DoubleSight DS-263N - 26"

dieselzaf said:
Since Newegg states the doublesight has a polarizer, can you return it without penalty if it doesn't have one? People have claimed some of the newegg stock doesn't have the polarizer. Not sure whether to buy from the egg or amazon due to the egg's return policy. Thanks.
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Where are these quotes? I'd like to read them please to see what they say. Thanks!
 
Yes, you can return it if they claim it comes with a polarizer and it in fact didn't. I just received an email today from NewEgg offering to replace or refund my monitor for that very reason.
 
dieselzaf said:
Since Newegg states the doublesight has a polarizer, can you return it without penalty if it doesn't have one? People have claimed some of the newegg stock doesn't have the polarizer. Not sure whether to buy from the egg or amazon due to the egg's return policy. Thanks.
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Berek Halfhand said:
Where are these quotes? I'd like to read them please to see what they say. Thanks!
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Tamlin_WSGF said:
To say it simply: a polarizer is a set of filters that alters light directions.

All LCD screens have at least two. A front and a rear polarizer. What they speak of in this thread, is the a-tw (advanced true wide) polarizer. It minimizes the glow so that viewing angle doesn't affect black in such degree as without the a-tw polarizer. Gives a higher optical black. :)
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If you go to the product page for the monitor at newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824185007&Tpk=ds-263n)
and look at the title of the item, it says:

DoubleSight DS-263N Black 26" 5ms(GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor with 4 USB ports and Polarization Filter 500 cd/m2 800:1 - Retail

I don't see any other mentions of polarizer, e.g. in the specifications section. I don't think this is worth anything, because it doesn't say a-tw. A scumbag lawyer wannabe at newegg customer service (if there are any) could simply say the monitor does have (two) polarizers, and that they didn't claim the front one was an a-tw.

Thanks tamlin for the informative post, I didn't know every LCD had polarizers.
 
Berek Halfhand said:
Advice for all, don't trust the manual! I know, it sounds stupid but its sadly good advice. Doublesight essentially copied most of the information from Planar's manual, and some of those features were copied over in the manual but not included in the DoubleSight version of the panel.
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Ruh-roh.

So can anyone answer my question? It was:
"Uhmm, does this monitor scale properly for Xbox 360 and PS3 games that are at 16:9? It should, according to the manual online, but I just want to make sure, because I got a monitor that would scale properly for PC but not for Xbox 360 or PS3."
 
eastwind said:
A scumbag lawyer wannabe at newegg customer service (if there are any) could simply say the monitor does have (two) polarizers, and that they didn't claim the front one was an a-tw.
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Technically you're right. But I highly doubt NewEgg has any intention of misleading their customers and using lawyers to get away with it. That wouldn't be very smart business for the long run. Plus their email to me offering to replace or refund my monitor which came without the a-tw polarizer should be proof enough to the opposite.
 
Would it be possible to add a glossy coating to the surface of this monitor to increase its contrast? I was under the impression that it could somehow be done...
 
spooksmcgee said:
No, they don't. Since they don't deal primarily in monitors or computer hardware, they don't have anything like that.
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Actually, that's not true. If you exchange a defective product, their customer service will promptly ship out a replacement for you. You then have 30 days to return the defective product. That has been my experience with Amazon countless times, including a DS-263N (which I exchanged due to stuck pixels).
 
nikotene24 said:
Would it be possible to add a glossy coating to the surface of this monitor to increase its contrast? I was under the impression that it could somehow be done...
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There are no ways to increase contrast on any monitors, that is impossible. The only thing these filters do is help direct the light better to reduce the white haze you see at angles, it does not increase contrast in any way. Glossy coatings, which you cannot apply yourself, enhance the image, but again do not increase contrast.
 
I wouldn't be concerned with this.

My NEC with the same panel sitting next to the BenQ 24" I have is pretty good with fine detail. I would say small text is sharper than MVA 24" monitors and very close to 24" TN monitors which generally have the sharpest text.

Fine details are well-preserved on the 25.5 and it won't look blocky/ unless you sit 1' away.

