IPS overated?

Yeah I don't know guys.. the colours seem so much more vibrant, and the blacks darker on every glossy screen I've seen. I just bought my first IPS panel (a 2209wa) and my gf's plain old glossy HP TN looks brighter and more colourful, albeit with terrible viewing angles.

All a glossy coating does is destroy one's sense of contrast. If you were to take a photo you adjusted on a glossy screen and printed it, you'd find that the colours are way off. This is the reason why you'll never find anyone doing professional photo and video work using a glossy screen.
 
I guess I have to just spell it out. It should be dead obvious to anyone that taking apart your monitor to soak the screen for hours to peel off the top layer will clearly void the warranty. You would have to be utterly clueless to think otherwise.

Man up, stop hiding behind the warranty excuse if you want to do it. I was voiding warranties for over 20 years, taking things apart and soldering things into them, fixing some things, frying others.

Maybe if you weren't fresh off the boat (or possibly just unintelligent) you might've noted that when one phrases it as "I'm guessing X will void the warranty", one isn't guessing at all.

Really? I've never fried a thing. You shouldn't touch what you don't understand.
 
All a glossy coating does is destroy one's sense of contrast. If you were to take a photo you adjusted on a glossy screen and printed it, you'd find that the colours are way off. This is the reason why you'll never find anyone doing professional photo and video work using a glossy screen.

Thanks, that's the kind of answer I was looking for. =)
 
All a glossy coating does is destroy one's sense of contrast. If you were to take a photo you adjusted on a glossy screen and printed it, you'd find that the colours are way off. This is the reason why you'll never find anyone doing professional photo and video work using a glossy screen.

destroy one's sense of contrast???

by not smearing environmental light over the screen and mixing in perhaps internally reflected light wash too?

what does glossy have to do with colors being off on prints?
i've never encountered that.

now you can trick yourself a bit with a super high contrasty monitor setting but that's a limitation of the prints and you can adjust in your head or have the monitor rescale contrast and since some matte screens have way deeper blacks than others it's not even a glossy vs. matter thing at all
 
Anyway I'll tell you how it goes just as soon as I finish soaking my EIZO CG245W here.
Brave!
I'm going to practice on an old Dell 2007fp to see how it goes, if it goes well I'll be tempted to do it to my 2690...
 
btw i should say that my photo monitor IPS does present an amazingly smooth issue with really subtle color and head on shading crush at all, a 10bit panel and 3D LUT and IPS do work wonders in those regards
 
destroy one's sense of contrast???

by not smearing environmental light over the screen and mixing in perhaps internally reflected light wash too?

what does glossy have to do with colors being off on prints?
i've never encountered that.

now you can trick yourself a bit with a super high contrasty monitor setting but that's a limitation of the prints and you can adjust in your head or have the monitor rescale contrast and since some matte screens have way deeper blacks than others it's not even a glossy vs. matter thing at all

LCDs are natively already high contrast compared to paper. Glossy increases contrast, thus removing it even more from what paper would look like.

http://www.imagescience.com.au/kb/questions/120/Monitors+For+High+Quality+Imaging+Work#PanelSurface
 
this afternoon in a pretty bright room my 55c650 with ultra clear panel had zero noticeable reflections and my matte monitors actually had noticeable reflections washed across their entire surface, so i wouldn't say you need a cave, just the right sort of glossy panel and some decent placement

I call shenanigans. I used to have a CRT next to an LCD in my current setup. The back of them face a window (window is north facing so gets minimum light as well), so no direct lighting hits them at all. All other room lights out, even on a cloudy day. I could see myself and several other objects in the room in the CRT and nothing in the LCD. The CRT even had a serious AR coating that made it less reflective than current glossy mirror like LCDs.

My matte TV is set up the same way, with the back to the window. The matte screen is fine but damn glossy bezel reflects everything all the time, only stopping at night with the lights out.

You may have convinced yourself the reflections aren't "noticeable" but from everything I have seen, they are always there short of darkness and they are very noticeable to me.


What is with Noobie Rats? You guys friends that joined at the same time?
 
Compared to my glossy screen the matte doesn't have any reflections but it'll bounce light just like anything else will.
 
