Dell U3011 coming soon.

[Zephalephelah]

That's because regardless of your ping to the server in Atlanta your not getting a dedicated 12ms connection to that online Counterstrike server and with a LAN connection everyone who is playing all has the same 0-1ms connection whereas when your playing Counterstrike online everyone is going to have a different ping with some notably higher than yours and if they're lagging its going to affect you as well.

Absolutely incorrect. If someone was playing from the moon over old technology and had a ping of 4000, it wouldn't effect anyone at all.

A brief history of LPB & HPB in Gaming

Back in 1998, ASDL was just coming of age and people were paying $150 a month for ISDN lines, and some lucky people had access to T1 lines. In video gaming, these people were called LPBs (Low Ping Bastards). They were well-hated because they could literally see you before you could see them and therefore regardless of ability, they almost always had the highest scores. If you spec'd the players, you could see that they were normally not very good at the game. The rest of the world had to try very hard to win, the LPBs just had be there.

Then Valve released the infamous netcode and evened the playing field by using timers to offset the huge difference that existed between 14.4, 28.8, 56k modem users and the LPBs. Also in the mix was an automatic inititive rating for users with higher pings. This caused the server to check and see if both players had fired in a space of 25ms and if they had, then the guy with the higher ping automatically registered the shot first. Combined with the timers, the difference between high pings and low pings was virtually nullified, and that's why I can do extremely good with my +100 ping on the server versus you guys with 40 ping. The netcode makes our pings the same and I'm a very good player and have been playing since Counter Strike was a Beta for Halflife and there was a gun turret on the single map that existed and something called gun-running because the guns didn't disappear after each round, so one side would have about 80-90 guns by the end of the map right in front of their spawn.

Anyway, the LPBs hated this new netcode and called the modem users HPBs (high ping bastards) and they conspired to perpetuate the myth that excessively high pings caused lag. This caught on like wildfire and spread like "all your base are belong to us" or "teh" or "Haxors" or "Owned & Pwned" or the relatively new "u mad bro?" But it was a lie, and it still is a lie.

You see, Counter-Strike servers are Server-Based. This means that clients talk to the server and the server sends out data to the clients. It wouldn't matter if people were playing from the moon!!! The server always runs at the speed that a server runs at. Games like Doom-series and Quake-series were Client-Based. You connected to eachother over the net & in this case ping would truly impact the game because each client needed to send packets to eachother (there was no central server as a player initiated gameplay). But in Counter-Strike dedicated servers there is a central server that interacts with all clients, so ping has no effect on the server AT ALL! (PERIOD).

It does sometimes make them harder to hit because they flicker about, as the server is not going to slow for them so it only shows them occasionally; and that can be annoying, but they don't ever slow down a server.

Because of the strength of the myth, you can't find them often but I've seen clients with 4000 ping and everyone else is still playing just fine. The real culprit is the servers themselves. They rent these things with a player-rating, but often times there just isn't adequate hardware (RAM, fast harddrives with large caches in a proper RAID array, newer mainboards on the servers, etc) or infrastructure. But I assure you, someone’s ping has absolutely nothing to do with ping. Nothing!

 

[Tanquen]

You son of a bitch, I'm sitting here literally hovering over the "buy" button. One U3011 for 1200? Two U2711s for 1600? I already have 2 2209WAs...AAAARGH.

This will end two ways. Either I keep the 2711 or 3011, or it'll appear in FS/FT in a week or so.

e: can't add the U2711 to cart either.

Why so hostile? You should be able to get them through the Small Business site.

 

[Tanquen]

... so ping has no effect on the server AT ALL! (PERIOD).

It does sometimes make them harder to hit because they flicker about, as the server is not going to slow for them so it only shows them occasionally; and that can be annoying, but they don't ever slow down a server.

...

I played lots and lots of CS. What you say is true but it only helped you mention one of side effects yourself. Whatever the reason is when I have a 0-10 ping I have a way better experience than when I have a 300+ ping. Like when I host a server locally and open it up to WAN users. My friends and I on the LAN just run smother and it is an advantage. This has been true for me on many games.

 

[movax]

Why so hostile? You should be able to get them through the Small Business site.

The hostility was in jest, for making it easier for me to spend money

I added the 3011 to my cart, but the tax made it more expensive than buying a BNIB one from a seller here in FS/FT (not to mention it would be until 12/14 until Dell shipped), so I just bought from him. I think the 2711s are sold out.

