HP ZR24w

About wide gamut - since some details posted went uncorrected..

Generally a standard gamut sRGB screen produces reds which are more orange, greens which are more yellow, and blues which are slightly more purple in comparison to a wide gamut display. The wide gamut screen has better colours, and it's particularly noticeable on the reds and greens. This is always a good thing. The problems come from how a wide gamut screen implements its work-arounds to display sRGB colours.

A wide gamut screen NEEDS a way to display sRGB colours accurately because almost all available content, whether it's games, movies, applications, or websites, are designed for an sRGB gamut since that's what the vast majority of displays use, and so that's the palette of colours they've come to expect.

Most IPS screens (including wide gamut ones) have 8 bit panels. This means they can display 256 unique colour values for red, green, and blue in their palette (256 x 256 x 256 = 16.7 million colours). The problem comes when an application tells your display to show a value of, for example, red 255.

Red 255 in a wide gamut displays colour palette is a much more vivid (almost glowing) red than red 255 on an sRGB screen. As said, the sRGB's red 255 also has a bit more orange in it. This means the wide gamut display can't just turn the red value down to be less bright, it must also change other values. That means that an SRGB value of Red 255 Green 0 Blue 0 might actually be shown on the wide gamut display as Red 220, Green 50, and blue 24.

Colour management is a way of trying to deal with this.. When you feed an application the correct ICM colour management profile it becomes aware of what range of colours your screen can actually show. This way, when it sees sRGB content, the application says "ok, you are sRGB Red 255, so I know that I should translated this to R 220, G 50, B 24 so that the wide gamut display shows the colour as it was intended".

Sounds good so far? Well, think about it - In order to display that Red 255 it had to chop off 35 red values, add 50 green values, and 24 blue values. This means that your 8 bit wide gamut panel (256 x 256 x 256) can't actually use all of those available values. It has to effectively reduce the bit depth of your screen when displaying sRGB content.

So, when viewing sRGB content from a colour managed application, your 8 bit wide gamut screen is actually using millions of fewer values than what it can display. It also means an ordinary sRGB gamut screen is showing all 16.7 million colour values when viewing sRGB content, whilst a wide gamut 8 bit panel must use millions of fewer colours in order to reduce its colour palette to make it look like the sRGB colour palette.

The wide gamut screen dropped some unique colour pixel information in this process and had to approximate it to the nearest value, since it's now trying to squeeze those 16.7 sRGB million values into a smaller colour space than its own 16.7 million wide gamut values.

Even though you will then have accurate colours, and it doesn't look too bad at all, it's come at a price - your wide gamut screen is now showing the picture with (used just for example) 12 million colours, whereas the sRGB screen sees all 16.7 million unique colours. Depending on the content, even when the emulation is done really well, I still think you can sometimes see a bit of difference. The emulated sRGB is somehow slightly more washed out. That's why you are better to avoid wide gamut displays when they contain 8 bit panels.

When a panel is 10 bit native things change. All of a sudden it has 1024 unique red, green, and blue values. This means, if you have to emulate a colour space like SRGB, you can squeeze the content into the smaller colour space but still retain 256 unique values for red, green and blue, just like an 8 bit sRGB panel has. Even though it's still using a smaller colour space than the display can show, because the display can show so many unique values (1024x1024x1024 = Over 1 billion values), it means that that squeezed colour range still easily has access to 256 values for emulated sRGB red, green and blue.

Of course, you're still at the mercy of how well a display might emulate the sRGB colours and, if using colour management, the quality of the ICM file matters a lot too, since that is used as the basis for how the application should translate colours. A poor ICM file will not only make images look worse, but may also introduce things like visible banding when emulating a smaller colour space. EG Dell initially had many problems with their early U2410 ICM files, which produced poor quality images and banding. However they really improved this with later versions simply by improving the quality of the ICM file.

The bottom line is, for most people, wide gamut should probably be avoided on 8 bit panels. On native 10 bit panels it becomes much less of an issue provided the display implements its sRGB emulation well, or the ICM file is of good enough quality that it allows colour managed applications to produce good results when emulating a different colour space.

