though.

Ennio

[usually_quiet]

Slightly off-topic, but does this also go for Pioneer dvd-burners? Many, many years ago I bought a Pioneer dvd-burner that still works flawlessly today. Never had problems. Don't know which one it was but something with 108 or so (I'm @ my girlfriend's house now so I can't check). Back then Pioneer and Plextor were recommended brands.

Anyways, one of the pc's over here has a Pioneer DVR-218L burner that I think is garbage. Very - not to say too - cheap.

Still hearing good things about the Plextor burners though.

Ennio

Recent Pioneer DVD burners were re-badged. I don't recall who actually made them. My understanding is that Pioneer now makes their own Blu-Ray burners, and DVD burners are no longer one of their current product lines.

[budz]

Plextor uses LITEON re-badged drives.

[hello_hello]

I bought a Pioneer DVR-217 a few years ago (I think it was a DVR-217 but forgive me if I'm confusing model numbers). Whichever model, I'm pretty sure it was the last "real" Pioneer DVD burner. Like a couple of earlier model Pioneer burners it didn't last long and I returned it in exchange for the new model which had recently been released. I guess I've got the model numbers right as the burner in this PC is a DVR-218L while the second PC has a DVR-215L and I also own a few 112/212s. The 218 refused to burn Verbatim discs when I first got it, much to my dismay, but after a firmware update it could burn them as well as the older drives, only a little faster (I've run lots of burn quality tests).

At the risk of spreading forum hearsay (I pretty much only use Verbatim) it appears the rebadged Pioneer burners don't do as well with poor quality media as the "Pioneer made" burners but using decent quality media I've got no complaints.

Personally I don't think the actual manufacturing quality has dropped since Pioneer started rebadging them, but they do use a different chipset. Often one of the 212s here needs it's draw opened manually because it sticks, as does the draw in the 215. I returned at least one 212 under warranty because it was faulty (I'm pretty sure I also returned a 112 for the same reason) and I still own a 212 which has never successfully burned a CD in it's life. As I rarely burn them and I own a few other burners anyway, my laziness didn't allow me to get around to returning it as it burns DVDs fine.

Out of curiosity, what is it about the 218 which makes it feel "cheap" to you?

[budz]

Pioneer uses the mediatek chipset now....my last Pioneer dvd burner was the 216 and everything that came after that was crap.....

[Ennio]

... what is it about the 218 which makes it feel "cheap" to you?

1st, physically it doesn't feel & hear right. Out of the box it was light as a feather which I don't like. Especially compared to my old one. The drawer makes noise opening/closing. Also during burning (even at low speed) there is slight resonance. This is bad mechanics.

Even though most of the time I use Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim media, I had several miss-burns. One time I was out of media and I was forced to buy some crap Philips cd-r's. 50 % of them I could toss in the waste-bin after burn. Didn't trust the rest either. This seems to be media-related, but none-the-less...

Just don't feel right. Of course the electronics are important and they don't weigh much. With physical transports though, me being an old-skool mechanic lover, things should be solid and heavy They use too much plastics for my feel.

Not needing one right now, but if good drives really are manufactured still nowadays, I'd rather pay more for the next one I buy.

Cheers
Ennio

[lordsmurf]

Thinner metal is mostly to blame here.
That's all it is. I noticed this on the BD-R burners, too.

[Ennio]

Yes. Thinner metal can be less "floppier" if you fold or brace it though. This doesn't take away that light-weighted drives will resonance easier non-the less. Also I doubt if the transport suspensions and anti-vibrating mechanisms of those cheap drives is adequate.

[Mephesto]

I do understand it. Maybe I should have posted a smiley after that first paragraph.

You said I was obviously happy with the equipment I have now. Did I stutter?

Ah. That tells us more about your requirements. It might have been a good idea to read deeper into the test results. As most people are uninformed about monitors anyway, they're always playing theirs at 350 cd/m2 and pumping up the contrast to juice up their empty, FX-sated lives. The recommended range for most calibration packages is 100-120 cd/m2. IPS panels are easier on your eyes, and high contrast objects don't look burned up.

