Sceptre x22wg-Gamer 22" LCD

[bill0527]

If anyone could possibly post screenshots of any PS3 games running on this Sceptre 22" monitor it would be appreciated. If possible post shots running in 1080p off the HDMI port. Thanks Again.

I posted all kinds of PS3 1080p pics on page 10.

I'll post some more of it running the JPN version of Motorstorm later tonight.

 

[RaiseR RoofeR]

Hi everyone,

I registered on here because I purchased this monitor, and I'm surprised no one has brought up an issue that I've been having with it, that hasn't even been recognized but is apparent with everyone else.

While the monitor does scale down 1080i/p images, the screen is 16:10. The image produced by Playstation 3's are 16:9, so there's a stretched image (everything looks thinner). If anyone knows a way to letterbox this like the 4:3 image can on the Sceptre monitor, please tell me.

Besides this, the monitor is absolutely excellent.

 

[RangerXML]

Menu>>System>>Aspect>>Native>>Enter

 

[RaiseR RoofeR]

This isn't an option when in "Digital", which is HDMI.

When I go into "Aspect", what's visible is Auto (which defaults to 16:9), 16:9 (which is really 16:10), 4:3, Zoom Full (1680x1050 of 1920x1080 is shown), and Zoom Sub-Title.

 

[bill0527]

This isn't an option when in "Digital", which is HDMI.

When I go into "Aspect", what's visible is Auto (which defaults to 16:9), 16:9 (which is really 16:10), 4:3, Zoom Full (1680x1050 of 1920x1080 is shown), and Zoom Sub-Title.

I don't notice any stretching or thinning at all that you're talking about when running it in 16:9 mode. Maybe your eyes are better than mine. The aspect doesn't look any different than it does when I run my PS3 in 1080i on my 48" Widescreen Mitsubish HDTV.

Anyway, here are some more pics of the the Japan Motorstorm import.

 

[Mega Sam]

Well I have bought this monitor and my impressions are mixed. Its a really great budget monitor, its $300 so you can't go wrong. But as the saying goes "you get what you payed for". Its as others have said a TN panel, so color is not so great in this monitor, especially black levels as I'm about to show you. Excuse me for some of the blurry quality of some of the pictures, but what I point out is really there.

There is no telling that the psychical appearance of this monitor is beautiful.

But the black levels on this monitor are just plain horrible.

As you can see this dark image among other show of artifacts and discoloration.

Another image produces artifacts,the color waves in this images are from the camera not the monitor. Artifacts don't happen in all images, but dark images certainly do.

As you can see very bad black levels. I turned the contrast all the way up, and only 9% showed a distinction in shade, anything below 100 seemed the same.

More black levels.

But wait there is of course bad color levels in the xbox 360 to! Connected via VGA

Some artifacts in Rainbow Six: Vegas home screen.

Rainbow Six Vegas wasn't too bad, I'm playing this at 1360X768(?) at full, even at native (1:1) the colors are still bad. The extreme brightness of this picture isn't really in the game, but the bad colors sure are, notice the gun in the picture.

More Vegas, again the image came out a little to bright.

And we got some backlight bleeding its not really noticeable but its their.

But overall everything else on my PC via DVI looks great text is sharp good brightness and good response level.

Over all I'm a little disappointed in this monitor, but not to much to make a immediate return. That's because I bought it from Costco, I'll keep it for a while then get a good 24" monitor. I came from a 19" (1280x1024) Viewsonic VX924 and the color levels were not as bad as on this monitor. So the Sceptre X22WG-Gamer is a good budget monitor. I might post some PC gaming images soon as well. That's my take on this monitor. Thanks!

 

[RaiseR RoofeR]

don't notice any stretching or thinning at all that you're talking about when running it in 16:9 mode

Well, do the math. You have a 16x9 image fully covering a 16x10 monitor.

There should be black bars at the top and bottom.

*edit* Watch an anamorphic DVD through your computer and make it full screen. Those little black bars are what I'm talking about.

 

[Optic]

Well I have bought this monitor and my impressions are mixed. Its a really great budget monitor, its $300 so you can't go wrong. But as the saying goes "you get what you payed for". Its as others have said a TN panel, so color is not so great in this monitor, especially black levels as I'm about to show you. Excuse me for some of the blurry quality of some of the pictures, but what I point out is really there.

As you can see very bad black levels. I turned the contrast all the way up, and only 9% showed a distinction in shade, anything below 100 seemed the same.