I know all this seems confusing at first to some people, but it's not complicated when you get your head around it.
 
My NEC 231WMI has better blacks, but I wouldn't throw this 24 incher away either. A 24 in Portrait is where it's at.

Ah, ok, I see that white glow people are talking about. Not bad, but I've also owned a 2005wfp with a purple tint. Doesn't bother me.
 
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I just got one of these from costcentral.com. About 6.5 inches and 8.5 inches down from the top of the monitor there's two one inch thick bars across the screen of lighter/brighter area.

Anyone else have this? I called HP and they told me since it's within 30 days I had to call who I got it from. Costcentral is advance shipping me a new one with a return label. Cross my fingers.

4645064928_ebcf4e49ba_o.jpg
 
What you are talking about PatK, is sRGB emulation modes, if you use custom color modes, nothing is cut from the color space.

When you first go from sRGB to wide gamut, it can be a shock and a turn off in general use, but it won't be long before you acclimate.
 
I just got one of these from costcentral.com. About 6.5 inches and 8.5 inches down from the top of the monitor there's two one inch thick bars across the screen of lighter/brighter area.

Anyone else have this?

Yes the first monitor I received had this same problem. This monitor seems to have lots of little problem and I had to return 2 before I got one that was acceptable. I guess you can't expect a perfect monitor at this price point. ;)
 
What you are talking about PatK, is sRGB emulation modes, if you use custom color modes, nothing is cut from the color space.
What I was talking about (to be specific) is viewing sRGB content from within a wide gamut mode. If you mean a mode provided by the screen itself then, as I'm sure you know, it depends on how the screen implements things, and it all starts to get a bit messy with LUT's and all.

But, from an average end user perspective, the ideal would be to leave a screen in its wide gamut mode and have it automatically display sRGB content correctly without having to do anything. In this case you'd really want a 10 bit panel to use with a 1024 point ICM file and colour managed apps. If you're going to buy a wide gamut screen and stick it in sRGB mode all the time then it'd maybe be wiser just to buy an sRGB screen :)

When you first go from sRGB to wide gamut, it can be a shock and a turn off in general use, but it won't be long before you acclimate.
Hmm, it depends. I would say for general usage, with a wide enough gamut, many people will never acclimate because certain content will always look blown out with over-saturated colours. But I do think, if someone's not obsessed about colour accuracy and just wants things to look good, it's totally possible to make sRGB content look good by tweaking the settings in wide gamut modes without using colour management. It all depends on what the goals are, but I still think wide gamut screens are probably best avoided for the average consumers, and image pros would be better off going for the newer 10 bit panels if they want wide gamut..
 
Yes the first monitor I received had this same problem. This monitor seems to have lots of little problem and I had to return 2 before I got one that was acceptable. I guess you can't expect a perfect monitor at this price point. ;)

Thanks. I'm not expecting perfection, but this problem would really annoy me. Hope I don't have to get another replacement. When I told her the problem and she didn't question it or say anything, so I kinda expected this wasn't something new for the model.

We have about four different models of HP monitors here at work. Some are what I would call junk and other's are really nice. I thought long and hard about which to buy and with the problems we have here on some of the HP monitors I told myself never to buy one. But the tinting issues the Dell's have is something I really wanted to avoid.
 
When a panel is 10 bit native things change.
Just for "safety": In a 8bit workflow it makes no difference. 8bit and 10bit panels will use a FRC dithering stage (implemented in panel oder scaler) to avoid a loss of tonal values at the very end. That is why also LG W2420R and HP LP2480zx (most other screens are still using 8bit panels - including the NEC PA24W and most of the Eizo CG lineup for example) are showing some FRC artifacts (the HP shows also some spatial dithering). Only with a 10bit signal and a 10bit panel you can bypass the FRC stage. Because good FRC dithering leads only to minor artifacts, this is no real problem. The advantages prevail.

