24" Widescreen CRT (FW900) From Ebay arrived,Comments.

Skakruk said:
Does this degauss sound weak to you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aq8QAj_dBM

It's not a FW900, it's a 2070sb , but I thought this was probably the best place to post. It sound 'hollow' and 'echoey' compared to my other 22" diamondtron (which is half way between a thud and twang sound). I'm wondering if somethings broken...
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i have one too and have to agree
video sounds pretty hollow and echoey
 
Skakruk said:
Does this degauss sound weak to you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aq8QAj_dBM

It's not a FW900, it's a 2070sb , but I thought this was probably the best place to post. It sound 'hollow' and 'echoey' compared to my other 22" diamondtron (which is half way between a thud and twang sound). I'm wondering if somethings broken...
Click to expand...

That does sound odd but what happens if you use the degauss function when the monitor is on? does the screen appear to be degaussing? (screen goes crazy for a couple seconds).

Comixbooks said:
I found a solution to my flat screen woes I have two computers set up one with a CRT the other with a LCD I'll game on the LCD and do everything else on the CRT.
This way I don't have a bad day of being bombarded by the LCD which messes me up bad if I use it everyday.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure most people would do it the other way around in a LCD/CRT setup, CRT's have the advantage with gaming and LCDs would be preferred for web browsing / office work.
 
What is the going price for a used FW900 these days? I saw couple up on Craigslist for $500 and $600 but that seems high considering I saw someone say he got one for $75 on this thread. Last one on ebay actually sold for $200.
 
depends on its condition, I can see a band new one going for that much but not used.
 
I'm debating what to do with mine. I might put it back up experimentally but I'm not sure how I want to do it layout wise. I have a 19" portrait + 27" landscape + 19" portrait LCD setup going as of recently. They are all 1440 high and since the fw900 can also do 1440 high it might not be bad to keep it on the side somehow. My desk faces out from the corner of the room so the bulk of the crt limits where I can put it. It would be really cool if I could build a pillar-cabinet-stand at the front of my desk, with the 27" + 19" ers on arms off the table-top, but the 23.5" crt below - inside the cabinet - angled up (pointing twd my eyes). ... Hrmmmmmm... that idea just came to me writing this.
 
havent been on for a while, but i figure a few might find this helpful.

to those of you who have been recommended replacing the dvi-to-vga converter as an attempt to fix your 'ghosting', and havent had much success - or just havent completely fixed it - try adjusting where the cable itself meets the monitor.

switching dvi-vga converters did very little for me, but wiggling the cable and actually *loosening* the cable screws to the fw900 fixed the problem 100%. no ghosting whatsoever. i move the cable a little, all the 'ghosting' comes back; i screw the cable in tightly, i cant rid of the ghosting 100%.

hope this helps someone.
 
Hello everbody, i have a big problem. I get a GDM 900 from ebay.I need it for video editing.So here is my question. The Monitor is full with contrast.Black is not black,its blue. If turn contrast to 0 its the same. Its al to high. I have the srgb mode activated.Any ideas? thanks from germany
Daniel
 
Band-aid fix: set color mode to expert, display this test pattern, adjust RGB biases for lower darker end of the scale and gains for the white. Get it all as color-free, gray, and neutral as possible.

Real fix: colorimeter and WinDAS white balance procedure.
 
mind01 said:
Hello everbody, i have a big problem. I get a GDM 900 from ebay.I need it for video editing.So here is my question. The Monitor is full with contrast.Black is not black,its blue. If turn contrast to 0 its the same. Its al to high. I have the srgb mode activated.Any ideas? thanks from germany
Daniel
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I"m sure someone with that monitor will explain better if need be. I used to own it a year or 2 ago..

Thats normal and to fix it you need to let the monitor warm up for about a half hour (30mins). Then enter the menu system and find the setting for image restoration. Activate that and a few seconds later it will be like night and day of a difference!

That image restorage will only allow you to use it once the monitor is warmed up.. i believe you can find it under color settings.. though its found in other areas in the menu as well.

I've only had to do this one time in the 2-3 year i've had mine.. and that was when i first brought it home from buying it from some old guy.
 