More black levels.

What program is that you use to set the contrast and brightness? I just got a Sceptre x20wg. I'm pretty happy with it so far expect the black levels are pretty bad, I just can't get it to look like my old CRT. Are all LCDS like this with blacks? Maybe i should of got a dell...

 

[Mega Sam]

What program is that you use to set the contrast and brightness? I just got a Sceptre x20wg. I'm pretty happy with it so far expect the black levels are pretty bad, I just can't get it to look like my old CRT. Are all LCDS like this with blacks? Maybe i should of got a dell...

Its Nokia Monitor test here http://www.construnet.hu/nokia/Monitors/TEST/monitor_test.html

No not all LCDS have this kind of blacks, this is a TN panel so it has 6-bit color. Most 21" and 22" monitors have this kind of panel. But 20" or 23" and 24" and above usually have different panels like P-MVA or S-PVA which have 8-bit color so the colors are much better. Thats why there is a jump of price from 22" monitors to 23" or 24" monitor, yes they are 1 or 2 inch bigger and have higher resolution, but mostly its because they have better panels.

 

[Optic]

Its Nokia Monitor test here http://www.construnet.hu/nokia/Monitors/TEST/monitor_test.html

No not all LCDS have this kind of blacks, this is a TN panel so it has 6-bit color. Most 21" and 22" monitors have this kind of panel. But 20" or 23" and 24" and above usually have different panels like P-MVA or S-PVA which have 8-bit color so the colors are much better. Thats why there is a jump of price from 22" monitors to 23" or 24" monitor, yes they are 1 or 2 inch bigger and have higher resolution, but mostly its because they have better panels.

Thanks, i tried that program out to try and correct my brightness/contrast and black levels but i'm still really dissapointed with the blacks on my x20wg. I played some painkiller, quake4 and splinter cell, and compared to my old NEC 17in crt, they look terrible. Think i'm gonna sell it on ebay and look for a better monitor. The only reason i got this is newegg had a killer deal, 35 bucks off and a 40 dollar mail in rebate.

 

[Phelptwan]

Bill your monitor actually looks quite a bit worse than what I've currently seen across the web as far as pictures go. You might think about returning it.

 

[bill0527]

Bill your monitor actually looks quite a bit worse than what I've currently seen across the web as far as pictures go. You might think about returning it.

No. My $100 digital camera sucks. PS3 games and Blu-Ray movies look great on it. The colors are almost on par with my calibrated 48" widescreen mitsubishi.

I've said it already in this thread, its not a perfect monitor by any stretch of the imagination. But... its a $300 monitor and great for people that are on a budget.

 

[thrawn86]

someone here mentioned that turning the lamp down almost completely eliminated the backlight bleeding. anyone tried it? I'd think that would help with the black levels as well.

I am so on the fence with this monitor.

 

[dsr1205]

I bought this monitor, no i just need that xbox vga cable. how cani get the sound to connect to this bad boy?

 

[RaiseR RoofeR]

You pretty much have to set the lamp on this monitor to 0 regardless, or else it's just too bright.

 

[RangerXML]

Works great for night mas in BF2SF, you don't even need night vision

 

[CoastalEddy]

Its Nokia Monitor test here http://www.construnet.hu/nokia/Monitors/TEST/monitor_test.html No not all LCDS have this kind of blacks, this is a TN panel so it has 6-bit color. Most 21" and 22" monitors have this kind of panel. But 20" or 23" and 24" and above usually have different panels like P-MVA or S-PVA which have 8-bit color so the colors are much better. Thats why there is a jump of price from 22" monitors to 23" or 24" monitor, yes they are 1 or 2 inch bigger and have higher resolution, but mostly its because they have better panels.

Thanks, i tried that program out to try and correct my brightness/contrast and black levels but i'm still really dissapointed with the blacks on my x20wg. I played some painkiller, quake4 and splinter cell, and compared to my old NEC 17in crt, they look terrible. Think i'm gonna sell it on ebay and look for a better monitor. The only reason i got this is newegg had a killer deal, 35 bucks off and a 40 dollar mail in rebate.

All of the 25 or so different 22" LCD monitors available right now (for $250-$400) are all made with the same 22" TN panel by CMO (Chimei). I'm not sure who makes the 20.1" panel for Sceptre being discussed. Since this thread is about the 22" Sceptre x22wg let's be sure no one is confused by the apples and oranges of two different panels.

