SONY SDM-P234B. Another 16ms 23" LCD.

Hmm Mordeloth, you should definitely replace if it's something as obvious as them not finishing that part properly. That's a pretty big one for QA to miss, pretty weird. I don't understand how you can have fuzzy text when connecting with DVI. Can you qualify that statement a little more? I noticed that you have 2 DVI connectors on your card. Have you tried connecting via the other one? I actually had some weird artifacts that would show on Windows login when connected with one DVI connector... Just some really fast blips of red splotches and then it'd be perfect. I switched DVI connectors and it works perfectly now. The Apple that I had also had similar artifacting when connected to this DVI port so I'm assuming it's the DVI port and not LCD. So try that out first... also do you have some option to reduce DVI frequency when using large resolution monitors? You haven't OC'd your graphics card have you? Hmm... Run it at stock speeds if you are to compare... As far as black goes, what settings are you using? I'd recommend using the Nokia monitor test to calibrate your black levels... it really helped me alot... Google for it...

Onering, my Sony doesn't have any dead pixels/stuck pixels and I've checked numerous times, being the paranoid geek that I am. I think a pixel perfect panel is possible, seeing as how I have one. It's always a luck of the draw with LCDs though. You're talking about millions of pixels and a failure rate that is > 0. But your backlight is another issue - that one is clearly defective and I'd definitely try to get a replacement.
 
Mmm I can see all of them clearly on the Sony. I did have the Apple before and you'd asked me this same question and I had trouble seeing the darkest bar and had to adjust some settings but I can see all of them on the Sony...
 
Jerry said:
Mmm I can see all of them clearly on the Sony. I did have the Apple before and you'd asked me this same question and I had trouble seeing the darkest bar and had to adjust some settings but I can see all of them on the Sony...
Click to expand...

WOW!!! You have replaced Apple on Sony?!
What advantages at Sony before Apple?

Excuse, but I should specify, as it is very important for me - you see all of a strips on a dark field?

The matter is that in another ветке there were answers that see all... But it appeared, that see only grey numbers on strips, instead of a strips...: (

Thank your information very is important for me.
 
Jerry said:
Mmm I can see all of them clearly on the Sony. I did have the Apple before and you'd asked me this same question and I had trouble seeing the darkest bar and had to adjust some settings but I can see all of them on the Sony...
Click to expand...
how have you got your monitor setup? to be honest I can't see the black strips at all.
The white ones I can see all 5, but none of the black ones differentiate themselves from the background.
 
Mmm I covered my decision making process on choosing the Sony over the Apple throughout this thread bacek, so feel free to read through the many words I've already posted on this subject =P

Well, first of all, video card is stock, no color adjustments, brightness adjustments, anything, through the driver - I really feel this should all be taken care of on the monitor end. Second of all, settings, which may be a little different from what I posted last time, I forget...

Backlight: 100
Contrast: 100
Brightness: 40-45
Color: User:
Gain: R: 115 G: 120 B: 120
Bias: R:160 G: 180 B: 180
Gamma: 1. 8

Note that I do vary the brightness between 40 and 45 depending upon the amount of ambient light.... the impact on black levels is minimal in my eyes... I feel the black on Hardocp is pretty neutral and yet vivid at the same time, pretty happy with it. I've read even LCDs will vary a little bit from unit to unit, so your results may vary using those numbers I've posted... please use them as a point of reference if you're not satisfied with the picture quality on the Sony....

Hehe come to think of it, I suppose there is also a slight amount of red push on the Sony, if I've had to adjust red a little lower in both Gain and Bias... but at least it stays that way when changing resolutions or restarting the computer now...

Yes, I see the actual strips themselves, but only the dark ones. I can't see the 244 bar at all and the 243 is a little bit faint. Maybe I need to readjust again...
 
