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My NEC LCD2690WUXi review
- Thread starter Sycraft
- Start date
Whan I play a game in a lower resolution (either with 1:1 or fixed ration), grey stripes appear where it unused space. How can I make these stripes black? The more black, the better 
Btw, did enone enter the service (factory) menu? Is there anything interesting?
Thanks
Btw, did enone enter the service (factory) menu? Is there anything interesting?
Thanks
Heh, what a coencidence we are speaking about the same topic
Yes, in the advanced menu, page 4, there is EXPANSION with options OFF / ASPECT / FULL and even CUSTOM - this enables to set own vertical and horizontal zoom and if the screens is centered or is put in the upper left corner.
Yes, in the advanced menu, page 4, there is EXPANSION with options OFF / ASPECT / FULL and even CUSTOM - this enables to set own vertical and horizontal zoom and if the screens is centered or is put in the upper left corner.
Regarding the black bars, I believe there is an advanced option to set their intensity. Maybe you need to adjust it to 0%.
The red tint doesn't sound so good. I do get a violet shift on a black screen, but that is not the same. I think you might correct about the upper backlight tube. Good luck with that.
The red tint doesn't sound so good. I do get a violet shift on a black screen, but that is not the same. I think you might correct about the upper backlight tube. Good luck with that.
Eh, so what is the consensus here? Does the wide gamut really make the colors look like shit in movies, games? Is it really just subjective to the person viewing?
I'm thinking about purchasing this monitor for use with gaming and blu-ray, but still not sure...
For every person saying it looks amazing, there's another bashing it...
I'm thinking about purchasing this monitor for use with gaming and blu-ray, but still not sure...
For every person saying it looks amazing, there's another bashing it...
My girlfriend likes it, I don't. Try looking around, some people claim it can be adjusted by something in the advanced OSD menu.
Well, have you tried to change it since you don't like it?
I mean, $1,300 isn't something i'd spend on a monitor unless I knew for sure it had AWESOME picture. 1,300 for a picture that looks like shit?
You aren't going to get any kinds of consensus, you never do on subjective thing. What one person likes, another may hate. It really is going to be an individual thing. Although I would note that some of the people arguing against wide gamut do not themselves have experience with this monitor.
One thing you can try is to see if any stores around you carry the Samsung LED based DLP TVs like the Samsung HL61A750. These have a very wide gamut, wider than the NEC monitors if Samsung's materials are to be believed. So, if you can find a store that has one, have them set it to wide gamut (it has various gamut options in it's menus) and compare it with a normal gamut display (of which there should be plenty). While this isn't an exact comparison, it should give you a feeling if you enjoy a wider gamut or not, and there is probably a retailer that actually has the Samsung TVs (unlike the NEC LCDs which are impossible to find in stores).
Ultimately, it comes down to what you like. Same as any other feature like brightness. Some people may like really bright displays, other may like ones that are very dim.
You aren't ever going to get an overall consensus of what's best, because there is no best at this point.
One thing you can try is to see if any stores around you carry the Samsung LED based DLP TVs like the Samsung HL61A750. These have a very wide gamut, wider than the NEC monitors if Samsung's materials are to be believed. So, if you can find a store that has one, have them set it to wide gamut (it has various gamut options in it's menus) and compare it with a normal gamut display (of which there should be plenty). While this isn't an exact comparison, it should give you a feeling if you enjoy a wider gamut or not, and there is probably a retailer that actually has the Samsung TVs (unlike the NEC LCDs which are impossible to find in stores).
Ultimately, it comes down to what you like. Same as any other feature like brightness. Some people may like really bright displays, other may like ones that are very dim.
You aren't ever going to get an overall consensus of what's best, because there is no best at this point.
I wouldn't have looked at that thread since it's 2 years old...I know the quality of panels can change in that time period, even if it still states the same model.
With that said, I have been searching. For months, actually. I've narrowed it down to NEC, but just don't know if it's the right choice. For a product so expensive, I would hope to see most customers praise the picture. Instead, there are some saying it looks rather awful.
While I understand your point that I'm never going to get a consensus on what's best, I'd hope that for a monitor in this price range I'd see most customers praising it. Sure, if we were talking about a $400-500 decent TN, VA I'd understand that I may just have to settle with some things and hopefully get used to whatever nuances it came with.
This is a fucking $1,200+ monitor, and for me to spring that much money on a monitor, I'd really have to be assured that most everything pointed to a brilliant picture. If not, why pay this much money? I can go buy that DoubleSight 26" for like $500.
I'll take your advice and try to view other wider gamut TV's in order to get a better understanding of the differences, and hopefully make my decision within the next week.