If I can find a decent camera or something, I may try to do side-by-sides vs. the FW900. Also, some of these input lag posts are coming dangerously close to just warranting their own "U3011 Input Lag" thread.

 

[Zephalephelah]

I played lots and lots of CS. What you say is true but it only helped you mention one of side effects yourself. Whatever the reason is when I have a 0-10 ping I have a way better experience than when I have a 300+ ping. Like when I host a server locally and open it up to WLAN users. My friends and I on LAN just run smother and it is an advantage. This has been true for me on many games.

Well, you are right. It is easier to play a game with less lag. But what I'm saying is that no one can EVER impact another client on a server-based game. So if there's someone playing with a 300 ping and people are complaining about lag; they are probably pointing their finger at the person with the 300 ping and that's absolutely 100% incorrect. His ping only affects his game in regards to lag, just as you for yours.

However, since the server cannot deciminate information out to the other clients in a timely fashion, the person with a 300 ping appears to flicker about or may suddenly catch up and zoom at speedhax speeds for a moment. But there is never any such thing as a lowest common denominator anti-feature of ping in a server-based game.

Lag is always caused by either the client himself (which is why people ask if others are also experiencing lag) or the server itself (due to its connectivity or lack of horsepower or any other number of reasons EXCEPT another client's bag ping).

 

[Opie]

Dell SB has the u3011 and the u2711 for $300 off each. I got one of each. Dell Home has the u2711 for $300 off also but I could not add it to a cart. ???

I want to set them up like this.

Thanks! Pulled the trigger....can't wait for it to arrive.

 

[PC_User]

I registered here because it seemed like an active thread about this monitor and I will gladly share my opinion on it in a desperate attempt to get some feedback on my problems.

Honestly, if the 3 monitors I've received aren't hugely defective I don't understand how anyone can use this monitor for anything.

I have 1 30" Dell 3007WFP, 1 24" Apple led cinema, 1 27" Apple led cinema, 2 24" Eizo S2431W Flexscans and a bunch of older 24" Dell monitors and I am now on my third U3011 and I have to say I've never tried this hard to like a monitor before.

And what concerns me the most is how completely opposite my opinion of this monitor is compared to all the reviews. Take the brightness for instance. All the reviews propose a setting between 0! and 10, yet I find the screen horribly dim with anything below 80 brightness and this was the case for all 3 of my monitors.

Also, I am unable to fix the colors. Apparently wide gamut means that every website, icon and image will look neon and messed up and no matter how much work I put into calibrating the monitor I'm unable to fix that problem. And the SRGB preset just looks greyscale to me.

Keep in mind I'm comparing this monitor to my 3007WFP which is like 3 years old and I find it to be superior to the U3011. I can see the U3011 is better for movies, but I spend 95% of the time in front of my pc surfing or working and for that purpose all I get is headaches and eye strain, possibly from the weird colors or something else I can't put my finger on.

I'm so puzzled. I've always bought my monitors based on reviews I trust and I've always been blown away without having to change a single setting, yet all 3 U3011's I've had just looked horrible when I first powered them on.

I've tested with a dozen different cables of every type, multiple pcs and macs and I'm about to lose faith. Problem is I've bought this through my company and I don't think I can even return it. No idea what to do.

Are you using the Color Management add-on for Firefox? If so, remember to change the ICC profile to the new ICC profile you are using with the U3011.

 

[Startup123]

That was what I feared. The tftcentral review did link to an article telling about the pros and cons of wide gamut, but I was unable to find any cons and everywhere I look wide gamut is regarded as positive. I guess only people who work with print and or photography are supposed to read those reviews and not the web designers such as myself.
...

I will put it this way, with non-wide gamut monitors you get acceptably wrong colors in non-color managed software and limited possibility to display the intended colors perfectly in color managed software. However, the colors you create/edit referring to color managed display will be correct with your choice being limited to the color space of your monitor.

With wide gamut monitors you get unacceptably wrong colors in non-color managed software and perfectly correct display of intended colors from all common color spaces using color managed software.

To make color managed software work properly, you need a correct color profile of your monitor that can be created only by using hardware sampling device like a colorimeter. Do not use canned monitor color profiles like those supplied from Dell. Such profiles may be OK for devices like scanners and even desktop printers but not for monitors. In fact in most cases they do more harm than good.

