Recommend me a 24" LCD please? :)

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DragonQ

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 3, 2007
Messages
351
OK so I'm looking for a 24" 1920x1200 monitor for three things: an Xbox 360 Elite that I shall be buying very soon, my Wii and my future PC. I would appreciate some recommendations based on my requirements:

- Must be 8 bits per colour (or more).
- Must have at least an HDMI port, a DVI port and a Component port. Preferably VGA ports too. Hell, in an ideal world I'd love an RGB Scart port but I've never seen a monitor with one of these.
- Must do correct aspect ratio scaling (e.g. Wii in 16:9 mode connected via 480p/576i Component).
- Must be buyable online in the UK.

As for usage, I don't really play computer games but I do watch HD video on my PC. So combining that with the Xbox 360 and it needs to be good for both gaming and video.

I briefly had a BenQ FP241W two years ago and it was pretty good except for random banding of green/pink/yellow in white areas and also it did not scale a 480p Component 4:3 source correctly (it thought it was ~14:9). I have searched for some sort of review site that compares a few different monitors but the only ones I can find are from a year ago or more. :(

So, any suggestions? :)
 
Later versions of the FP241W with updated firmware I think fixed a lot of scaling issues and such. I'd still try to find one. Love mine, but then I use it as only in 1920x1200 attached to a PC via DVI.
 
HP LP2475W has DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort and component. No VGA though.

It's an H-IPS monitor with an 8-bit per RGB monitor with great viewing angles.

If you are in Europe another option is the NEC 24WMGX3. It is an A-MVA based panel with all the ports you are looking for. I believe the A-MVA panel is similar to the BenQ FP241 series. You mentioned SCART, so I'm assuming you are European. It is NEC's newest gaming screen and a lot of bang for the buck.

Otherwise you are stuck with TN panels such as the one in the Samsung T240HD.
 
Oh, something I forgot to mention: it would be great if the screen supported 60Hz, 72Hz and 75Hz (so I have whole multiples of 24fps, 25fps and 30fps). I have a feeling most do but just in case. ;)
 
No, pretty much all are going to be 60Hz only. I've only seen a handful of old 19" LCD's that support higher refresh rates than 60.
 
Menelmarar said:
No, pretty much all are going to be 60Hz only. I've only seen a handful of old 19" LCD's that support higher refresh rates than 60.
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Hmm that is disappointing. How can you take advantage of BD 24fps playback for example if your monitor doesn't support a multiple of 24fps? What about LCD TVs, are they mostly restricted to 60Hz too?
 
I've had a look at both of the suggestions so far. The NEC 24WMGX3 is out of my price range at ~£600 so that's not an option. The HP LP2475W is around £430 which is about the highest I'm willing to go to be honest. It has great connectivity and has decent reviews but the default colour calibration being rubbish and the stuttering of smooth image pans due to image lag fluctuations that the reviews mention concerns me. I've also never calibrated a monitor before - how easy is it and what extra equipment would I need?

EDIT: Hmm actually I just found the NEC 24WMGX3 for ~£425 so I guess that's worth taking a look at after all.
 
OK after a day of research I've come to the following conclusions:

BenQ FP241W is £100 cheaper but out of stock everywhere - perhaps discontinued? It also seems to have image quality problems over HDMI that are not present when using DVI, which does not bode well for my Xbox 360.

HP LP2475W is great as long as you have the 052 firmware, except that the wide colour gamut means you can't ever get everything looking how it should, and instead things look over-saturated. RTC overshoot is mentioned on a couple of reviews. Some panels also have problems with uniformity and red/green tint but it seems HP are willing to replace these panels.

NEC 24WMGX3 is a great all-round multimedia monitor and the only complaints I've seen are some ghosting in dark scenes. Maybe something I'd notice when playing Resident Evil 5 over HDMI...


It seems even top-quality 24" LCDs aren't yet "perfect" and all have their problems :/. Do I want ghosting or over-sautrated colours and RTC overshoot? To be honest, I'm very much thinking of getting the NEC because OCUK appears to have a massive sale on it at the moment, making it the same price as the HP, and it could probably end at any time. I'm also interested to see if I can notice the ghosting - my current monitor is a laptop one, which is obviously rubbish. You don't even have to move your head outside the screen dimensions to see brightness changes, there's a bright patch at the bottom and colours at the top and bottom of the monitor look different...and I've put up with that for 3 years so maybe I will not be bothered by some minor ghosting if everything else about it is great, if I even notice it at all.