What I can say from owning both a 2490 and a 2690 is that wide gamut looks VERY different from standard gamut sRGB if your application doesn't know the monitor is wide gamut. Wide gamut with non-color-aware applications might be really fun and entertaining, but it's definitely not accurate. As I said above, I think Team Fortress 2 would look really cool on the 2690 (haven't tried it yet), and photos are very saturated (colorful) in Picasa, which isn't color-managed. It's not a subtle or nuanced effect- it was immediately obvious to me that wide gamut is very different from standard gamut.
You can buy a 2690 and run it in sRGB mode, calibrating it with your graphics card if you want calibrated output if you need accuracy. You can switch it into any other mode for wide gamut operation. If I didn't need the color accuracy the 2690 offers, I'd get a less expensive monitor with the same panel (DoubleSight or Planar). I also trust NEC for quality & warranty purposes.
You can buy a 2690 and run it in sRGB mode, calibrating it with your graphics card if you want calibrated output if you need accuracy. You can switch it into any other mode for wide gamut operation. If I didn't need the color accuracy the 2690 offers, I'd get a less expensive monitor with the same panel (DoubleSight or Planar). I also trust NEC for quality & warranty purposes.
Wait, so that DoubleSight 26" everyone is raving about (for like $600 dollars less, mind you) is using the same panel as the 2690wuxi? The only difference is that the 2690wuxi has the potential to be color accurate?!
In other words, regular movie watchers or gamers that don't need it to be extremely accurate for photo editing and whatnot wouldn't really see any benefit going with the 2690WUXI?
Lol, if this is true, I'll just pick up the DS. I was under the impression the quality of the NEC was beyond the DS on all accounts, as indicated by cost.
In other words, regular movie watchers or gamers that don't need it to be extremely accurate for photo editing and whatnot wouldn't really see any benefit going with the 2690WUXI?
Lol, if this is true, I'll just pick up the DS. I was under the impression the quality of the NEC was beyond the DS on all accounts, as indicated by cost.
Yes, the panel is the same.
If your primary purposes are gaming and movie watching, I would recommend to you (quite strongly) to get the Doublesight DS-263N. The only two complaints I've heard about are that the brightness does not go low enough (for some) and that the stand is non-height adjustable.
Two different prices, two different target markets. The DS-263N has less than a frame of input lag, while the NEC has 1.5 to 3. Less input lag, better gaming.
If these are your primary purposes, save the $$$.
And no, unless you have a panel with problems, these panels do not look like shit. It's just for some purposes, wide gamut is not desired, but (I still haven't figured out why) wide gamut monitors are becoming more and more popular.
Regards,
10e
If your primary purposes are gaming and movie watching, I would recommend to you (quite strongly) to get the Doublesight DS-263N. The only two complaints I've heard about are that the brightness does not go low enough (for some) and that the stand is non-height adjustable.
Two different prices, two different target markets. The DS-263N has less than a frame of input lag, while the NEC has 1.5 to 3. Less input lag, better gaming.
If these are your primary purposes, save the $$$.
And no, unless you have a panel with problems, these panels do not look like shit. It's just for some purposes, wide gamut is not desired, but (I still haven't figured out why) wide gamut monitors are becoming more and more popular.
Regards,
10e
Yep, same panel. In terms of panel quality the only potential differences are:
1) NEC may buy better rated panels. In a given line of panels some come out better than others, the manufacturer (LG in this case) rates them and sells them at different prices. NEC, charging more for their display, could be buying higher grade ones. However, I have no evidence this is actually the case, it is simply a possibility.
2) All NEC monitors have a special polarizer that reduces glow at an angle and thus increases the apparent contrast ratio, especially when viewed from an angle. Apparently some DS displays do, but some do not. Last I checked, there was no way of ensuring you got one.
Other than that, the panels are the same LG panel, and so have the same general characteristics.
So, what does the extra money get you with the NEC? Few things, which you certainly may feel are not worth the money:
1) Hardware calibration. Most displays, if you wish to calibrate their colour, have to do it in software. You use something like i1Match to modify the graphics card's LUT. That's fine, but you lose accuracy, since the graphics card has only an 8-bit output. Thus you correct colour imperfections, but lose some gradient accuracy. Also, games very frequently modify the videocard LUT to do their own gamma control, which overrides your corrections.
The NEC displays are corrected in the hardware itself, provided you buy their SpectraView product. Rather than modifying the videocard LUT, it modifies the display's own LUT, which is 12-bit. This means that there is no loss of fidelity for the correction, and that the correction is applied all the time, even if something else modifies the videocard LUT.
2) Colour uniformity correction, called colorcomp. One problem faced on any display, but particularly large LCDs is that of panel uniformity. It is just hard to have a perfectly uniform backlight and thus perfectly uniform display. Thus brightness can vary 10-20% (sometimes more) across the screen. The NEC displays can deal with that to a large degree. When colorcomp is turned on, they adjust for it, and generally do a great job. Some reviews have found it to be to within 1-2%. I personally haven't tested it empirically, but the result is very good looking. My display looks extremely uniform.