With wide gamut monitor, for web browsing and development, I would recommend Spyder 3 Express, should be about $100 or less, for more advanced color work I would recommend adding ColorEyes Display Pro calibration and profiling software about $200. Also if you are on a PC it is highly recommended to use Windows 7 as previous systems have some issues with color management.
Then your wide gamut monitor will transform to the best display you have ever had
I'm using a wide gamut monitor with Windows 7 and AFAIK the only non-color managed programs displaying images that come from Microsoft with the system are the Internet Explorer which will be color managed in the upcoming version and the Desktop background images. Everything else is color managed, even the little image file previews in the Windows Explorer. Non-color managed productivity software, like Dreamweaver, Flash, and 3D programs can be easily color proofed and piped for the final color space conversion using color managed programs.

Also have in mind that all important software will become color managed rather sooner and at this point the pros are much more than the cons for using wide gamut monitor.
Also it is important to know and understand color management in general - I think most of the complaints about wrong colors on wide gamut monitors are due to lack of color management knowledge and proper usage.

 

[TwiiK]

Thanks for the thorough reply.

How does icons like the firefox logo etc. look on your monitor if it's wide gamut? Like they should be or oversaturated and red? Because that's what I'm getting with the U3011 no matter how much effort I put into calibrating it using either my Spyder 3 Pro, the monitor RGB settings or the Nvidia control panel settings.

Although the wide gamut isn't my main problem with this monitor. The eye strain is. I can't look at it for more than 10-15 minutes straight without my eyes watering and if I look at my 3007WFP which I now have set up in dual display mode it's like looking at a still picture in comparison, I can look at that one (or nearly any other monitor) for days without even blinking.

Like I said I thought it was the wide gamut colors at first, but I've been fiddling with the sRGB mode for hours now so it's obviously not that. I woke up this morning thinking it was the refresh rate, but that's 60Hz as it should be. Looking at the U3011 is like looking at one of those 3d pictures. I'm unable to focus properly. I've experienced this before on old CRT screens, but never once after moving to LCD's. I have no idea what's causing this.

Also, the viewing angle of the U3011 is simply worse than the 3007WFP. If I have the 2 monitors next to each other in clone desktop mode and sit about 2 feet away in the center of both of them the startmenu bar (in Windows 7) looks extremely faded on the U3011, but unchanged on the 3007. I have to tilt the screen and move my head so it's perfectly perpendicular to the startmenu bar on the U3011 for the icons not to look faded.

Also, the Spyder 3 Pro is the first and only calibration hardware equipment I've ever bought and I'm not sure how to use it, honestly. You hook it up, choose your goals, start up the calibration and let it run, then you get a bunch of images in the end and are supposed to tell if the new calibration is better than the old based on those. It gives me no info about whether or not I achieved my calibration goals, what values I got, nothing. And half the time the end result is dreadful with a clearly tinted display etc. And it's almost forcing the 120cd/m brightness on me, but that is so dim white looks like grey.

I'm about to return this monitor, but if I do I have no clue what other monitor to get. If wide gamut is the direction everything is going I guess I should try to make it work sooner rather than later.

 

[TwiiK]

Btw, the custom preset mode just broke on this model as well. Everything is now fluorescent green if I switch to that mode.

At least that lets me return it if I decide to.

 

[LoneReaction]

Oh, Is there a difference between using display port and DVI, from the graphic card?

 

[TwiiK]

I couldn't tell the difference between DVI, HDMI or Displayport.

 

[slowfreight]

I couldn't tell the difference between DVI, HDMI or Displayport.

I read through your posts and I understand your pain. I recently purchased a U3011 and thought something was odd about it too. In my case it was just WAY TOO bright out of the box and reds in particular seemed overly saturated.

In an effort to fix these issues I started jacking around with my settings both on the OSD and in the nvidia control panel. Just as you mentioned in one of your other posts, turning the brightness down to 10% did the trick for me. Sorry to hear it did not work on your monitor(s). To correct the overly saturated reds, I adjusted a setting know as "digital vibrance" in the nvidia control panel. This also did the trick.

One of the reviews I read mentioned that you needed to adjust the monitor's settings based on your environment. Maybe the lighting in your office/room isn't compatible with the monitor some how (if thats even possible). Have you tried putting the monitor in a different room?