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I have a question for someone who knows this monitor in and out. No matter what I do, even with brightness at 0% and contrast at 0% the monitor still "lights up" in a fully black room somewhat (i.e. I can see my hand against it so the screen is obviously brighter than the pitch black rest of the room) - from what I used to hear with a properly adjusted CRT you should not be able to tell that it is on.
Naturally at the correct black level at 50% brightness this problem only becomes even worse, to the point where in really dark scenes I can see the glow and I find it impossible for a CRT to have such a weak black level.

I believe that what is happening is that no matter how low the contrast or brightness gets set there is still electricity arriving at the pixels making them light up, as far as I know this is not supposed to happen and a black pixel is supposed to be void of any light. Now I believe a part of this problem is the fact that even at Contrast set to 0% the image is still visible! Contrast at 0% should mean no voltage! I know this because on my T966 EIZO setting contrast to 0% makes the entire image completely disappear, you cannot see anything displayed on the screen, and also reading this article by C. Poynton it says here; "(In a well designed monitor, setting CONTRAST to its minimum will cause the visible raster to disappear.)". Granted, this does not happen on the FW900. The image becomes rather dim, but yes, it is still there.

Now, from scouring around various forums I've found that apparently the white balance procedure in WinDAS adjusts something called the CONT_MIN value - this apparently controls the lowest value of contrast (or rather, brightness). Reading my DAT file it seems that this has a value of 29. It would make sense that this is the lowest "voltage" that any pixel can actually receive, which would mean that even on black pixels, the beam never actually turns off, and as such, a fully black screen will still be somewhat lit up (i.e. not true black). This would also explain why the screen does not fully disappear because the contrast control cannot go down to a value of zero.

My question is; is it safe to edit this value to 0 and try, or do I run the risk of breaking/damaging something - which I certainly would not like to do.

I just find it hard to believe that this is the way it's supposed to look.
 
If you're having issues with weak black levels after warmup even with the monitors brightness setting at 0 then you need to lower the monitors G2 value using WinDAS.

I did this to a Sony G400 CRT and it improved the black levels dramatically. I didnt change any other settings with Windas,

I had to lower the default G2 value from 106 to 85 to get it right but the black levels were initially very bright grey so maybe try lowering it by 10 for starters with your FW900.

EDIT: You can also try running the Image Restoration option from the monitors OSD but be sure the brightness is set at 50 before running it, this sometimes improves black levels as well.
 
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mathesar said:
If you're having issues with weak black levels after warmup even with the monitors brightness setting at 0 then you need to lower the monitors G2 value using WinDAS.

I did this to a Sony G400 CRT and it improved the black levels dramatically. I didnt change any other settings with Windas,

I had to lower the default G2 value from 106 to 85 to get it right but the black levels were initially very bright grey so maybe try lowering it by 10 for starters with your FW900.

EDIT: You can also try running the Image Restoration option from the monitors OSD but be sure the brightness is set at 50 before running it, this sometimes improves black levels as well.
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Yeah, I've already lowered the G2 from 158 to 151 and this then brings up the ideal brightness to about 50. Thing is though, my Green Bias is severely corrupted to the point where if all the Biases are at 50, the entire image has a disgusting green blanket over it and looks sickly...I actually need to have the green bias about 20 lower than the Red and Blue* ones for the grayscale to look anything close to normal. The only way to fix this is the white balance in WinDAS, so naturally right now, the Easy and sRGB presets, as well as anything that image restoration does, look -completely- screwed up.

But that's not the problem. I've dialed in the white point and bottom end of the grayscale by eye and the monitor is relatively accurate, but my point being even with 0% brightness and 0% contrast a fully black screen will still emit a glow which is visible in a pitch black room after my eyes have adjusted to the light level. Thus I believe the G2 is not the problem here, it is low enough and I didn't even get raster lines when it was on the higher level.

It is as if something isn't letting the beam shut down fully when it's supposed to, which means the screen is still lit up even on a fully black screen and contrast at 0%. I believe it is the CONT_MIN value but I cannot be sure and am afraid to try at risk of damaging something, I need confirmation from someone who knows this in detail.

*Wrote green, meant blue.
 
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quantum112 said:
Yeah, I've already lowered the G2 from 158 to 151 and this then brings up the ideal brightness to about 50. Thing is though, my Green Bias is severely corrupted to the point where if all the Biases are at 50, the entire image has a disgusting green blanket over it and looks sickly...I actually need to have the green bias about 20 lower than the Red and Green ones for the grayscale to look anything close to normal. The only way to fix this is the white balance in WinDAS, so naturally right now, the Easy and sRGB presets, as well as anything that image restoration does, look -completely- screwed up.