3) Top notch scaler. Most LCDs include a scaler of some description, but it is often not that great and not that flexible. The NEC scaler is, well, the best I've ever seen. It has settings per resolution and you can not only have it to full, aspect correct, or 1:1, but you can do scaling by arbitrary factors. So for example if you had a 720x480 NTSC input, that is actually supposed to be a 4:3 output, even though it doesn't look like it because the pixels are non-square. The NEC scaler can handle that, as you can set custom ratios for scaling.
4) Excellent controls. Pretty much anything you can think of to adjust, this display will let you adjust. In it's normal menu it has just about everything you'd ever need and everything you'd find on a normal display. In it's advanced menu, it has things you never even though of, like the ability to correct for signal reflections over long runs of cables, or amazingly advanced analogue controls for VGA cables and such.
5) Nice stand. The DS just tilts up and down, like most LCDs. The NEC has a stand that has very smooth tilting, but also moves up and down freely (it's counterbalanced to the display weight) and can also pivot and do portrait mode (which the display supports, including remapping it's OSD controls). You can basically fully adjust the display to whatever level you like.
So, that's more or less what your dollars are buying you with the NEC. However, it is still the same panel, and thus the same fundamental performance (same gamut, same contrast ratio, same response time, etc).
I chose to go with the NEC primarily because I wanted the fully adjustable stand, and the hardware calibration, and I'm not sorry I did. However, those things are important to me, they may not be to you. More or less the NEC is a professional monitor, and comes with a tons of features because of that. However, it has a price tag to match. The DS is a consumer monitor and while it is much lighter on the features, you can literally get two of them for the price of a single NEC.
1) NEC may buy better rated panels. In a given line of panels some come out better than others, the manufacturer (LG in this case) rates them and sells them at different prices. NEC, charging more for their display, could be buying higher grade ones. However, I have no evidence this is actually the case, it is simply a possibility.
2) All NEC monitors have a special polarizer that reduces glow at an angle and thus increases the apparent contrast ratio, especially when viewed from an angle. Apparently some DS displays do, but some do not. Last I checked, there was no way of ensuring you got one.
Other than that, the panels are the same LG panel, and so have the same general characteristics.
So, what does the extra money get you with the NEC? Few things, which you certainly may feel are not worth the money:
1) Hardware calibration. Most displays, if you wish to calibrate their colour, have to do it in software. You use something like i1Match to modify the graphics card's LUT. That's fine, but you lose accuracy, since the graphics card has only an 8-bit output. Thus you correct colour imperfections, but lose some gradient accuracy. Also, games very frequently modify the videocard LUT to do their own gamma control, which overrides your corrections.
The NEC displays are corrected in the hardware itself, provided you buy their SpectraView product. Rather than modifying the videocard LUT, it modifies the display's own LUT, which is 12-bit. This means that there is no loss of fidelity for the correction, and that the correction is applied all the time, even if something else modifies the videocard LUT.
2) Colour uniformity correction, called colorcomp. One problem faced on any display, but particularly large LCDs is that of panel uniformity. It is just hard to have a perfectly uniform backlight and thus perfectly uniform display. Thus brightness can vary 10-20% (sometimes more) across the screen. The NEC displays can deal with that to a large degree. When colorcomp is turned on, they adjust for it, and generally do a great job. Some reviews have found it to be to within 1-2%. I personally haven't tested it empirically, but the result is very good looking. My display looks extremely uniform.
3) Top notch scaler. Most LCDs include a scaler of some description, but it is often not that great and not that flexible. The NEC scaler is, well, the best I've ever seen. It has settings per resolution and you can not only have it to full, aspect correct, or 1:1, but you can do scaling by arbitrary factors. So for example if you had a 720x480 NTSC input, that is actually supposed to be a 4:3 output, even though it doesn't look like it because the pixels are non-square. The NEC scaler can handle that, as you can set custom ratios for scaling.
4) Excellent controls. Pretty much anything you can think of to adjust, this display will let you adjust. In it's normal menu it has just about everything you'd ever need and everything you'd find on a normal display. In it's advanced menu, it has things you never even though of, like the ability to correct for signal reflections over long runs of cables, or amazingly advanced analogue controls for VGA cables and such.
5) Nice stand. The DS just tilts up and down, like most LCDs. The NEC has a stand that has very smooth tilting, but also moves up and down freely (it's counterbalanced to the display weight) and can also pivot and do portrait mode (which the display supports, including remapping it's OSD controls). You can basically fully adjust the display to whatever level you like.
So, that's more or less what your dollars are buying you with the NEC. However, it is still the same panel, and thus the same fundamental performance (same gamut, same contrast ratio, same response time, etc).
I chose to go with the NEC primarily because I wanted the fully adjustable stand, and the hardware calibration, and I'm not sorry I did. However, those things are important to me, they may not be to you. More or less the NEC is a professional monitor, and comes with a tons of features because of that. However, it has a price tag to match. The DS is a consumer monitor and while it is much lighter on the features, you can literally get two of them for the price of a single NEC.