As for correct settings on the 22" Sceptre, my graphics card is an NVidia-based card and so I downloaded the newest driver/utility for it which came with a bunch of tools. Nonetheless, the driver recognized my Sceptre x22wg as plug-and-play and my settings were automatic. I was very happy with them. The only thing I had to tweek was the LAMP setting, which I now have down to "1" because it was way too bright at "7" and there was too much bleed. I could go in and use the other NVidia tools to determine settings, but I don't need to. My PC gaming, PS3, and DVD movies are all fine. BTW: Sceptre's site has its own driver download available now as well. If the Sceptre driver doesn't work for you and your card supplier doesn't have tools for you, there are plenty of BLOGs with 22" Sceptre settings posted for you to try.

And if you are not happy with the Nokia utility settings from the post above, maybe a program written in 1996 for CTRs off a Hungarian site is not your best choice. Here are 10 others that may work better for you:
1. CalibrationAider (for Windows)
2. Hex2Bit Color Calibration Utility
3. ColorWizzard Calibration Tool
4. General Digital Calibration Utility
5. Monitor Black Point Check
6. Monitor Gray Scale Test
7. Norman Koren's Calibration Tools
8. Tom Niemann's Calibration Tools
9. Bryce Alive Calibration Utility
10. Westminster Astro's Calibration Tools

Then there's ColorVision's Spyder2express program (with a colorimeter) that will cost about $70 but will likely give you the best results. (There's a Pro version, too, for over $200.)

 

[ssj3_goku]

Hi all, just wondering for the people who had there monitors longer than a week, how are you liking it so far?


I the monitor is from the pics in the beginning it does not look bad at all from what i am seeing. I do care about 360 support to this monitoir, HDMI and of course 22 inch widescreen , contrast ratio and price. I am on a 17 inch CRT for 3 years now and i need a good monitor with good to great features for no more than 350 / 400 bucks and of course has to be 22 inches.


I seen this monitor and kept up with this thread and the mojarity of buyers really like this monitor for gaming , the main reason why i am buying it that and for movie playback.

also i have a ATI X800XL Pci EXpress vid card, what would you reccemend me putting the settings on? also i have omega drivers 3.8.252. should i update them or no?

 

[mack_t]

@ Mega Sam

you really need to recalibrate your monitor...mine does not look like that....i used the nokia tester too and my "blacks" doesnt look anything like the pictures you posted.

in fact...i am using this as my background and it looks awesome...no artifacts on this extremely hard image.


it took a while for me to get it correctly...and once you do...its a really good monitor.

as for xbox360 games....the VGA cable itself has a washed out problem on all monitors...so its not the sceptre's fault.


and btw...much of that noise is coming from your camera...not the monitor itself.


and for those who asked: I am pretty satisfied with my this sceptre...this is probably because it spent several times calibrating my monitor....i am using it for gaming, HD-DVD movies, xbox 360 and soon ps3.

 

[bill0527]

I'll have had mine a week tomorrow and I'm enjoying it.

Its not perfect, but for $300 (if you go the Costco route w/rebates), you won't find a more feature-packed monitor for the price. It does take quite a bit of tweaking to get your settings right though because this thing ships from the factory all washed out and looking terrible.

 

[ssj3_goku]

@ Mega Sam

you really need to recalibrate your monitor...mine does not look like that....i used the nokia tester too and my "blacks" doesnt look anything like the pictures you posted.

in fact...i am using this as my background and it looks awesome...no artifacts on this extremely hard image.


it took a while for me to get it correctly...and once you do...its a really good monitor.

as for xbox360 games....the VGA cable itself has a washed out problem on all monitors...so its not the sceptre's fault.


and btw...much of that noise is coming from your camera...not the monitor itself.


and for those who asked: I am pretty satisfied with my this sceptre...this is probably because it spent several times calibrating my monitor....i am using it for gaming, HD-DVD movies, xbox 360 and soon ps3.

Ah thx i will be playing alot of 360 on this monitor and Wii of course as well and possibly my dreamcast. Also watching movies and what not, i just orderd this monitor from new egg and i got a extra 1 year replacement warrenty so i have a 1 year warrenty with the company and a 2 years total replacement warrenty with Newegg or a total refund with in 30 days!

so i hsould have this monitor on wensday!!!!

