DVI, or Analogue display...

[Jimbo]

Right so here i am sat on my trusty pc

[the_autopilot]

DVI is better, but only if you need the insanely high resolution (DVI supports HD) and image fidelity.

Analogue is fine for most of us and is fine for gaming.

Unless you are a professional multimedia gfx artist or the like, there is virtually no difference between dvi and analog. If you can get a display for the same price with dvi, do so though.

[hatter]

I tend to disagree.

There is a pretty big difference when running DVI-capable LCDs off of the D-sub and the DVI-D: DVI-D is much sharper and much more vibrant.

Check out the reviews and the forum at www.anandtech.com for a lot of good LCD info.

IMO, if getting an LCD now, get one that is DVI-capable. Since almost all new graphics cards are shipping equipped with only DVI connections, if you want to get the most out of your monitor on the long run, I'd say get DVI no matter what.

As for the horror stories on LCD ghosting, I must say that I am using a 25-ms panel, considered by most to be too slow for a gaming panel. However, I must tell you that I notice no ghosting at all in FS. There is light ghosting in FPSs, such as Half Life 2, etc., but I don't notice anything in FS.

[MichaelH]

If it is for flight simming mainly, I would say go for a CRT monitor.
No other type of monitor can surpass a CRT for speed, contrast ratio, color range, and range of resolution support. The negatives of CRT's are, size and weight, energy consumption, and precision of alignmet required. The quality range from fair to excellent is much greater than is found in LCD's.

[the_autopilot]

If it is for flight simming mainly, I would say go for a CRT monitor.
No other type of monitor can surpass a CRT for speed, contrast ratio, color range, and range of resolution support. The negatives of CRT's are, size and weight, energy consumption, and precision of alignmet required. The quality range from fair to excellent is much greater than is found in LCD's.

Depends at what price range. If your willing to pay more for a professional LCD,, LCD's can easily trump a CRT.

Speed is about the only thing a CRT has an advantage to, LCD's lead the market in terms of image quality...for a price.

[the_autopilot]

I tend to disagree.

There is a pretty big difference when running DVI-capable LCDs off of the D-sub and the DVI-D: DVI-D is much sharper and much more vibrant.

Check out the reviews and the forum at www.anandtech.com for a lot of good LCD info.

IMO, if getting an LCD now, get one that is DVI-capable. Since almost all new graphics cards are shipping equipped with only DVI connections, if you want to get the most out of your monitor on the long run, I'd say get DVI no matter what.

As for the horror stories on LCD ghosting, I must say that I am using a 25-ms panel, considered by most to be too slow for a gaming panel. However, I must tell you that I notice no ghosting at all in FS. There is light ghosting in FPSs, such as Half Life 2, etc., but I don't notice anything in FS.

I thought he was choosing between an analog CRT and an DVI LCD. If you are getting a LCD, absolutely get one with a DVI input.

BTW, a 25 ms panel??? I had a samsumg LCD with that response time and it ghosted like crazy.

[MichaelH]

 
"Depends at what price range. If your willing to pay more for a professional LCD,, LCD's can easily trump a CRT.

Speed is about the only thing a CRT has an advantage to, LCD's lead the market in terms of image quality...for a price."

Must respectfully disagree Autopilot,


A top quality CRT will outperform even the best LCD display available with ease. It is impossible to obtain a true black with an LCD. although areas may appear black to the untrained, there is always light leakage through the blocked pixels of an LCD screen The best contrast ratios obtainable with an LCD are under 1000:1 A CRT is capable of contrast ratios in excess of 30,000:1.

A CRT is capable of a much wider gradation of color spectrum than an LCD display, since the color brightness can be modulated for each pixel (Z Axis Modulation), this is not possible with the back light of an LCD display, which must remain constant over the entire image area. Finer focus is possible with a CRT, since the minimum feature possible with an LCD display is the pre-determined area of each LCD segment. This is why LCD displays are subject to jaggies and granularity.

The only areas of superiority for LCD's are power consumption, heat generation, weight, and footprint.

[the_autopilot]

Unfortuately, however, CRT's are analog devices. LCD and plasmas are digital and display true digital content and is true to what the computer "sees".

CRT's, despite its advantages, must have the image converted to analog quality via the video card or an adapter; depending on the circumstance, the loss in quality can be noticable.

