Trying to select a new monitor for a new build.

[glacius555]

I would agree with others, get a decent IPS panel if you can. They've become cheaper in 24" sizes anyway.
While, I do own world's fastest 24" monitor, Iiyama B2403WS with a TN panel (forget about LED panels for a while), I doubt you will notice a lot of problems with games other than fast paced UT3. Besides, i bet that most of the time you will be doing something else than gaming.

If I am not mistaken, you may as well have a better guarantee if you buy the IPS panel.

[KJ_A]

One more thing to watch out for: the "old" standard for wide screen monitors is/was 16:10 (1920x1200). The "new" standard is 16:9 (1920x1080). While the 16:9 monitors match the aspect ratio of HD television, I really resent the loss of those extra 120 vertical pixels. I often turn one of my monitors into its portrait orientation and having the full 1200 is -- to me, at least -- a distinct advantage. The manufacturers are claiming compatibility and consistency -- what they are really doing is cost-cutting.

Yes I have read about that. The thing that I have been scratching my head over is why when monitors and TV's both used to be 4:3 ratio the wide screen counterpart were not standardized the same way from the outset?

[KJ_A]

I just had a question that maybe one of you could clear up. I just recently in the past few weeks got DOSbox to work and have been replaying Wing Commander 3. When I play it I do so in a 800X600 window on the screen so that every thing in it is clear like it would have been originally. If I were to do the same thing on an LCD screen would it use a block of 800X600 pixels in the screen for this or would the image be distorted?

[morphine]

I just had a question that maybe one of you could clear up. I just recently in the past few weeks got DOSbox to work and have been replaying Wing Commander 3. When I play it I do so in a 800X600 window on the screen so that every thing in it is clear like it would have been originally. If I were to do the same thing on an LCD screen would it use a block of 800X600 pixels in the screen for this or would the image be distorted?

That would depend on your graphics card configuration. In your graphics card configuration panel, be sure to choose "Maintain aspect ratio" or something of that type in the scaling options. It works perfectly on ATI cards, and on most of the Nvidia cards (yes Nvidia, thank you for never solving that bug for all the time I had my 8800GTX).

[KJ_A]

I just had a question that maybe one of you could clear up. I just recently in the past few weeks got DOSbox to work and have been replaying Wing Commander 3. When I play it I do so in a 800X600 window on the screen so that every thing in it is clear like it would have been originally. If I were to do the same thing on an LCD screen would it use a block of 800X600 pixels in the screen for this or would the image be distorted?

That would depend on your graphics card configuration. In your graphics card configuration panel, be sure to choose "Maintain aspect ratio" or something of that type in the scaling options. It works perfectly on ATI cards, and on most of the Nvidia cards (yes Nvidia, thank you for never solving that bug for all the time I had my 8800GTX).

Thanks for letting me know. I just went to look at my NVIDIA Control Panel for my ancient GeForce 6800 and found nothing concerning aspect ratio. However I only have a CRT so between the age of the video card and the type of monitor it is connected to it would seem to make sense that mine would not need such a capability.

[KJ_A]

Ok everyone I have had a chance to read some reviews(holophrastic PRAD is a great site thanks) and I think I have settled on the HP LP2475w that has been so highly recommended here. There are just two issue I am concerned with. The simple one is how well will it handle 4:3 aspect movies and games in full screen? Some widescreen monitors have a feature that places black banding to the sides similar to how letter boxing works to prevent picture distortion but I have been unable to determine if the LP2475w supports such a feature. My other concern is calibration. Everything I have read about LCD's indicates that the factory calibration is typically not good and that the screen needs to be calibrated for the best image. As such what can I do about this?

[JustAnEngineer]

Even if your monitor doesn't handle aspect scaling or color correction on its own, you can do both of those things in your display adapter advanced settings (Catalyst Control Center or NVidia Control Panel).

[lethal]

You can keep the aspect ratio (a.k.a black borders) via drivers like it was suggested above or use the panel's built in scaling, which also would work with the other inputs if you connect a PS3 or something like that to the screen. From what I read, the hp has 1:1 and stretch option (borders or fill the screen) built in. Optimally, you would calibrate the panel with a colorimeter, but since its a popular monitor you can also find color profiles uploaded by other people and use those. Personally, I just used this site to calibrate my monitor.