If you're going to buy a wide gamut screen and stick it in sRGB mode all the time then it'd maybe be wiser just to buy an sRGB screen
Not necessarily. A good color space emulation (virtually no undercoverages including the correct gradation) is a blessing. Especially for unmanaged environments but you will also outperform most non WCG screens. If the manufacturer is also considering drifts of the screen (unfortunately very rare*) you will get an accurate presentation during the whole display lifetime. When using a flexible color space emulation you must be careful to define the right target regarding the actual whitepoint (=> if necessary perform a chromatic adaptation) or you will end with higher deviations than necessary.

But of course: If I only wanted to work in sRGB I would choose a non WCG CCFL screen (the choices decrease).

Best regards

Denis

*
But also a non WCG screen will change its characteristic over time so this is not a fault of the concept of color space emulation
 
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my only concern is that there is just a little bit of hum from the monitor. When the backlight turns off, the hum goes away. It also is gone for brightness levels greater than 80 and from about 30 to 40. It is just slightly perceptible

Just received my display today. Immediately noticed the humming/buzzing sound as I adjusted the brightness. It is inaudible at 100%, loud at 50% and audible without much ambient noise at 0% (which is the only brightness level which makes any sense anyway :rolleyes:)

I too am disappointed. One of the reasons for upgrading my display for the 4 last times has been noise. Reading the thread at SPR.com (where you too pointed out the issue) it seems that one has little choice. I wonder if the high-end displays suffer from same problems. :confused:
 
It seems only some people are getting hums from their displays, mine is completely and utterly silent.. have not heard a single thing from it even when sticking my ear right up next to it..

edit: this is at 1 brightness, 100 contrast
 
Seems like blacks can go down to 0,18cd/m2.
Currently waging between this one and NEC multisync ea231wmi, this one is a lot bigger and has higher resolution. The NEC have a bit better blacks standard and since i do not own a calibrator I can't get it to go that low on the zr24w.

Hard choice.

My NEC 23 and HP 24 are both using TFT's settings. The NEC (calibrated) was kicking the HP's (stock) ass, but now that the HP is using TFT's settings it's at least a fight. The NEC still wins though.
 
I just got one of these from costcentral.com. About 6.5 inches and 8.5 inches down from the top of the monitor there's two one inch thick bars across the screen of lighter/brighter area.

Anyone else have this? I called HP and they told me since it's within 30 days I had to call who I got it from. Costcentral is advance shipping me a new one with a return label. Cross my fingers.

snip

I have that issue slightly with one of my monitors, but honestly I don't ever notice it. I only see it when the screen is completely black, and that's pretty much never.

Plus I'm just too lazy to go about switching them :p

Btw, here's my eyefinity setup:

3RsZr.jpg
 
Just for "safety": In a 8bit workflow it makes no difference. 8bit and 10bit panels will use a FRC dithering stage (implemented in panel oder scaler) to avoid a loss of tonal values at the very end. That is why also LG W2420R and HP LP2480zx (most other screens are still using 8bit panels - including the NEC PA24W and most of the Eizo CG lineup for example) are showing some FRC artifacts (the HP shows also some spatial dithering). Only with a 10bit signal and a 10bit panel you can bypass the FRC stage. Because good FRC dithering leads only to minor artifacts, this is no real problem.
Hmm. I think you've said that with the U2410 (hardware A00 updated to firmware A01) the firmware update simply disables the FRC dither in sRGB / Adobe mode? Do you know what affects that would have? I ask since I don't actually see any difference in any images (even gradient images) between the modes once the firmware update is applied. Does this mean you'd actually have to use a 10 bit colour signal and use the panels emulated 10 bit mode before you'd see any consequences of disabling the FRC, or is it visible in other scenarios?

EG with gradients like this ( http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/3627/u2410icmv3rgb.png ) which has 3 RGB gradients that run from 0 - 255, I don't see any difference in any modes. Also, although the ICM translated colours (The Firefox ones at the bottom) look more like sRGB when in a U2410 wide gamut mode, I think there is still something slightly different about the colours when compared to a "real" sRGB native screen?
 