You may be underestimating the difficulties of dealing with a wide gamut monitor in standard gamut world.
I have a Dell 3007hc sitting next to a $200 TN panel. The cheap TN looks great normal colors in everything, the wide gamut Dell looks over saturated in the red/green, and is a constant pain trying to get semi normal colors. I don't need super accurate, but I need semi real looking. Here is the effects of wide gamut on:
Desktop: Calibration only works on color managed applications (few and far between). Graphics card controls will work for everything on the desktop but are hard to get decent results out of. I managed to improve a bit, but still not quite right. But they don't work in movies or games.
Movies: There are separate controls for movies, but it is a another difficult and different set of controls to try to adjust. Getting the hue correct was almost impossible. There was in incredibly small window between green and purple skies and when the sky was blue some other colors look odd.
Games: I have found nothing to adjust games. They remain Disney on acid.
Wide Gamut is a curse IMO. I would avoid any wide gamut panel that didn't have a normal gamut setting because it will potentially look quite ugly (depending on taste) and a large hassle a lot of the time. The NEC has such a setting (and a lot more), the DS does not.
Thank you for all the responses.
10e: You may have just saved me quite a bit of money if your analysis is correct. Yes, I would just be using for games/movies, no photo editing or anything. Thanks.
Sycraft: While all those features look very appealing, I don't know if it justifies the price for me. However, the DS not having a height-adjustable stand really peeves me.
Snowdog: You show an utter disgust with this wide gamut, and I'm guessing you wouldn't even think of purchasing the DS since it doesn't have an option to change. It really looks like Disney on acid? If it really looks that bad, what are my other options for 26"-30" at a standard gamut?
10e: You may have just saved me quite a bit of money if your analysis is correct. Yes, I would just be using for games/movies, no photo editing or anything. Thanks.
Sycraft: While all those features look very appealing, I don't know if it justifies the price for me. However, the DS not having a height-adjustable stand really peeves me.
Snowdog: You show an utter disgust with this wide gamut, and I'm guessing you wouldn't even think of purchasing the DS since it doesn't have an option to change. It really looks like Disney on acid? If it really looks that bad, what are my other options for 26"-30" at a standard gamut?
Well the stand is something you could probably fix. The DS looks to take a standard 100x100 VESA mount, so you can probably buy a VESA stand for it. However, such a thing isn't cheap, probably at least $100. Also I don't know that you can get the real nice counterweighted kind that move easily since that requires it being balanced to the exact weight of the monitor. Have to probably get one that tensions. Still, you can get one that will let you do height changes and have a net cost way below the NEC.
As for the gamut thing, I'd really evaluate it yourself. Snowdog loves to rip on wide gamut monitors, and you can see he's gone back and forth with me. That's fine, but he seems to be under the impression that his observations are objective. They aren't, they are subjective. I love my wide gamut display. I find the extra colour saturation to look really good. I prefer the way games look on it to my 22" TN at work, my old 24" P-MVA BenQ, and my 22" professional LaCie CRT.
So for me, wide gamut is a winner. That's an informed decision, I've seen alternatives, and I like it the best. However, for him it is clearly not. Now that's fine, but what that tells you is that neither of us has the One True Answer(tm). It means that the answer is purely personal.
So really you have to decide for yourself what looks the best. As I said, one of the LED DLPs is probably the best way to judge. They actually have a wider gamut than the LCDs. You can also start reading up on colour spaces and such, but be warned: There's a lot of information and it is likely to make your head hurt. A shortened version would be that sRGB doesn't necessairily cover everything out there, including DVDs these days due to oddities in how levels are encoded, and wider gamut colour spaces are coming in to play with things like Blu-ray.
As for the gamut thing, I'd really evaluate it yourself. Snowdog loves to rip on wide gamut monitors, and you can see he's gone back and forth with me. That's fine, but he seems to be under the impression that his observations are objective. They aren't, they are subjective. I love my wide gamut display. I find the extra colour saturation to look really good. I prefer the way games look on it to my 22" TN at work, my old 24" P-MVA BenQ, and my 22" professional LaCie CRT.
So for me, wide gamut is a winner. That's an informed decision, I've seen alternatives, and I like it the best. However, for him it is clearly not. Now that's fine, but what that tells you is that neither of us has the One True Answer(tm). It means that the answer is purely personal.
So really you have to decide for yourself what looks the best. As I said, one of the LED DLPs is probably the best way to judge. They actually have a wider gamut than the LCDs. You can also start reading up on colour spaces and such, but be warned: There's a lot of information and it is likely to make your head hurt. A shortened version would be that sRGB doesn't necessairily cover everything out there, including DVDs these days due to oddities in how levels are encoded, and wider gamut colour spaces are coming in to play with things like Blu-ray.
By all means validate this personally, but you may not want to do it where you have dual direction shipping and 15% restocking fee on the line.
