NEC 20WGX2 complete shit for photos?

D

darkgray

n00b
Joined
Jun 2, 2006
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4
Argh, here I am with a NEC 20WGX2, and while the image is colorful and pretty, the black levels are absolutely TERRIBLE. I've been trying all the DV modes, all possible brighness/contrast combinations, and fiddling with QuickGamma to try to bring them up. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try, I can't see any darks below RGB 10,10,10, which is utter garbage. My broken old CRT will start showing it around RGB 3,3,3! If I remember correctly, the NEC LCD2070NX actually showed up around 5, which was acceptable, but editing black and white photos on this screen is impossible, when the lower half of the spectrum shows up as a big black blob.

The special DV modes have insane banding, and advance DV will actually adjust brighness and contrast depending on what your screen is showing, so moving a photo around will make the same pixels look brighter and darker depending on where they are on the screen, which is, again, utter garbage.

I haven't tried gaming or movie watching or anything such yet, but so far the glossy coating seems more pleasant than the matte alternative of the 2070NX, but with the crappy blacks I am miserable with this screen.

I'm hoping other 20WGX2 owners will assist me and check where they start seeing the gray square on the following page:
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_black.htm
Please report back if you can see it below 10,10,10 without bringing dithering about, and at what settings. :(
 
With a 214T I see it @ 4,4,4 with a preset of "text" which is dim, and @ 3,3,3 with a preset profile called "entertain" which is bright.
 
I start to see the square at 3,3,3 on my FW900 CRT but the surrounding black levels are pitch black, I thought the NEC 20WGX2 was suppose to have pretty good black levels? 10 is pretty bad if thats right...
 
I just tried it on the NEC and can't see it til 20. On the Samsung 215tw I can see it at 3.
 
advance DV will actually adjust brighness and contrast depending on what your screen is showing, so moving a photo around will make the same pixels look brighter and darker depending on where they are on the screen, which is, again, utter garbage
Click to expand...

The dynamic backlight is the only reason this panel has great blacks. If you choose not to use it, you get the usual crappy IPS blacks.
 
gateway 21in at 3,3,3

viewsonic 'cheap' 20in 8,8,8


looks like i need to take this viewsonic back to costco and get another gateway
 
NulloModo said:
I have a Dell 2001fp and after running a test I can tell up to 2,2,2
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lol how is that possible .. my 2001FP had the worst black levels ive seen on any LCD.
 
trinitron CRT

at normal brightness that i used everyday, i see it at 16

at maximum brightness, i see it at 7, this is too bright, it is burning out my eyes
 
darkgray said:
Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try, I can't see any darks below RGB 10,10,10, which is utter garbage
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That's pretty much strange. On non-calibrated 20WGX2 at 50% brightness, 50% contrast, Advanced DV off, DV mode Standard, Native colour space ... I can see the first dark shade at approx 6,6,6 - 7,7,7. I guess that after proper hardware calibration, you will be in the range of 4,4,4 - 5,5,5 ... maybe even less ... and that is pretty much OK.

Something is happening with your monitor, which is obviously not exactly right. It's maybe (default) factory calibration slightly off set, your panel is uniformly slightly brighter (global backlight leakage), it's not properly burned in or even something on the software level is causing the problem.

darkgray said:
but editing black and white photos on this screen is impossible, when the lower half of the spectrum shows up as a big black blob.
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Again, I'm surprised about this. Of course, no LCD monitor in this price range can show the differences and distinguish between the darkest shades of colour gamut (unfortunately you have to opt for colour critical monitors) ... but your big black blob case is pretty much not normal.

As you are already using the tests from drycreekphoto, how does this gradient (gamma) test looks like:

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_black.htm

Also, try the following monitor test and see how it goes:

http://tft.vanity.dk

It's very good "all in one" monitor test package and among other things, you may test the panel homogeneity (pixel faults, backlight bleeding), gradient test and grey shades reproduction.

The special DV modes have insane banding, and advance DV will actually adjust brighness and contrast depending on what your screen is showing, so moving a photo around will make the same pixels look brighter and darker depending on where they are on the screen, which is, again, utter garbage.
Click to expand...
Don't use the DV modes for photo editing. They are designed for video/gaming tasks and generally noisy/dynamic content. Preferably, you should leave the monitor in the native, well defined state (like standard DV mode).

