Are LCD'S soppose to be so grainy ?

C

Candymancan

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Feb 22, 2005
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My VX922 has been bugging me since day, the backlight thats bleeding on the top is really bad so i called viewsonic for an RMA, after tweaking the gamma/contrast/brightness using nvidia's tools i turned the gamma to 89% the contrast to 80% and the brightness to 90% now really dark games dont look so bright that i cant even see anything. They look better now but i can still see the whiteness from the backlight i guess a drawback for LCD'S : /.

Anyway my question for this thread is that the pixels are so big i can littery see all them even when im sitting 2 feet away (i have better then perfect vision) and it anoyy's me to death. I guess this is what people call the Screen door affect? Are all LCD'S like this or just viewsonic or just this moniter in general ?

I mean im to the point where sure i get no ghosting, no streaking, dvd playback is good, Some games look great but other games look terrible and everything i look @ i can see the pixels it makes it look like im playing an old DOS game with those low 480 resolutions.

I want to keep the monitor but i also want to get rid of it. Honestly what would you guys do? I got this moniter on the 8th i can still return it. Should i call viewsonic and cancel the rma and just send this back to newegg get my money back or what, i need help its hard choice lol i love the monitor so much but i also hate it alot lol. :confused:
 
Trade it in for another one and if it still dosent perform as well as you'd want, consider replacing it for a better performing unit... I'm sorry to hear this considering I've been looking into this monitor as well.
 
All desktop LCDs have this. It's not that the pixels are bigger than CRT's, just that they are so much sharper it's easy to spot the gaps between them. It's the reason (well, one of them) I went back to CRTs. Oddly enough, I ended up getting quite a high-end CRT and it's so sharp I can see the gaps there too (not as big though). C'est la vie.
 
If you're messing with the colors in NVidia's controls, its quite possible that you are detroying the color definition at extreme brights and/or darks. You might want to try setting those back to the defaults and see if your games look better.
 
PKFGimpy said:
If you're messing with the colors in NVidia's controls, its quite possible that you are detroying the color definition at extreme brights and/or darks. You might want to try setting those back to the defaults and see if your games look better.
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Yes. Much better to set it in the monitor's own settings.
 
Well i believe 19inch 1280/1024 LCD's are really bad for that. IIRC 19" have one of the highest pixel pitches in an LCD. If you get an LCD with a lower pixel pitch you will probably not be affected as much.

edit: 19" = .294 pixel pitch, only higher is 15"

20" or 23" widescreen LCD's are lowest at .258, only lower is 30" at .250
 
Something to look out for in LCD's is the dot pitch or pixel pitch.. That is how far apart the pixels are spaced. The lower the number is toward zero, the closer together they are. eg. 0.294mm on the VX922.

I had the Viewsonic VX910, which is basically the same monitor (but the older version). Mine was like the way you describe your VX922. You could see the pixels. I didn't really mind mine that much though.. until the buttons snapped on them. I see they haven't changed the design either. I can guarantee you in a year or so, those buttons will get stuck and snap inside to where you won't be able to turn on the power without fiddling with it for 2 mins. It gets old really fast.

If you are already somewhat frusterated, you might as well return it because its only going to get worse. There are tons of better monitors out there.

I got rid of my VX910 and upgraded to a 19'' Sony SDM-HS95P. Its probably the best 19'' LCD I've used to date. It has the clearcoat reflective anti-glare coating, and probably the best image quality out of all the 19'' LCD's available in retail stores. I know if you pick up computer magazines, its always right in the top 10 for 19'' LCD's, but usually gets bumped down the list because of the price. Now the prices are coming down and you can get a good deal on one. I don't notice any "pixels" on the screen and don't see the spaces between them.
 
No i havent messed with the color's really just the contrast brightness, and the gamma, even tho gamma is the color's it looks better the way i changed it before on default it was just so bright in dark games i couldnt see anything. The moniter controls dont work very well i turn the brightness down half way and it looks like it didnt go down @ all. They also dont have a gamma option just a color option like red blue green, i just set the thing to 9300k the color's look nice and vibrant with that setting

Anyway here are some pics of the backlight issue, and the grainyness im talking about. I moved the moniter futher back on the desk it looks alot better now but i dunno. Maybe im just being to picky ? I guess it was the fact that reading reviews doing research on a moniter and having no one mentioning things like these besides ghosting and stuff is what got me. I got this moniter because i wanted to avoid the ghosting and smearing and i did but i also got other problems lol..

