MY sony 19" 12 ms

steal said:
Well, I just picked one of these up from the local CC. Simply put.. I'm not impressed. After hearing how many people have gone from a CRT to a LCD, and would never go back, I thought I would take the plunge and see for myself. The response time is great, there's no ghosting in games whatsoever, but this is the first LCD i've owned, so coming from a nice trinitron tube, this just isn't gonna cut it for me. Any suggestions for a good 20-22" CRT that will rival my old trinitron?
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This is how i kinda feel with my 710T comming from my 19" trinitron. Some things the LCD is better, some things its not as good.

I do agree with the person who said fool around with the settings. I would keep it for 2-3 days. See if you get used to it. But, if you don't worry about space/weight/heat, then keep the trinitron CRT monitor you already had. (it took me a good 4 days to get used to it, and it took me 2 days of trying diffrent settings to get it to look just like my CRT). Funny thing was, with the LCD options alone, i could'nt get it to look like the trinitron. But with my ATI 9200, i was able to go into the advanced settings and change around a few "color" settings. Such as gamma, brightness, and contrast. With all of these settings, i was able to get it to look VERY close to the trinitron. Although text is still smaller. ~_~

Did you install your color profile form the sony CD? and drivers. After all, its not a "plug and play" monitor.
 
I noticed that a tiny spot appeared on my monitor near the middle. I tried to wipe it off but I don't think it's dirt or anything.

It's kind of annoying, is this a "dead pixel" that everyone talks about?

If so, can I do anything about it? It seems like it showed up a week or two after I got it.
 
if its a dead pixel..the only thing you can do is take it back or get used to it. hopefully it isnt too big that itll get in the way..i have a few dead pixels but they are all on the outsides of the screen and i dont notice them unless i look for them. :D
 
I had two red subpixels that were stuck on when I got my HS94p, but they seem to have gone away...
 
steal said:
Well, I just picked one of these up from the local CC. Simply put.. I'm not impressed. After hearing how many people have gone from a CRT to a LCD, and would never go back, I thought I would take the plunge and see for myself. The response time is great, there's no ghosting in games whatsoever, but this is the first LCD i've owned, so coming from a nice trinitron tube, this just isn't gonna cut it for me. Any suggestions for a good 20-22" CRT that will rival my old trinitron?
Click to expand...


Did you configure it at all? lcd's dont always come great out of the box like CRT's. Change the color temps to 93k or raise the backlight. also max out your contrast.
 
datamage said:
steal,

If there was no blurring/ghosting whatsoever, what factors are limiting you from keeping it? Maybe you should spend some more time with the LCD, and see how it ends up. Also, adjust the settings on the LCD, that could have a drastic effect on its output.

If you can, hook up your previous CRT next to the LCD, so you can see the difference. The sharpness alone won't allow me to go back to a CRT. And I've tried...

- D.
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Mainly the color reproduction, the blacks in particular. Doom3 sealed it for me.
 
Aerobahn said:
Did you configure it at all? lcd's dont always come great out of the box like CRT's. Change the color temps to 93k or raise the backlight. also max out your contrast.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I configured it to my liking.
 
Mainly the color reproduction, the blacks in particular. Doom3 sealed it for me.
Click to expand...

That I can understand. Though I've gotten it down to a somewhat acceptable level. Thing is, I've tried going back to my CRT (FP2141) just for Doom, and I couldn't. While the blacks were of course better, everything else looked dull. For me, the vivid and sharp display of the LCD makes everything come alive. (Despite the dull blacks.)

I can definitely understand the concern for lack of a decent black level however. Good luck on whatever you decide to do.. if you return the LCD to CC, you'll get hit with a 15% restocking fee.. :-/

- D.
 
towert7 said:
This is how i kinda feel with my 710T comming from my 19" trinitron. Some things the LCD is better, some things its not as good.

I do agree with the person who said fool around with the settings. I would keep it for 2-3 days. See if you get used to it. But, if you don't worry about space/weight/heat, then keep the trinitron CRT monitor you already had. (it took me a good 4 days to get used to it, and it took me 2 days of trying diffrent settings to get it to look just like my CRT). Funny thing was, with the LCD options alone, i could'nt get it to look like the trinitron. But with my ATI 9200, i was able to go into the advanced settings and change around a few "color" settings. Such as gamma, brightness, and contrast. With all of these settings, i was able to get it to look VERY close to the trinitron. Although text is still smaller. ~_~

Did you install your color profile form the sony CD? and drivers. After all, its not a "plug and play" monitor.
Click to expand...

color profile? drivers? none of this stuff came on the cd that came with the monitor, and there are no drivers to speak of for this monitor..
 
Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention. If you actually sit a bit under your monitor (meaning it's a bit higher up than straight ahead of you), then don't even bother with this LCD. The vertical viewing angle from below it is just.. horrid. I'm sitting about directly in front of it, MAYBE a few inches below the center, and I have to tilt it down foreward so the top half of the monitor doesn't fade out to black. When viewing it like this, it's still a bit dark at the top, but not as bad.. I guess. It seems like the only way for the brightness to remain consistent throughout the entire screen is if you sit above it.

15% restocking fee here I come :rolleyes: It's gonna end up costing me more to get a new CRT that retails for $200 less than it originally did to just get this LCD :(
 
What are you doing? Attaching the monitor to the wall just below the ceiling? I've looked at what you are saying... the vertical viewing angle is indeed skewed so that it looks best from angles slightly above the monitor... but to me it still looks fine up to angles about 30 below the normal (perpendicular) to the monitor... and that is without adjusting any settings from my normal viewing position.
 
no, the way my desk is setup though is it has a pull out keyboard tray, and my knees rest under it, meaning the monitor is propped up about 5 inches higher than where the keyboard sits

i'm not too far below it, but if i want to lean back in my chair or something, it becomes really noticeable to the point where i just can't stand it

as you can tell i'm pretty pickey about this kind of stuff :p
 
steal said:
color profile? drivers? none of this stuff came on the cd that came with the monitor, and there are no drivers to speak of for this monitor..
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Actually yes there are. They aren't on the CD though, which seems to be kinda silly really. If you're running XP you should see a Sony driver that you can download for the monitor from windows update, it includes a color profile to use for it. Not sure how much mileage you'll get out of it, but it's better than nothing. If you don't see it on WU, you can also try to just update the driver from the device manager, that worked for me.

On another note, I just got this monitor in yesterday and spent most of my night toying around with settings, I think I'm going to keep this thing just because it's my 4th try at LCDs, and this is the only one that has had a black level I'm happy with and isn't riddled with dead pixels. I was wondering if anyone here knew of some good software I can run to test the monitor for things like color calibration. I don't have a spectograph or anything, but I'd like to know how this thing is running.
 
ok another update

after using this monitor pretty much all morning, i've noticed that regardless of the angle i'm looking at it from, the bottom is ALWAYS brighter than the top

this isn't very noticeable at an optimal angle, which seems to be eye level right at the very top of the monitor, but at ANY viewing angle at all, and especially more so at my normal one, on irc with a blue backround it goes from pretty damn bright at the bottom to pretty dim at the top - this is where i notice it the most. not on a white or black backround, but on pretty much any other color filling up the entire screen, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

keep in mind this is from any viewing angle at all regardless of where you're looking at it from, but it gets worse the farther down your eye level goes.. :(

im guessing the backlight is at the bottom of the monitor? or maybe mine is defective? =\

edit: lol found yet another problem with it. on genmay.net forums when scrolling up and down the main forum, the yellow text of the thread titles turns red. same on the hardforums.

edit #2: it does it with white text too, but it's not nearly as noticeable. couldnt notice any with blue text. maybe it's the black/gray backround?
 
steal...

Have you turned the backlight down? I noticed major uneven lighting when I first got the monitor... there were light areas across the top and bottom... I run the backlight at a setting of 0-30 (other settings can be found a couple of pages back). With this setting the monitor looks beautiful... blacks are deep black and other colors are still vibrant, and the lighting is fairly even.

The backlight in this thing is utterly ridiculously bright at 100%... I'm hoping that this means a longer life for the monitor, as most companies publish a mean time before failure of 30K- 50K hours... with the definition of failure being that the backlight has faded to 50% of its original intensity. Since this thing has more potential intensity to begin with, I'm hoping it lasts longer... I don't need too much of that light:)
 
i have the backlight set at "high", because the user setting seems to make the picture look white-washed regardless of what i set the contrast/brightness at

the "high" setting makes the blacks deeper, and the colors more vibrant. i can't seem to reproduce this look myself.

just out of curiousity, what are your exact settings?
 
steal said:
i have the backlight set at "high", because the user setting seems to make the picture look white-washed regardless of what i set the contrast/brightness at

the "high" setting makes the blacks deeper, and the colors more vibrant. i can't seem to reproduce this look myself.

just out of curiousity, what are your exact settings?
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This sounds really odd to me because I had the exact opposite problem when I received my monitor the other day. High and medium totally whitewashed everything on my screen, low was ok but I wasn't really happy until I used the user setting to totally kill my backlight.