Also, for other people who are posting the results from other brands (and I've seen some strangely low numbers for specific panel types), they shouldn't use the non native monitor modes (gaming, video ... etc) and generally any picture altering modes, as explained above. Also, we are not sure about their contrast/brightness/gamma/colour temperature settings and calibration options. For example, when switching the NEC to gaming DV mode, first shade is starting to showing up at 3,3,3 ... BUT that is not honest as picture processing engine is kicking in, which is altering the colours. Also, surrounding colour of the testing box should be pitch black and no colour cast should be there.
 
mathesar said:
I start to see the square at 3,3,3 on my FW900 CRT but the surrounding black levels are pitch black, I thought the NEC 20WGX2 was suppose to have pretty good black levels? 10 is pretty bad if thats right...
Click to expand...
This test is not designed to measure the black point luminance - so in essence it's not relevant when you want to describe how much black is black. It's designed to present minimum shadow level monitor is capable to display. In other words, where is the minimum shadow patch when you can clearly distinguish pure black from nearly black. It's important for the professional colour work. In normal usage, I doubt that this will cause any trouble for you, especially if the monitor can display the acceptable values.

NEC does have excellent (perceptive) blacks and apart from the panel itself, OptiClear is probably contributing factor for this. No doubt about that.
 
Scyles said:
The dynamic backlight is the only reason this panel has great blacks. If you choose not to use it, you get the usual crappy IPS blacks.
Click to expand...
Simply not true. Even if you don't use the Advanced DV (which is *not* just dynamic backlight adjustment) you will still have great picture and great blacks. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to defend here my egoistic opinions about this screen. However, I'm more keen to see the properly elaborated, non-theoretical and backed up statements - preferably from the users of this screen.

Crappy IPS blacks is probably true for the older generation of the IPS panels, but with this one - it's simply not the case. As you already mentioned, Advanced DV is great helper for the blacks (especially games) - but it's not the primary subject. Also, many people are not so obsessed about greatest and deepest blacks - personally I would never sacrifice the proper colour balance for good blacks and particularly balance between the major colours and black and balance between standard RGB colours (when calibrating the screen). OK, some monitors have better blacks but poor colour accuracy/balance and vice versa. Good monitor will always try to properly combine those two variables together, but never sacrifice any of them. In that sense I was pleasantly surprised, as NEC is balancing them in a great way.
 
mathesar said:
lol how is that possible .. my 2001FP had the worst black levels ive seen on any LCD.
Click to expand...

I am just telling you what I saw from the site that I checked it with.

My settings are:
Red 52
Green 50
Blue 53

Brightness and contrast controls are turned off when hooked up through DVI, so whatever the default levels are.
 
mathesar said:
lol how is that possible .. my 2001FP had the worst black levels ive seen on any LCD.
Click to expand...


Because you are mixing up two things here.

For gaming, video watching etc. Good blacks to most people mean VERY DARK blacks. Often this is achieved by creating the exact problem referred to here. Black crush. Or burying more tones in the pure black end of the spectrum.

On my CRT and my LCD, I only see the variation around 9 or 10. On my CRT I can easily change this by cranking the brightness. But now IMO it looks like crap.

On my LCD the brightness control really has no effect. But I can go in and mess with the gamma on the graphics card to change this so I can see this variation sooner and guess what. It generally looks like crap again.

I have never seen a monitor set up to show this variation around 3 like many here claim that didn't also then look like washed out crap. I don't do professional image editing. I will take my darker screen any day.
 
Snowdog said:
Because you are mixing up two things here.

For gaming, video watching etc. Good blacks to most people mean VERY DARK blacks. Often this is achieved by creating the exact problem referred to here. Black crush. Or burying more tones in the pure black end of the spectrum.

On my CRT and my LCD, I only see the variation around 9 or 10. On my CRT I can easily change this by cranking the brightness. But now IMO it looks like crap.

On my LCD the brightness control really has no effect. But I can go in and mess with the gamma on the graphics card to change this so I can see this variation sooner and guess what. It generally looks like crap again.

I have never seen a monitor set up to show this variation around 3 like many here claim that didn't also then look like washed out crap. I don't do professional image editing. I will take my darker screen any day.
Click to expand...

Ya I understand how it works , Thats what I meant by being able to see it at 3,3,3 *and* having the surrounding black levels dark black, I would think this is the ideal situation for a monitor. Sure maybe I could of cranked up the brightness to see 1,1,1 or 2,2,2 but the black levels would of been poor / washed out (gray).