I'm surprised you would find that the 24" was finer. Dot pitch of 20" at 1680x1050 is .258 and 24" at 1920x1200 is .270, making the 24" have the bigger dot pitch, thus being less fine. The dot pitch of the 25.5" is .289 I believe.

Regards,

10e

Berek Halfhand said:
Another question I had for all of you with the monitor, especially those that have used 24" screens as well. How is the detail and sharpness of everything? I know that when I had my 20" next to my 24", the 24" was much finer in detail, icons weren't quite as large, etc. How is the DoubleSight 26" in comparison?
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TM2 Rampage said:
Ruh-roh.

So can anyone answer my question? It was:
"Uhmm, does this monitor scale properly for Xbox 360 and PS3 games that are at 16:9? It should, according to the manual online, but I just want to make sure, because I got a monitor that would scale properly for PC but not for Xbox 360 or PS3."
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Doing a search through the thread brought up these two reviews which mentioning scaling:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1032187513
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1032175096

Both seem generally positive, though nothing specific is mentioned beyond what scaling options the monitor supports. The first poster mentions having a PS3 plugged into his, and he has this to say:

I couldn't get it to work with a Scientific Atlanta 8000HD cable box beyond the setup screen. The cable box claims the monitor doesn't support HDCP and gets stuck in an HDCP-negotiation loop even though the PlayStation 3 has no trouble with it. I could have sworn it worked with the Planar, but I don't remember now.

1080p is supported with proper scaling and no overscan, but like the Planar, ASPECT and REAL scaling has banding.
1080i is supported with some sort of bob deinterlacing, but it has the same banding problem.
720p is scaled properly and doesn't have the banding problem.
480p is treated as 3:2, like on most monitors.
480i doesn't seem to work.
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Playstation 3 and X-Box 360 operate in 720p right? So you should be good to go based on that.
 
Thanks a lot, King of Heroes.

Uh-oh... 1080p has banding!? Might make watching 1080p Blu-Ray movies a bit tough...
EDIT: Darn, I can't believe I didn't catch that part in that post. Looks like I was distracted by the pictures.
 
The PS3 promotes banding :)

I'm assuming REAL scaling is 1:1 on the DS.

The PS3's games are almost exclusively 720p with no real hardware scaling (in the PS3) except for GT5 Prologue which is 1080p.

The Xbox 360 works in 960x540/540p or 576p but uses internal hardware scaling to line double and anti alias a bit for 720p or 1080p.

I believe that's how it works. I can vouch for the fact that I find in most games the Xbox 360 has less aliasing than the PS3. Neither is completely "anti"aliased, but the PS3 seems to suffer more from "big pixel syndrome" than the 360 on larger displays at 720p or 1080p.

Good luck,

10e
 
Has anyone talked to DS, or otherwise found information on the problem with set top boxes?

Kind of tired of watching via svideo or firewire.

I e-mailed them a week or two ago and got no response. I keep meaning to call them, but seem to forget until they have been closed for a few minutes.
 
So, I'm still reading through the thread, but I think I'll take up some space with my questions...

1) Can the oversaturated colors be turned down by just lowering the RGB values?
2) Anyone have pics of the banding? If you remember seeing them in the thread, then just say so and I'll look...
3) Does this monitor use RTC or Overdrive? Any inverse ghosting?

Thanks
 
10e said:
I wouldn't be concerned with this.

My NEC with the same panel sitting next to the BenQ 24" I have is pretty good with fine detail. I would say small text is sharper than MVA 24" monitors and very close to 24" TN monitors which generally have the sharpest text.

Fine details are well-preserved on the 25.5 and it won't look blocky/ unless you sit 1' away.

I'm surprised you would find that the 24" was finer. Dot pitch of 20" at 1680x1050 is .258 and 24" at 1920x1200 is .270, making the 24" have the bigger dot pitch, thus being less fine. The dot pitch of the 25.5" is .289 I believe.

Regards,

10e
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I know, that is what is odd... maybe I'm confusing "detail" with the simple size of everything such as the icons. On the 20" the icons were larger, and perhaps with icons and other things for the desktop and games it made it seems less fine.
 