Everything you said about CRT's is still correct though and a CRT is great choice for gaming, but at the very high-end of display (5000+ USD for a single display), LCD's do win out against CRT's. These industrial panels offer high resolutions (to elinminate jaggies) at a very low response time. The contrast ratio of these panels are incredibly high and rival those of an CRT. In addition, this panels display true digital content via DVI or HDMI. Many of these panels even require dual dvi inputs because their resolutions are insanely high.

[MichaelH]

interesting,

As this is getting beyond my level, I asked a friend who is an electronics engineer and involved in display technology if there is ever any noticeable image quality loss of the kind you mention ie.
essentially, a quality loss because the video card must
convert the signal to analog as opposed to a digital monitor that reads zeros and ones.

To that question, his answer was:  NO

I also asked him
If it was  true that there exist very high end LCD displays
(in the $5000.00 range) that will out perform good CRTs, offer  high resolutions, with very high contrast ratios that rival those of a CRT.

He replied that he had never heard of one, and that the nature of how LCDs work make high contrast ratios impossible..

for what it's worth...

[the_autopilot]

Thats interesting. If you've ever visited a special fx studio or any heavy duty multimedia content creator, they use moniters like these all the time.

An example of such a moniter:
http://www.sharpusa.com/products/TypeLanding/0,1056,159,00.html

[beaky]

Bottom line: for the same money as a bad LCD, you can get a very nice CRT.
Then there's the whole appearence (contrast) thing: I'm an A/V pro, and I've installed and tested a few 40" LCDs... they look a whole lot better than plasmas, even displaying a poor composite signal from a CATV tuner or VCR, but the blacks are not...quite... so good, IMHO.
when I built my first PC about a year ago, I almost went LCD, but decided to try a very good NEC CRT- less than $200 for the 19"; not true flat but darn close... it'll easily do 1280x1024 at 85Hz, shadow mask so there's no weird wire reflection... and the blacks look incredible, which lends itself to nice contrast (basically, "contrast" increases or decreases white; "Brightness" is for black level).
 As for DVI vs VGA: I really think DVI is all about the HDTV signal, which totally blows away the old NTSC composite standard. A computer video image doesn't really look better hitting a DVI input vs. a VGA input, IMO;  also, when connecting a DVI o/p device (some codecs only have DVI for RGB out) to an RGB switcher, I often have to use a VGA adapter anyway,and send to an anaolog HD15 or RGB 5-BNC input on an LCD display, and it looks fine.
The consultants we work with typically spec an LCD if there's a space-saving issue, or just for the "gee whiz" factor... or, of course, if they need a display bigger than 32", where a 40" LCD is perfect, a CRT that big would be kind of oppressive in any room...

[eno]

This has all gone far to technical ........ for that price Jimbo ... you can't really go wrong. For someone that isn't a professional in the AV industry it won't make that much difference.

[hatter]

the_autopilot:

Oh. Well, you are correct about the D-sub CRT vs. DVI-D LCD, but since he was asking about a certain LCD, I was speaking of LCDs on D-sub and on DVI-D.

The Samsung LCD in question is the 910T. It is a very bright panel on DVI, but is 25ms. I do not notice ghosting most of the time, and when I do, I am not bothered by it. Of course, this ghosting thing is usually a very subjective matter. Your results may vary, and have varied, apparently.

eno:

I can't agree that expensive is always good. $300USD something for a 19" LCD is pretty much average. LCD tech can be considered relatively 'infantile,' with low-response time panels just coming out (im talking of 12ms, 8ms and 4ms panels). But of course, a high end 21" CRT (can be had for less than $300) is always a sure bet.

[Jimbo]

So everybody. How do you like this monitor?
What you think>
Out of 10!

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=55183

Just needed opinions first from the experts

Cheers again.

James

[notloste]

Seeing as this has pretty much turned into an LCD vs CRT, I would like to point out another issue that nobody mentioned - eye strain.

After staring at a CRT monitor for a few hours, my eyes always get sore and tired.  LCD monitors, on the other hand, do not flicker, and are therefore MUCH easier on the eyes.  I don't think my eyes ever got tired because I was staring at an LCD for too long.  In my opinion, LCDs are worth it just for this alone.

As for DVI vs D-sub, you can get a fairly good image out of an analogue input if you adjust the monitor properly.  With DVI, the image is ALWAYS sharp, crisp, and perfect without any need for adjustment.

By the way, Jimbo, that monitor looks like a mighty good deal for the price.  The specs are excellent, and it's definitely a lot cheaper than many other 19" LCDs.  I'd say it's a pretty darned good find.