HDMI 0-255 range output options???

I’m bit confused on where to post this. Here’s the deal. I just bought a Dell S2440L. Hooked it up to my integrated graphics via HDMI on my DH67BL MoBo. I bought this monitor because it’s supposed to have good black levels and deep contrasts. I got it home, hooked it up and used the calibration settings from tft central. Immediately I noticed that it looked sort of washed out. So I logged on here to HF and discovered that some of the Nvidia cards have an issue with this on HDMI out and a quick fix is to set the card to YCbCr and this will fix the washed out issue.

Well I’m using the integrated graphics on my DH67BL with an I5-2400 (I believe it’s Intel HD Graphics 2000). Even though I’m not using an Nvidia card I thought I’d try the Nvidia trick anyhow. Success! Immediately I noticed the black levels and contrast look much better!

Upon further reading, from my understanding by using YCbCr is that I’m limiting my color range to 16-235 rather than 0-255. I’m not finding any way around this.
So, with all that said, is my only option to be able to achieve RGB 0-255 color range via HDMI output to look for a different video card? Thanks for any help, but video cards/graphics are not one of my strong points and I’m kind of learning as I go along.

giant22000 said:

I’m bit confused on where to post this. Here’s the deal. I just bought a Dell S2440L. Hooked it up to my integrated graphics via HDMI on my DH67BL MoBo. I bought this monitor because it’s supposed to have good black levels and deep contrasts. I got it home, hooked it up and used the calibration settings from tft central. Immediately I noticed that it looked sort of washed out. So I logged on here to HF and discovered that some of the Nvidia cards have an issue with this on HDMI out and a quick fix is to set the card to YCbCr and this will fix the washed out issue.

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It's an Nvidia driver problem, and YCbCr does not fix the problem. It simply sets it to 16-235 output and tells the monitor to only take 16-235 output. This gets rid of the wash out issue, but narrows your black level range. You want 0-255 from the GPU and monitor, giving you full range. There's a utility to do this. I'll update with link later after I dig it up (might just add it to my signature).

giant22000 said:

Well I’m using the integrated graphics on my DH67BL with an I5-2400 (I believe it’s Intel HD Graphics 2000). Even though I’m not using an Nvidia card I thought I’d try the Nvidia trick anyhow. Success! Immediately I noticed the black levels and contrast look much better!

Upon further reading, from my understanding by using YCbCr is that I’m limiting my color range to 16-235 rather than 0-255. I’m not finding any way around this.
So, with all that said, is my only option to be able to achieve RGB 0-255 color range via HDMI output to look for a different video card? Thanks for any help, but video cards/graphics are not one of my strong points and I’m kind of learning as I go along.

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Intel HD graphics has the same problem as Nvidia, only I have not been able to find a solution for it (and to be honest, I haven't delved too deeply as I don't use their product). I'd recommend using RGB instead of YCbCr. From there, go to your monitor and look for the HDMI Black Level (or just black levels) option. It should default to full-range/high/0-255. You'll want to set it to limited-range/low/16-235. Not ideal, but it will match your GPU output without dealing with the supposed YCbCr tradeoffs.

EDIT:

Thread - http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1729604
Utility (for NV, not Intel) - http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/NV_RGBFullRangeToggle.zip

Thanks for the clarification on this. I've always used integrated graphics as I'm not a gamer and haven't needed the additional gpu power, but i'm finding myself spending a lot of time here reading up on it and find it very addicting! Especially the triple monitor landscape productivity setups!

hmmm... Since this appears to be an HDMI problem, I'm wondering if it might be better to just get a dvi to hdmi adapter and avoid the hdmi output altogether.

I've wondered about the DVI adapter as a solution too. But since the final input to the monitor will still be hdmi, maybe the PC will still read it as being hdmi/TV? I don't know if it's the hdmi output that makes the video card think it's a tv, but the hdmi input on the monitor itself.

It's easy enough to get a DVI to HDMI adapter/cable, but not sure if that will necessarily do anything. Anyone try it yet? And this may be one odd situation where using VGA instead of HDMI may result in a better picture.

Have you tried playing around with a custom resolution? I have read somewhere that perhaps could work.

The HDMI issue may explain why the Dell S2440L's colors looked quite washed out when I saw one in the store. And also why I read on a mac mini site how several users weren't impressed with the Dell S2440L, and how the Dell IPS 23"er provided a much better picture to them. It is sort of weird how monitor makers stick HDMI inputs on monitors for PCs, seeing as not all drivers support it so well.

Namelessme said:

I've wondered about the DVI adapter as a solution too. But since the final input to the monitor will still be hdmi, maybe the PC will still read it as being hdmi/TV? I don't know if it's the hdmi output that makes the video card think it's a tv, but the hdmi input on the monitor itself.

It's easy enough to get a DVI to HDMI adapter/cable, but not sure if that will necessarily do anything. Anyone try it yet? And this may be one odd situation where using VGA instead of HDMI may result in a better picture.

Have you tried playing around with a custom resolution? I have read somewhere that perhaps could work.