The settings I'm running right now on mine that seem good so far are:
Backlight - 0
Contrast - 100
Brightness - 30
Color Temp - 93k
 
those settings made the monitor *extremely* dark to my eyes.. so dark i almost couldn't make out the border between the dark gray box around the forum selector/area where it says "welcome, <username>" (above the red user cp/faq/new posts/etc bar) from the black backround of the forums

edit: oh my. it flickers when i scroll up and down at these settings

:LOL: i couldn't make this shit up if i tried..

another edit: turned the backlight back up to 100, but left the brightness at 30. it's bright, but not too bright like the high setting, the blacks are deeper, and the colors are more vibrant than before. thanks, i think. :p

edit #3: ok, the flickering is just because the white text dimms when i scroll up and down, making it appear less bright, and then goes back to normal (if that makes any sense) when i stop scrolling, making it as bright as it was before. it's very noticeable when scrolling slow. normal for a lcd i guess?
 
steal said:
ok another update

after using this monitor pretty much all morning, i've noticed that regardless of the angle i'm looking at it from, the bottom is ALWAYS brighter than the top
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Yes, that's exactly what i notice with my samsung 710T, and this is why i don't recommend an LCD to anyone who is doing graphic design yet.. The monitor itself might produce the right colors, but when viewing it ............ if the colors are not even..... its does'nt matter.

~Hope this helps
 
calibration is key.

For my monitor if i slightly tilt it back it is worse than having it direct center. Backlight and brightness are key for the blacks. Doom3 looks just as good on CRT if you configure it right. Use the color profiles and drop the backlight raise the brightness just a bit use gamma 3, and contrast must be maxed.

make sure its Set to USER.
 
steal said:
those settings made the monitor *extremely* dark to my eyes..

edit #3: ok, the flickering is just because the white text dimms when i scroll up and down, making it appear less bright, and then goes back to normal (if that makes any sense) when i stop scrolling, making it as bright as it was before. it's very noticeable when scrolling slow. normal for a lcd i guess?
Click to expand...

Heh, yeah those settings will actually put your monitor pretty much as dark as it can go. I'm at work right now and don't have the monitor here, but I don't remember having the color blend problem, I'll have to check it out later. The user setting I've found is just a better bet than the defaults for most things, and as you've discovered playing with the backlight more than brightness will help you get better color without adding saturation.

The text dimming effect is a common thing with LCDs, but I hadn't noticed it on this model yet. If the effect is pretty severe there's probably a way to tweak it that would minimize it, but I think the more vibrant it is the more you'll be able to notice a color fade, so it's a tradeoff situation.
 
Right now I'm running on DVI, with 9300K color, Backlight 30, Contrast 70, Brightness 50, Gamma 2, with the Windows Update graphics drivers, and my Radeon card set to its color defaults.


Does anyone know how to check for VSync on DVI with Radeon Catlyst drivers? The drivers seem to have a VSync option for Analog VGA, but not for DVI. Does this mean that DVI doesn't use Sync's? I notice screen tearing when panning quickly in games.
 
The only thing holding me back from picking up the sony model is the potential for reflection. It seems to be superior in all catagories.

To the people who are having reflection issues, have you tried the monitor in a different part of your room? If so, did changing the light sources angles remove the glare issue? The reason I ask is allot of people have mentioned that they have no reflection issues (and images have shown no reflection problems, while others have show drastic problems)
 
steal said:
ok another update
edit: lol found yet another problem with it. on genmay.net forums when scrolling up and down the main forum, the yellow text of the thread titles turns red. same on the hardforums.

edit #2: it does it with white text too, but it's not nearly as noticeable. couldnt notice any with blue text. maybe it's the black/gray backround?
Click to expand...

I tried to recreate this problem with my monitor now that I'm at home, and I can't get any color shifting or dimming to occur for me at either forum. I'm starting to think that you might have just gotten a lemon at this point, because this monitor performs extremely well with text, whch is one of the things I admire about it since I use it for a lot of text based activities.

I got some color calibration screens and software that I'll be running a little later tonight and letting you know how they do and/or if they help. As LCD picky as I am I'm going to say i'm leaning towards keeping this one about 90%.
 
jay07 said:
The only thing holding me back from picking up the sony model is the potential for reflection. It seems to be superior in all catagories.