10e: Since you have the NEC model with similar panel and also the G2400W, which monitor would you recommend for gaming (both PC and console) along with web browsing and basic computer use?

I feel I know the answer already as I have the V2400W, but I'd like to get your input between the two monitors since I'm considering trying the DS-263N. Thanks man.
 
ill be getting panny viera 32lz800 for hdtv. ill be using it for mainly MMORPG,BLU RAY movies, PS3 games and some PC FPS games. also the internet. 2 things holding me back and want ds 263n, dont know how text look like on the panny and ghosting on the panny even tho it say 6.7ms response
 
Snowdog said:
Accurate monitors should be delivered. If you like oversaturated colors a small trip to your computers graphics card control can fix that. No need to saddle everyone with incorrect colors for that effect.

You can't go the other way. You can fix the incorrect gamut by simply visiting graphics controls and desaturating.
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(This quote is from page 4 of the thread)
Err, did Snowdog make a typo? So can you or can you not fix incorrect colors by desaturating? Err, I guess not. Oy, hunting for a good LCD is very frustrating.
 
The answer would be not. But it may or may not bother you. This monitor 92% gamut for none coloraware applications that puts it 20% of the mark. Keep in mind it has nothing to do with saturation or desaturation. Its simply the wrong color mapping for each RGB value as a result of the native gamut not matching sRGB.

You can run the Firefox 3 beta for web and most folks probably wouldn't notice the difference in games.
 
Fixed. Obviously should be "can't" for reasons mentioned by Luthorcrow.

Since I wrote that, I tried to get a 3007-HC working. Games are actually one place I found the color very annoying. Bright neon colors are something I don't appreciate anywhere. No calibration or settings work with games, so you get the full overcooked colors of the monitor.

I got rid of the monitor, it just wasn't worth the hassle, but the Dell has no internal controls and there is nothing you can do at all in that situation, the DS would give you some option.
 
It's interesting you guys are talking about oversaturated colors and such on an IPS panel... a panel that is designed to work with exact colors...
 
Greetings, I had to register since this forum has helped my LCD search tremendously.

I had the NEC 2690 (4F revision) for the past month, but it developed a buzz after about 3 weeks. Definitely didn't make the sound out of the box, and resetting to factory defaults didn't help. Not sure if the noise was from the inverter or a transformer, or something else. For 1200 bucks I couldn't live with that... Got it back to Amazon on the last day of the return window, whew!

I want to give the DoubleSight a shot since it sounds like they are readying a new batch of shipments. Will post on how it compares to the NEC before and after calibration (Spyder3).

Newegg lists the unit as coming with a polarizer, presumably because they assume all units they receive in the future will have it. I know some have ordered from Newegg in the past and did NOT get a polarizer as advertised. So did Newegg add the word "polarizer" a bit too soon, or has it always been in the product description? Basically, is it crazy to think that when Newegg, Amazon and Buy.com get these latest shipments they will all have the polarizer?
 
Berek Halfhand said:
It's interesting you guys are talking about oversaturated colors and such on an IPS panel... a panel that is designed to work with exact colors...
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It is working with exact colors, just exactly the wrong colors by design.

The panel technology is not the issue. It is units designed for wide gamut color output. The IPS panels in this case are accurate at bringing you this wider gamut. But most applications are designed with sRGB color space. Wide gamut color primaries are different and there will be a color mismatch when they are sent sRGB. So essentially this is by design, not inaccuracy of the panel.

There are a couple of applications that support color management and profiles. In these you will get accurate color(with a proper profile), elsewhere you get inaccurate and somewhat over saturated looking colors will be the most noticeable aspect.
 
Newegg ETA still 6/10... its a bit early in the day still.

However, they have open box! $579 if you're willing to take the risk.
 
I plan on purchasing one soon - when they become available. I haven't purchased an LCD screen before - I've been using CRT's still. Have a few pretty basic questions.

How do you test to see if it has a polarizer?

What standard tests do you run on the lcd? Any software tests?