The objective part is that putting sRGB gamut straight into a wide gamut monitor will result in large color errors everywhere. Without being remapped, the numbers no longer have the same meaning and can produce strange results. Most obvious are neon reds and greens. More subtle is altered blue-greens that just look not right in hue.
The subjective part is wether you will actually enjoy watching movies where everyone looks like they a little too much sun. This reminds me of old CRT TV where people cranked the saturation.
Again reality plays no part in Sycrafts assertions about Blu Ray and wide gamut. It is a standard gamut source until they change the standard.
Be careful with this one.
As for what I would recomend. Sorry, no 26+ comes to mind (other than the NEC which at least has a standard Gamut mode). If my fight with dell ends satisfactorily, I will get a Benq G2400 or NEC 2490 next. Both are standard Gamut. If I needed something larger I might start investigating 32" 1080p TV's.
The objective part is that putting sRGB gamut straight into a wide gamut monitor will result in large color errors everywhere. Without being remapped, the numbers no longer have the same meaning and can produce strange results. Most obvious are neon reds and greens. More subtle is altered blue-greens that just look not right in hue.
The subjective part is wether you will actually enjoy watching movies where everyone looks like they a little too much sun. This reminds me of old CRT TV where people cranked the saturation.
Again reality plays no part in Sycrafts assertions about Blu Ray and wide gamut. It is a standard gamut source until they change the standard.
Be careful with this one.
As for what I would recomend. Sorry, no 26+ comes to mind (other than the NEC which at least has a standard Gamut mode). If my fight with dell ends satisfactorily, I will get a Benq G2400 or NEC 2490 next. Both are standard Gamut. If I needed something larger I might start investigating 32" 1080p TV's.
Many are buying the inexpensive Ergotron Neoflex/LX stand that fits the 100x100mm VESA mount on the back of the DS (as Sycraft has mentioned).
Here's a link to it:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8005507&st=ergotron&lp=2&type=product&cp=1&id=1155848385104
If you look through the Doublesight manual, it has the ability to raise and lower the saturation so hopefully you can (if you want) tame the strongly saturated colors of this panel by default. It does not have a dedicated sRGB mode, but the saturation control should help. It goes from -100 to +100 so that should give a fair amount of control.
The reason I was able to justify getting the LCD2690Wuxi was because I knew that it had an sRGB mode that I could also calibrate my PC for (if need be), but I would probably agree that even in standard gamut form, the NEC is one of the nicest panels I've ever seen. So since Doublesight is now selling the 26" monitors with the A-TW polarizer, I'm sure you will be able to agree once you can get your's.
Your only other option for S-IPS at this size (24 to 26) is the NEC LCD2490WuXi. I don't understand why 24" S-IPS is so hard to find.
Christ these days standard gamut monitors are getting hard to find.
Regards,
10e
Here's a link to it:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8005507&st=ergotron&lp=2&type=product&cp=1&id=1155848385104
If you look through the Doublesight manual, it has the ability to raise and lower the saturation so hopefully you can (if you want) tame the strongly saturated colors of this panel by default. It does not have a dedicated sRGB mode, but the saturation control should help. It goes from -100 to +100 so that should give a fair amount of control.
The reason I was able to justify getting the LCD2690Wuxi was because I knew that it had an sRGB mode that I could also calibrate my PC for (if need be), but I would probably agree that even in standard gamut form, the NEC is one of the nicest panels I've ever seen. So since Doublesight is now selling the 26" monitors with the A-TW polarizer, I'm sure you will be able to agree once you can get your's.
Your only other option for S-IPS at this size (24 to 26) is the NEC LCD2490WuXi. I don't understand why 24" S-IPS is so hard to find.
Christ these days standard gamut monitors are getting hard to find.
Regards,
10e
Very good summary.
You have forgotten NEC's unique auto brightness feature (with dynamic brightness mode) that protects your eyes.
... which with a "Few things, which you certainly may feel are not worth the money" makes the result on the screen completely different.This is such a tough decision.
With no other choices but the NEC and the DS in the 26=30" range, I'm left with either paying a heavy premium on features I probably won't even use (NEC), or be left with a wide gamut screen that many say makes games and movies aweful. If I turn out not liking the wide gamut (hell, I didn't even know what any of this was until I ran into you guys!), I'll be out of $700 bills. And to tell the truth I don't have access to any BB or CC currently, so I don't know if I'll be seeing any DLP TV's as a form of comparison in the timeframe I want to purchase this monitor.
Basically I'm out a monitor right now, which means out of a computer. I'd like to purchase one asap, and was set on the NEC until I realized how high the price actually was
Ugh.