The phone camera sucks, ignore the bottom of the screen on this first pic it doesnt look like that, it looks perfect, but look @ the top see that white light ? Thats just messed up..

56568.jpg


344.jpg
 
Candymancan said:
pixels are so big i can littery see all them even when im sitting 2 feet away (i have better then perfect vision) and it anoyy's me to death.
Click to expand...


Wow, that's insane. I have to stick my face up to the screen to see the pixels...
 
kemist1117 said:
Well i believe 19inch 1280/1024 LCD's are really bad for that. IIRC 19" have one of the highest pixel pitches in an LCD. If you get an LCD with a lower pixel pitch you will probably not be affected as much.

edit: 19" = .294 pixel pitch, only higher is 15"

20" or 23" widescreen LCD's are lowest at .258, only lower is 30" at .250
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exactly 19" LCDs have a higher pixel pitch than other sizes. My 17" is 0.264mm and its not grainy.
 
are you talking about the 'screen door effect' where it looks like you are viewing your display through a grid?

I noticed it intially when I got a Dell 2001fp, but I adjusted in a week or so and could no longer see it, it just takes some time to adjust. The sharper text alone is worth it for me.
 
brighton said:
exactly 19" LCDs have a higher pixel pitch than other sizes. My 17" is 0.264mm and its not grainy.
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Yes. I bought a 17" instead of 19" not to save money, but to avoid the giant pixels on 19". 19" has the same resolution, you just bigger, more obvious pixels.
 
NulloModo said:
are you talking about the 'screen door effect' where it looks like you are viewing your display through a grid?

I noticed it intially when I got a Dell 2001fp, but I adjusted in a week or so and could no longer see it, it just takes some time to adjust. The sharper text alone is worth it for me.
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Yea it looks like a window screen, or s screen door cept the holes are smaller.

Newegg i assume still has there 30 day return policy, I'll wait until viewsonic sends me another moniter then compare both. If the other one doesnt have the backlight showing through as bad as my current monitor maybe ill keep the thing. Its only $260 like you guys i like the sharpness just got done playing Halo for a couple it looks fantastic. When im done playing games tho i need to turn the brightness and contrast down everytime because its so bright when im typing like i am now it really hurts my eyes.

. Hopefully viewsonic will send my new monitor soon, i only have 24 days left to return it
 
A lot of the problem comes from many factors such as the coating of the screen, the kind of LCD, the pixel pitch and pixel desnity (DPI). As stated before, 19" LCD's have horrible DPI. I find that most LCD's are unsatisfactory for how many pixels they pack onto the screen, but 19 inchers are the worst. I guess I should feel lucky that my desktop 17" LCD runs at 1600x1024. The pixels are so tiny and close together, its impossible to see them individually. Its one of the few LCD's I actually like.
 
It's not like they couldn't make the pixels smaller if they chose to. Just look at laptop displays. Is there really so little demand for smaller pixels? Are the general public that easily pleased (rhetorical)?
 
I think my wuxga (1680x1050) laptop display on my 15.4" laptop looks phenomenally better then my Dell 2407fpw (which is still incredibly nice).
 
I dont think that many people suffer from SDE. Either that or they get used to it.I personally have a 19" LCD and it doesnt bother me on it, though if i sit close enough i can understand what people mean.
 
Personally, pretty much every LCD i've seen produces some grain/pixelation/artifacts during video playback. This includes 14" notebook LCD's, the two 20" wide LCD's on my desk at the moment and my mothers 42" Toshiba. From my understanding, it's due to the decoder used and the fact that the DVD source must be upscaled quite a bit to fill the screen...
 
Seriously for gaming LCD is way behind the CRT:s still. If you are just going by image quality there is absolutely no reason to go for a LCD over a Trinitron/Diamondtron CRT...

You do that to save space, get a better looking livingroom or if CRT:s for some reason give you headaches if you are sensitive to flickering or just want to reduce your electricity bill...

The problem is not so much your screen as the LCD Technology. There is of course better or worse but still....

Now I just got a LCD but I went for it to get the larger size 32" and widescreen format. image quality can´t compare to my Diamondtron CRT and this is about the best 32" LCD TV money can buy....

However I am still happy with it but I would never replace say a 19" CRT with a 19" LCD. You pay more and get less than you had before really...