@ bill

thx for your input as well =) i think i have someones settings on this board saved on my PC so i will try those settings first,what are your settings to this monitor?

@mac_t

what are your settings to this monitor?

 

[RaiseR RoofeR]

So none of you are remotely affected by the stretched image it produces?!

You're all aware that it takes the 16:9 image from the PS3/XBox and stretches it to make it fullscreen (16:10)... everything looks off and skinny, etc.

Be advised for those wishing to buy this monitor and use their PS3 and X360 on them.

 

[Flipsta_G]

I play Xbox 360 on this monitor via VGA at 1920x1080. I set the Sceptre to Native (1:1 pixel mapping) so that it does not stretch the image, it merely cuts of the edges. This is working fine for me so far. It does not cut off anything important, and the HUD, etc are always still visible.

 

[RaiseR RoofeR]

I play Xbox 360 on this monitor via VGA at 1920x1080. I set the Sceptre to Native (1:1 pixel mapping) so that it does not stretch the image, it merely cuts of the edges. This is working fine for me so far. It does not cut off anything important, and the HUD, etc are always still visible.

Problem could be HDMI only?

*edit* btw, the most a VGA can produce is 720 horizontal pixels

 

[Mega Sam]

@ Mega Sam

you really need to recalibrate your monitor...mine does not look like that....i used the nokia tester too and my "blacks" doesnt look anything like the pictures you posted.

in fact...i am using this as my background and it looks awesome...no artifacts on this extremely hard image.


it took a while for me to get it correctly...and once you do...its a really good monitor.

as for xbox360 games....the VGA cable itself has a washed out problem on all monitors...so its not the sceptre's fault.


and btw...much of that noise is coming from your camera...not the monitor itself.


and for those who asked: I am pretty satisfied with my this sceptre...this is probably because it spent several times calibrating my monitor....i am using it for gaming, HD-DVD movies, xbox 360 and soon ps3.

Could you post your settings for this monitor please? I put that wallpaper on my desktop and yes there are no artifacts on that image. I know the VGA is washed out colors but the blacks never looked this bad when I had my 19" viewsonic VX924 connected to it via VGA. I know the noise is from my camera, but the blocks in the images are from my screen.

 

[racingultimatedragon]

can anyone get more pics of the sceptre running on a vga cable? And can the vga cable display hi-def on the monitor?

 

[Flipsta_G]

Problem could be HDMI only?

*edit* btw, the most a VGA can produce is 720 horizontal pixels

According to the Wikipedia article about VGA (Video Graphics Array): "Video Graphics Array (VGA) is an analog computer display standard first marketed in 1987 by IBM."
"It may also refer to the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector which is still widely used to carry analog video signals of all resolutions."

While the graphics standard known as VGA can only support 720 horizontal lines, the VGA cable can carry analog video signals of all resolutions.

It must be a problem only in HDMI. Which sucks because Xbox 360 is going to have HDMI soon, and I was planning to upgrade. I hope MS adds support for the native resolution 1680x1050 by then.

 

[Trek234]

"Which sucks because Xbox 360 is going to have HDMI soon"

Is this confirmed? Last I heard it was a rumor.

 

[RaiseR RoofeR]

Sceptre Tech Support to me 5:51 pm (2 minutes ago)

Dear Customer,

I have talked with one of the engineers about the monitor's design, the
22" monitor will stretch any image to full screen size if you use the
16:9 option. If you cannot accept this aspect ratio, I would suggest
you to return the monitor, thanks.

 

[Flipsta_G]

"Which sucks because Xbox 360 is going to have HDMI soon"

Is this confirmed? Last I heard it was a rumor.

Yea, it's still a rumor, but it seems pretty likely to me.

Sceptre Tech Support to me 5:51 pm (2 minutes ago)

Dear Customer,

I have talked with one of the engineers about the monitor's design, the
22" monitor will stretch any image to full screen size if you use the
16:9 option. If you cannot accept this aspect ratio, I would suggest
you to return the monitor, thanks.

Ouch. Does PS3 have VGA output?

 

[bill0527]

So none of you are remotely affected by the stretched image it produces?!

You're all aware that it takes the 16:9 image from the PS3/XBox and stretches it to make it fullscreen (16:10)... everything looks off and skinny, etc.

Be advised for those wishing to buy this monitor and use their PS3 and X360 on them.

Yes we're aware because you continue to point it out over the last few pages, and I'm telling you, it is not noticeable and nothing at all looks "off" and I've got a 48" Widescreen HDTV to compare it to. The scaler in the monitor does a great job.

