I keep reading a lot of people saying how dark their lcd monitors are. I had this same problem with my 3yr old Sony SDM-M51 lcd. It was so dark I couldn't even use it to watch movies. The problem was just that the monitor needed to be calibrated. I used a calibration dvd called "Digital Video Essentials" which lets you set the perfect contrast/brightness and color balances for any tv, monitor, or projector. When I was finished calibrating my lcd actually looked better than my flat-screen crt monitor. So if you're having trouble with your monitor looking too dark you should really pick up that dvd.