I think mine makes use of IPS, not too sure. The viewing angle to be honest doesn't suck TOO much, not like the LCD monitors that I remember as a kid.

Last a while? When is the last time you saw that happen in today's technological environment?

You're right. With planned obsolescence and other technological-paralyzing strategies the current global fucked up economic system demands, it is difficult to come across robust, quality technology, because it's designed to degenerate into shit in a year or so to maintain cyclical consumption.

Just to clarify what I mean by robust, take AES as an example. It is extremely secure and resistant to every known attack including plaintext attacks yet it is extremely simple and way faster than its predecessors like DES. It has been 11 years since its conception and it still is the universal, untopped standard.

OLED would definitely be the robust silver bullet in the monitor industry. It is not only way superior quality in every respect but way lighter and takes less power. VRDs would be even better but since they don't exist, I have difficulty acknowledging them.

I don't recall warning you about that, but two of those models are LED panels. All three are noted for overall viewing comfort and freedom from glare and hot spots, not to mention blacks that rival CRT's. You're looking at uncalibrated low-budget low-performance LCD and telling me how terrible those upscale models are that you've never seen.

One is 2560x1440 which is a little too large for my taste. The other 1080p one looks a little better than the one I got but it lists for over $500 on most auction sites. **** that.

I guess this is a lost cause. Sony and Samsung are gonna start releasing OLED TVs in a few months anyway. I guess I should hold off and think positive.

Stretched?

Yes, stretched. 4:3 fullscreen PC games auto-stretch to fit your monitor. It's really annoying.

Peripheral viewing problems?

The human eyes have a limited field of vision. In a 4:3 frame we can see all details in clarity. With a 16:9 frame, you won't see the left and right edges with clarity unless you swerve your head. Anything outside the "clarity area" is called peripheral vision. Problem is, games designed to fit on 4:3 are problematic on a widescreen because it's important to be able to see the entire frame clearly to properly play, and that's not counting how weird and unnatural the graphics look when stretched. 4 years counting I've still not accustomed to it. Thank god for resolution expanders and the fact that I don't play too many PC games.

Say, how far back does your equipment go? The monitor I'm using right now doesn't have those problems, and the $85 graphics card it's hooked to was made in 2004.

Monitor manufactured in late 2007, no idea when designed. GFX card current as of 2008 and PC current as of 2010. Not bad for someone living on $3 a day, eh?

Losing a job can definitely slap the quietus on one's enthusiasm for anything, period. I've been there myself (5 times between 1994-1999). When I wasn't job hunting, I was studying a lot.

Try being unemployed for 2 straight years, with no welfare or family to help you out. Couple that with these nationalistic pieces of shit telling you that you did this to yourself, made a "choice" to lose everything.

When you have some time on your hands, you might check deeper into the test site provided. Had you browsed the tft site a bit, you could get quite an education - not an engineering degree, but you'd learn enough to stay away from BestBuy. There are other testing sites mostly non-English in Germany and Italy, but not in gadget-crazy North America where supernova-level brightness, in-your-face oversaturation and lots of toys to click are the sole marketing strategy.

I'll keep in mind.

[mammo1789]

Many of the popular new IPS monitors from Viewsonic, Eizo, Dell, HP, NEC, ASUS, etc., use display panels made by LG

I have original LG monitor 22" and 1920x1080 lcd not led and it is pretty accurate ( tested and calibrated) bought 350$ you could consider them my neighbor has Philips and it has the same specifications and the picture is way worse 400$ in Europe there is company ST that ( is re-badged i don't know from which company ) but i saw it picture and it is very good and accurate 180$. That is that you live for 3$ other than that if you live with 1000$ a day you could consider this monitor http://www.marshallmonitors.com/products/monitors/V-R171-DLW/index.html friend working in tv station has one and it is awesome