Samsung 226BW 22": 3000:1 Contrast, 2ms response time

Watching video on a monitor that does 1680x1050 for it's resolution is not a LCD to be watching any video on... The upscaling will destroy the quality of the material.
 
TridenT_Boy3555 said:
Watching video on a monitor that does 1680x1050 for it's resolution is not a LCD to be watching any video on... The upscaling will destroy the quality of the material.
Click to expand...

Try ffdshow's resizing algorithms. Especially with Lanzcos method of resizing, most videos look sharp even when resized to 1680x1050. I also set output to RGB32 to get better colors.

The biggest killer for video quality is brightness. Default settings for this monitor are too bright. Default gamma is too high. Lowering the brightness on the monitor and gamma on video control panel increases video quality a lot.
 
E Blade said:
Thanks for the link. I found the dithering part
ditherhr6.gif
That's what it looks like only in movies. I'm changing video settings on my card to try and fix this problem. Btw I'm running DVI so I'll see if it's the same on VGA later.
Click to expand...

This is a problem with the original video. It's just more apparent now that it's on a nicer, larger screen with higher contrast (compounded by LCD inability to produce real black levels). If you watch any vector based video or flash animation, you won't have that issue. Either the original material was analog, or the camera or video processing was poor. Video compression will lead to that as well. It shows up on LCDs due to the poor black levels making any imperfection in dark areas show up as shimmering grey.
 
Well, I've had my 2 "S" panels now for a few weeks and I am sorry to say that since I began using these monitors my work productivity and gamming scores have gone way down.......

I seem to have developed a physiological condition caused by the 226BWs whereby I just stare at the screens for long periods of time between screen updates with just a big smile on my face and not much going through my brain. Is this some sort of blackout condition caused by elevated blood glucose due to an overindulgence of eye candy?

Anyone else experiencing this condition?

Regretfully,
URHystory
 
URHystory said:
Well, I've had my 2 "S" panels now for a few weeks and I am sorry to say that since I began using these monitors my work productivity and gamming scores have gone way down.......

I seem to have developed a physiological condition caused by the 226BWs whereby I just stare at the screens for long periods of time between screen updates with just a big smile on my face and not much going through my brain. Is this some sort of blackout condition caused by elevated blood glucose due to an overindulgence of eye candy?

Anyone else experiencing this condition?

Regretfully,
URHystory
Click to expand...

I too am guilty of just that....

:D
DSC01660.jpg


:D ;)

Are any of you guys getting some issues of one monitor being slightly brighter then the other, but the settings are the same? What's weird is that when I'm booting my machine up, the one is brighter then the other, but once windows loads they match each other in brightness. Not really a problem, but I was just curious
 
Just got this monitor in yesterday. Had a night to spend with it. So far, I LOVE it. I came from a Viewsonic P95f+ 19" CRT monitor capable of 2048x1536.

(General Usage)
-There's a lot of real estate on this monitor. My roommate has the Samsung 206bw 20", and there's noticeably a lot more viewing space with the 226bw 22".
-It's a bit bright, but a lot of my friends complained that my old monitor was too dark. I'm still trying to get used to it.

(Gaming)
-Absolutely superb. There's no better way to describe it. I tried Everquest, Team Fortress, and Red Orchestra. The real gem was playing Red Orchestra though. Wow, just wow.

(Movies)
-I loaded up The Constant Gardener last night. This is a movie that intentionally looks grainy, and honestly, I thought it looked better on the 226BW then it did on my old 19" CRT. My girlfriend and I usually sit on the floor during movies, so the first thing I did was go to that same spot. Expecting to find my movie experience ruined by TN displays generally poor viewing angle, I honestly didn't even notice a difference. As long as you're not viewing the monitor from extreme angles, which no one really does anyways, you won't even notice it. My only suggestion is to sit back some during a movie while using this monitor. It's more of a size thing. You know, bigger the screen, the farther away you want to sit back kinda thing that our parents taught us all when we were growing up.

Other than that, my movie experience was very crisp, clean, and very enjoyable.

(Porn)
-Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, nuff said. So perty.