On my 2001FP I noticed a lot of black crush when comparing dark scenes / photos with my CRT sitting right next to it which is why I cant believe it would show RGB 2,2,2 ,unless perhaps the brightness or gamma is really cranked ..all I know is the actual black level on the 2001FP was no where near being "deep" black, it was a milky gray at best no matter what I adjusted.
 
Snowdog said:
I have never seen a monitor set up to show this variation around 3 like many here claim that didn't also then look like washed out crap. I don't do professional image editing. I will take my darker screen any day.
Click to expand...

My Acer's not washed out at all. It's the same panel as the VX2025. My brightness is cranked down from the default, and photos from my digital SLR look very natural. I haven't tried any dark games like Doom 3 yet though, will get around to doing that.
 
If I raise the brightness enough, I can see it at 3,3,3 however this is too bright so I won't be leaving it at this level. At my usually brightness, I start to see it at level 7 which I think is 7,7,7. This is using a Samsung 204T.

This test will not determine how well your monitor can display blacks though, my 8ms TN Samsung 720B can display this box very quickly but it is because it does not have as many shades of black so the box appears to be higher contrast.

Edit: I never really cared about calibrating this thing but now that I have, I believe the best color is reached when I set the monitor to where I can't see it until 9 or so. That is how I set it right now. I can jack up the gamma and brightness and able myself to see the box earlier but it takes away the contrast from the bright colors and I don't like that compromise.
 
The page mentions also you should check if you can see the change with every increase. I can see the change in every step on my Acer, but I did notice looking straight on I can't see the change til 5,5,5. Looking slightly down or from the side, I see it at 3,3,3.
 
Varmint said:
The page mentions also you should check if you can see the change with every increase. I can see the change in every step on my Acer, but I did notice looking straight on I can't see the change til 5,5,5. Looking slightly down or from the side, I see it at 3,3,3.
Click to expand...

And this is precisely why I can't stand PVA/MVA screens. They washout to the sides or at angles. I had two that I got rid of (Dell 2405/2007fp) and I looked at the VX2025 and it does the same thing. No matter what the dark level is, I would prefer it to be consistent across the screen. I now have a cheap TN screen that is more resistant to this as a side screen for my main CRT. My CRT I will only replace with an IPS screen.
 
Snowdog said:
And this is precisely why I can't stand PVA/MVA screens. They washout to the sides or at angles. I had two that I got rid of (Dell 2405/2007fp) and I looked at the VX2025 and it does the same thing. No matter what the dark level is, I would prefer it to be consistent across the screen. I now have a cheap TN screen that is more resistant to this as a side screen for my main CRT. My CRT I will only replace with an IPS screen.
Click to expand...

Bah, that's rubbish - all you have to do is angle the screen like 85 degrees rather than 90 and it looks perfect. Maybe if you were using two screens at once it might be an issue.
 
If you are really a stickler about LCD color quality try the NEC 1980SXI or 1980FXI. They are only 1280x panels though.

If money is truly no object there's the NEC 2180WG.
 
Varmint said:
Bah, that's rubbish - all you have to do is angle the screen like 85 degrees rather than 90 and it looks perfect. Maybe if you were using two screens at once it might be an issue.
Click to expand...

Now that is rubbish. Sitting directly centered PVA/MVA screens start to washout on the sides. Facing directly on. Unless you are very far away it is not possible to have the whole screen giving consistent tone.

Here is a screen shot of my 2007fp. I meant for this to be a "before" shot, followed by an after shot at an angle, but it turns out I was maybe 5 degrees off perfect and look how much the tone changes from left to right. I didn't need an after shot.

http://i.pbase.com/o4/04/606404/1/59768645.PVA_Shadow.jpg

After my first LCD fiasco, I bought two more and looked at many in store. PVA/MVA have the worse real world viewing characteristics, next up is TN, yes TN is better than PVA/MVA horizontally, but not vertically, but horizontal viewing angles matter more. IPS is much better than TN/VA at both horizontal and vertical.
 
I think you are incorrect Snowdog. Mine is just fine and it has excellent viewing angles. Almost all current desktop LCDs have at least an accurate 80 degree angle plus. Now laptop LCDs, they have horrible viewing angles. If you sit right in front of most, you will still get washout on the sides of the display.
 