 

[Snowdog]

I will put it this way, with non-wide gamut monitors you get acceptably wrong colors in non-color managed software and limited possibility to display the intended colors perfectly in color managed software. However, the colors you create/edit referring to color managed display will be correct with your choice being limited to the color space of your monitor.

With wide gamut monitors you get unacceptably wrong colors in non-color managed software and perfectly correct display of intended colors from all common color spaces using color managed software.

To make color managed software work properly, you need a correct color profile of your monitor that can be created only by using hardware sampling device like a colorimeter. Do not use canned monitor color profiles like those supplied from Dell. Such profiles may be OK for devices like scanners and even desktop printers but not for monitors. In fact in most cases they do more harm than good.

With wide gamut monitor, for web browsing and development, I would recommend Spyder 3 Express, should be about $100 or less, for more advanced color work I would recommend adding ColorEyes Display Pro calibration and profiling software about $200. Also if you are on a PC it is highly recommended to use Windows 7 as previous systems have some issues with color management.
Then your wide gamut monitor will transform to the best display you have ever had

That was a largely disingenuous post.

Calibrating a wide gamut monitor will not solve your problems, unless you use a very limited set of applications. I am also using windows 7 and the only program I use that actually supports color management is Firefox. Everything else I use does not and would display Extremely offensive looking color everywhere (as it did when I had my 3007-HC).

Some whole classes of applications are not color manged including video players and games.

There also currently significant problems to even properly calibrate a wide gamut monitor because neither of the mentioned colorimeters actually comes with correction matrices for wide gamut light sources.

You best bet is your sRGB emulation and going into color management to make sure you have no profiles associated with this monitor.

I have heard rumbling of a less than perfect sRGB mode, but I don't get why it would look extremely washed out unless your video card LUTs are interfering.

 

[TwiiK]

I've been carrying the monitor back and forth between the office and my house, testing it both in daylight and at night in a dozen different lighting conditions and rooms to no avail.

Also, the reason why I purchased this particular monitor instead of the alternatives I looked at was the numerous connections it offered. Currently I need at least an extra VGA and DVI or similar so I can connect 2 computers and my xbox at once.

My Spyder 3 Pro recommends a brightness of ~200cd/m^2 for my office and living room and that's about 60-70 brightness on the U3011 so setting it at 0-10 like most reviews suggest is out of the question. I like having a bright room and a bright screen compared to the nerd cave low lit style and I'm not going to change that even if it made this monitor happy.

How are you able to tone down the saturation using the digital vibrance setting? Mine is at 0% by default so I can only saturate the colors even more using it. Also I have to turn off all other color management to use the nvidia settings. That means I can't tweak the Nvidia settings when using a color profile provided by my Spyder 3. And Digital Vibrance seems to slaughter detail. Just boosting it by 5% seems to remove subtle details in a lot of icons and designs.

Here's the issues I'm struggling with with the U3011:
1. Viewing angle seems poor compared to my 3007. There's a very silver/metallic looking shine/glow in the corners and edges when looking at the center of the screen and like I mentioned the startmenu icons in Windows 7 look very desaturated on the U3011 unless I look directly at them at a 90 degree angle. If I look directly at the center of the screen as I usually do there's a visible drop in color to them. I'm not seeing this on my much older 3007.
2. I am unable to fix the colors. sRGB is too desaturated no matter how I try to calibrate and tweak it and standard/custom mode remains too vivid/saturated. This means I am unable to make my U3011 look like my colleagues' and customers' monitors.
3. It's hard to look at. Not sure how to explain this, but I find it to be very straining on the eyes. I normally spend 12-16 hours a day in front of one screen or other or multiple at once, but looking at the U3011 is unlike any other monitor I have.
4. The custom mode keeps breaking. Probably just a firmware fault, but a fault nonetheless.

 

[TwiiK]

snip

sRGB doesn't look extremely washed out, that was probably just me exaggerating things a bit. It looks slightly desaturated, but the viewing angle issues I'm experiencing makes the colors more washed out as well. Especially the icons on my startmenu in Windows 7 because they're at the very bottom, the furthest from where my head is.