This is if you are gay about image quality. It´s not like my LCD looks junk it´s just the image isn´t just as perfect as on my old CRT... I have absolutely no problem to game with either... And yes I am happy with my purchase but it´s due to the larger image really nothing else. And as mentioned there isn´t THAT much difference in IQ... Colours on this are absolutely equal. For movies way way better actually.

Mainly the black levels that differs the most.
 
When I was running a Dell 2001FP LCD and Sony 21" G520P CRT side by side the LCD definately suffered from some strange artifacting when watching movies, it also made almost all of my divx / xvid's look extremely bad, You could blame the LCD for being "to sharp" but I really dont think this is the case, its more a problem with LCDs being overbright and oversaturated which magnifies any visual flaws in movies, from what I understand a lot of LCDs introduce there own artifacts into videos as well ,All I know is movies / DVDs looked 10x better on the CRT!
 
Try the NEC 20W(M)GX2 :) with the OptiClear panel coating. Instead of the grainy problem, this monitor have the opposite one. It's so crystal clear that you may fool yourself and jump in :p Seriously, this monitor is fantasic resemblance of the all-time-good CRT look. It doesn't suffer from the usual suspects: grainy, sandy, hazy panel apperiance and screen door effects. It's just you and the liquid crystal ;) All you see is the image and no surface. Image is just floating there, with a great sense that panel is just the window to the another world outside.
 
DVL73 said:
Try the NEC 20W(M)GX2 :) with the OptiClear panel coating. Instead of the grainy problem, this monitor have the opposite one. It's so crystal clear that you may fool yourself and jump in :p Seriously, this monitor is fantasic resemblance of the all-time-good CRT look. It doesn't suffer from the usual suspects: grainy, sandy, hazy panel apperiance and screen door effects. It's just you and the liquid crystal ;) All you see is the image and no surface. Image is just floating there, with a great sense that panel is just the window to the another world outside.
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Actually in Behardware's review of this monitor they said it suffers from the infamous "twinkling" effect during video playback ,they only gave it 2 of 5 stars for movie quality but it appears to be a good monitor for everything else.

http://www.behardware.com/articles/610-6/nec-20wgx-an-ips-equivalent-to-a-2-ms-tn.html
 
I'm probably going to be giving the nec a look based on what I've been reading... I have a feeling I'll be the kind of person who likes the glossiness/smooth look. I just can't believe how much easier it is for me to read text off my trusty 17" crt compared to the lg204wt.
 
Well viewsonic called me about my advanced rma, its going through its gonna be a week @ least before they get any to mail me lol.... They dont keep them in stock for rma that is really stupid...

The lady said, well the moniter is fairly new and very popular so all the vx922's we make we distribute out. She offerd exchanging it with a VX924 tho meh. If i wanted a 924 i woulda bought it
 
I went with a Westy 37" that I intended to use as a monitor/TV. The picture was so bad short of HD sources that the TV was quickly dropped. It was heartbreaking to try to watch DVDs on it, the picture was horrid with the artifacting and pixelation from the upscale off of the PC DVD player. Admittely I never tried my Oppo or any other upconverting player with it. Now for the most part I use a Dell 2005 as my video watching monitor and just stick to using the Westy as my main desktop/game playing monitor, a role in which it totally excels. I am completely spoiled by the desktop size at 1920x1080 now. I had screen door on my first 2001 for about 3 days, afterwards if I am not looking for it, my eyes compensate. If I had a vendor close by so I could see the screen before I bought I might go with a Sony 24" inch CRT but I am perfectly content with my present set up. :D
 
mathesar said:
Actually in Behardware's review of this monitor they said it suffers from the infamous "twinkling" effect during video playback
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It's not the same thing. Here, we are talking about the panel coating type and the quality (grade) of the panel surface and DPI (pixel pitch) or the pixel size ... as the contributed factors for the overall "grainy" look of the LCD. For some people, it's also sandy or hazy (depending on the panel coating) or screen door effect is there. Did I misunderstood the poster or the thread subject? :confused:

