I am thinking about eventually buying a new 19" LCD monitor, but wasn't sure which one to buy. I know I am probably going to buy a Samsung one, but I was looking for the one that can go horizontal or vertical and has DVI. Which one is that?

The Samsung 191T ?

Look for 1600x1200 native resolution. The vertical refresh will be 60hz, but don't be alarmed: LCD monitors are 100% flicker-free, even at only 60hz.

is this because they only update the difference at 60hz, rather than the whole screen?

They have "memory". You could NEVER refresh them and they'd still show what was last displayed. (I think).

yeah, kinda what i was asking.
the original image stays there, it just changes the pixels that are no longer of the original. right?

You don't see a flicker because it updates the entire screen in an instant. It's not like a CRT which has to raster scan.

Get the New Sharp LCD monitor it is 10 bit and have a new process called Zero Voltage black no more, so burnt pixals no longer show up, (they are still there but they don't pass light so don't show up, good write up about it in a few trade rags)

When it's getting input from an analog source, what does it do, buffer the frame and then swap it over all at once?

Yeah. It waits until it has an entire frame in it's buffer.

What would be a good video card w/ DVI that doesn't cost as much as the monitor?

I am currently using a ATI 9600pro to talk to my Sony 42" GWIII through DVI. It seems to work fine. Beware of HDCP as the NVidia5400 I bought would not give resolutions above 540 when connected to the same TV.

If you're not an intensive gamer, then any card with the ATi 9600 chipset (or even with a 9500 chip if you can still find one) will be more than adequate.

Lots of Radeon 7000 cards around with DVI.. CAD$50-70 up here.

Cheers

Mind posting the exact model number of the SONY set you're using with DVI?

We're doing some testing at work and have been very unsuccessful with a Panasonic Plasma set with DVI. It doesn't have any EDID and setting it up with standard timings produced no usable results except at 480p.

Bruno

The model is the Sony KF42WE610. I had to use Powerstrip to make a custom monitor driver to get higher resolutions. I also had to go in to the service menus of the display in order to tweak for overscan and position. These sets have been plagued with lamp and lamp driver failure issues. I seem to have been lucky and have not had any problems. I think that the sets that have build dates after January 2004 have the fix. I called Sony and told them I was concerned. They are sending me a new lamp that they say fixes the issue.

We write the video drivers, so I don't need to use Powerstrip. The point of the testing I'm dong is to provide native support for HD sets in the video driver to negate the need for third party mode tweaking.

Bruno

Bruno, can I ask why video card manufacturers don't build more resolutions into the product to begin with?

WOW! What a difference! Just installed an ATI Radeon 7500, ($75) and this Sharp monitor came to life. I had no idea that a video card could make such a difference, thanks for the help.

The point of the testing I'm dong is to provide native support for HD sets in the video driver to negate the need for third party mode tweaking.

I salute you and your company for doing this.

There is something important I would like to ask you to please consider in this, if possible. It's something that came up when I tried hooking up my PC to my HDTV...

Many projection televisions, (and some of the plasmas I imagine) have "overscan". This means that approximately 5 percent of the screen area is past the bezel and can't be seen. This is on purpose, because most movies are telecined in such a way that this overscan is expected.

But when I try to use my PC on my HDTV, the video driver doesn't take this into account and the Start menu is off the screen, games put the score and health indicators just off the screen, etc.

If there were a video driver that took this into account, and mapped the windows desktop and Direct3D games into an area that was 5% smaller than the actual raster swipes (while still somehow being smart enough to show DVDs with full overscan), then that would be the ultimate video driver for HTPCs...

We already have support for "underscan" in our (unreleased) yPrPb Mac driver. I believe there are some "optimized" modes when using our adapter on a Windows PC as well. Having the same support over DVI would also be our goal. Basically the generated timing would be an HD standard one, but we would simply limit the display to a lesser pixel width and height. So that all pixels are in view. Notice how people using regular TV-Output complain about the reverse? When going full screen they have a black border around their displays, unlike with a regular TV image. There's an "Overscan" check-box in both PC and Mac control panels for this (if anyone reading has suffered this).

In answer to a previous question about more modes... Default modes are offered to match official timings. Usually VESA standard, etc... We don't just pick resolutions out of thin air. Also, supporting modes defined in a display's Established Timing portion of its EDID along with generating (semi) custom modes within display specs governed by GTF (Generalized Timing Formula).

Our Mac ROMs are very intelligent and will produce different results for different monitors. In Windows the ROMs are largely table-based, but the OS has its own support for plug and play (DDC/EDID) as well as defined monitor profiles. Usually generation of modes won't make any wide resolutions on this platform because such displays are not common. I suppose if they're in the EDID's established timing, you'll get them (but that accounts for about 3 or 4 max only). On the Mac side because wide displays are very common (thanks to Apple) we produce a lot of modes based around those displays.

Creating a ROM to generate a huge combination of modes will cause most users grief becaue they'll see more modes than they'd care to deal with. Windows by default has a shitty interface for selecting resolutions - can you imagine it with 50 different modes? Not including refresh variations. Plus if we don't adhere to monitor specs (such is the case when a display has no EDID), any number of the modes may not work for a given display.

Anyway, as I always ask people, tell me which modes you want specifically. And what monitor are you currently using.

Ok, too tired to take out the typos. I've come to the conclusion that although this IR keyboard is really cool (and seems to run forever on a pair of AA batteries - it's been over a year on thi set) it definitely cannot keep up with my typing rate and drops letters.

Bruno

There's an "Overscan" check-box in both PC and Mac control panels for this (if anyone reading has suffered this).

On a somewhat unrelated note anybody know how to enable overscan with a video card using VESA output under linux? I have a diamond branded card with an ATI chipset in a box I intend to use as a video server and I get just a little black on either side of the picture I would like to get rid of.

-Mike

On a monitor? The accepted way would be to adjust the frame size on the monitor itself.

On a monitor?

No, via svideo out to a television.

-Mike

are they replacing the 191T anytime soon? They don't seem to have it in hardly any stores.... also, what is the difference between 191T and 191T+? Are there any monitors that have 1600 x 1200 native resolution?

There's already a 193T, but I don't exactly know what the specs of that one are. I seem to recall that they were very similar to the 191T.
For the moment I myself am also waiting for Samsung to release a 19" or 20" TFT with 1600x1200 as a native resolution, preferably with a 16ms (or lower) refresh rate. It's been a while since Samsung has released any new models, so I expect this to happen Real Soon Now. On the other hand, it could be a couple more months still, since they haven't announced anything with those specs yet.

Samsung released a 21" 1600x1200 screen months ago. The 213T I believe it's called. We have one at work. It's a beautiful display. Samsung have some of the best bezels in the industry and very decent screens. You might also like to look at models from Eizo and/or Viewsonic and NEC.

If you don't mind larger bezels, the Formac Gallery 2010 is also a very nice 1600x1200 20.1" (using a Fujitsu LCD)

Bruno

Yeah, the 213T looks very nice. 25ms response, CAD$1650.

Cheers

I have two of those and was going to point it out but they don't have the 16ms response time. I think they are very nice though 1600x1200 is great.

Yeah, I also have a 213T and absolutely LOVE it.

I'm not a huge gamer, but I did play Call Of Duty on it and it seemed perfect to me...

- Jon