My only con is this:
-I didn't buy it sooner.
-I purchased this last Thursday morning from Newegg. When my friend bought it later that day, the price had dropped a good $35. Rofl.
-Coming from a darkish CRT, this monitor is pretty bright.
 
Ranari, how would you compare the Samsung 206BW to the 226BW? I'm interested in getting the 226BW but, to be honest, a 20" would probably do me fine. Is the image quality and sharpness any better due to the smaller screen size and having the same resolution?
 
Does anyone know if there's a DVI cable that you can buy that would be of better noticeable quality than the one that comes with this monitor? And if so, what is it, and where can I get it?
 
Ranari, how would you compare the Samsung 206BW to the 226BW? I'm interested in getting the 226BW but, to be honest, a 20" would probably do me fine. Is the image quality and sharpness any better due to the smaller screen size and having the same resolution?
Click to expand...

Nope. You'd be hard to even detect the difference. The 226BW is brighter because of 1000:1 ratio, but that's about it. Both monitors produce an immaculate, crisp picture. Otherwise, the 226BW has a noticeably larger viewing area. Because of that though, you can't have the monitor as close to you as you could a 20", but that's with ALL monitors. The larger the monitor, the further away from you it should be (talking small steps here though). Otherwise, you'll ruin your eyes that way if you have it too close. The same goes with a television too.

I can already tell that the 226BW is vastly superior for movie watching because of the larger viewing area.
 
Ranari said:
Nope. You'd be hard to even detect the difference. The 226BW is brighter because of 1000:1 ratio, but that's about it. Both monitors produce an immaculate, crisp picture. Otherwise, the 226BW has a noticeably larger viewing area. Because of that though, you can't have the monitor as close to you as you could a 20", but that's with ALL monitors. The larger the monitor, the further away from you it should be (talking small steps here though). Otherwise, you'll ruin your eyes that way if you have it too close. The same goes with a television too.

I can already tell that the 226BW is vastly superior for movie watching because of the larger viewing area.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for the reply, that's exactly what i was looking for. Knowing that there's no compromise in picture quality/sharpness i would spring for the 206BW. But, thinking about it, i'd actually be better off with the 206BW because i sit quite close to the screen and, plus, i've gotten used to a 15" laptop screen so a 20" isn't going to seem too small. I wonder: is the 206BW able to produce much detail in blacks because i want to use it for gaming (like FEAR, for example)?
 
I think you'll be happy with either choice you decide on. If you choose to go the 206BW route, you'll save yourself some money, as the 226BW is about a good $100 more I think. I do own FEAR though. Maybe I'll load it up tonight and let you know how the blacks are. I play a lot of Everquest, Day of Defeat Source, Red Orchestra, and Warcraft III. None really focus on darks like FEAR did.

My roommate with the 206BW, however, does play a lot of Eve Online, which makes good use of the 32bit color spectrum. Honestly, I think the game looks amazing, even if the monitors are 6bit dithered.

And lastly, when I talk about keeping larger monitors farther away from you, I'm talking like 4-6" at most.
 
Ranari said:
I think you'll be happy with either choice you decide on. If you choose to go the 206BW route, you'll save yourself some money, as the 226BW is about a good $100 more I think. I do own FEAR though. Maybe I'll load it up tonight and let you know how the blacks are. I play a lot of Everquest, Day of Defeat Source, Red Orchestra, and Warcraft III. None really focus on darks like FEAR did.

My roommate with the 206BW, however, does play a lot of Eve Online, which makes good use of the 32bit color spectrum. Honestly, I think the game looks amazing, even if the monitors are 6bit dithered.

And lastly, when I talk about keeping larger monitors farther away from you, I'm talking like 4-6" at most.
Click to expand...

Thanks again. If you could try FEAR tonight and tell me how the blacks are, that'd be great. Would they be the same on the 206BW?
 
I really can not tell you because I did not use the one that came with it. I do not like noise being induced into my signal and this cable does the job. Maybe the other one would too, but for $50 I am not going to take a chance. It is what ever you are happy with. I kind of doubt the picture will be any better but if you read how this cable is made you will see there is no way noise will get on your signal. But if you are looking for a better picture I wouldn't bother.
 