[holophrastic]

Great monitors let you control the aspect stretch or not on their own. But it's rare on lower-end monitors. Between the game, the OS, the graphic drivers, the video card, and the monitor, it's a good bet that something takes control of it for you most of the time. Don't worry about it for games. I'm sure there will be one or two old games that won't work right, but the rest will be fine.

As for movies, your player software will take care of it for you. VLC (free, videolan.org) is a great (i.e. superb) player that will do every aspect ratio imaginable, including the weird ones necessary to switch between a wide video and a weird TV. So movies and TV and videos will always work for you.

As for the colour calibration from the factory, I fell for all that too. Don't even think for one minute that you need to care. I got my 30" fancy screen with the plan of having to calibrate it too. Yeah, I'm an idiot.

In the end, everywhere you read that same advice that I read, they were graphics pro's talking. People who make their salaries by having correct colour care. People who print and need the printer to be the identical colour that their clients saw on the screen care. The problem here is that people who don't care -- normal users -- don't go around saying "it's good from the factory". So there's no "other side to the coin" represented.

Ok, I guess I'm that other side. I'm saying it. "it's good from the factory".

That's why your computer store doesn't sell tonnes of calibration spiders. so don't worry at all.

[KJ_A]

JustAnEngineer,lethal thanks for information and site link. I have plugged the LP2475w into my parts list so I am going back over to the other thread and will update things there.

[KJ_A]

Great monitors let you control the aspect stretch or not on their own. But it's rare on lower-end monitors. Between the game, the OS, the graphic drivers, the video card, and the monitor, it's a good bet that something takes control of it for you most of the time. Don't worry about it for games. I'm sure there will be one or two old games that won't work right, but the rest will be fine.

As for movies, your player software will take care of it for you. VLC (free, videolan.org) is a great (i.e. superb) player that will do every aspect ratio imaginable, including the weird ones necessary to switch between a wide video and a weird TV. So movies and TV and videos will always work for you.

As for the colour calibration from the factory, I fell for all that too. Don't even think for one minute that you need to care. I got my 30" fancy screen with the plan of having to calibrate it too. Yeah, I'm an idiot.

In the end, everywhere you read that same advice that I read, they were graphics pro's talking. People who make their salaries by having correct colour care. People who print and need the printer to be the identical colour that their clients saw on the screen care. The problem here is that people who don't care -- normal users -- don't go around saying "it's good from the factory". So there's no "other side to the coin" represented.

Ok, I guess I'm that other side. I'm saying it. "it's good from the factory".

That's why your computer store doesn't sell tonnes of calibration spiders. so don't worry at all.

Thanks for clarifying the realities of calibration. As for VLC, I already have it. It is great unless you want to fast forwarded then it fills with artifacts until the scene changes. I actually have about four or five different free and one commercially bought media players on my computer because one time their was this one file format I could not get to play for some reason, until I found VLC that is.

[edh]

Factory color calibration is hit or miss. One of my LP2575w's was almost perfect; the other was off by a considerable margin. (And they have consecutive serial numbers! Came straight from HP that way.) However, you don't have to depend on it. It's possible -- although painstaking -- to do it yourself manually. Better yet, find someone who has the same model monitor, the same model video card and an "i1 Display 2" colorimeter. He/she can simply copy the calibration data file from his/her computer, send it to you as an email attachment, and you can place it in your own computer. It might not be a perfect calibration, but it's likely to be well within 0.5%.

[MixedPower]

The thing that I have been scratching my head over is why when monitors and TV's both used to be 4:3 ratio the wide screen counterpart were not standardized the same way from the outset?

The short answer is because we use each for different purposes.

While standard analogue TV broadcasts are in a 4:3 ratio, movies are typically shot at an aspect ratio between 1.66:1 and 2.35:1. 16:9 was standardized around the time home movies were starting to catch on. It's meant as a compromise between the two extremes (4:3 and 2.35:1) so you can watch both movies and broadcast TV on the same set with both extremes using roughly the same area. Computer screens on the other had have stayed squarer longer due to the usefulness of more vertical screen space in many key computer tasks. 16:10 was created to cut costs since it uses less area than a 4:3 panel with the same diagonal size and they can produce more panels per substrate sheet. That's also the reason 16:9 computer displays have been catching on recently.

Pretty exciting stuff!