LCDs are natively already high contrast compared to paper. Glossy increases contrast, thus removing it even more from what paper would look like.

http://www.imagescience.com.au/kb/questions/120/Monitors+For+High+Quality+Imaging+Work#PanelSurface

1. why does everything have to based on paper? sometimes youjsut want to view things on screen

2. if you really want to match contrast before printing then you can tell the monitor to knock the CR way down

3. one day once everything goes OLED or whatnot and black really looks like black people will have to adjust everything even the more if they got tricke dinto thing gray was black
 
I call shenanigans. I used to have a CRT next to an LCD in my current setup. The back of them face a window (window is north facing so gets minimum light as well), so no direct lighting hits them at all. All other room lights out, even on a cloudy day. I could see myself and several other objects in the room in the CRT and nothing in the LCD. The CRT even had a serious AR coating that made it less reflective than current glossy mirror like LCDs.

My matte TV is set up the same way, with the back to the window. The matte screen is fine but damn glossy bezel reflects everything all the time, only stopping at night with the lights out.

You may have convinced yourself the reflections aren't "noticeable" but from everything I have seen, they are always there short of darkness and they are very noticeable to me.


What is with Noobie Rats? You guys friends that joined at the same time?

hey i'll take a pic of my 55C650 net to a matte, the UCP on the samsung does a really good job of supressing all but really intense reflections of which it doesn't take much in my room to make them all but disappear

i don't know who the other rat guy is haha but i've been posting to forums for years and year and years, if not this particular one before

also most CRT were curved surfaces, some very, very much so which meant they would grab direct intense reflections from way more angles than a glossy LCD will unless you had a flat diamondscan or something, and the coatings on the CRT that I saw didn't match those on a top line new glossy LCD although i didn't ever seen all that many high-end crt monitors (i did have a diamondscan)

anyway you like what you like, i like what I like, some people get bother more by different things and some people have different setups

it's not the end of the world, but i prefer glossy panel to matte myself
but it's not a fast rule, there are some rooms where if I had to put the beast, the matte would be better.

sometimes it can be tricky with laptops since you never know where you might need to use it and some locations will be bad for glossy, it depends
 
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rotate your TN panel's mount to portrait mode for working on docs and browsing website, and then tell me ips isn't worth it! Oh wait typically TN panels do no come with rotating stands, and for good reason.
 
rotate your TN panel's mount to portrait mode for working on docs and browsing website, and then tell me ips isn't worth it! Oh wait typically TN panels do no come with rotating stands, and for good reason.

My W2408H can swivel into portrait. It's ok viewing it directly and not move an inch. Otherwise the picture will turn into an xray film.
 
My W2408H can swivel into portrait. It's ok viewing it directly and not move an inch. Otherwise the picture will turn into an xray film.

heh, I have some old S-IPS panels I picked up off ebay 23" that I do this with, they rotate great, amazing viewing angles, great color reproduction for the most part, but they do have other issues (Slightly pink ting, and the other gets a non permanent burn-in if I leave a message window in place for more than 10 minutes).
 
btw i should say that my photo monitor IPS does present an amazingly smooth issue with really subtle color and head on shading crush at all, a 10bit panel and 3D LUT and IPS do work wonders in those regards

What graphics card are you using?
 
What is with Noobie Rats? You guys friends that joined at the same time?

Nope. I randomly stumbled upon [H]forum looking for information on the U2311h, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the tone on here is probably the most intelligent and civilized that I've ever seen on an online discussion board. So I'm sticking around.

Unfortunately some of you seem to be needlessly antagonistic ;).
 
What graphics card are you using?

nvidia 275

i'm obviously not driving the panel with 10bit input (only a few fancy ATI and nvidia quadro and fewer programs still allow that), but it's got to help it a touch internally, certainly it wouldn't be surprising if after a little internal calibration that some 8bit inout values might actually need to hit the screen at half step.
 
1. why does everything have to based on paper? sometimes youjsut want to view things on screen

2. if you really want to match contrast before printing then you can tell the monitor to knock the CR way down

3. one day once everything goes OLED or whatnot and black really looks like black people will have to adjust everything even the more if they got tricke dinto thing gray was black

People who work with images want to have a close as possible match between what is displayed on screen and what gets printed out. Hence the paper reference.

Also, remember people serious about image editing are likely to have the brightness quite low so a low contrast ratio does not necessarily mean light blacks.
 
here is a question:

How prone are high-end IPS monitors to flashlighting/backlight leaking along any part of the edges? Serious question, not trying to be antagonistic. My set has a leaky patch near the upper left along the top edge for a few inches and it extends down, fading out by 2.5" or so down. Is that just to be expected these days or is that something warranting an exchange when you are talking $1000-class monitor that is only 24" in size?
 