DVI cables, being digital, either transmit the signal or they don't; therefore, if they work, they should all give the same result.
 
I have F.E.A.R and the expantion as well as S.T.A.L.K.E.R and the blacks are fine and dandy. Ive gone all the way throught them and the monitor works great with the darker shades.
 
Comparing to a CRT, the black levels on this LCD are damned good. I got my money's worth with this.
 
Volucris said:
Comparing to a CRT, the black levels on this LCD are damned good. I got my money's worth with this.
Click to expand...

Fud said:
I have F.E.A.R and the expantion as well as S.T.A.L.K.E.R and the blacks are fine and dandy. Ive gone all the way throught them and the monitor works great with the darker shades.
Click to expand...

How would they compare to an NEC20WGX2, for example? I mean, they wouldn't be as good, right? I don't know whether the NEC is worth the extra money...:confused:
 
Jason Mock said:
I'll take that as "no, there isn't"?
Click to expand...

you'll take that right ;)

$50 spent on a DVI-D cable to replace another working DVI-D cable is $50 wasted :rolleyes:
if there were a problem with the cable to begin with you WOULD notice, it's totally unlike analogue D-SUB cables where some may perform better than others with all of them appearing to transmit the signal correcly before comparing them side by side
 
ego42 said:
you'll take that right ;)

$50 spent on a DVI-D cable to replace another working DVI-D cable is $50 wasted :rolleyes:
if there were a problem with the cable to begin with you WOULD notice, it's totally unlike analogue D-SUB cables where some may perform better than others with all of them appearing to transmit the signal correcly before comparing them side by side
Click to expand...

This is correct. With digital signals it's either "on" of "off", so to speak.
 
I have to agree with both of you. The only reason they make High Quality Cables is to Rip off people like me. I should probably cut it up and use the great one that came with the monitor. :rolleyes:
 
Noble Lumpkin said:
I have to agree with both of you. The only reason they make High Quality Cables is to Rip off people like me. I should probably cut it up and use the great one that came with the monitor. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

i hate to break it to you, but you are quite right there..
more expensive cables with sturdy shielding may make sense when the signal needs to be transmitted over greater distances than the standard 1-2 meters, where there is heavy interference from other electro-magnetic devices or maybe where the amount of data to be transferred reaches the upper limit of capabilities of a DVI-D single link cable (1920 × 1200 @ 60 Hz). the point me and Mansize_tissue are really trying to make is, that when your DVI-D cable APPEARS to work correctly under given circumstances, it is perfectly fit for use under these specific circumstances and investing in a better cable (which may actually BE of higher quality) makes no sense whatsoever. if however there is a problem with the cable under such circumstances, you WILL notice, which is a huge difference from the analogue D-SUB cables where the differences may be very hard to spot and yet still be present

but then again you paid $50 for a cable you most likely do not really need so it's only natural that arguments may hardly change your point of view, innit ;)
so let's just hope that we will be able to save Jason's $50, right? :)
 
ego42 said:
i hate to break it to you, but you are quite right there..
more expensive cables with sturdy shielding may make sense when the signal needs to be transmitted over greater distances than the standard 1-2 meters, where there is heavy interference from other electro-magnetic devices or maybe where the amount of data to be transferred reaches the upper limit of capabilities of a DVI-D single link cable (1920 × 1200 @ 60 Hz). the point me and Mansize_tissue are really trying to make is, that when your DVI-D cable APPEARS to work correctly under given circumstances, it is perfectly fit for use under these specific circumstances and investing in a better cable (which may actually BE of higher quality) makes no sense whatsoever. if however there is a problem with the cable under such circumstances, you WILL notice, which is a huge difference from the analogue D-SUB cables where the differences may be very hard to spot and yet still be present

but then again you paid $50 for a cable you most likely do not really need so it's only natural that arguments may hardly change your point of view, innit ;)
so let's just hope that we will be able to save Jason's $50, right? :)
Click to expand...

$50 saved. Thank you.
 