Jerry: Would you happen to know the warranty specifications for this monitor? I checked with Techonweb but they didn't know. What I'm talking about is if there's something wrong with my monitor (bad backlight, too many dead pixels etc), will I be able to turn to Sony Sweden for a replacement monitor or would I have to send it back to the US? Thanks in advance. :)
 
Jerry what program(s) do you use to calibrate the monitor? I like you would rather change the settings on the monitor rather than on the graphics card/drivers/windows.

Thanks.

Martin64 I think its a 3 year warranty, limited to the country you bought it in. In the Uk at least, they have an on-site warranty for LCDs. They come to collect the faulty one and loan you one as well. Then after the repairs its delivered and the loan one collected back. However if you bought it from a US retailer and took it to Sweden, I THINK you are only covered by Sony US. However it never hurts to call Sony Sweden first...
 
onering said:
Jerry what program(s) do you use to calibrate the monitor? I like you would rather change the settings on the monitor rather than on the graphics card/drivers/windows.

Thanks.

Martin64 I think its a 3 year warranty, limited to the country you bought it in. In the Uk at least, they have an on-site warranty for LCDs. They come to collect the faulty one and loan you one as well. Then after the repairs its delivered and the loan one collected back. However if you bought it from a US retailer and took it to Sweden, I THINK you are only covered by Sony US. However it never hurts to call Sony Sweden first...
Click to expand...

Yeah you're right, onering. I've sent Sony Sweden and e-mail and will wait for their reply before I order the monitor. Thanks for the advice. :)

I've had my current Samsung 17" TFT replaced twice and it went very smooth (it was bought in Sweden though), as I received the replacement monitor before sending back the faulty monitor. I really doubt Sony will offer that service on an imported monitor though, just like you say. I've not expected that either, I would be happy to send it to Sony for a replacement and pay for the pickup service myself, as long as I wouldn't have to send it back to the US, which would take too long and be expensive.
 
Mmm, I'm glad Onering was able to answer the warranty question, I really don't know especially in the case of an imported monitor...

I used the Nokia Monitor Test to calibrate my monitor - someone on the forum recommended it and I googled for it... I found the full screen pure colored images really helpful when calibrating colors, and the grays for calibrating brightness/contrast. I guess I also cheated and used the Apple as a benchmark, except without the pink push =)

But why don't you try using my settings and then adjusting from there?
 
Jerry said:
Hmm Mordeloth, you should definitely replace if it's something as obvious as them not finishing that part properly. That's a pretty big one for QA to miss, pretty weird.
Click to expand...

I agree with you in spirit, but keep in mind it costs me $60 to ship it back every time. Since the screen is pretty good on this one, I might just keep it. You can only tell when the controls light up.
 
Wow, I didn't notice that. asdfasdfsadfasfddsa. This is where Sony pulls out the X-brite version of this LCD. Darnit, and Amazon just credited back my money for the Apple too... hmm maybe it's time for another comparo, lol...
 
Mordeloth said:
I agree with you in spirit, but keep in mind it costs me $60 to ship it back every time. Since the screen is pretty good on this one, I might just keep it. You can only tell when the controls light up.
Click to expand...

Mordeloth, what about taking this monitor to a Sony repair facility and having them swap it out for you? I bet it's definitely covered under warranty and should be a simple fix... then you get to keep your lcd as well...
 
come on, if they are out of stock, they'll still show the item w/ an out of stock symbol. They pulled the item off the web site. There is something wrong.
 
Happy Hopping said:
come on, if they are out of stock, they'll still show the item w/ an out of stock symbol. They pulled the item off the web site. There is something wrong.
Click to expand...
If you want you could calm down some. Im sure there isnt anything wrong, and if anything they are releasing a new model or something. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Also if you own this monitor and you want to make the display a TON better do what Jerry said. I had my monitor on its stock settings and it looked good but not as good as I hoped, but I messed around with all of the gain, bias, brightness, contrast, etc. settings and the monitor looks so much better. The blacks are very deep and the whites are very bright. It looks so much better than it did before I changed the settings.