With no other choices but the NEC and the DS in the 26=30" range, I'm left with either paying a heavy premium on features I probably won't even use (NEC), or be left with a wide gamut screen that many say makes games and movies aweful. If I turn out not liking the wide gamut (hell, I didn't even know what any of this was until I ran into you guys!), I'll be out of $700 bills. And to tell the truth I don't have access to any BB or CC currently, so I don't know if I'll be seeing any DLP TV's as a form of comparison in the timeframe I want to purchase this monitor.
Basically I'm out a monitor right now, which means out of a computer. I'd like to purchase one asap, and was set on the NEC until I realized how high the price actually was
Ugh.
As 10e mentions there is a saturation control on the Doublesight, which may help compensate. My dell has no controls to tame it's wide gamut gremlins. You have to rely on the graphics controls which are limited and problematic as indicated above. It would be much preferable to manage this in the monitor as it would work consistently across applications.
I'm trying to speak with some owners of the DS to see if the saturation control really does help compensate. Thanks. If it does, I'm probably buying one.
Sigh, Snowdog, I'm getting a little tired of it. You have your opinion, and I try to be respectful of it, but you don't really know what you are talking about.
So, some reading you need to do: First read up on ITU BT.709-5. Specificity of interest is the fact that HDTV covers the same gamut as sRGB, yet only uses digital levels from 16-235 to map that. A computer with an sRGB display has the same colour primaries, but uses the full range of 0-255 for those.
Then read up about xvYCC, the extended ITU colourspace. You also might look in to the fact that Blu-ray players support this.
Finally, check (as in measure) the colour primaries on your display against sRGB. The assumption that a non-wide gamut display = sRGB is false. You'll find that a great many fall short of sRGB, particularly in the blue area.
So you really need to educate yourself and get out of this "Non wide gamut = sRGB and sRGB = right" mindset. I'm afraid it isn't that simple and that it isn't becoming any simpler.
So, some reading you need to do: First read up on ITU BT.709-5. Specificity of interest is the fact that HDTV covers the same gamut as sRGB, yet only uses digital levels from 16-235 to map that. A computer with an sRGB display has the same colour primaries, but uses the full range of 0-255 for those.
Then read up about xvYCC, the extended ITU colourspace. You also might look in to the fact that Blu-ray players support this.
Finally, check (as in measure) the colour primaries on your display against sRGB. The assumption that a non-wide gamut display = sRGB is false. You'll find that a great many fall short of sRGB, particularly in the blue area.
So you really need to educate yourself and get out of this "Non wide gamut = sRGB and sRGB = right" mindset. I'm afraid it isn't that simple and that it isn't becoming any simpler.
Really? I never tire of know-it-alls who issue condescending "sighs" while they proceed to "educate" use with their version of the facts.
This in no way contradicts what I have said and in fact supports it. The amount of bits used to represent a color space doesn't define it, and the gamut, as you admit, is the same as sRGB.
I am familiar with it. But Blu Ray Standard supporting it is news to me. AFAIK disks are only defined to support 709/YCbCr. Do you have information to the contrary? Note I said disks. If movies don't support it, it doesn't matter.
That would be more the exception from what I have observed. As most standard panels mirror sRGB very closely.
http://www.digitalversus.com/duels.php?ty=6&ma1=52&mo1=149&p1=1606&ma2=36&mo2=245&p2=2334&ph=7
So far you haven't shown anything to the contrary or this "superior education" that your condescension stems from. Just about all of your claims seem contradicted by the facts. We essentially have next to zero wide gamut sources, color management on the PC is a joke, it makes wide gamut problematic at best for those of us who just want normal colors.
I am all for wider gamut when we get much better color management on the PC and preferably a higher bit depth to keep gradations finer as the steps will be larger using a wider gamut with the same 8 bit depth.
So you feel Snowdog is overdramatizing the color differences? Do you think that a general movie watcher/gamer will view the DoubleSight 26" in disgust?
Sorry that I'm basically asking the same questions over and over, but this matter really is confusing. Your opposing points of views have me a bit reluctant to dish out hundreds of dollars on a monitor - this gamut debate I had never even been aware of before this thread. After months of LCD researching, I thought I knew what I needed to know concerning my purchase. "THINK AGAIN", haha.
Can anyone else comment on this? I must have viewed tons of monitors over the course of the last few months, and I didn't even realize gamut differences. Maybe that should be an indication of how sensitive I'll be to this...
Still in thought...
Sorry that I'm basically asking the same questions over and over, but this matter really is confusing. Your opposing points of views have me a bit reluctant to dish out hundreds of dollars on a monitor - this gamut debate I had never even been aware of before this thread. After months of LCD researching, I thought I knew what I needed to know concerning my purchase. "THINK AGAIN", haha.
Can anyone else comment on this? I must have viewed tons of monitors over the course of the last few months, and I didn't even realize gamut differences. Maybe that should be an indication of how sensitive I'll be to this...
Still in thought...
Sadly I'm not educated on the technical end of all of this, and since you both respond to each other (or, so it seems) with intelligent, albeit aggressive posts, I'm just as confused as ever.