You are talking about the different type of noise - compressed video playback only related noise or twinkling, flashy pixels (or however you may call it) and all LCD monitors (and LCD TV sets) are suffering from this, to some extent. It's related to the overdrive implementation and slight pixel control problems - so that you have pixel "overshoot" effect. Also, panel type (S-IPS, PVA, MVA ... etc) usually does have influence how much this effect is pronounced. S-IPS do have tendency to twinkle little bit more, but that's nothing to worry about and not THAT bad. On the other hand, you have other advantages of the IPS panels - like outstanding colour quality and superb viewing angles. Reviews are sometimes going a bit too far in my opinion so that "twinkling" effect is definitely exaggerated and there is plenty of hype around this. For the majority of users it's just OK and nothing to worry about, as long as they keep the proper distance from the screen. Did you ever try to watch your LCD TV from the close proximity ? It's quite bad actually. Also, bare in mind that CRT is usually masking the imperfections in the video stream more easily than the LCD. This is the reason why picture appears to be somewhat "clean". Also, when HD content is screened, video noise is much less pronounced ... so quality of the video source does matter usually.
 
i thought the grainy look was in the coating. why has no one mentioned that? every monitor has a grainy look to some extent from the coating. i even looked at the Apple 23 and 30 inchers and the grainy coating looked horrible on a white background.
 
trek554 said:
i thought the grainy look was in the coating. why has no one mentioned that? every monitor has a grainy look to some extent from the coating. i even looked at the Apple 23 and 30 inchers and the grainy coating looked horrible on a white background.
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I thought the grain effect was due to the rough "matte" coating used on most LCDs ..but for example my DS Lite's screens have the smooth glossy screens (like the NEC) and yet I *still* see this "grain" effect when looking at bright backrounds, I dont see this effect on CRTs at all.
 
mathesar said:
Actually in Behardware's review of this monitor they said it suffers from the infamous "twinkling" effect during video playback ,they only gave it 2 of 5 stars for movie quality but it appears to be a good monitor for everything else.
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Behardware seems to be insanely biased; don't listen to their opinions just the objective data like their ghosting test, color reproduction test, ect...



Behardware.com said:
After calibration all monitors wre excellent and accurate. There is only one thing we need to point out for glossy panels, the NEC 20WGX², Asus and Acer. The colorimeter sees them as accurate, but you will be affected by all surrounding lights reflected in the panel and which disturbs rendering. For us these two monitors should be avoided if you are looking for accurate colors.
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I'm mean seriously, thats just laughable. If a colorimeter sees it as accurate, then its accurate. Also, you could say matte anti-gloss coatings negatively effect color reproduction because they diffuse light therefore light is being overlayed on the colors and distorting them (which would be complete bullshit, but following their logic you could say that).


@Candymancan, you should try monitors with a 0.255-0.258 pixel pitch and a glossy screen.
 
mathesar said:
I thought the grain effect was due to the rough "matte" coating used on most LCDs ..but for example my DS Lite's screens have the smooth glossy screens (like the NEC) and yet I *still* see this "grain" effect when looking at bright backrounds, I dont see this effect on CRTs at all.
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its on crt monitors too especially the flat screen ones.
 
trek554 said:
its on crt monitors too especially the flat screen ones.
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I dont see this grain effect at all on my CRT ,Im typing on one right now. (Sony FW900). are we talking about something different? The effect im referring to looks like very fine specks of dirt being seen all over the screen ,especially noticeable on a white background.
 
mathesar said:
I dont see this grain effect at all on my CRT ,Im typing on one right now. (Sony FW900). are we talking about something different? The effect im referring to looks like very fine specks of dirt being seen all over the screen ,especially noticeable on a white background.
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Me either, and I'm using a cheap ass KDS Xflat 17inch crt.
 
si0dine said:
Me either, and I'm using a cheap ass KDS Xflat 17inch crt.
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and my parents say their crt monitor doesnt flicker at 60 Hertz too.




its there but may not bother you or maybe its not really noticeable to you. every monitor made has some type of coating.
 
trek554 said:
and my parents say their crt monitor doesnt flicker at 60 Hertz too.




its there but may not bother you or maybe its not really noticeable to you. every monitor made has some type of coating.
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Well of course they all have a coating but this doesnt mean it has to effect the picture quality, im guessing its noticable on LCDs because of the material used for the screen versus glass on a CRT, whatever the case Ive never seen a CRT exhibit this 'grain' symptom.
 