If you will notice he asked if he would get a better picture. You will also see that I told him that I doubt it. So if he spends $50 it is up to him not anyone else and certainly not because I said so. I only showed him a choice if he wanted a well made cable. I also wasted money on a Video card that I did not need, and a Monitor I did not need and a new Power Supply I did not need, etc. :confused:
 
I'd like to draw your attention on the missing certification for this display. Whereas others LCD 22" are TCO 03 certified, the sammy is not. I am not expert about this issue, don't you find it strange that such a recent manufactured monitor doesnt come with a good certification?

What this could mean in the long run for users?

bye ;)
ricardo
 
I have been looking this LCD over alot and was wondering how it is with a XBOX 360 hooked up? Also if the S is the better panel to get for the 226bw and the 206bw?



Thanks.
 
I bought this monitor a few days ago, but I'm wondering.
Am I the only one who finds this monitor to be extremely bright, even when lowering/changing the brightness/contrast/color control settings? This can be changed as well by using my video card drivers, but I don't feel like this should be needed, as the monitor should be calibrated on its own, as stated in one of the previous replies. For instance, the color profiles etc, I don't think they apply to games, and programs which use overlay, which is extremely anoying, as I like to watch tv on my computer, for example.
Compared to my IIYAMA 20.1" (PROLITE E511S - yes I know SIPS or something panel) people look like they're freakin dead. Also I find the yellow not to be really YELLOW

s5000249qj9.jpg

s5000250jl2.jpg

s5000251eh7.jpg


You may say, the other monitor is just really dark...maybe, but it obviously looks better..
So I'm not sure, I'm thinking about returning it..
 
Groggy said:
I bought this monitor a few days ago, but I'm wondering.
Am I the only one who finds this monitor to be extremely bright, even when lowering/changing the brightness/contrast/color control settings? This can be changed as well by using my video card drivers, but I don't feel like this should be needed, as the monitor should be calibrated on its own, as stated in one of the previous replies. For instance, the color profiles etc, I don't think they apply to games, and programs which use overlay, which is extremely anoying, as I like to watch tv on my computer, for example.
Compared to my IIYAMA 20.1" (PROLITE E511S - yes I know SIPS or something panel) people look like they're freakin dead. Also I find the yellow not to be really YELLOW

You may say, the other monitor is just really dark...maybe, but it obviously looks better..
So I'm not sure, I'm thinking about returning it..
Click to expand...

The hard fact is, that the 226BW out-of-box setting are simply ridiculous, you should change them as soon as you unpack the box and you must not judge the LCD by its performance under these setting. Here is what I did to set up my S panel (this is important as the characteristics of the S and A panels are likely to be quite different) to get a picture I find satisfying and that appears to be more or less "correct" based on evaluation of several calibration test images etc. Note that the result is likely to be inferior to one obtainable with professional calibration tools but then again this LCD is not a professional panel to be used for photo retouching etc. It is a TN panel and its performance with respect to colour accuracy is inherently very limited by that. Also bear in mind that each panel is slightly different and the settings that work for one piece may not be simply copied to another.

I changed my OSD settings to the ones mentioned in JoopvtG's post http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1030879665&postcount=1330 referring to an article at http://www.prad.de/new/monitore/test/2007/test-samsung-226bw-teil11.html that is:
Brightness 89
Contrast 50 (do not ever go beyond 50 or maybe 55 here as you will start losing midtones)
Red 45
Green 52
Blue 34 (note the lower amount of Blue and higher amount of Green here, this is where your yellow should become actual yellow)
Gamma 1 (the default value)
Sharpness 16 (this is purely a matter of personal preference, I find the default value of 20 over sharpened, going below 16 on the other hand blurs the picture beyond usability, anyway this has obviously little to nothing to do with colours and gamma)

This should set the panel HW to reasonable settings that do not sacrify colour midtones for sake for insane contrast and give an acceptable brightness (even more acceptable after the next step) and most importantly compensate for strong colour shift towards blue present with the default settings.