To the people who are having reflection issues, have you tried the monitor in a different part of your room? If so, did changing the light sources angles remove the glare issue? The reason I ask is allot of people have mentioned that they have no reflection issues (and images have shown no reflection problems, while others have show drastic problems)
Click to expand...

The reflection on this monitor is one of it's drawbacks/features. The main purpose of the reflective coating is to make the monitor more viewable in high light conditions. The angle of the light will determine how much mileage you get out of this.

The more color the monitor has the less reflection you will get, because obviously the unit itself is emitting more light. Colors like pure black can generate strong reflections, depending on the angle/intensity of your light. If I take a flashlight and and I have it in front of the monitor at all, then I get reflection from the light. If I move the flashlight above or below the monitor, the light still pointed at it, there's no generated relfection. Also, if there's enough light and I'm wearing a white shirt, that can be reflected in the black areas of the monitors to some extent.

The closest thing I can relate this coating to is like the glass finish on framed art. You can pick between glossy normal glass or non-reflective, and this monitor totally ops for the gloss coat. FOr light reflections, if you've got a light behind the monitor, I don't think you're going to have much problem unless you've got a 150 watt light shining on you. If you've got a light that's in front of the monitor, there's a pretty good chance that it will be reflected in the screen when it's on.

The monitor really performs much better the darker the room is. If you're going to be in a decently light isolated area, this monitor's finish totally rocks and does what it's supposed to, and has no drawbacks. The brighter your direct light source, the more danger you run with this thing though. To be fair to the monitor, I don't notice the reflection much, but then again I've been using CRTs up until now, so I'm more accustomed to it.

As usual, I'd have to recommend giving it a shot if you can, and see how it works in your space. If anyone wants any situational pictures, I'd be happy to oblige.
 
Lets not forget that its also there for protection. Eaiser to clean a piece of plastic then the LCD screen itself.
 
KingLord, thanks allot for the information. Some pictures would be cool.

I think i'm going to take a gamble on it since i'm moving, and I can arrange my room around the monitor when I get there.

This monitor sounds too good to be true (minus the glare), I have to try it out :)
 
I reset my monitor and now brightness, contrast, etc won't work from the menu. Can anyone help? Thanks

edit: nvrmind
 
O'Doyle said:
Where are the Doom 3 pics man :D ?
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Sorry 1 day late.. Here are some pics of Doom3. I just started playing the game on Sat.... No blur/ghost...

0.jpg


1.jpg


2.jpg


3.jpg


Can someone tell me how to change the contast setting on the SDMHS94P? I can't access them via the menu button...

Thanks
 
Ok, I said I would post later with some more info, and finally here I am! I must say that things turned out pretty well, but not perfect. Best LCD I've used so far for sure though, that much I can attest to. With that out of the way, here's the real infor and some pictures.

1. Reflection Issue
It seems to me that a lot of people were wondering about this issue and didn't have easy access to see the monitor themselves, so here are some pictures. As I said before, the best way to think of this monitor coating is like normal polished glass, not so much a mirror. (My pictures suck, but they show what they need to, so don't tell me how much my camera skills blow. :p )

Pic 1 - Monitor Off - 150 Watt Ceiling light in FRONT of monitor (almost directly above it, little to the left)
ol_front.JPG

As you can see, this is where the reflective properties really shine, pun intended. Keep in mind this is with the monitor OFF. It's never this bad with the monitor on. I would say monitor on displaying pure black would be about 50% this opauqe.

Pic 2 - Monitor Off - 150 Watt ceiling light BEHIND the monitor
ol_back.JPG

As you can see, not really any reflection here. If the light was strong enough to reflect a lot of light off me, there probably would be some, as the monitor is off.

Pic 3 - Monitor On - 150 watt light in FRONT of monitor again
onl_front.JPG

Here you can see that with the monitor on and displaying color, the reflection is greatly reduced if not eliminated. If you're wondering why the monitor doesn't look as bright around the edges it's because of my camera's auto white balance thing, the monitor is actually so bright it throws the camera off. :eek:

Pic 4 - Monitor On - Flashlight pointed directly at monitor from the front
flashfront.JPG

Here you can see that a strong enough direct light source from the front will cause reflection. Keep in mind the flashlight is directly in front of the monitor here.

Pic 5 - Monitor On - Flashlight pointed at monitor, but is held above the actual monitor. (Think of it as a desklight that's above the monitor)
flashback.JPG

Here we see that as long as the source of the light is not directly in the monitor's LOS then the reflection is close to non-existant.