But that's not the problem. I've dialed in the white point and bottom end of the grayscale by eye and the monitor is relatively accurate, but my point being even with 0% brightness and 0% contrast a fully black screen will still emit a glow which is visible in a pitch black room after my eyes have adjusted to the light level. Thus I believe the G2 is not the problem here, it is low enough and I didn't even get raster lines when it was on the higher level.

It is as if something isn't letting the beam shut down fully when it's supposed to, which means the screen is still lit up even on a fully black screen and contrast at 0%. I believe it is the CONT_MIN value but I cannot be sure and am afraid to try at risk of damaging something, I need confirmation from someone who knows this in detail.
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Oh now I see what you mean, well for what its worth my FW900 didn't produce an absolute black screen but it was really close, it was still much deeper than any LCD Ive owned, even my current PVA panel although they do have pretty decent contrast & black levels.

My Sony 34XBR960 CRT is capable of a pitch black output (couldn't tell it was on in a dark room if displaying a black screen) but I later noticed with the brightness set this low it was also experiencing some black crush, I ended up having to up the brightness just to the point of seeing a very faint glow to get proper shadow details back.

I took this pic when I used to have a NEC 20WMGX2 (IPS panel) & FW900 side by side (CRT on left of course), camera exposure was a little off causing the LCD to appear more over-bright than it actually was in person.

crt_left_lcd_right_blacklevels.jpg


Wish I could help with your CONT_MIN question but let us know if you find out anything.
 
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Thats normal and to fix it you need to let the monitor warm up for about a half hour (30mins). Then enter the menu system and find the setting for image restoration. Activate that and a few seconds later it will be like night and day of a difference!


I have check this, but after its look the same... black is not black its blue.
i have make a photo .The color behind the text in the left side must be black.So its look blue.
http://open-mind-film.com/data/1.jpg
you can download this from my server.

thanks daniel
 
Ouch... that, to me, looks like way too high brightness coupled with a completely out of whack blue bias. That is the only way I can make my monitor look like that, by raising brightness to 80 and blue bias to 100 :O

I think you need a USB-TTL cable (or RS232) and WinDAS, and you should lower your G2 by 10 points or so to get your brightness ideal at around 50. Also, try to reduce the blue bias a lot (possibly even 0) to see if that helps.

Ideally you will have to get a colorimeter and perform a color balance (also with WinDAS) (sigh - just like the rest of us).

I actually have a similar problem to you but only with the green bias, I have to keep it around 3-4 and the red and blue ones around 35-40.
 
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Ok thanks, i turn brightness to 80 and step the blue bias down to 0. Now the blue is dark but not black.
The contrast is a little better but i think is also to high.
I think is better to bring the monitor to a sony reseller. Befor i get the Sony i had the same from SGI.This works from the begin, i have never check the color.
Thanks to everbody here!!! Is a great forum.
Whats the WinDas? Is this a program or what?!
Daniel
 
Yes WinDAS is an adjustment program specifically for SONY monitors, can adjust colors, geometry, and other monitor parameters. See here: http://www.piclist.com/images/com/geocities/www/gregua/windas/index.htm

To use it you need to connect your monitor with a special cable like the one here.

If you have the option of taking the monitor to an authorised SONY repair shop that would probably be the best thing to do. It is worth it, this monitor is simply fantastic.
 
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Ok i think is the best way for me i get the Monitor to my sony dealer.Befor i by the cable or something els.I know that the Monitor is perfect.
Best regards from germany daniel
 
Had this monitor for a while now. I have a question for you guys?

There's a speck on the glass of the monitor, is it possible the glass repair kits available online can repair this small speck?
 
He Guys, Ive got a new bezel for my FW900. It was not easy to find but there is an authorized Seller with Parts for many Sony products and the GDM-FW900 is one of them. I was happy as i found out that this company is in germany cause i am in austria so its pretty near to me ^^.
So anyone whos searching for a new bezel and lives in europe can find some here: http://www.ersatzteilservice24.eu/ (Site is in German)
Here are all parts for the FW900:
http://www.ersatzteilservice24.eu/Sony/Diverses/Monitor/GDMFW900/

I know the price for the Bezel is very high, 103,33 Euro but i thougt it is worth for this Monitor.

