Issues with Benq FP222W DVI Input

[L3nn0x]

So the company I work for bought me two Benq FP222W to use. My video card has a standard Analog and also a DVI input. I set the DVI up to be my primary since its an LCD. After using the monitors a couple days I started noticing a weird anomaly with the black levels on the DVI monitor. Whenever shades of grey are presented they appear to be "stair stepped". Instead of a smooth progression from one level to the next like on the Analog input, on the DVI input it jumps from a range of gray to the next range of grey. I've never had this problem with other LCD's I've worked with.

Does anyone have any idea what the deal is with this? I admit I haven't searched this forum for this problem mainly because I wasn't sure what term I would use to describe my problem, so I apologize if this has been brought up before.

 

[L3nn0x]

A little update to the situation above... I hooked the monitors up to my new system at work and to no surprise the problem with the DVI still exists. One thing I did notice was that the picture looked noticeably better when just one monitor was hooked up as opposed to having both monitors hooked up. My video card on the new system is a 7600GT and it would seem as though it doesn't have enough juice to run both monitors to the best the monitors are capable of.

This is a rather annoying issue considering my job involved designing graphics and not having an accurate representation of black levels tends to suck. I have read that its a common problem for LCD's to have bad black levels and I guess it never really registered with me in the past because on my machine at home I have a Dell2001FP monitor that is absolutely perfect. It runs on a 6800GT video card so I figured a 7600GT would have enough power to handle these monitors. Apparently I was wrong?

I've read reviews on the BenQ FP222W where they adjusted the picture so it looked better with the help of Displaymate. I checked out that program but it merely seems to just show me pictures so that I can use the monitor's built in adjustments to fix my picture. The problem is that those controls are not able to address the issue. I don't know how these reviewers got their picture quality to the level they seem to express but maybe there is something I'm missing. Here's the link to the little review: http://www.tech2.com/india/reviews/tftlcd/benq-fp222w-lcd-monitor/4473/1

Anyways, I'm mostly wanting to know if anyone else owns this monitor and has dealt with this problem or if anyone else has experience with Displaymate to tell me if there is something I'm missing about the program. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[pking5]

I just bought this monitor from work on Monday and hooked it up to my PC tower. First thing I did was load up WoW on it and it was great. Desktop looked great. Then I decided to load up a movie. Now, some DVDs tend to have average encoding quality so I tried to pick one I figured would make the monitor amaze me. So I threw in Saving Private Ryan and it almost made me cringe(no not the blood but the quality). As you mentioned with regards to the blacks/greys, I noticed obscene artifacting/pixelation on any dark scene in the movie. Switching the monitors preset color options(movie, dynamic, photo, standard) sorta helped but I could still see it. I too had a hard time finding any actual reviews on the unit. All I could find was a few highly positive comments from people on NCIX all praising the units picture quality. I figured I must be doing something wrong. So I went into my ATI control Center and checked out the color options in there. BAM, huge difference. By lowering the ATI control center brightness 30% and pushing the contrast up a little, made a massive impact. Then, I went into the ATI video adjustments section and chose one of the preset options called Theater. Now I actually have to look for the artifacting. Basically, try adjusting the monitor using your video cards options rather than the ones on the monitor. Made a big difference for me.

I'm going to work in a few hours and I'm gonna take this movie there to test the other screens to see if I notice them displaying the same pixelation as well. If they do, then it's not the monitors fault. Hope this helps a little.