The next thing you need to do is to set the gamma of your monitor. This may be done in different ways such as via a gamma loader or via your graphic card's settings and I must admit that I am not sure about the difference between the two methods but intuitively I tend to prefer the former. Yet it is possible that the result is the same, any information on this would be welcome. Please see the gamma calibration chart at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ for reference, you will note that the setting above result in gamma somwhere around 1.8, but you want 2.2 for correct sRGB setting (and more pleasing picture including richer coulours).
I used the calibrate option found in the Magic tune software from Samsung. I did not do any more colour shifting and only set the gamma value. The result gets loaded at each windows startup via the included loader. After this calibration the gamma calibration chart at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ shows more or less achieved gamma of 2.2 which is correct. Using QuickGamma i found out that in my case the monitor had a default HW gamma of approx. 1.75 which corresponds to the amount of approx. 1.8 mentioned above. A similar if not the same result could be obtained by setting your graphic card's gamma correction to approx. 0.8 but again this is just blindly copying my setting and therefore is not advisable, however if the gamma calibration chart at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ shows you have a gamma of 2.2 after such setting I suppose it is fine to keep it at that.

Important things to note:
The brightness/contrast/gamma of TN panels such as the 226BW WILDLY changes depending on the angle from which you wiev the LCD, you can see that easily on the gamma calibration chart. Therefore try to find the angle from which you will be viewing the LCD most of the time and stick to that, also do check the gamma calibration chart from time to time to check that the setting are OK.
Gamma loaders such as the Samsung's one or the QuickGammaLoader only apply their setting at windows startup and the settings get reset after waking the computer up from the suspend mode, so if you use hibernation you will have to re-run the gamma loader each time after the computer wakes up. This may be avoided by using your graphic card's gamma correction however other side effects may be introduced, I honestly do not know ;)
You WILL get banding on Gradient test (banding test) at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ . The panel is TN, 6-bit, do not expect miracles.

Hope this helps

EDIT:
- What I refer to as "gamma loader" is actually called a "LUT loader", LUT being the look-up table used by graphic cards for colour correction. This may be any of Adobe Gamma Loader, QuickGammaLoader, OptiCAL Startup or whatever. See http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html for more details.
- It appears that using the gamma correction found in your graphics card control panel should work just as well, the only problem being what is to correct correction factor to use.. ;) The correction factor APPEARS to be calculated by dividing your LCD's native gamma (roughly 1.7-1.8 in case of (my) 226BW S panel set to the OSD values above) by the desired gamma of 2.2 (sRGB colour space), which makes it something around 0,8 (I repeat, this is the gamma correction factor to be used in your video card's control panel). You may check the accuracy of this by checking the the gamma calibration chart at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/
 
ego42 said:
The hard fact is, that the 226BW out-of-box setting are simply ridiculous, you should change them as soon as you unpack the box and you must not judge the LCD by its performance under these setting. Here is what I did to set up my S panel (this is important as the characteristics of the S and A panels are likely to be quite different) to get a picture I find satisfying and that appears to be more or less "correct" based on evaluation of several calibration test images etc. Note that the result is likely to be inferior to one obtainable with professional calibration tools but then again this LCD is not a professional panel to be used for photo retouching etc. It is a TN panel and its performance with respect to colour accuracy is inherently very limited by that. Also bear in mind that each panel is slightly different and the settings that work for one piece may not be simply copied to another.

I changed my OSD settings to the ones mentioned in JoopvtG's post http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1030879665&postcount=1330 referring to an article at http://www.prad.de/new/monitore/test/2007/test-samsung-226bw-teil11.html that is:
Brightness 89
Contrast 50 (do not ever go beyond 50 or maybe 55 here as you will start losing midtones)
Red 45
Green 52
Blue 34 (note the lower amount of Blue and higher amount of Green here, this is where your yellow should become actual yellow)
Gamma 1 (the default value)
Sharpness 16 (this is purely a matter of personal preference, I find the default value of 20 over sharpened, going below 16 on the other hand blurs the picture beyond usability, anyway this has obviously little to nothing to do with colours and gamma)

This should set the panel HW to reasonable settings that do not sacrify colour midtones for sake for insane contrast and give an acceptable brightness (even more acceptable after the next step) and most importantly compensate for strong colour shift towards blue present with the default settings.