Thats the box
IMG_4640.jpg


IMG_4641.jpg


And here is the new attached Bezel on my Monitor
IMG_4642.jpg


Greetings from Austria
Myramond
 
Myramond said:
Yes, anti glare is removed cause i had a few little scratches on it.
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The new bezel looks fantastic. I have a mint one waiting to put on but just haven't put it on the priority list.

How do you like your monitor with the anti-glare gone? I game in a dark room and have a perfect anit-glare on my monitor. I was told that the colors look even better with it off and wondering if I should remove it when I put the new bezel on.
 
Sinizar said:
wondering if I should remove it when I put the new bezel on.
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Yes. I have 3 of these and 2 had damaged AG's but the 3rd came with none. Once I saw the difference the decision was clear. Tear down the tinted plastic wall..

I feel that even if a Brand new fw900 fell into my lap I would have to remove the AG just so it could compete with the older ones.
 
Even though I like the picture on my FW900 without the Anti-glare certainly, I do have to say that I am slowly getting tired of having to keep my room very dark already. I can settle for a reduced black level during the day but the reflections...gah.

I'll have to work on changing desk orientation as to not face any windows but still if the room is lit up there is no helping on reflections. Also, I believe the AG film on the FW900 is a simple neutral density filter, like the one used on camera lenses, thus, it would effectively improve the contrast ratio of the display, as such:

"Neutral density filters are dark glass or plastic. They reduce incoming light by a certain factor, and reflected light by the same factor again. Light leaving the display is reduced only once. For example, 50% transmission glass reduces incoming light by 50% and reflections by another 50%. Diffuse reflection of ambient illumination is thus reduced by 75%. However, display luminance is reduced by 50%. The ratio of display luminance to reflected light (contrast) is improved by 50%."

So I am actually looking at getting a replacement one because I believe that the FW900 way overshoots the 120 cd/m2 standard (which some even agree is too much) without the Anti-glare and could comfortably deal with a loss in brightness, though not neccessarily one as severe as the factory one. The only thing I have found is these Clarex guys, but they don't respond to my mails.
 
Since i have the anti glare off the picture is better as it was before. If you are in a dark room you can pull it off without considering.

Colors and Sharpness will be improved.

If you pulled it off than you have to put down the Brightness.

I have an second GDM-FW900 with fully intact AG Coating, if you want i can take some difference shots.
 
Myramond said:
Since i have the anti glare off the picture is better as it was before. If you are in a dark room you can pull it off without considering.

Colors and Sharpness will be improved.

If you pulled it off than you have to put down the Brightness.

I have an second GDM-FW900 with fully intact AG Coating, if you want i can take some difference shots.
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Yea by all means take the pictures of the AG and non AG coated FW900. I am probably not the only FW900 owner with a perfectly intact AG cover who would love to see some contrasting pics of the two displays! Maybe showing the difference when in a pitch black environment and when there is some light in the room either from a window or a lamp.

My FW900 has the factory AG coat on, but it is in flawless condition. I am of two minds about removing it because I don't always use the FW900 in a perfectly dark space. My comp is in my living room, so except at night it is never dark.
 
This monitor does truly kick ass, I've owned one now for 7+ years.

I got it almost new in the box from some IT guy in the Bay Area when his company got him a new LCD when they were first put out.
 
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I forgot the last time when I removed the AG to set up the DSLR on a tripod and set it full manual with everything set perfect.
 
So i have now uploaded the pictures. But thats not all shots, ive made more but then my sd-card decided to stop working. I hope i can get the lost pictures back. If not than i have to make new shots but thats not easy cause this "king of monitors" is so heavy.

Here you can see both monitors, the right one is with AG-Coating.
IMG_4798.jpg


AG-Coated Monitor.
IMG_4800.jpg


AG-Removed Monitor. (Here you can clearly see me taking the picture)
IMG_4801.jpg


The GDM's with flash lightning.
IMG_4802.jpg


AG-Coated Flash.
IMG_4803.jpg


AG-Removed Flash.
IMG_4804.jpg


Ive connected them to my PC with the Original BNC Cable.
IMG_4805.jpg


IMG_4808.jpg


IMG_4834.jpg


Thats all at this time.
Sorry ive made more but i will see how i can get them back or i will take some new pictures.
 
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Thank you for uploading the pictures. Will you also take a picture with some colorful wallpapers or games running on them? Maybe duplicate the image so we can see how they look on the color side.
 
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