PatK, your post #2041 is excellent. I've never seen a better explanation that doesn't get too technical for most people to understand. Way to go!
 
Should i get this monitor if i don't have a calibration tool?

You can get it close by calibrating it yourself by going to this page:http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

I chose to use TFT's settings to get it pretty close:
Brightness 7
Contrast 100
Red 94,
Blue 140
Green 99

Out of the box, the monitor was way too bright and the colors were washed out. Blacks were pathetic and the monitor had a unbearable white glow. You can't judge this monitor at the default settings. You will want to return this monitor if you do.

This white glow is most visible white a black background. Which I love running with Win7.
 
Sigh... Don't forget to set your target gamma in the ATI control panel FIRST!

:bashes head into light post:
 
Maybe this is a dumb question, but how does this compare to a Dell 2007 WFP? That is the monitor I'm currently using. I really want an upgrade in both resolution and size, but have some concerns since my budget is fairly tight.

I know that some of you have upgraded from this monitor. How does the input lag compare? I'm also curious about the black levels and picture quality. It's hard to find old reviews of that monitor that are detailed. I don't live in an area that I could actually compare monitors either.

In the service menu, it shows that my 2007 has something ridiculous like 31000 hours. It also has odd dark smears on the top, so it's really time I replaced it as a primary monitor.
 
Maybe this is a dumb question, but how does this compare to a Dell 2007 WFP? That is the monitor I'm currently using. I really want an upgrade in both resolution and size, but have some concerns since my budget is fairly tight.

I know that some of you have upgraded from this monitor. How does the input lag compare? I'm also curious about the black levels and picture quality. It's hard to find old reviews of that monitor that are detailed. I don't live in an area that I could actually compare monitors either.

In the service menu, it shows that my 2007 has something ridiculous like 31000 hours. It also has odd dark smears on the top, so it's really time I replaced it as a primary monitor.
I have a 2007WFP next to my ZR24w, my 2007WFP white is more yellow and it has a purple glow on black backgrounds (both calibrated with Spider 3 Elite).
My ZR24w overal is the better monitor, white is really white and the colours are more accurate.
Inputlag on the 2007WFP is higher (Desktop mode), i didnt test gaming mode as the screen looks horrible with that preset.
The only thing what i really hate is the white glow of the ZR24w.
 
I have a 2007WFP next to my ZR24w, my 2007WFP white is more yellow and it has a purple glow on black backgrounds (both calibrated with Spider 3 Elite).
My ZR24w overal is the better monitor, white is really white and the colours are more accurate.
Inputlag on the 2007WFP is higher (Desktop mode), i didnt test gaming mode as the screen looks horrible with that preset.
The only thing what i really hate is the white glow of the ZR24w.

Did you calibrate them to native or 6500?
 
I have a 2007WFP next to my ZR24w, my 2007WFP white is more yellow and it has a purple glow on black backgrounds (both calibrated with Spider 3 Elite).
My ZR24w overal is the better monitor, white is really white and the colours are more accurate.
Inputlag on the 2007WFP is higher (Desktop mode), i didnt test gaming mode as the screen looks horrible with that preset.
The only thing what i really hate is the white glow of the ZR24w.

Ah yes, the purple tint. I kinda miss it.
 
What should I set it to?

I would set it to 2.2. I'm going to try calibrating my monitor another go. I'll report new settings soon.

EDIT: Oh this is loads of fun... I'm going to stick with TFT's custom color settings. Good enough for me until I pay a professional to do this for me.
 
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Time to take this thing apart.

Signal PCB
Labeled "HP L24HLAQ-UH1 V0.23G" on the back



Power PCB



Interconnect board. Had some cool island cutouts in the PCB, but couldn't figure out how to take the top plate off to see what they were for.



Ah, the reason behind the eye rape. Six monster ccfl drivers :cool::


The main control IC is o2micro OZ9933GN. Datasheet not readily available, but example circuit in one of their brochures gives us the PWM pin (13). Its running at 180Hz, and allows 40-100% duty cycle via the OSD.
I believe low duty cycles can cause reduced lamp life and flickering, but 40% still seems very high to me.