 

[PC_User]

Another review for anyone who is interested: http://www.flatpanelshd.com/review.php?subaction=showfull&id=1288168155

 

[aloedesign]

sRGB doesn't look extremely washed out, that was probably just me exaggerating things a bit. It looks slightly desaturated, but the viewing angle issues I'm experiencing makes the colors more washed out as well. Especially the icons on my startmenu in Windows 7 because they're at the very bottom, the furthest from where my head is.

srgb definitely feels washed out when you first switch to it after using the full color capability of the screen, but if you use it for a while it gets to feel right again.
You can set the preset to sRGB and then use your video card's control panel to bump up the saturation or "vibrance," but I agree with the other poster that you should be using a color calibrator with this monitor, esp, if you are doing design work.

On lag- This monitor feels much better on lag than my 2405fpw. Lag is not a problem with this monitor in particular. I use it for gaming and it seems great to me.

I still would like to know if there is anyone out there who does not have a glitchy custom color mode.

 

[Snowdog]

Here's the issues I'm struggling with with the U3011:
1. Viewing angle seems poor compared to my 3007. There's a very silver/metallic looking shine/glow in the corners and edges when looking at the center of the screen and like I mentioned the startmenu icons in Windows 7 look very desaturated on the U3011 unless I look directly at them at a 90 degree angle. If I look directly at the center of the screen as I usually do there's a visible drop in color to them. I'm not seeing this on my much older 3007.
2. I am unable to fix the colors. sRGB is too desaturated no matter how I try to calibrate and tweak it and standard/custom mode remains too vivid/saturated. This means I am unable to make my U3011 look like my colleagues' and customers' monitors.
3. It's hard to look at. Not sure how to explain this, but I find it to be very straining on the eyes. I normally spend 12-16 hours a day in front of one screen or other or multiple at once, but looking at the U3011 is unlike any other monitor I have.
4. The custom mode keeps breaking. Probably just a firmware fault, but a fault nonetheless.

1: IPS shine. I remember older IPS panels like your 3007, would show a tendency to get pinkish glow on dark colors, off angle. At some point they changed the design and the glow is more white now. Unfortunately it seems brighter and more obtrusive than the minor pink glow on the older panels. This is now pretty much a fact of life with all IPS panels. My 2490 is one of the older exceptions with an extra polarizing layer that tames this effect, but they no longer make any monitors with this extra layer.

2: You could try tweaking the digitial vibrance on your video card a bit.

3: Not sure on this one. My main problems with this were related to too much brightness. Though when I had my 3007-HC there was also the issue of neon reds from wide gamut that hurt my eyes and I had a lot of panel uniformity issues that made it a strain to look at darker areas of the screen.

You may just need to give up...

 

[TwiiK]

Thanks for your replies Snowdog.

You obviously have a ton of experience with this and quite a bit of patience as well.

Half an hour ago I set both monitors next to eachother and put them both on 100% brightness, in clone mode in a completely dark room. I then watched clips from multiple 1080p movies on each one, surfed for a while and did some work. All this while looking dead center between the two screens (Yes, my eyes are bleeding now and yes it felt very odd).

And I've come to the conclusion that I will keep the screen.

You nailed it with the pink shine. That's exactly what I saw myself. I've been using my Eizo Flexscans at home for a long time and I've been waiting for a dual-link DVI adapter for my Mac so I've been using an Apple Cinema LED at work thus I've used no IPS displays in a quite some time. I must say I prefer the look of my Eizo's, but I can get used to IPS panels again. At least it's miles better than the mirror reflections of the Apple Cinema LED.

Also, I will buy a better color calibrator because I don't like the Spyder 3 Pro at all.

As for the eye strain I think it just may be the different coating/shine or whatever. I'm sure I will get used to it with time. I had a similar experience when switching from pc to mac as mac uses a different font smoothing algorithm than windows and it took me weeks to get used to.

Now that I'm no longer on the fence about keeping it I have some questions about general use. What exactly is standard mode suited for? I watched a clip from Avatar and that looked brilliant with the extra vivid colors, but then I watched Toy Story 3 and that looked all wrong.

Edit: 100% brightness for nearly an hour actually slightly burned in some features in both monitors. I hope that goes away.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

What exactly is standard mode suited for? I watched a clip from Avatar and that looked brilliant with the extra vivid colors, but then I watched Toy Story 3 and that looked all wrong.

Standard mode looks all wrong to me, but maybe its just a matter of preference and the lighting in the computer room.