I've got a calibrated LG L204WT, with brightness at zero and contrast 70, in a dark room, and there is a definite change at 3-3-3 in the test the OP posted. Glad to see we're up to snuff.
 
Dell 2007WFP here. I initially didn't see any difference until 12, but after a bit of software calibration, I'm down to a healthy 3. :D

I do love this monitor.
 
Staples said:
I think you are incorrect Snowdog. Mine is just fine and it has excellent viewing angles. Almost all current desktop LCDs have at least an accurate 80 degree angle plus. Now laptop LCDs, they have horrible viewing angles. If you sit right in front of most, you will still get washout on the sides of the display.
Click to expand...

He's not wrong. Only the IPS panels have accurate viewing angles. It is most easily noticeable when looking at the dark grey [H]ard|Forum foreground contrasting the black background.
 
Staples said:
I think you are incorrect Snowdog. Mine is just fine and it has excellent viewing angles. Almost all current desktop LCDs have at least an accurate 80 degree angle plus. Now laptop LCDs, they have horrible viewing angles. If you sit right in front of most, you will still get washout on the sides of the display.
Click to expand...


Did you look at my picture above? Does it look like I am at a 80 degrees off center? Try maybe 2 or 3 degrees off center. A couple of degrees and the tone is shifting. If I had pefectly aligned the camera you would still see the shift on the sides even if perfectly centered. It is the nature of the VA panel beast.

Here is a crop side by side from different locations on the screen. Again this is essentially as centered as anyone is likely to sit. You don't see a problem here? It is mind boggling to me that people don't see this on their PVA/MVA panels and claim perfect viewing angle out to 80 degrees off center. It reinforces the point that you can't trust anyones eyes but your own, especially owners of panels who are in love with their purchases and will defend them like a first born child.

Again this crop is from the previously posted image. Camera almost perfectly centered. You may be completely insensitive to this effect, but it is clearly present. It makes PVA/MVA panels all but unusable for me.

65452628.TGQ59HS0.pvaToneShift.jpg
 
Snowdog said:
Now that is rubbish. Sitting directly centered PVA/MVA screens start to washout on the sides. Facing directly on. Unless you are very far away it is not possible to have the whole screen giving consistent tone.

Here is a screen shot of my 2007fp. I meant for this to be a "before" shot, followed by an after shot at an angle, but it turns out I was maybe 5 degrees off perfect and look how much the tone changes from left to right. I didn't need an after shot.

http://i.pbase.com/o4/04/606404/1/59768645.PVA_Shadow.jpg

After my first LCD fiasco, I bought two more and looked at many in store. PVA/MVA have the worse real world viewing characteristics, next up is TN, yes TN is better than PVA/MVA horizontally, but not vertically, but horizontal viewing angles matter more. IPS is much better than TN/VA at both horizontal and vertical.
Click to expand...

I think all you've proved is your 2007FP sucks. When I'm sitting in front of my Acer, photos look great. I don't really care what they look like to someone standing off to my left.
 
Varmint said:
I think all you've proved is your 2007FP sucks. When I'm sitting in front of my Acer, photos look great. I don't really care what they look like to someone standing off to my left.
Click to expand...

I think all you proved is your insensitivity to the effect. I also owned a Dell 2405 that did the same thing. After this I have test images on a web page and I test them out at stores. I checked out the VX2025 and it does the same thing. While something of a blunt instrument Behardware gives some indication of which monitors wash out at angle. Top of the page is yours and it is standard PVA/MVA washout. VA tech is the worse going when it comes to small horizontal angle washout. Even lowly TN is better. Though IPS clearly has the best angular response by far. The way manufacturers quote numbers is shamefull at 10:1 contrast or even 5:1 contrast. What a farce.

Panel images:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/619-17/updated-survey-13-lcd-20-5-6-8-16-ms.html
 
Varmint said:
I think all you've proved is your 2007FP sucks. When I'm sitting in front of my Acer, photos look great. I don't really care what they look like to someone standing off to my left.
Click to expand...

Gateway FPD1975 (TN)
Gateway FPD2185 (S-PVA)

I own both of these panels and I guess you can say they suck too, then, because they both experience this issue. Especially the 21" S-PVA. It seems the effect is worse the closer you sit to the monitors. It appears as though you are casting a shadow on the screen.
 
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