The next thing you need to do is to set the gamma of your monitor. This may be done in different ways such as via a gamma loader or via your graphic card's settings and I must admit that I am not sure about the difference between the two methods but intuitively I tend to prefer the former. Yet it is possible that the result is the same, any information on this would be welcome. Please see the gamma calibration chart at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ for reference, you will note that the setting above result in gamma somwhere around 1.8, but you want 2.2 for correct sRGB setting (and more pleasing picture including richer coulours).
I used the calibrate option found in the Magic tune software from Samsung. I did not do any more colour shifting and only set the gamma value. The result gets loaded at each windows startup via the included loader. After this calibration the gamma calibration chart at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ shows more or less achieved gamma of 2.2 which is correct. Using QuickGamma i found out that in my case the monitor had a default HW gamma of approx. 1.75 which corresponds to the amount of approx. 1.8 mentioned above. A similar if not the same result could be obtained by setting your graphic card's gamma correction to approx. 0.8 but again this is just blindly copying my setting and therefore is not advisable, however if the gamma calibration chart at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ shows you have a gamma of 2.2 after such setting I suppose it is fine to keep it at that.

Important things to note:
The brightness/contrast/gamma of TN panels such as the 226BW WILDLY changes depending on the angle from which you wiev the LCD, you can see that easily on the gamma calibration chart. Therefore try to find the angle from which you will be viewing the LCD most of the time and stick to that, also do check the gamma calibration chart from time to time to check that the setting are OK.
Gamma loaders such as the Samsung's one or the QuickGammaLoader only apply their setting at windows startup and the settings get reset after waking the computer up from the suspend mode, so if you use hibernation you will have to re-run the gamma loader each time after the computer wakes up. This may be avoided by using your graphic card's gamma correction however other side effects may be introduced, I honestly do not know ;)
You WILL get banding on Gradient test (banding test) at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ . The panel is TN, 6-bit, do not expect miracles.

Hope this helps
Click to expand...

Can you recommend this for the S panel as well?

I say this mostly because I've been looking for some profiles that balance everything, but can't seem to find any. We should post them all in one single post so everyone can see and test them. ^_^
 
TheSandman2236 said:
Can you recommend this for the S panel as well?

I say this mostly because I've been looking for some profiles that balance everything, but can't seem to find any. We should post them all in one single post so everyone can see and test them. ^_^
Click to expand...

Sure, I used this with my S panel and it looks quite fine. It should work with A panels all the same, however I guess that differences in HW colour balance between an average S panel and na average A panel are likely to be bigger than differences between induvidual S panels (and differences between induvidual A panels for that matter), so the colour correction taken from prad.de may not work for A panels so good, but this is only my guess.
 
Groggy said:
I bought this monitor a few days ago, but I'm wondering.
Am I the only one who finds this monitor to be extremely bright, even when lowering/changing the brightness/contrast/color control settings? This can be changed as well by using my video card drivers, but I don't feel like this should be needed, as the monitor should be calibrated on its own, as stated in one of the previous replies. For instance, the color profiles etc, I don't think they apply to games, and programs which use overlay, which is extremely anoying, as I like to watch tv on my computer, for example.
Compared to my IIYAMA 20.1" (PROLITE E511S - yes I know SIPS or something panel) people look like they're freakin dead. Also I find the yellow not to be really YELLOW

Buncha Pics

You may say, the other monitor is just really dark...maybe, but it obviously looks better..
So I'm not sure, I'm thinking about returning it..
Click to expand...

Do you have the S Panel or A Panel?
 
Thank you ego42, I almost haven't been home today, and I gotta go in a few, again...
Can't wait to try out your settings and the tool you mentioned, will do it when I get back home which will be in an hour or two.

And amoeba1126, I do have the S panel!

Edit: If I use such a gamma loader, will it work with overlay/games/etc as well?
 
Thanks for the info ego42. I'd like to add: Gamma set by any application other than your video card's drivers will not be used in Direct3D and OpenGL games. The same goes for Spyder Profiles.

If you are a gamer, there's only one choice for gamma and color calibration, and that is your driver's control panel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top