After inspection and acceptance - generally what is done to "optimize" viewing quality? Any particular settings or calibration?

Thanks
 
Willhcm said:
After inspection and acceptance - generally what is done to "optimize" viewing quality? Any particular settings or calibration?
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Well, people will share their monitor settings but the fact is every panel and backlight is different. If you're serious about color (and if you're not, why look at a wide gamut IPS monitor anyway?) get a calibrator like the Spyder3. Otherwise, you are pretty much guessing because the human eye is extremely adaptive, meaning we are very bad at making objective color judgements.

Still, the lagom lcd test pages are a great help in measuring performance out of the box before calibration. You could use it to tweak by hand if you had to. My favorite page there is probably the viewing angle test. With a properly calibrated IPS LCD you can't see the word "lagom" at all; it will blend completely into the background. The sharpness test is also great, and the inversion (pixel walk) test is good for revealing if anything is really out of whack voltage-wise on the screen (manifesting in heavy flickering on one or more boxes). The rest I don't bother with, as the Spyder takes care of everything else.

P.S. Lots of info on the polarizer in this thread; read back a bit.
 
Where else can you buy this besides newegg, amazon, and buy? These companies are starting to add tax which kills the deal.
 
eclivia said:
ill be getting panny viera 32lz800 for hdtv. ill be using it for mainly MMORPG,BLU RAY movies, PS3 games and some PC FPS games. also the internet. 2 things holding me back and want ds 263n, dont know how text look like on the panny and ghosting on the panny even tho it say 6.7ms response
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Well for sure you know that the Doublesight has low input lag (this is different from response time), but it also has a gamut that is not 100% accurate with things that don't let you calibrate the colors. The HDTV will probably not have such a color inaccuracy problem, but you'll have to check out how the input lag is on it.
 
After reading this thread I'm very interested in buying this monitor, but I have a couple questions.

Many people have commented on the oversaturation and color inaccuracy. Would these be annoying problems to an average person?

And second, I'm interested in getting this stand, but I'm unsure if I need a 200x100 or 200x200 VESA adapter. Anyone have one? Thanks.
 
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My doublesight experience.

Bought a new mac tower and borrowed an old NEC 1970GX monitor (TN glossy) so I could move out a failing (but good) 19" viewsonic crt taking up too much desk space). Looked into monitors and experienced the headache of monitor purchasing (panel types, viewing angles, polarizers, color gamut, crushed blacks, input lag, oh my!).

Finally dropped back on my desire for a 30" and ordered the 263n on May 19 from Amazon. Shipped from PA. Good screen, with its brightness being my main concern. The plug placement is lousy, but I don't expect to fiddle with that much.

Before I purchased, I called Doublesight and asked about polarizers. Some guy said all screens now have polarizers. Naturally mine does not, but it's not a terrible problem.

I had noticed a stuck red pixel, about a third from the left side and about a third from the bottom. Oh well. Rarely saw it until...

I watched a movie a few days ago and, boy, that red spot irritated me! Seemed larger than a single pixel. With a magnifying glass I see it's a cluster of pixels!

So I'm going to return it. Deciding whether to send back to Amazon as defective (to get another and risk the same no-polarizer problem) or just return it for the money and consider jumping up to a 30" or maybe the nec 2690. I could also return to Doublesight... but I donno.

Don't really want to hurt my head any more with this monitor tech stuff.
 
Abacus said:
Finally dropped back on my desire for a 30" and ordered the 263n on May 19 from Amazon. Shipped from PA. Good screen, with its brightness being my main concern.
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How was the brightness? Were you able to get it dim enough without software tweaks?

As far as the stuck pixels, try some utilities or the massage technique. It sounds like a few stuck pixels on the DS are par for the course, since they don't get the first pick of panels from LG. Still, as someone else mentioned, getting 90% of the quality (of the NEC) at almost half the price is worth it. Especially since no LCD is going to even approach "perfect" because of the limits of the tech.
 
I've been torn between picking up this 26" Doublesight or stepping up even further to a 30" (either the Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP-HC or Samsung Syncmaster 305T). Does anyone have any firsthand experience comparing these three or have any insight?