Anyway, I spliced in a micro to scale the incoming 40-100% to something more reasonable (10-100%). Seems to be working ok for now.
 
Sigh... Don't forget to set your target gamma in the ATI control panel FIRST!

:bashes head into light post:

Excuse my noobishness, but you're saying that one should go into catalyst and set the overall gamma curve to 2.2 before undergoing any hardware calibration? When I adjust the gamma slider up, it makes a line with a decreasing slope, not the increasing slope shown here:

gamma.gif


http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/images/calibrating/gamma.gif


I have a 2007WFP next to my ZR24w, my 2007WFP white is more yellow and it has a purple glow on black backgrounds (both calibrated with Spider 3 Elite).
My ZR24w overal is the better monitor, white is really white and the colours are more accurate.
Inputlag on the 2007WFP is higher (Desktop mode), i didnt test gaming mode as the screen looks horrible with that preset.
The only thing what i really hate is the white glow of the ZR24w.

How did the black levels compare? I've been trying to calibrate my zr24w properly next to my 2007wfp, and I'm getting pretty terrible black levels on the zr24w. The Dell clocks in at .50 cd/m^2, while the lowest I can get the zr24w at 100 contrast is .43 cd/m^2
 
Excuse my noobishness, but you're saying that one should go into catalyst and set the overall gamma curve to 2.2 before undergoing any hardware calibration? When I adjust the gamma slider up, it makes a line with a decreasing slope, not the increasing slope shown here:

gamma.gif


http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/images/calibrating/gamma.gif




Kenny is wrong, unless I am misunderstanding what he is talking about. GAMMA SLIDER HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SETTING YOUR GAMMA CURVE, THE VALUE NEXT THE SLIDER IS NOT YOUR DESIRED GAMMA. Its just a value how much you have increased it from ideal straight 0 value, leave it there. When you calibrate your monitor with colorimeter your monitors gamma should deviate from this 0 straight line that your graphics card tries to show as little as possible. The slider in your graphics card makes the ideal gamma go all wonky as you can see from your uploaded pictures. From what I know its there just to increase or decrease brightness if you so desire.
 
Kenny is wrong, unless I am misunderstanding what he is talking about. GAMMA SLIDER HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SETTING YOUR GAMMA CURVE, THE VALUE NEXT THE SLIDER IS NOT YOUR DESIRED GAMMA. Its just a value how much you have increased it from ideal straight 0 value, leave it there. When you calibrate your monitor with colorimeter your monitors gamma should deviate from this 0 straight line that your graphics card tries to show as little as possible. The slider in your graphics card makes the ideal gamma go all wonky as you can see from your uploaded pictures. From what I know its there just to increase or decrease brightness if you so desire.

Yup I was wrong. But I still have to move it from the 1.0 to adjust the gamma. Even then I can't get the same balance of blacks, contrast and gamma as my NEC.
 
And I wrote a bit wrong. Ideal value in the gamma slider is 1.00 which means no alterations, not 0.
 
have it for about 2 weeks, was working perfectly.
Today it will not show anything. Just black. The blue led is on, the pc shows it is connected and a printscreen shows whole desktop as it is hooked on a dual mon setup.
No OSD menu input select or NOTHING appears on screen, it is dead.
The USB port works, the DVI cables are properly hooked...
Any suggestion?
tnks
 
...not as simple as that. i had it shipped from Germany as it has not yet been sold here in Greece.
It seems to be like the monitor hoes to sleep mode and does not wake up.
I hooked it through VGA and it worked. For a while, until the PC turned off the monitors due to inactivity.
Display 1 woke up on mouse mouse, ZR24W did not.. and will not even if I shut it down and on again...
 
And I wrote a bit wrong. Ideal value in the gamma slider is 1.00 which means no alterations, not 0.

No problem buddy. I was WAY wrong ;)

Truth be said, I'm disappointed that I've had to fiddle so much with this monitor. I blame the economy. 16:10 still rules for computer use, but more manufacturers are moving to 16:9.
 