Some interesting findings:

sRGB simulation mode, no calibration
the black point and CR depends quite a bit upon where on the screen i measure, I think I was not matching flatpanel and prad.de findings because maybe my set happens to have some clouding in the center (where I normal take measurements)

I got variations, based soley upon where in the screen I measured like (0 compensation):
.190 580:1 (slightly right and up from center)
.180 594:1 (center)
.180 574:1 (above center)
.163 640:1 (left of center)
.154 686:1 (left and below center)
.150 704:1 (near lower left)

so I can match prad.de's sRGB finding of .150 blackpoint, but only on about 10% of the screen near the lower left (where I had sworn all along that the black level looked somewhat noticeably better)

and judging by some other quick measurements a big chunk right around the import central area is never below black point .180 and goes at least as high as .190

now while .15 still stinks for a modern S-PVA HDTV for an IPS computer monitor it's not bad at all (and while 704:1 is nothing stunning at 0.15 it's not too bad for a very caerfully gamma corrected set really) and it's not even too bad for a computer monitor in general. OTOH, .19 begins to start looking a little too gray and it seems like my screen is closer to that over the all important main central viewing region (and there is a little strip along the upper left that is much worse than that which lights up the letterboxed bar region)

I wonder if this is a bit too much variation for $1000 panel? especially since the important central area is where it drops contrast and raises blackpoint?

I know you can't expect too much, but three websites did measure more like 0.15 in the important central region, not 0.18-0.19. Maybe many copies have most of the screen area at 0.15 which would not be too bad at all for a computer monitor (and everything else about the set is stunning) and 700:1 in sRGB sim mode would be very fine indeed, but on mine I can only get that on about 10% or so of the screen near the lower left.



(on brighter screens, say light gray, white tests, the differences spot to spot are not dramatic at all, even at zero comp as the black differences and with max comp on a white screen looks perfectly solid same shade, same brightness edge to edge)
 
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As for what compensation does, it depends where you measure on a somewhat darker part on the lower left I came up with:

0 compensation: .15, 704:1
level 5 max compensation .162, 492:1

pretty big difference, otoh the blackpoint didn't raise that much so perhaps raising brightness a bit would've lifted the CR a bit??

i also measured near the center at max 5 compensation and got 0.181 439:1

(all these are stock, uncalibrated sRGB simulation mode)


in the lower left I managed to get up to a 790:1 reading, getting closer, but still not up to the 882:1 and 920:1 of two of the review sites, in optimal mode (center screen I jsut can't get it above 710:1ish)
 
pretty big difference, otoh the blackpoint didn't raise that much so perhaps raising brightness a bit would've lifted the CR a bit??
I don't think so. The blackpoint is a bit higher because NEC works with absolute luminance values and has to compensate for the reduced white level with activated ColorComp. That' why there is no definite point where the control range of the backlight ends. It depends on the ColorComp level (which will be gradually decreased if you try to achieve a brightness level that can't be reached with actual ColorComp level).

Best regards

Denis
 
As for what compensation does

You are going into details about a particular model.
A nice move would be if you stop posting here (chat about nonsense) and go to the appropriate thread that is worth contribution.
You may post something valuable here, but it will go in trash because this is a trash thread.
 
Modern TN panels have come a long way; I have a TN ASUS 25.5" LCD at home and couldn't be happier.
 
One thing to note with regards to black point is that most cheap colorimeters are crap at measuring it. They just don't do that well at dark measurements. Also, they don't have to be off by much to change the CR value a good bit. If they are off on the white point by .1cd well that changes like nothing, but if they are off on the black point by .1cd that can be a huge difference.

So don't put too much stock in to the precise numbers they feed you. If you want real precise measurements, you need a better instruments. However such things are expensive as all hell.

More or less you just need to use your eyes. Is the black dark enough for your tastes over all? If so then good. If not then perhaps consider a different kind of monitor, just make sure you are aware of any tradeoffs.

It depends partially on you, partially on what you do. For example right now, in a room lit by daylight through some blinds looking at Hardforum, the black looks inky. My eyes see it as dark as can be, as dark as the black speakers I have sitting around and so on. Now, if I were to darken the room and display an all black display, I'd notice the backlight no problem, the display wouldn't look nearly so dark. Context in terms of room lighting and what's on the screen makes all the difference.

I find that I rarely notice the blacks not being "black" so it is of no consequence to me.
 
