What display would I buy?

[M7S]

I'm surprised that I couldn't find anyone who asked this question lately, since this is a video encoding forum and having good displays is something you would think should be important for video enthusiasts (there's lots of questions about what speakers to buy on HydrogenAudio :rolleyes: ).

Anyways... I'm looking for a new display. I have been thinking about 19" lcd or 21" crt. I'm willing to spend 300-400 Euro, but can go a little bit higher if a great display would cost a little bit above that. I use a over five year old 17" crt right now (Hyundai DeluxScan 7687).

A simple question first. Afaik 19" lcd would have the same size as a 21" crt in terms of real display area (I can't find a better word right now). Is this correct?


A harder one... Crt or lcd? I know it's a sensitive subject to some, please avoid flamewars!

Crt would be better for watching movies with low respond times, nice colors and wide viewingangle. And that's important to me. Besides just watching I would use the display while doing my dvdbackups. Some filters introduce artifacts similar to those on lcd (ghosting etc.). I often take my dvdbackups with me when I'm going to my parents house and they have an crt tv. There's a risk that my backups whould then have artifacts that I didn't notice because if I used a lcd display.

On the other hand, lcd is easier on the eyes because of no flickering and I will spend quite some time in front of it. Lcd isn't as warm as crt and my apartment is hot enough during summer. The posibility to save some electricity shouldn't be neglected either. Lcds are brighter, which is good on sunny days.

How bad is moviewatching on (your) lcd, really? Which 19" lcd would be the best (in your mostly subjective opion, of cource) for moviewatching? Do you know about any good (and cheap) 21" crts?

Any suggestions appreciated,

M7S

[CWR03]

From what I've seen at various electronics stores, the response time isn't nearly as big an issue when watching movies as it is for gaming. Games need sharpness and fast FPS, usually 60 or more, to see fast motion and detail clearly. Sharpness and detail is lost when the refresh rate is too high - after trying several I wouldn't settle for anything less than 8ms. Movies are 24-30 FPS, and a response time of 25ms is hardly noticeable. My suggestion would be to browse a few stores and look at what's hooked up and playing full-screen movies. If you aren't a serious gamer, in my opinion the only prohibitive thing for getting an LCD would be the higher price.

[M7S]

Thanks for your suggestions.

The price of a 19" lcd is usually lower than of a 21" crt so that wouldn't be a problem. I will go to some stores, but I'm afraid that most computer stores around here don't have too many 19" lcds ready to be tested (or maybe 19" lcds are more common than I think... I look in to it anyway).

Sharpness and detail is lost when the refresh rate is too high - after trying several I wouldn't settle for anything less than 8ms. Movies are 24-30 FPS, and a response time of 25ms is hardly noticeable. I get confused. Are you talking about refresh rates or response times? That's two different things if I'm not mistaken.

Do you mean that you recommend slower 8 bit lcd's even if they have response times of 25 ms instead of 6 bit lcds with lower response times? What I read is that those screens in some cases actually has response times that is closer to 125 ms (while 6 bit 8 ms is closer to 30 ms). But that's just numbers. It's what you can see (not see) that counts.

The smaller viewing angle of those faster (8 ms or 12 ms, I wont buy anything faster than that) lcds also worries me a bit. My sofa is two meter away from the screen and I would need about 90 degrees of viewing angle from that distance to be on the safe side. All displays I've read about has had more than 90 degrees viewing angle in the specs, but can you thrust specs from the manufacturers?

Regards,
M7S

[M7S]

Samsung SyncMaster 1100 DF for 378 € + 18 € for posting, could be a posibility if I would go for a crt. 1600x1200 at 95 hz sounds good to me. Has anyone tried one of this monitor? Is it any good?

And I would still like to hear something from owners of 19" lcd screens. Just tell me the name of your display and how it feels watching movies on it.

[CWR03]

What I meant to say was "Sharpness and detail is lost when the refresh rate is too high for the LCD to display properly." I got to play Half-Life² on a Sony 19" LCD with an 8ms response time, and it was very sharp at 65 FPS (they had benchmarking enabled, displaying the framerate). Previously they had the same computer running FarCry with an LCD with a 16ms response, and it was very unsatisfactory (again with benchmarking enabled, running at about 70 FPS. Fry's Electronics stores have dozens of displays set up, mostly running movies, and the vast majority of them have a great playback regardless of their refresh rate. Some were 25ms, mostly the widescreens which all looked incredible. Only the really cheap, odd name brands that I've never heard of looked bad.

You didn't mention whether you plan to game with it or not - personally I'd go for an LCD TV instead of a monitor if it were going to be used primarily for movies, since you can get a widescreen one for about half the cost of a widescreen monitor. Viewsonic has a "50 series" (i. e. 2750 vs. 2700) of TVs geared toward PC use that has an 8ms response time, but so far I haven't seen one connected to a PC so I could compare its gaming ability.

[twist3d]

As I am also thinking of upgrading my 17" samsung with 19" lcd, I was thinking, is there any visible difference between analog and DVI-inputs? analog only tft's seem to be 50€-100€ cheaper than their DVI-counterparts.

[CWR03]

There will probably be levels of detail with DVI input that you won't get from analog. Typically the DVI signal will line up perfectly with the actual pixels that make up the LCD screen. The difference may not be noticeable if you're viewing a movie from several feet away vs. reading a document at arm's length. The Viewsonic "50 series" I mentioned have DVI input, while the standard "00" models do not. I still can't get anyone at the store to hook one to a computer for me, and I won't buy one until I can see how it looks with a game.

[M7S]

Right now Dell's 2005fpw feels tempting. 20.1 inch, wide screen, nice colors (8 bit), 12 ms and a resolution of 1680*1050. I've read that the display has some minor problems with backlighting, though.

The price is 586 € if it's bought from Dell Finland. That's quite a bit more than I planned to spend, but then I would have a display I could be happy with for quite some time. The display is cheaper here than it is in other countries in Europe where the price is over 700 €. But on the Finnish Dell site there were no posibilities to use coupons (I think there might be some legal problems with that kind of offers here). With those 35% coupons that Dell gives quite often the display would be cheaper in other countries than here. :(

@CWR03
ViewSonic 27xx seams to have a bit too low vertical resolution for other use than gaming and movie watching.

And no, I'm not playing on games very frequently.

Regards,
M7S