mathesar said:
Well of course they all have a coating but this doesnt mean it has to effect the picture quality, im guessing its noticable on LCDs because of the material used for the screen versus glass on a CRT, whatever the case Ive never seen a CRT exhibit this 'grain' symptom.
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i have seen it on EVERY flat screen crt i have ever looked at. all you have to do is look at a white background or drag a white background window around the screen. you will notice a slight grain that doesnt move.



the grainy coating was the very first thing i noticed when i looked at the Apple 30 and 23 inch lcd monitors the first time.



i think its funny that people in this thread were talking about dot pitch and resolutions. the issue with his monitor IS the coating. many others have complained about this coating on Viewsonic lcd monitors.
 
trek554 said:
i have seen it on EVERY flat screen crt i have ever looked at. all you have to do is look at a white background or drag a white background window around the screen. you will notice a slight grain that doesnt move.



the grainy coating was the very first thing i noticed when i looked at the Apple 30 and 23 inch lcd monitors the first time.



i think its funny that people in this thread were talking about dot pitch and resolutions. the issue with his monitor IS the coating. many others have complained about this coating on Viewsonic lcd monitors.
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Wow I had to get really close to my monitor to see this grain you speak of, the grain I see on LCDs is much MUCH more pronounced and can be easily seen from normal viewing distance ,in fact some users who switched from CRT to LCD ask about this grain and mention the fact they didnt see it on there CRT in the first place, so I know im not crazy :) Anyhow im done with this thread ..I hate arguing with stubborn people.
 
I have used several LCDs and I currently have a dual screen with one CRT, one LCD.

LCDs often highlight grain noise in both images in video. I can see it clearly. I don't see it being a result of screen coating.

Here are the mechanism at work.

1: Pixel gaps on LCD vs a slight pixel blend/smooth on CRT. The gaps highlight small bits of noise, the blending/smoothing on CRT hides it.

2: Different dark tone curves. I have the same wallpaper on both, I can see that in the darker tones were the noise is most prevalent, the LCD just shines through more light and thus you see more of the noise. I can't calibrate this away without making a mess of the overal image quality. Just a difference in the way they handle the darker end.

3: Pixel size. For me, my LCD has slightly bigger pitch which will also briing it out a bit, but on 19" the pixels are HUGE so that much worse.

Bottom Line. Yes absolutely this is what you get with LCD on video/images. It is sharper, but if you have noise of any sort it is going to be more obvious. But if you see grain noise on artificial sources it is probably just #3, pixels that are too damn big.
 
mathesar said:
Wow I had to get really close to my monitor to see this grain you speak of, the grain I see on LCDs is much MUCH more pronounced and can be easily seen from normal viewing distance ,in fact some users who switched from CRT to LCD ask about this grain and mention the fact they didnt see it on there CRT in the first place, so I know im not crazy :) Anyhow im done with this thread ..I hate arguing with stubborn people.
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why are you calling me stubborn and i dont think we were really arguing anyway? i just made a point that the grain is there whether you see it or not. now you actually see the grain and thats the commnet you have. that makes no sense. :confused:


anyway it does seem more noticeable on most lcd monitors. that might have something to do with how sharp and bright the display is. also some coatings are just more noticeable than others. :D
 
DefineByte said:
All desktop LCDs have this. It's not that the pixels are bigger than CRT's, just that they are so much sharper it's easy to spot the gaps between them. It's the reason (well, one of them) I went back to CRTs. Oddly enough, I ended up getting quite a high-end CRT and it's so sharp I can see the gaps there too (not as big though). C'est la vie.
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Well CRTs dont have pixels in the first place in the sense that each one is definied individually...
 
trek554 said:
why are you calling me stubborn and i dont think we were really arguing anyway? i just made a point that the grain is there whether you see it or not. now you actually see the grain and thats the commnet you have. that makes no sense. :confused:


anyway it does seem more noticeable on most lcd monitors. that might have something to do with how sharp and bright the display is. also some coatings are just more noticeable than others. :D
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My bad, Sometimes Its hard to tell someones emotions through text.. I just meant the grain effect is *barely* noticable on my CRT to the point it would never be an issue.

I have yet to see an NEC 20WGMX2 in action perhaps its not as bad vs. other LCDs. Ive been thinking a bout getting the NEC just to see what all the hype is about and update my impression on LCDs at the same time, I just need to order it from somewhere that offers refunds just in case I dont like it. And no I wouldnt replace my CRT with it, if anything it'll be running along side it via dual monitors ;)
 
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