I wind up using Adobe RGB for most things. It looks the most accurate to me.

I use the game mode for games (though I don't know exactly what this changes. I wish the exact details of all the preset modes were published).

The Game mode appears to haver some sort of automatic brightening/darkening going on. It doesn't bother me in games, but on my desktop (black background) the white windows will get very bright very quickly, until I switch away from the mode.

I've played a little bit with the custom mode, but I don't own a calibrator so it has not been incredibly useful yet.

 

[movax]

Edit: 100% brightness for nearly an hour actually slightly burned in some features in both monitors. I hope that goes away.

Yeah, that image persistence should go away.

Can't wait for mine to show up! Finding myself doing less gaming, and more reading/programming/etc, so the LCD text sharpness over CRT should be a welcome relief. I love my 2209WAs, so pretty used to IPS (though, this is S-IPS, the 2209s I think are eIPS or hIPS?).

 

[TwiiK]

The Game mode appears to haver some sort of automatic brightening/darkening going on. It doesn't bother me in games, but on my desktop (black background) the white windows will get very bright very quickly, until I switch away from the mode.

I'm sure the Game mode and possibly Movie mode enables dynamic contrast, i.e. the monitor automatically decreases the brightness based on what's being shown. For example if you're in a dark cave or watching a dark movie it will lower the brightness to give you deeper blacks.

At least that's what I think dynamic contrast is.

 

[Startup123]

...
How does icons like the firefox logo etc. look on your monitor if it's wide gamut? Like they should be or oversaturated and red? ....

Icons and interface elements are not color managed in any program, even in Photoshop where only the displayed images are color managed. And I doubt if anyone will bother with making interface elements color managed, if they do, I think that will be the last thing to be addressed. Because no one cares and this cannot be a problem. I have u2711 which is wide gamut and the icons look good. The main purpose of icons is to quickly identify and distinguish them so with colors being more saturated only helps in that respect. I highly doubt that this is the cause for your eye strain.

What you say sounds like something is terribly wrong with your monitor or setup. It could be a defective monitor or you may have messed up the settings and calibration in such way that monitor display is causing eye strain.
If your monitor is still in the return period, exchanging it will make sure if it is the monitor.
If it is the setup, resetting the monitor to default standard setting, and following you calibration and profiling software manual correctly should fix the problem. I suggest you try getting help from the company providing the calibration software. I'm not sure if I understand what you have done but you are not supposed to touch your monitor controls after calibration and profiling.

 

[Startup123]

That was a largely disingenuous post....

I appreciate your opinion

Calibrating a wide gamut monitor will not solve your problems, unless you use a very limited set of applications. I am also using windows 7 and the only program I use that actually supports color management is Firefox. Everything else I use does not and would display Extremely offensive looking color everywhere (as it did when I had my 3007-HC)

If this was directed to me, as I already said, I don't have problems on my wide gamut monitor and to repeat it again, only non-color managed programs displaying images that come from Microsoft with Windows 7 are the Internet Explorer which I don't use and the Desktop background images. If you know of any others, please let me know.

...Some whole classes of applications are not color manged including video players ....

Completely wrong statement - I will not bother giving facts, just look it up.

... and games...

Games are content, just interactive, it is used "consumed" in the same way like displaying an image sent to you on your monitor. Like an image without a color profile, if the creators decided that it is not important if the game colors are varied to the degree possible on a wide gamut monitors then so be it. Have you heard anyone complaining form over saturated colors in games? In fact I've read the opposite feedback - users loving the saturated colors in wide gamut monitors. From what I've seen, the game imagery is mostly fake 3D worlds that gains nothing from realistic or natural colors.

...There also currently significant problems to even properly calibrate a wide gamut monitor because neither of the mentioned colorimeters actually comes with correction matrices for wide gamut light sources...

I'm well aware of the limitation of the technology however I wouldn't call these "significant problems" and the devices do calibrate the wide gamut monitors very well, the improvement is obvious for those who use them.

...You best bet is your sRGB emulation and going into color management to make sure you have no profiles associated with this monitor...

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here and if it is even directed to me since the rest of the message is apparently directed to TwiiK

cheers

 

[Snowdog]

Completely wrong statement - I will not bother giving facts, just look it up.
Games are content, just interactive, it is used "consumed" in the same way like

So when wrong, you just claim you won't bother with facts.

Please name some color managed video players.