Modern TN panels have come a long way; I have a TN ASUS 25.5" LCD at home and couldn't be happier.

They are for sure fine in general. If they looked like complete crap, well they wouldn't be so popular despite the low price. However, the viewing angles are still a real killer on them, in particular big panels. That is one of the things that keeps my off of TN at home. At work I have a 22" TN and it's fine, does well for office work, but I can notice a visible difference between colours at the top and bottom of the display. This is particularly true if I slouch or lean back a bit, which I do often.

On my laptop it isn't such a problem because the screen is much smaller, but I find I have to adjust it whenever I shift angles. If I move and start looking down at it, the display washes out badly. I have to tilt it back to face me head on to look good.

Of course the bigger the monitor gets, the more it is a problem since the more off-axis you are to the edges.

That's one of the reasons I like IPS and use it at home. As I shift around it looks the same. There are other reasons I like it too, but that's a big one.

TN panels are fine, and when you want fast response nothing can touch them. However there are some major reasons to like IPS.
 
Ok I need to post a follow up here since it turns out my IPS was a damaged copy, washed out by back light bleed. The new (although it has fingerprints and I wonder if it is not someone's return) copy has a whopping 50% deeper black level center screen and probably averages almost 40% darker (and the very, very darkest little patch on the first copy still only comes within 25% of the center patch, nevermind the darkest patch, on the new copy).

This brings it the black level performance in line with my old PVA (samsung 244t) and gives it close to typical for a PVA computer monitors. Granted it still trails the very top few PVA computer monitors by a large 2x times (and 6x vs the best HDTVs) but it is actually in pretty close striking distance of the average PVA computer monitors of today (and actually better than a few).

I can get 820:1 sRGB sim mode (with calibrated WB) on the new one with a compensation level of 1 (very low, still a bit uneven). And I can hit the 920:1 of that one review site in the center now with compensation off and in native mode and brightness dialed up a bit and uncalibrated.

And if something seems to be off, it very well may be and it's best to go for an exchange. The first copy definitely had a damaged bezel impacting quality.

The unfortunate thing is the new copy has a lot more of the dreaded pink one half green the other half IPS thing going on (although not like a few of the horror story photos I have seen of some Dell or HP panels where the screen was like out and out and out glowing red and green). The new copy also had some smudges and a fingerprint on it and I suspect it was someone else's return.... EDIT: I"m now thinking that it was probably mroe that the first panel was exceptionally color pure and brightness even than the second one is worse than average for a typical current day IPS, looking at some review charts at prad.de it seems like most IPS do have some noticeable uneveness and tinting without compensation used and a very quick test appears to have the new copy not really any worse than typical (if I had the best of both copies, wow that would be some insane monitor though, maybe that is what the 2x price hand-picked European spectraview copies are like) and, as said, the black level on the new copy is sooo much better (so far darkest point i've found is 0.115 compared with 0.15 for old copy and in center it is 0.12 vs 0.18, so yeah the first copy was simply damaged).

I can get 0.14 in the center for min black level using eyeone display2 probe or 0.12 in the center using both DTP94b's I tried.

Anyway yeah does the job pretty well, not quite the black sof a U2311 or a samsung something-something MX but 0.12 isn't bad for a computer monitor and 820:1 after calibration and with a trace of compensation applied is pretty solid sRGB mode.
 
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Modern TN panels have come a long way; I have a TN ASUS 25.5" LCD at home and couldn't be happier.

One of the big improvements in TNs over the last few years is that with improved HiFRC dithering, they can now do 16.7m colors vs. the old 16.2m colors. Likewise contrast has improved a lot as well.

But LCD monitor tech as a whole is moving forward as well. For instance ips screens have improved contrast, acceptable input lag/responsiveness, and in some cases competitive costs (new e-ips screens).
 
IPS has also doubled in power efficiency within about two years if we compare the 2209WA to the U2311H.
 
here is a question:

How prone are high-end IPS monitors to flashlighting/backlight leaking along any part of the edges? Serious question, not trying to be antagonistic. My set has a leaky patch near the upper left along the top edge for a few inches and it extends down, fading out by 2.5" or so down. Is that just to be expected these days or is that something warranting an exchange when you are talking $1000-class monitor that is only 24" in size?

This is specific to Brand and Model, because it is totally dependent on bezel fit to panel. I think all ips panels have some amount of clouding accross the screen thow.