I live in an apartment and my neighbor has a 23" apple. When I first got the monitor I set it up right next to the apple and the apple was a little bit better, the blacks were deeper and the whites were brighter. It wasnt a huge noticeable difference, but the apple definately looked better. I'm a graphic designer so thats a big deal to me. I was about to return my Sony and I figured I would do some research and see if there was some way to improve the monitor before I sent it back. Well thanks to this thread Im not sending it back anymore. In fact my neighbor is sending his apple back and getting a sony. I set up my sony next to the apple after I configured all of my settings and it blew the apple away.

I just figured I would let people know that you can improve your monitor big time if you just mess around with the settings until you get it right. It took me about 2 hours to get them right, but I'll never have to touch them again.

Thanks Jerry.
 
I just heard back from Sony Sweden, and evidently the warranty is only valid in the United States, so no new Sony for me. :( The monitor costs about $3000 here so I'm not sure what I'll do, I think that's a little too much.
 
Whoah. Ben Johnson, care to post your settings? Just curious what other people are using... especially since mine doesn't "blow the Apple away" but is still very much on par with it at the brightness level that I was using the Apple at... Thanks =)
 
Jerry said:
Whoah. Ben Johnson, care to post your settings? Just curious what other people are using... especially since mine doesn't "blow the Apple away" but is still very much on par with it at the brightness level that I was using the Apple at... Thanks =)
Click to expand...
Here they are:

Contrast: 100
Brightness: 42
Gamma: 2.2

Gain:
R: 116
G: 122
B: 120

Bias:
R: 150
G: 150
B:150

Everything is bright and bivrant now, its like a whole new monitor. The hardest part in getting those settings right was getting the extremely light greys to not be green and the darker grey to not be red. It seemed like I would get my lighter grey perfect and my darker grey would be redish / grey. Then I would fix my darker greys and my lighter greys would be green. Oh well, it took a while but I got it right.
 
ben johnson said:
Here they are:

Contrast: 100
Brightness: 42
Gamma: 2.2

Gain:
R: 116
G: 122
B: 120

Bias:
R: 150
G: 150
B:150

Everything is bright and bivrant now, its like a whole new monitor. The hardest part in getting those settings right was getting the extremely light greys to not be green and the darker grey to not be red. It seemed like I would get my lighter grey perfect and my darker grey would be redish / grey. Then I would fix my darker greys and my lighter greys would be green. Oh well, it took a while but I got it right.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Those settings looks quite off on my panel. There is obviously quite a bit of variation between units.
 
What're you all using to arrive at those settings, I imagine trial and error with the ass-o-meter? It'd be interesting to use one of those home theatre calibration DVDs to see if you get similar results.
 
There may also be variation among video cards? I'll try those settings when I get home.

Clank, I've used Nokia's Monitor calibration program but for the most part I compared the colors on the Sony to the colors on the Apple to make sure they were close. I've thought about getting the Spyder2 to calibrate it, but I'd only do that if I ever went dual monitor again I think... I guess it's kinda like musical instruments, in theory if you have one instrument you only really need to be in tune with yourself, but if you have more than one, you gotta make sure they're all tuned the same... and for right now, the Sony is quite in tune with itself =P
 
Mordeloth said:
Interesting. Those settings looks quite off on my panel. There is obviously quite a bit of variation between units.
Click to expand...
Exactly, thats why you shouldnt use the default settings on your monitor, because on some monitors it will look perfect, and on others it will look like complete crap (like on mine). Also each monitor is going to vary some. That's why you should sit down and just play around with the settings until you get it right. I used the nokia monitor test, like Jerry, and then I kind of made my own tests using Adobe photoshop. I just did a bunch of grey grdients to make sure all of my greys were grey and not green or red.

It's a pain, it literrally took me two hours to get the settings right, but its worth it, especially at the price you pay for this monitor.
 