The only thing I have heard of are some laborious hacks for Media Play Classic.

While perfect colors are not needed in games, non ridiculously oversaturated ones are and NO games are color managed.

When I had my 3007-HC, the neon reds in games actually were painful to look at.

Even with calibration, you won't get "perfect" color, all you will get is acceptable color.

The difference is with:

Standard Gamut monitor you will get Acceptable color everywhere.

Wide Gamut monitor you only get accept color in a narrow range of applications, with Unacceptable color everywhere else.

Wide gamut unacceptable colors will appear in ALL Games, All video players, almost all third party software.

 

[Startup123]

So when wrong, you just claim you won't bother with facts.

Please name some color managed video players.
...

I simply couldn't believe that a person interested in that doesn't know this and haven't bothered to check it already.
Windows 7 comes with Windows Media Player - it is a color managed player. The third party Quick Time player from Apple - color managed player too. Flash player is color managed but the control is from the creator not the user. edit Oh, I forgot to mentioned that Windows Explorer shows video files with fully functional movie playing preview which qualify it as a player software - it is color managed too.
You can't say video players are a class of software that is not color managed. Any software developers can make their software color managed if they want this and that's the trend.

... While perfect colors are needed in games, non ridiculously oversaturated ones are and NO games are color managed...

There is not such thing as perfect colors as everyone has different color tastes, but color management does ensure the closest match possible to intended colors. With games ensuring the intended colors depends entirely on the game creators who made the color choices. If they find important for their audience to to see the intended colors they would have made their games color managed.

...Wide gamut unacceptable colors will appear in ALL Games, All video players, almost all third party software.

Why don't you put a list with all programs you use and say which one is and not color managed. And let everyone decide for themselves how much software is and not manged on their computers instead of giving wrong guesses and general conclusions.

 

[Snowdog]

I have Win7 64 - Fully up to date.

Window media Player is not color managed here. QT Player from Apple is, but I don't use it, because it sucks as a video player. I use MS WMP, MPC-HC and VLC, all non managed.

This perfectly highlights why wide gamut is a PITA. Most of your favorite applications will have wildly oversaturated colors.

As far as listing what doesn't work, it is easier to list what I use that does support color management: Firefox.
Some things that aren't managed that I use: All my games, all my media players, Opera, IE, paint.net, office apps, etc ... In short everything I have would have wacky colors on a wide gamut monitor.

Anyway it is something I don't have to worry about because I have standard gamut monitor and all applications work, I am not limited to using a narrow subset.

 

[TwiiK]

To correct the overly saturated reds, I adjusted a setting know as "digital vibrance" in the nvidia control panel. This also did the trick.

I checked out the digital vibrance setting on my home computer and it's default at 50% and can go between 0% and 100% so here I can go full greyscale if I want.

On my work monitor it was default at 0% so I could only increase the saturation.

Guess they improved it on the newer graphics card I have at home compared to my work computer.

 

[TwiiK]

I just noticed this monitor actually makes a really annoying buzzing sound if I turn the brightness below 90. I can't stand such noises so I guess this monitor is going back as well.

I didn't notice it in the "noisy" office, but at home it's very audible.

 

[Tanquen]

...not to mention it would be until 12/14 until Dell shipped), so I just bought from him. I think the 2711s are sold out.

If I can find a decent camera or something, I may try to do side-by-sides vs. the FW900. Also, some of these input lag posts are coming dangerously close to just warranting their own "U3011 Input Lag" thread.

Just to rub it in, mine shipped FedEx already! Get one one Friday and one on Monday.

 

[Startup123]

...Window media Player is not color managed here. ....

I stand corrected on this one - it is not color managed.
Anyway, that doesn't affect my experience and those who don't watch video on their computers but for those who do, I you have a point which becomes invalid when they make the players color managed. And wide gamut monitors and color managed programs is the trend. I believe that it will be sooner than later when they will stop producing standard gamut monitors for the simple reason that wide gamut is more capable resulting in much nicer images. The problems being experienced are not because wide gamut monitors are PITA but because software has not yet been updated to reflect the possibilities.