The HDMI issue may explain why the Dell S2440L's colors looked quite washed out when I saw one in the store. And also why I read on a mac mini site how several users weren't impressed with the Dell S2440L, and how the Dell IPS 23"er provided a much better picture to them. It is sort of weird how monitor makers stick HDMI inputs on monitors for PCs, seeing as not all drivers support it so well.

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lol, yes I did try to play around with a custom resolution (1920X1080 / 8bit / 60hz p) and somehow that resulted into a state the monitor was unable to display.... I may try again.

The Dell S2440L is the monitor I have. I have no doubt the hdmi issue causing the washed out look is what was causing some folks to be less than impressed with this monitor. Like I said before, when I changed my settings on my video card to YCbCr, the picture turned from so so, to stunning!

I was told in post #2 of this thread to go back to RGB on the video card and with the monitor's OSD to change the range from 0-255 to 16-235 to match the video card's hdmi range and this would also avoid the washed out look. I'm at work right now so I can't check for myself, but I don't remember anywhere in the OSD of the Dell S2440L an option to change the range from 0-255 to 16-235. Can this be done on the S2440L? Thanks.

intel's drivers are a mess when it comes to dealing with hdmi displays being driven at standard hdtv resolutions, i.e. 1920x1080x60, 1280x720x60, etc. it automatically assumes these displays are hdtv's with limited input range and outputs 16-235.

when i ran into this problem a while back, a dvi to hdmi adapter did not work, but creating a custom resolution did. so try a bunch of different resolutions, including playing around with the refresh rate (e.g. 58-62hz) and vertical resolution (e.g. 1079 instead of 1080). you might hit a combination that will trick the driver into thinking the hdmi display is a monitor rather than a tv and make it output full range.

you can also try disabling ddc/ci in the monitor but i don't know if that will work.

livefastdieyoung said:

intel's drivers are a mess when it comes to dealing with hdmi displays being driven at standard hdtv resolutions, i.e. 1920x1080x60, 1280x720x60, etc. it automatically assumes these displays are hdtv's with limited input range and outputs 16-235.

when i ran into this problem a while back, a dvi to hdmi adapter did not work, but creating a custom resolution did. so try a bunch of different resolutions, including playing around with the refresh rate (e.g. 58-62hz) and vertical resolution (e.g. 1079 instead of 1080). you might hit a combination that will trick the driver into thinking the hdmi display is a monitor rather than a tv and make it output full range.

you can also try disabling ddc/ci in the monitor but i don't know if that will work.

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lol, already ordered a 6ft dvi to hdmi cable from monoprice. I think at this point I'm giving up on Intel Graphics. Also, any custom resolution results in an unusable signal for the monitor. The monitor displays something about the timing being out of whack... Who knows... I'd imagine probably driver related.

After reading into this forum, I've convinced myself that I can't live without a triple monitor LLL setup. Especially after seeing some of the setups that are stickied at the top. The cable I bought I'll be able to use in the LLL setup. Off to research video cards now! Thanks for everyone's help!

I just want to update this thread for future people looking for a solution to this issue that have Intel HD Graphics. I've found a work around that a member here at HF posted in the Dell S Series thread. Here's what was posted and it can be found here:

joebobjoe said:

Got my S2440L from Amazon today. A few criticisms in short:

• Reflections don't bother me, yet. But the actual display is set pretty far back from the cover glass.
• I do not know who to blame, but it is absolutely idiotic. Apparently my Intel drivers classify this thing as a "TV" over HDMI so I'm getting the same color space issue as everyone else, where the blacks are extremely washed out. There is not an option to expand the color space in the driver settings, so I must revert to YPbPr. Blacks are much better now, but I'm getting terrible banding just on my desktop wallpaper and colors just don't look right. Did Dell not test their displays over HDMI? Honestly, the display looks almost like a TN in RGB mode... I feel bad for the people who buy this expensive monitor and never realize what they're missing.
• I have never had a VA monitor, but viewing angles are not what I expected.
• There is a screen door effect, but I don't know if that is common among all displays of this size.
• Design-wise this monitor looks great and it is really thin. It is a little wobbly due to its plastic construction, but it does not bother me, because the looks make up for it.
• Overdrive does not bother me, but I noticed severe black/white trailing when dragging the Steam window around with a white mouse.

Another note about reflection: I bought this display instead of the S2340L/M IPS panel, because I thought I would like the larger contrast ratio and deeper blacks much better. However, I'm kind of regretting this decision... The screen is so reflective, it is almost as if the benefits of deeper blacks are cancelled out. What's the point of black if all you see are the background light behind you?

I'll see if there's some other way to get the full range of RGB out of the Intel drivers and report back.

*EDIT* Finally was able to get full space RGB over HDMI and I must say this monitor looks absolutely beautiful now. I'm much more happy. If you have the same issue and you're running Intel drivers (mine are for the HD 4000 graphics), you must set a custom resolution and use the timing standard "CVT-RB." I have no clue what that does, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting the full color gamut now!

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