Dave
 
Some interesting findings:

sRGB simulation mode, no calibration
the black point and CR depends quite a bit upon where on the screen i measure, I think I was not matching flatpanel and prad.de findings because maybe my set happens to have some clouding in the center (where I normal take measurements)

I got variations, based soley upon where in the screen I measured like (0 compensation):
.190 580:1 (slightly right and up from center)
.180 594:1 (center)
.180 574:1 (above center)
.163 640:1 (left of center)
.154 686:1 (left and below center)
.150 704:1 (near lower left)

so I can match prad.de's sRGB finding of .150 blackpoint, but only on about 10% of the screen near the lower left (where I had sworn all along that the black level looked somewhat noticeably better)

and judging by some other quick measurements a big chunk right around the import central area is never below black point .180 and goes at least as high as .190

now while .15 still stinks for a modern S-PVA HDTV for an IPS computer monitor it's not bad at all (and while 704:1 is nothing stunning at 0.15 it's not too bad for a very caerfully gamma corrected set really) and it's not even too bad for a computer monitor in general. OTOH, .19 begins to start looking a little too gray and it seems like my screen is closer to that over the all important main central viewing region (and there is a little strip along the upper left that is much worse than that which lights up the letterboxed bar region)

I wonder if this is a bit too much variation for $1000 panel? especially since the important central area is where it drops contrast and raises blackpoint?

I know you can't expect too much, but three websites did measure more like 0.15 in the important central region, not 0.18-0.19. Maybe many copies have most of the screen area at 0.15 which would not be too bad at all for a computer monitor (and everything else about the set is stunning) and 700:1 in sRGB sim mode would be very fine indeed, but on mine I can only get that on about 10% or so of the screen near the lower left.



(on brighter screens, say light gray, white tests, the differences spot to spot are not dramatic at all, even at zero comp as the black differences and with max comp on a white screen looks perfectly solid same shade, same brightness edge to edge)

The above applies to all LCD screens. I would love to have a 6 point calibrator, but I don't know of any
 
The above applies to all LCD screens. I would love to have a 6 point calibrator, but I don't know of any

all that stuff about only 0.18-0.19 black depth etc. was just due to a bad copy with a damaged bezel that made it leak way too much backlight

the new copy has 40-50% deeper blacks and looks way better in that regard
(also my numbers now match all the review sites, whereas with my first copy my numbers were all worse than what all the review sites had gotten)
 
That is the absolutely critical piece right there, "given the price". For the money you can't beat a TN. But if you've got some spare change, stepping up to a higher quality panel can definitely be worth it.

The annoying thing about "stepping up" is the motion blur that comes along with it.. Im still used to a CRT's response time (recently died) and I can easily notice blur on my current Samsung PX2370 (2ms TN panel), I cant imagine what it would be like on an IPS panel.

I had the money but after doing a lot of research ended up with a TN panel based on the fact I play a lot of games.

It'l be nice when (if) they can come up with a IPS / VA etc. based panel with super fast response.
 
The annoying thing about "stepping up" is the motion blur that comes along with it.. Im still used to a CRT's response time (recently died) and I can easily notice blur on my current Samsung PX2370 (2ms TN panel), I cant imagine what it would be like on an IPS panel.

I had the money but after doing a lot of research ended up with a TN panel based on the fact I play a lot of games.

It'l be nice when (if) they can come up with a IPS / VA etc. based panel with super fast response.

If you don't have money problems just wait a few months: http://hothardware.com/News/Manufacturer-Claims-OLED-Scaling-Issue-Solved-42-Displays-in-2011/
 
the new copy has 40-50% deeper blacks and looks way better in that regard
(also my numbers now match all the review sites, whereas with my first copy my numbers were all worse than what all the review sites had gotten)
That's good to hear. Numbers seem to be very nice now :).

Best regards

Denis
 
all that stuff about only 0.18-0.19 black depth etc. was just due to a bad copy with a damaged bezel that made it leak way too much backlight

the new copy has 40-50% deeper blacks and looks way better in that regard
(also my numbers now match all the review sites, whereas with my first copy my numbers were all worse than what all the review sites had gotten)

I've reviewed 6 or 7 TVs and they all had the same issue. It's nothing new or or likely to get addressed. On IPS panels, it's not that bad.

check out the gray-uniformity

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/samsung-ue32c6000-ue32c6530-20100630763.htm

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/lg-42sl9000-42sl9500-20100409261.htm

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/sharp-lc46le700e-lc40le700e-20091117160.htm
 
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