2. Color Reproduction/ Values

I was able to get some decent monitor calibration tools that I will link to at the bottom of this post. I installed the Sony driver for the monitor, and I'm running the 93k color profile for the purpose of this test. I would have included pictures, but my camera had no chance of capturing the subtle differences here without the use of a tripod and other tools I'm too lazy to impliment.

I was surprised and impressed with the greys and blacks. This monitor performs very well for an LCD in this catagory. It would appear that gamma 2 is the best nuetral setting for blacks, and gives the best range of colors displayed. Gamma 3 makes things look a little darker, but actually clamps the curve too soon and you lose some black detail, but not much. I think picking between gamma 1 and 2 is a personal preference thing. The colors on this monitor were also good, but not awesome. It did very well in the low to middle ends, but I was unable to get it to display the entire spectrum once it got to the brighter colors in the red and green spectrum. It didn't loose out much, but I can say it's not perfect. One interesting note, is that the monitor software informed me that the display was working in 16.8 million colors, not 16.2. I don't know if the software was just wrong, it might not have a setting for 16.2, I'm not sure of a good way to test this. After tweaking, here are my final settings.

Backlight = 0
Contrast = 85
Brightness = 44
Color = 9300K
Gamma = 2
Sharpness = 5

These are what I came up with though, and everyone's eye is a little different so this isn't going to be spot on for everyone. I've given links to the monitor calibration tools I used, so feel free to use them. I also should note I like my screen a little warmer than cool, so these settings are a tad warm, but not too much.

I think that's it. If anyone has any other questions or things they'd like to know just let me know. All in all I think this is a great monitor, I haven't played any games on it yet, but I will over the weekend and give my take on that. So far I'd have to give this monitor a 9/10.

Monitor Tool Links
Good Quick Calibration Software - Monitor Test Screens
Comprehensive Calibration Software (Takes more time but worth it I think.) - PC World Monitor Testing Software
 
Thanks for the post KingLord. Pic 3 (and 4 & 5 I guess) looks insanely nice. Anyone who complains about the reflection is overly anal and doesn't deserve this LCD.
 
dudewth said:
Thanks for the post KingLord. Pic 3 (and 4 & 5 I guess) looks insanely nice. Anyone who complains about the reflection is overly anal and doesn't deserve this LCD.
Click to expand...

Exactly, it's like no one can be satisfied nowadays :p .

Thanks Jag009 and Kinglord... those pictures rock, I hope that Sony comes out with the Black Bezel ones and the "newer" look model ones soon! :)

Doom 3 looks fun to play on these LCD monitors, I can't wait!
 
jay07 said:
The only thing holding me back from picking up the sony model is the potential for reflection. It seems to be superior in all catagories.

To the people who are having reflection issues, have you tried the monitor in a different part of your room? If so, did changing the light sources angles remove the glare issue? The reason I ask is allot of people have mentioned that they have no reflection issues (and images have shown no reflection problems, while others have show drastic problems)
Click to expand...

That's one complaint I don't have. My CRT is more reflective than this LCD. It's still going back for me though. LCDs just aren't for me.
 
Thanks again for the information KingLord, this is exactly the type of comprehensive review oh the problem I was looking for. As soon as this beast is available in Canada i'll be picking one up :)
 
Antiglare spray for monitor screen....
Is there such product out there? If so, is it safe to use?
 
jag009 said:
Antiglare spray for monitor screen....
Is there such product out there? If so, is it safe to use?
Click to expand...

I sincerely hope not! If something like this existed it would be next to impossible to use safely. The closest thing to this you'll be able to find are anti-glare films that you can place over/on the monitor screen. You've seen the cheap slide over ones at place likes best buy and comp usa I'm sure. A spray would just be way too uneven, and when dealing with a surface like this is needs to be as even as possible. If you're looking for an easy reflection fix maybe some polarized sunglasses? :cool:
 
KingLord said:
I sincerely hope not! If something like this existed it would be next to impossible to use safely. The closest thing to this you'll be able to find are anti-glare films that you can place over/on the monitor screen. You've seen the cheap slide over ones at place likes best buy and comp usa I'm sure. A spray would just be way too uneven, and when dealing with a surface like this is needs to be as even as possible. If you're looking for an easy reflection fix maybe some polarized sunglasses? :cool:
Click to expand...

I guess I will just have to dig out my Oakleys then... :cool:
 
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