I have nokia test as well.

what do you do, just make the display show red, green and blue and adjust each colour accordingly on the monitor?
 
Hey Ben,

I tried your settings but I guess I like the Gamma 1.8 setting better... how much ambient light do you have to deal with usually? It's cool how you can customize your own High, Medium, Low settings and then switch between them for comparisons =)

Could you give some feed back on the Sony vs Apple comparison?
 
Onering, start with the gray box test and adjust your Brightness, Contrast, Gamma, Gain and Bias's accordingly. Only, at this point, don't worry so much about differentiating between R G and B but instead move all three the same amount.

The next step is harder and you can try doing something in photoshop like Ben did or I did some quick html pages that basically were all monocolored backgrounds, but the keypoint is that I knew what color I was putting in, like FF0000 for pure red, 00GG00 for pure Green, 0000FF for pure Blue. Eh at this point I was doing comparisons between the Apple and the Sony cause I trusted the colors on the Apple more (well except for red) so I don't know what the best way for you to go about doing that would be. I also did some real world testing and checked out various websites to see how they looked... found out my yellow looked like puke green at one point cause I visited Amazon.com so I had to adjust accordingly... It does take some work but it's plenty worth it...
 
Jerry said:
Hey Ben,

I tried your settings but I guess I like the Gamma 1.8 setting better... how much ambient light do you have to deal with usually? It's cool how you can customize your own High, Medium, Low settings and then switch between them for comparisons =)

Could you give some feed back on the Sony vs Apple comparison?
Click to expand...
By ambient light Im assuming you mean the light in the room around me. I live in an apartment and it didnt have any lights in it, so I have to light it with a floor lamp and a table lamp, so it never gets really bright in my room, even in the day.

Mine or Jerry's settings arent going to work for another other computer except mine and Jerry's because everyones set up is different, and not every monitor is going to be the same. That's why it doesnt make sense to use the default settings, because the default settings are the same on every monitor, but every but every monitor is going to vary a lot.
I tried Jerry's settings on my monitor and it looked really bright and washed out, because my monitor is not his monitor.

When getting the settings right I never even looked at any colors until I got the greys perfect. Once I got the greys perfect I adjusted the bias and gains to get the colors right, but before you even start looking at the colors get your greys right, because from my experience gettings the greys right was the hardest part.

As for the apple comparison:
My monitor simple looked brighter and more vibrant. It made the apple kind of look washed out. My blacks were deeper and my whites were brighter. We compared a few photographs and images and the Sony was just more appealing to the eye. Also its somewhat of a personal preference, but we both agreed the Sony looked better. Who knows maybe tha apple needed some adjusting too, but Im just telling you what I saw between mine and my nieghbors monitor.
 
Jerry said:
that I knew what color I was putting in, like FF0000 for pure red, 00GG00 for pure Green, 0000FF for pure Blue.
Click to expand...
Wow, that's pretty green. ;)

There's really no point in comparing somebody's settings to someone else's settings - every monitor is different, which is why they give you the ability to change all the settings. If one set of values worked for all monitors then Sony (or whomever) would make those the defaults outta the box and we wouldn't be having this discussion. It's the same thing with TVs or any other display device.

From a sheer curiosity standpoint though, it is kinda interesting to see how much each one varies. :cool:
 
I decided to settle for the Viewsonic VP201B, but you my dear SDM-P234B, will always be my first love. :(
 
Martin64 said:
I decided to settle for the Viewsonic VP201B, but you my dear SDM-P234B, will always be my first love. :(
Click to expand...
what did you do eventually? send it back to the USA for a refund?
 
onering said:
what did you do eventually? send it back to the USA for a refund?
Click to expand...

I originally ordered a 23" Apple Cinema Display, but after reading lots of reviews of the monitor having a reddish tint I asked for a refund before the monitor had been shipped. I then decided on the SDM-P234B instead and just waited for the refund to clear to my PayPal account, which it did a few days ago.