Hm I may have spoke too soon, getting some nasty rolling/shimmering on gray, probably from not sticking to the original 180Hz PWM frequency.

...not as simple as that. i had it shipped from Germany as it has not yet been sold here in Greece.
It seems to be like the monitor goes to sleep mode and does not wake up.
I hooked it through VGA and it worked. For a while, until the PC turned off the monitors due to inactivity.
Display 1 woke up on mouse mouse, ZR24W did not.. and will not even if I shut it down and on again...

Wait so it stopped working using DVI, or you were always using VGA?

Unplug the VGA/DVI, user the power switch by the AC plug to turn it off. Turn it on again, do you see any flicker or flash?
 
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Time to take this thing apart.

Signal PCB
Labeled "HP L24HLAQ-UH1 V0.23G" on the back



Power PCB



Interconnect board. Had some cool island cutouts in the PCB, but couldn't figure out how to take the top plate off to see what they were for.



Ah, the reason behind the eye rape. Six monster ccfl drivers :cool::


The main control IC is o2micro OZ9933GN. Datasheet not readily available, but example circuit in one of their brochures gives us the PWM pin (13). Its running at 180Hz, and allows 40-100% duty cycle via the OSD.
I believe low duty cycles can cause reduced lamp life and flickering, but 40% still seems very high to me.

Anyway, I spliced in a micro to scale the incoming 40-100% to something more reasonable (10-100%). Seems to be working ok for now.

Hello estaog,

Seeing as you are so brave in taking apart your monitor, how about you also try to remove the anitiglare film from your screen too, like this:

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8283&st=125

If successful, I will happily follow in your footsteps. Go on, do it, do it! Everyone, lets egg Estaog on! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!

:D
 
I just got one of these from costcentral.com. About 6.5 inches and 8.5 inches down from the top of the monitor there's two one inch thick bars across the screen of lighter/brighter area.

Anyone else have this? I called HP and they told me since it's within 30 days I had to call who I got it from. Costcentral is advance shipping me a new one with a return label. Cross my fingers.

I have pretty much the same problem. My bars are a little thicker though, but exactly in the same spot. I also have a reddish tint on the right half of the panel (or a blueish tint on the left half of the panel). Google search results pages look really messed up. It's really a shame since there is no backlight bleed and no dead pixels. Besides exaggerated white glow, nothing is wrong with the bottom left corner as far as my eyes can tell (no colorimeter).

I thought maybe I could get used to it but it's really bad so I can't. Should I bother to call HP or should I just contact CostCentral first to ask about a replacement?
 
I have pretty much the same problem. My bars are a little thicker though, but exactly in the same spot. I also have a reddish tint on the right half of the panel (or a blueish tint on the left half of the panel). Google search results pages look really messed up. It's really a shame since there is no backlight bleed and no dead pixels. Besides exaggerated white glow, nothing is wrong with the bottom left corner as far as my eyes can tell (no colorimeter).

I thought maybe I could get used to it but it's really bad so I can't. Should I bother to call HP or should I just contact CostCentral first to ask about a replacement?

If you just got the monitor HP will tell you to call where you got it from. CostCentral didn't give me any problem when I asked for a replacement. They'll advance ship you a new one, charging you, but when you send the old one back they'll refund. Only thing I find a pain is they want you to ship it back in a box so the original box doesn't get marked or damaged. They'll create a return UPS shipping label for you to print off and use.

I got my replacement today, I'll test it out when I got home from work. Hopefully it won't be worse!
 
If you just got the monitor HP will tell you to call where you got it from. CostCentral didn't give me any problem when I asked for a replacement. They'll advance ship you a new one, charging you, but when you send the old one back they'll refund. Only thing I find a pain is they want you to ship it back in a box so the original box doesn't get marked or damaged. They'll create a return UPS shipping label for you to print off and use.

I got my replacement today, I'll test it out when I got home from work. Hopefully it won't be worse!

Thanks for the info, good thing I have a few big boxes around with some peanuts. I'll call costcentral tomorrow. How is the new one?
 
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