 

[brumwald]

I stand corrected on this one - it is not color managed.
Anyway, that doesn't affect my experience and those who don't watch video on their computers but for those who do, I you have a point which becomes invalid when they make the players color managed. And wide gamut monitors and color managed programs is the trend. I believe that it will be sooner than later when they will stop producing standard gamut monitors for the simple reason that wide gamut is more capable resulting in much nicer images. The problems being experienced are not because wide gamut monitors are PITA but because software has not yet been updated to reflect the possibilities.

Yes. But since only wide gamut monitors suffers from the bad software then that means that wide gamut monitors are dreadful for the absolute vast majority of people. And since the absolute vast majority of people only have sRGB content they will not benefit from "nicer images" at all - only (in the extremely rare best scenario of a color-managed application) reduced precision due to gamut conversion.

And no. There is no trend towards color managed applications to speak of. Wide gamut monitors have been available for many years and besides photoshop, which I barely use, none of the applications I use are color managed (oh wait, I actually use windows default picture viewer). And I have barely seen any mention of any application becoming color managed in years.

 

[PC_User]

Where is this wide gamut vs non-wide gamut argument going? I've been using calibrated wide-gamut monitors for several years with W7 and have not had any issues with colors. I also engage in Photoshop-intensive work and that is where the wide gamut is not even an issue.

If we are discussing 30" monitors, can someone link me to non-wide gamut 100% sRGB panels?

 

[Snowdog]

Where is this wide gamut vs non-wide gamut argument going? I've been using calibrated wide-gamut monitors for several years with W7 and have not had any issues with colors. I also engage in Photoshop-intensive work and that is where the wide gamut is not even an issue.

You can see by reading that it stems from a user encountering the typical wide gamut problems of incorrect colors in most applications, and someone else pretending this isn't an issue.

It has probably run it's course, unless you also insist on pretending it is a non issues and dragging it out more.

 

[PC_User]

You can see by reading that it stems from a user encountering the typical wide gamut problems of incorrect colors in most applications, and someone else pretending this isn't an issue.

It has probably run it's course, unless you also insist on pretending it is a non issues and dragging it out more.

I think we can agree that the severity of this issue is subjective and depends on whose eyes are looking at the screen. For me personally, wide-gamut has never been an issue. It certainly has not been as dramatic as some have made it out to be in this thread.

Back to my original question - if wide-gamut is such a life-threatening issue, can someone ever so kindly point me in the direct of non-wide gamut 30" LCD monitors?

 

[Tanquen]

I've had two Dell 2707WFPs from Feb 2007 and only ever saw a little tiny difference in the reds (when I had it right next to my old LCD) but they only have a 92% wide color gamut. Is the u3011 with its 117% color gamut going to be that much different?

 

[Snowdog]

Back to my original question - if wide-gamut is such a life-threatening issue, can someone ever so kindly point me in the direct of non-wide gamut 30" LCD monitors?

The best choice these days is a 30" with a very good sRGB emulatiton mode. It is unfortunate that the sRGB mode on the U3011 doesn't seem to be completely to spec and once you are in sRGB mode you lose fine adjustment controls, so you can't correct white balance.

I think the NEC/Eizo monitor have better sRGB emulation and the ability to adjust calibrate those modes without resorted to changing the graphics card settings.

 

[PC_User]

The best choice these days is a 30" with a very good sRGB emulatiton mode. It is unfortunate that the sRGB mode on the U3011 doesn't seem to be completely to spec and once you are in sRGB mode you lose fine adjustment controls, so you can't correct white balance.

I think the NEC/Eizo monitor have better sRGB emulation and the ability to adjust calibrate those modes without resorted to changing the graphics card settings.

Both of those monitors also happen to be $800+ more than the U3011. I think for most consumers who are looking for a "reasonably priced" IPS monitor with very good color reproduction, the U3011 is a solid choice.

Then there are those people for whom color accuracy in sRGB is imperative. These folks probably work in graphic/movie/web design and will opt for the $2k NEC or $4k Eizo.

 

[Snowdog]

Both of those monitors also happen to be $800+ more than the U3011. I think for most consumers who are looking for a "reasonably priced" IPS monitor with very good color reproduction, the U3011 is a solid choice.

Then there are those people for whom color accuracy in sRGB is imperative. These folks probably work in graphic/movie/web design and will opt for the $2k NEC or $4k Eizo.

Or they give up on 30" like I did. After trying a Dell 3007-HC, I returned it and went for a nice high quality sRGB 24" screen, rather than deal with wide gamut grief. I'll take quality over quantity any day.