 

[mack_t]

here are my settings:
Contrast: 65
Blacks: 7
R gain: 129
G gain: 127
B gain: 131

and of course your RGB may vary to your own liking...but i find that contrast and blacks with those settings are the best.


here are some pics:
btw Mega Sam...what program did you use to get all those levels of black? the nokia tester doesnt have that?

for the second picture...that 3 "whites" are actually different shades...i guess my camera couldnt pick that up. All the colours are distinguishable.

(dont mind the sides...its just the reflection and noise from my card reader)
also...my backlight bleeding is only noticeable at the bottom...the sides and top have them too...but its really faint...

 

[RaiseR RoofeR]

Yes we're aware because you continue to point it out over the last few pages, and I'm telling you, it is not noticeable and nothing at all looks "off" and I've got a 48" Widescreen HDTV to compare it to. The scaler in the monitor does a great job.

I really don't see myself as a picky person, but I'm just surprised it doesn't get to anyone...

I find Fight Night to be extremely noticeable -- Blu-Ray movies would be as well, but I haven't seen any yet. I could see the stretching in the Casino Royale trailer screenshot a user posted here a couple pages back. It'd just bug me :S

 

[bill0527]

I really don't see myself as a picky person, but I'm just surprised it doesn't get to anyone...

I find Fight Night to be extremely noticeable -- Blu-Ray movies would be as well, but I haven't seen any yet. I could see the stretching in the Casino Royale trailer screenshot a user posted here a couple pages back. It'd just bug me :S

The Casino Royale and Black Hawk Down movie trailers in the pics you saw were mastered in full screen. Why Sony did this, I have no idea, but it doesn't matter what type of display you watch those 1080p trailers on.. it will be full screen every time. Blu-Ray movies do not look like this, they have the black bars on the top and bottom.

The reason why it doesn't get to anyone is because the hardware scaler on the HDMI input does a very good job. If you're noticing major distortion on yours, then something is wrong with your monitor.

 

[Mega Sam]

here are my settings:
Contrast: 65
Blacks: 7
R gain: 129
G gain: 127
B gain: 131

and of course your RGB may vary to your own liking...but i find that contrast and blacks with those settings are the best.


here are some pics:
btw Mega Sam...what program did you use to get all those levels of black? the nokia tester doesnt have that?


for the second picture...that 3 "whites" are actually different shades...i guess my camera couldnt pick that up. All the colours are distinguishable.

(dont mind the sides...its just the reflection and noise from my card reader)
also...my backlight bleeding is only noticeable at the bottom...the sides and top have them too...but its really faint...

Thanks for the settings my black levels look like the same as yours. I also used a program called CheckMon then I clicked on color gradients http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_monitor.html

 

[RaiseR RoofeR]

Well, regardless the PS3 just presumes that it's outputting to a 16:9 supported source. It's the display's job to take it from there.

And you're right about the scaling. Despite it being noticeable, it's still visually impressive.

 

[Richx03]

Can someone post their settings for when the monitor is on HDMI. I have my ps3 running through it now, but I think the settings can be tweaked with to make it look better. Thanks.

 

[NIVO]

went out and scored the last ergotron stand tonight for the sceptre. It gets here on Friday! WOOT! Gonna have some fun this weekend.

 

[tarunactivity]

I got an x22 from newegg and have been having problems from the start. Initially , i could not get it to work for more than 4 seconds on VGA from a laptop ( 3 laptops actually... )

It would just blank out. After a lot of testing and threats to RMA it, the VGA functionality started to work. However, i am unable to use it with my PS3 using an HDMI - DVI cable. The screen resolution (DVI) seems to be changing when i change the Display type on the PS3 or in Yellow Dog linux, but no image is displayed on the screen... []

I have not tried HDMI only...

Any pointers?

 

[mack_t]

QUICK QUESTION / HEADS UP for other owners

i cant seem to get HDCP working on DVI...so i am guessing its HDMI ONLY....the manual specs say VGA, DVI, HDMI (HDCP/DVI) - i am guessing that means if you do DVI to HDMI, you'll get HDCP?

also under video source explianed....in the DVI section, theres no mention of HDCP...only under HDMI. and that says "doubles as a HDCP cource and DVI source with the previded (???) HDMI to DVI conversion cable. (mine didnt come with one???)