Snowdog, you don't even seem to make this out as something subjective, which again has me reluctant to make a purchase. I don't want shit looking like WoW all the time. Fuck.
Snowdog, you don't even seem to make this out as something subjective, which again has me reluctant to make a purchase. I don't want shit looking like WoW all the time. Fuck.
Objectively: Displaying in a mismatched color space will lead to all kinds of color errors. There is nothing subjective about this. PC color management is a farce so you will be using a mismatched color space when watching movies or playing games at minimum and likely in nearly everything else.
Subjectively: Some people actually like the way this looks. I don't, though few may be as picky as me. Ask 10e what he thinks of running his NEC in wide mode full time? If it didn't have the sRGB setting would he still have bought it?
Where you would be better off. Is at least the DS has controls, so you can adjust to taste somewhat in the monitor and at leas have consistent results if you can get some settings you like. My dell leaves me stuck with the mess that is PC controls. When I had the desktop mostly tamed, Video need separate adjustments that were a pain as well. Neither looks quite right but were close to tolerable most of the time. Then there were games which as I said nothing seems to fix. Though you can do it once in your monitor and have it consistent in everything.
I still have noone responding to me yet in this thread or the DS one related to the power of the DS controls. If it really can correct some of what you're saying is objective, I may be on the right track.
The reason why the digital range used to drive the gamut is relevant is that you get gamut compression on a device that uses the full range for the same gamut. This isn't a problem on a display with a wider gamut. That is the whole point of the xvYCC colourspace. The HDTV gamut remains in the currently used digital range, the wider colours are mapped outside that.
Now that site you linked to does a wonderful job of contradicting your point, not reinforcing it. What you see is that some monitors, like say the Viewsonic VX922 are very closely matched to the sRGB gamut.
As the picture shows the areas are so close as to basically overlap. Ok, great, but that isn't true of all displays. We'll even stick with the same manufacturer, but now let's look at their 22" VX2235wm:
Oops. While the gamut is about the same size as the sRGB triangle, it doesn't match. The sRGB gamut specifies a more yellow green, whereas the monitor has a more cyan one. Again staying with Viewsonic, let's look at the VX2835wm:
This one has a green that is now too green, instead of too cyan. Then there's the blue which if off base, being too far out to the blue, and more cyan than violet. How about a different brand, the Ezio FlexScan S2110W:
This one has a green that is close to on, but man, the blue falls way short of where it should be.
This shows, as I said, just because a monitor isn't wide gamut, doesn't mean it has good mapping to the sRGB space. Unless you've spent time researching which one you get and then testing it to make sure yours matches the specs, you've no idea if the colour primaries you are getting are close to sRGB.
Also please note the difference in blues are more significant than the graphs make them appear. The CIE1931 XYZ diagram under weights red and blue, perceptually speaking (hence the reason for newer variants like CIE1967 UCS). Red is the same deal, but the red point of the sRGB gamut is too hard to see on those graphs so I'm not dealing with it.
So again, this all comes back to my argument about personal taste. People will have different taste in what is good and bad in terms of colour. Thus this position you have of "wide gamut = bad" is stupid. If you are doing colour critical work in the sRGB space then ok, great. However in that case you'd be advised to chose a monitor which actually has good mapping to the sRGB space and to make sure it is properly calibrated.
If you aren't, well then it is whatever looks good to you. This goes double since as I've shown, many popular non-wide gamut monitors don't map well to sRGB, and their problems vary from monitor to monitor. So you aren't going to get matched colour, especially on an uncalibrated display. Thus the important question is what looks good not what is correct.
I'm sorry that you don't like your Dell monitor but did you ever consider that maybe the problem is that it isn't a good display? Maybe the problem isn't the gamut, maybe the problem is that you just don't like the panel over all. Maybe the problem is that the colours aren't internally consistent and need calibration. Maybe the problem is it has poor grayscale tracking, etc.
What I'm saying is that your position against wide gamut is not an informed one. There are many good reasons to like a wide gamut display, including the fact that they just look good. Maybe not to you, but you aren't the authority on that, nobody is.
Now that site you linked to does a wonderful job of contradicting your point, not reinforcing it. What you see is that some monitors, like say the Viewsonic VX922 are very closely matched to the sRGB gamut.
As the picture shows the areas are so close as to basically overlap. Ok, great, but that isn't true of all displays. We'll even stick with the same manufacturer, but now let's look at their 22" VX2235wm:
Oops. While the gamut is about the same size as the sRGB triangle, it doesn't match. The sRGB gamut specifies a more yellow green, whereas the monitor has a more cyan one. Again staying with Viewsonic, let's look at the VX2835wm:
This one has a green that is now too green, instead of too cyan. Then there's the blue which if off base, being too far out to the blue, and more cyan than violet. How about a different brand, the Ezio FlexScan S2110W:
This one has a green that is close to on, but man, the blue falls way short of where it should be.