Before ordering the Sony from Techonweb I fired off an e-mail to Sony Sweden, who told me the warranty was only valid in the US and I had hoped it was worldwide. A round trip to the US and back costs about $400 for the monitor, plus it takes too long (as I work from home I can't live without my computer :p). I could of course gamble and hope the monitor was perfectly fine without too many dead pixels and a perfect back light, but didn't want to. I looked up the SDM-P234B and found that it costs about $3000 here in Sweden, which was a little too rich for me. So I spent $1000 locally, on a Viewsonic VP201B, which seems to be a decent monitor as well. :)
 
Hi to you all !

This is my first post... so be gentle... :p

I have been here for a couple of months now reading almost every post regarding LCD's... trying to gather information to make up my mind... yes, i want to switch from CRT to LCD too !

I have a Sony 19'' CRT and i always have been a big fan of Sony display's and i felt in love with the first SDM-Pxxx LCD i saw... i think it was a 18'' model... and since then i have been waiting for one SDM-Pxxx that is fast enough... yes, those response times have been holding me back :(

But now the P234B has arrived... and i'm almost, i repeat, almost sold out... :rolleyes:

So why this post?, are you all thinking... this post is about RESPONSE TIME !

I came across this little game ( http://www.hurtwood.demon.co.uk/Fun/copter.swf ) that i share here with you guys... and i would like to know about your experience playing it on the P234B (or any other LCD for that matter)... especialy about the way the green walls in the middle of the screen look like (in the game you have to dodge some walls with a chopter... you will understand when you see it :D )...

...and that's it !

As a note i have to say that at work i have a HP 1702 17'' LCD and those green walls look like a NIGHTMARE ! ! ! !

Well, thanx for your time and i will be waiting for your feedback...
 
I came across this little game ( http://www.hurtwood.demon.co.uk/Fun/copter.swf ) that i share here with you guys... and i would like to know about your experience playing it on the P234B (or any other LCD for that matter)... especialy about the way the green walls in the middle of the screen look like (in the game you have to dodge some walls with a chopter... you will understand when you see it )...
Click to expand...
I played that game on my CRT (Viewsonic PF790) and there was a fair bit of "ghosting" on the walls. It has more to do with a shitty framerate than a problem with your LCD.
 
Clank said:
I played that game on my CRT (Viewsonic PF790) and there was a fair bit of "ghosting" on the walls. It has more to do with a shitty framerate than a problem with your LCD.
Click to expand...

...so "shitty framerate" provoques "ghosting" on a CRT ? ? ?
 
I tried playing that game. Yes, there was a fair amount of ghosting. But Clank's experience with ghosting on a CRT leads me to believe that the ghosting is due to a limitation of framerates that Macromedia Flash can achieve - that is, how fast SWF files can draw -> erase -> draw. This is evident in that the ghosting is much less when you reduce the size of the window from full size to say 1/4 of the screen. So it's not a problem with it being an LCD - it's more of a problem with the number of pixels that Macromedia has to work with. The larger the screen, regardless of your screen type, the more pixels you'll have to redraw. It's the same reason I don't run Window Media Player's visualization settings at full screen mode.
 
But Clank's experience with ghosting on a CRT leads me to believe that the ghosting is due to a limitation of framerates that Macromedia Flash can achieve - that is, how fast SWF files can draw -> erase -> draw. This is evident in that the ghosting is much less when you reduce the size of the window from full size to say 1/4 of the screen.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's what I was getting at, but Jerry's explanation is much better than mine. Me fail English? That unpossible.
 
How's gaming on this baby. Liek Doom 3 and the newer games? DOes it ghost alot? I really really nned to replace my 4 yeasr old g420s. IT has like 5 dead pixles or more and a awsome green tint to it :) This sounds liek the perfect LCD. But I was also thinking of buying the NEC 22" CRT for gaming? WHich is better ?

Thanks
 
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