Main uses:
- Everyday application use (web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets)
- Recreational Photoshop photo editing
- Movie watching (hooked up to PC, not set-top)
- Little to no gaming (I like my 50" and xbox360 for that)

Main concerns:
- Backlight bleed issues
- Uniform color across the screen
- Viewing angles (watching movies from a couch)
- Screen space (1920x1200 of 26" vs. 2560x1600 of 30")
 
Maybe when Doublesight gave the ETA it meant they are shipping the monitors to the companies on 6/10/08. If that is true then the monitors should appear as soon as the shipments are received in a few days. Anyone know approximately what time these companies update their website?

I currently have a 50 dollar gift certificate for amazon coming through mail so it would be nice if I could use it but I want this monitor asap..

edit: it seems like newegg removed the ETA date :(
 
Re: How was the brightness....
The brightness was, out of the box, uncomfortably bright and it gave me a headache! I settled with Toastyx's low brightness settings after checking out his other two versions.

I later calibrated the monitor with a Spyder 2 Pro and have left it there ('cause it looks better), but monitor is still pretty bright and may return to Toastyx's specs (which is still on the bright side for me).

Was I able to get it dim enough without software tweaks? No, not really. Brightness down to zero and the monitor remains pretty bright. Let's say I got it down to an acceptable level, again with Toastyx's suggestions.

As to the stuck pixels, I did try some flashing color utils and did the blunt pencil push on the damp paper towel trick. Nada. My try some massaging.

Let me know if you have other questions.
 
I tried to read as much of this thread as I could, but to be quite honest, it's a lot of information to sort through and take in at one time. I know that some, if not most of these questions have been touched upon, and I apologize beforehand for any repeats.

I am searching for a monitor to be used for photo editing on a Mac computer. I would like an IPS panel, due to the fact that most of what I have read about LCD technology indicates its the top performer. I was about to purchase a 23" Apple Cinema Display when I was recommended this monitor and began looking into it. I don't mind spending the money for a good monitor, but I don't want to spend all this money and have there be something for a few hundred dollars more that is of a significantly higher quality.

I noticed that at several times, banding was mentioned. From what I read, it didn't seem to be a large issue, only apparent under certain conditions and only upon very close inspection. Is this something common to most IPS panels or is it just a design flaw of this monitor?

I read several times about over saturation of colors, and how one must go into the graphics card settings to play around. A) I calibrate with Eye-One Display 2, and B) I use a Mac Pro with a 8800GT. With calibration is there any requirement for further altering the graphics card, and if so, can it be done under OSX?

Has anyone has an issues purchasing from Newegg, Amazon, or Buy.com and returning due to lack of polarizer or presence of dead pixels? Newegg is the cheapest that I could find, but I rather not purchase from there if there's a chance I'll be stuck with back stock or a defective unit.

Compared with something like a ACD 23", how does this monitor hold up? I did see some images of this screen next to a ACD 23" to demonstrate the polarizer, but I did not see any information as to how the image quality and color accuracy compared. I have the ability to purchase a ACD 23" for $675, and have been looking into some of the cheaper Eizo displays. Is this as good as it gets for a sub $1k IPS panel?
 
The general consensus is that yes, this is currently as good as it gets for a sub $1k IPS panel. I've seen the 23" ACD and the antiglare coating was annoyingly aggressive and sparkly. It wasn't quite as bad on the NEC 2690, but not great either. Seems to be common in IPS models. I'd be interested in how the coating on the DS is.

For me, it sounds like the DoubleSight is too bright and doesn't have the functionality to dim enough. On the NEC, I had set it to 0% Brightness, then there was an "advanced brightness reduction" mode with two levels (low and lower). Had to set that to "low" which finally looked great - in a normal sunlit room. The thing was that freaking bright. But it doesn't sound like the DS has an option like that.

Wish Apple would refresh their damn displays and put me out of my misery. Last spec update on the 23" ACD was in March 2006. I'd be able to control the backlight from my keyboard too.
 
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