Any thoughts?
 
Yes, BenQ FP241 is an old display, discontinued, kinda hard to find. I think they had a later rev, something like FP241WZ? or something like that.

I can't imagine HDMI having different image quality than DVI. Both use the same TDMS transmitters, the interfaces are protocol/interface compatible. Just not the physical connectors. The electronics should be handling the signal from both the exact same way. It's not like the RCA, VGA, or component inputs which would have to be processed through ADCs.

Hard to believe.
 
Yes, hard to believe, but a few users in the ridiculously long thread about that monitor reported the same thing. :/

IIRC the FP241WZ is just a FP241W with one of those weird technologies that actually just compromises one thing for another. If it's possible to turn it off then I guess that would be fine...
 
I believe NEC 2490 would be the ultimate choice.
If you live in the UK, consider also Hazro monitors, although I don't know how well the never models fare, there was the problem with some models actually having fixed backlight level, thus the black was too... greyish.
 
I had a quick look at Hazro but like you said they apparently have black level problems and other minor niggles. The NEC 2490 looks nice but over twice the price so...no. :p
 
It sounds like you might have some unrealistic expectations. You are going to have to make trade-offs, especially with a fixed price limit. The HP is an excellent all around monitor - yes it is wide gamut, but so are more and more of the new monitors so it's just something you are going to have to live with. It can be controlled with calibration, even just using the TFTCentral settings, and it looks almost no different from a normal gamut monitor unless you happen to be particularly sensitive tot he saturation issue.

RTC overshoot, input lag, and ghosting in black scenes are inherent in LCDs - no LCD is going to eliminate all those problems.

You probably need to set your sights a little lower at that price point.
 
Why do I have to "live with" wide gamut when the NEC doesn't have it? None of the posts in the thread make it clear whether you can actually change the settings enough to get accurate colours (and therefore close to sRGB) or not, especially without £100+ hardware calibration equipment. I've seen colour profiles but as far as I can tell, these only apply in specific applications and not to the actual monitor. They definitely wouldn't help with non-PC inputs.

If I buy the NEC (which as far as I can see has no other problems) and don't notice the ghosting, then I win, right? :)
 
You don't need to purchase expensive hardware calibration hardware to get better color from your monitor. There are profiles and settings on TFTCentral for example that have presets from already calibrated monitors of your choice. You are right, the profiles are for certain applications afaik, but there are also preset RGB settings next to each profile that you can set on the monitor's OSD yourself. Of course to get the most accurate colors you would want a calibration kit, being that there are slight differences from monitor to monitor. It's up to you whether or not you think the extra price is worth it.
 
DragonQ said:
Why do I have to "live with" wide gamut when the NEC doesn't have it? None of the posts in the thread make it clear whether you can actually change the settings enough to get accurate colours (and therefore close to sRGB) or not, especially without £100+ hardware calibration equipment. I've seen colour profiles but as far as I can tell, these only apply in specific applications and not to the actual monitor. They definitely wouldn't help with non-PC inputs.

If I buy the NEC (which as far as I can see has no other problems) and don't notice the ghosting, then I win, right? :)
Click to expand...

Yes, but you said in your previous post that the NEC was too expensive. Hence my comment on deciding what is important - features or price.

I like the NEC better than the HP I had previously, but at twice the price it damn well should be better.
 
Forceman said:
Yes, but you said in your previous post that the NEC was too expensive. Hence my comment on deciding what is important - features or price.

I like the NEC better than the HP I had previously, but at twice the price it damn well should be better.
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By 'NEC' he means the 24WMGX3, not the 2490.

I haven't seen any videos of the ghosting, but it has to be god-awful for there to be this much uproar about it. If you buy it, make sure you can return it no questions asked.
 
Yes, sorry, I meant the 24WMGX3. In the UK you have 7 days to return any product bought on the internet with no questions asked by law, so provided I get my Xbox 360 first, I'll have a week to test the ghosting issue.

It really is a shame that the HP is wide-gamut. If there was an identical model with a normal gamut, I would probably buy it because it seems like HP's support is great and any other issues can be dealt with. I noticed the 2490WUX being mentioned a few times in various threads but it seems that monitor is wide-gamut too. :/
 
DragonQ said:
I noticed the 2490WUX being mentioned a few times in various threads but it seems that monitor is wide-gamut too. :/
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The NEC 2490WUXi is not wide-gamut, it only covers the sRGB colorspace.
 