This shows, as I said, just because a monitor isn't wide gamut, doesn't mean it has good mapping to the sRGB space. Unless you've spent time researching which one you get and then testing it to make sure yours matches the specs, you've no idea if the colour primaries you are getting are close to sRGB.
Also please note the difference in blues are more significant than the graphs make them appear. The CIE1931 XYZ diagram under weights red and blue, perceptually speaking (hence the reason for newer variants like CIE1967 UCS). Red is the same deal, but the red point of the sRGB gamut is too hard to see on those graphs so I'm not dealing with it.
So again, this all comes back to my argument about personal taste. People will have different taste in what is good and bad in terms of colour. Thus this position you have of "wide gamut = bad" is stupid. If you are doing colour critical work in the sRGB space then ok, great. However in that case you'd be advised to chose a monitor which actually has good mapping to the sRGB space and to make sure it is properly calibrated.
If you aren't, well then it is whatever looks good to you. This goes double since as I've shown, many popular non-wide gamut monitors don't map well to sRGB, and their problems vary from monitor to monitor. So you aren't going to get matched colour, especially on an uncalibrated display. Thus the important question is what looks good not what is correct.
I'm sorry that you don't like your Dell monitor but did you ever consider that maybe the problem is that it isn't a good display? Maybe the problem isn't the gamut, maybe the problem is that you just don't like the panel over all. Maybe the problem is that the colours aren't internally consistent and need calibration. Maybe the problem is it has poor grayscale tracking, etc.
What I'm saying is that your position against wide gamut is not an informed one. There are many good reasons to like a wide gamut display, including the fact that they just look good. Maybe not to you, but you aren't the authority on that, nobody is.
2690 is an examplary universal monitor capable of doing literally everything.
If you need to use just a few of it's abilities, I don't think you have to buy this monitor when you have an alternative (with budget in mind).
As I understand from your posts, you are not interested in anything that makes NEC the NEC.
You want games and movies only and your concern is "wide gamut side effects". In this case DS is a reasonable choice: primitive computer games animation is nothing to warry about. Movies? That's a factory of dreams. Why not dream in little wider gamut?
To be serious, the DS is not a bare panel. It has a minimum to do something with colors for video at least.
BUT
Movie playback is not an easy task for a monitor. Some monitors fail.
If I were you, I would make sure that DS supports video properly, especially Blu-ray 1080p.
You need to find a reliable test that clearly says what movie (name, format - 2.35:1 or 2.4:1, etc.), what external device (Blu-ray player or PS3), what connection are used for the test. It's absolutely necessary that the photo of the monitor with the test video is attached. This is how DVD/video tests are done.
If DS supports video it's a bargain for you.
Read this review for more info about gamuts, video, etc.
Possibility of not playing 1080p now? Sigh, that is one of the key things I want it to do. I thought the playing of the video had to do with the graphics card, not the monitor.
Thank you. I guess much more research is necessary...
Depends on if you mean from a PC or from a Blu-ray directly. From a PC, sure, no problem. You won't actually play the 1080p video in 1920x1080, the monitor will be getting a 1920x1200 signal from the computer, and the computer will just be letterboxing the video. What he means is that some monitors don't do well with an actual 1080 input. The BenQ FP241W I used to have was apparently notorious for that. Over certain connections, it stretched 1080 improperly.
My sympathies on the new monitor buying, always stressful when you have to buy blind. I went through the same thing not long ago. I wish I could be more definitive and tell you the One True Display, but I'd just be lying to you.
My sympathies on the new monitor buying, always stressful when you have to buy blind. I went through the same thing not long ago. I wish I could be more definitive and tell you the One True Display, but I'd just be lying to you.
Well, I received my second 2690 today- the replacement for the first unit I got that had backlight uniformity issues.
The backlight uniformity on this one is almost as bad as the first. The upper right corner is still bright and on this one the lower right corner glows, too.
Fortunately it isn't too visible in daylight. It does seem that it might be related to pressure on the panel or the polarizer since touching the panel changes the light bleed.
I now have to decide whether to try a second RMA or just try a different product. The 2490 I have is so much better than this 2690- really no comparison in this regard.
I'll have to get one or two of these monitors shipped back to CDW before getting the third- these boxes are huge and filling up my office.
Perhaps if my wife just isn't bothered by this we'll keep the new 2690.
The backlight uniformity on this one is almost as bad as the first. The upper right corner is still bright and on this one the lower right corner glows, too.
Fortunately it isn't too visible in daylight. It does seem that it might be related to pressure on the panel or the polarizer since touching the panel changes the light bleed.
I now have to decide whether to try a second RMA or just try a different product. The 2490 I have is so much better than this 2690- really no comparison in this regard.
I'll have to get one or two of these monitors shipped back to CDW before getting the third- these boxes are huge and filling up my office.
Perhaps if my wife just isn't bothered by this we'll keep the new 2690.