Oh yes, the 2690WUX is the wide-gamut one. Still, I can't find it for sale in the UK and I can't really find any reviews either.
 
Or, you could wait till July (with news from Computex) for the LG W2420P.

- sRGB IPS
- 60/75 Hz at standard definition
- 370-400 Euro
- Good luck finding scaler information for an unreleased product

I wasn't aware of the refresh rate integer multiple problem until now. What a bother! I'll compare some 24fps videos at 60/72hz in order to see how problematic this is.

Also, i might draw your attention to single-link DVI and old HDMI spec bandwidths for an explanation as to why you won't find 72/75Hz on 1080p resolution.
 
Thanks for the heads-up, that monitor could be perfect for me. Only problem is that no matter how good it is on paper, it would still need good reviews before I'd buy it and waiting 4 months only to find out it has some major problems would be depressing.

About the refresh rates...being fixed at 60Hz means you get tearing in video content basically (unless it's 30fps, which is rare really, at least for me because UK TV programmes are 25fps, films are 24fps and most US television programmes I watch are natively 24fps also). There are apparently some LCDs that accept 75Hz inputs but actually just drop frames to make it 60Hz anyway. A true 60/72/75Hz sRGB IPS 2xHDMI monitor would be perfect spec-wise for me. :)
 
You can get 'em, but broadcast video production monitors cost upwards for four thousand dollars.

I wonder if commodity chips inside HD monitors are capable of using dual-link DVI bandwidth to drive 72/75Hz. I doubt it, more probably expensive dual-link chips are used only in 30" LCD models.
 
DragonQ said:
Thanks for the heads-up, that monitor could be perfect for me. Only problem is that no matter how good it is on paper, it would still need good reviews before I'd buy it and waiting 4 months only to find out it has some major problems would be depressing.

About the refresh rates...being fixed at 60Hz means you get tearing in video content basically (unless it's 30fps, which is rare really, at least for me because UK TV programmes are 25fps, films are 24fps and most US television programmes I watch are natively 24fps also). There are apparently some LCDs that accept 75Hz inputs but actually just drop frames to make it 60Hz anyway. A true 60/72/75Hz sRGB IPS 2xHDMI monitor would be perfect spec-wise for me. :)
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Is it really a problem? This is the first I've heard of 24fps video tearing on an LCD, but maybe I haven't been paying attention. Isn't there the video equivalent of Vsync and triple buffering to correct that?
 
All Vsync does is restrict real-time graphics to a certain frame rate in order to prevent tearing (e.g. on most LCDs it will force your game to run at 60fps even if your PC is capable or more than this so that the source and display frame rate match, thus eliminating tearing in ideal circumstances). However, there is no way to display 24 or 25fps video content on a 60Hz display without either tearing or doing some form of "pulldown" which will result in judder.

A program called ReClock can automatically change your monitor's refresh rate depending on what kind of video you are playing (it can also correct PAL speed-up, which I use with a few of my PAL DVD rips). However, it can't do this if the LCD can only do 60Hz, like my laptop screen. The ReClock beta thread has more information on this if you're interested. In order to play 24, 25 and 30 fps content smoothly, your monitor would need to natively support 60Hz, 50Hz/75Hz and 48Hz/72Hz, or 120Hz and 100Hz, etc.
 
DragonQ said:
All Vsync does is restrict real-time graphics to a certain frame rate in order to prevent tearing (e.g. on most LCDs it will force your game to run at 60fps even if your PC is capable or more than this so that the source and display frame rate match, thus eliminating tearing in ideal circumstances). However, there is no way to display 24 or 25fps video content on a 60Hz display without either tearing or doing some form of "pulldown" which will result in judder.

A program called ReClock can automatically change your monitor's refresh rate depending on what kind of video you are playing (it can also correct PAL speed-up, which I use with a few of my PAL DVD rips). However, it can't do this if the LCD can only do 60Hz, like my laptop screen. The ReClock beta thread has more information on this if you're interested. In order to play 24, 25 and 30 fps content smoothly, your monitor would need to natively support 60Hz, 50Hz/75Hz and 48Hz/72Hz, or 120Hz and 100Hz, etc.
Click to expand...


Hmmm. I'm watching a 24fps movie on my 60hz LCD and I don't see any issues. Maybe I'm just not sensitive to that kind of thing.
 
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