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LCD Monitor

Colin

Colin

New Member
My new AOC 19" LCD monitor seems ok, except when viewing filled color contours or lettering in my sign program and CorelDraw 12. There seems to be a ghost image on the inside of each contour/letter.
The store said that they would swap it for a Dell (I don't know what model #).
How do Dells generally rank for our purposes?

Thanks
 
JMDigital

JMDigital

New Member
Did you use an extention on the video cable? Sometimes when you extend the monitor cable you get ghosting...
 
Sabre

Sabre

New Member
What model is your AOC? I've used a couple of theirs that weren't my favourite, but I hadn't tried any of them for graphics work. I've been pleased with Viewsonic and Phillips so far in LCD, but I've been sticking to my dual Viewsonic P220f CRTs for the graphic work. If they're offering a swap, maybe give the Dell a try and see if it's up to yoru standards. I dont know enough about the nitty gritty details of the LCD specs to tell you what to look for unfortunately.
 
Sabre

Sabre

New Member
We have that exact model on one of our tech benches and I can tell you flat out that I dont think that monitor is up to the calibre of work your putting out. Viewsonic's "graphic line" has a VG920 for about the same price as that AOC, or one of the Dell's you were looking at might be good for what you're doing, too. I use a Phillips 190B at home on my daughters machine which has been an amazing monitor for everything I've encountered so far, but I haven't booted into Corel or Flexi to have a look yet. Maybe you should take this oppertunity to go with a widescreen? I'm eyeing up Viewsonics VX2025 for my home machine if my P220s ever die (yeah right :p)
 
Colin

Colin

New Member
The Dell that they would swap this AOC for is a model E196fp.

I did some Googling and found that the response time is the same (8 ms), but the AOC actually has a higher contrast ratio of 600:1 compared to 500:1 for the Dell.

Is the bigger number good or bad for contrast ratio?

If 500:1 is not as good as 600:1, I'm wondering if the Dell might be a better monitor in spite of that. (?)


 
P

Pro Signs & Graphix

New Member
Colin,

The site, www.tomshardware.com , has many reviews and comparisons on monitors, which should help.

Soon, we will making the jump to an LCD, on my machine. Everybody else, here, is using LCD - but there still are issues of color. My CRT is getting old enough where it losing it brightness (just starting) - so by the end of the year, it will end up being my "TV monitor".

What we have found so far is:

-The faster the response time, the lower the color quality. (25 ms LCD's have the best color, but are worse for games and some movies.)
-Contrast should be at least 500:1, and more is better, BUT brightness should be 300 or higher.

It seems that the LCD's that are gaining the most praise are the Dell's and the Apples. Samsung gets high marks, but they are also the developers and manufacturers of the majority of the displays, Samsung or not.

I, myself, am still stuck on NEC and Sony, which is what I was taught to use as a standard (my current CRT is NEC). I guess we will just see what the end of the year brings...
 
Colin

Colin

New Member
Well I got this Dell hooked up and it's doing the exact same thing with the filled vector contours - everything else looks fine.

Hmmmmm.
 
J

jayhawksigns

New Member
Can you try it on another computer? With two different monitors doing it you start to look elsewhere, like maybe the video card, but I would expect more problems to be showing up if that were the case.
 
Sabre

Sabre

New Member
Are you using the VGA or DVI output on the back of your computer? The DVI will be the optimum connection if you have the choice. Appearance-wise the DVI will be the longer rectangle connection.
 
Colin

Colin

New Member
Further on this.........the present DELL monitor is indeed VGA. The store will bump me up to a Samsung 940BF for an extra $135.00 (brighter and 700:1 contrast ratio). It comes with both VGA and DVI cords, so I'm wondering if I should go with that monitor and pay an extra $80.00 to swap the VGA port on my computer to DVI.

???
 
P

Pro Signs & Graphix

New Member
Colin,

Tech may be able to elaborate more than I but basically all signals are natively DVI, and the VGA is a conversion.

DVI signal >>>> VGA card >>>>> VGA Monitor
DVI signal >>>> DVI card >>>>>conversion>>>>>VGA monitor

I hope I am explaining clearly. The Samsung is one of the best, along with Dell and Apple. The common thought now is to avoid VGA LCD's and be all DVI. Everything is going LCD, and getting although still not 100% sold on color, and for the difference it may be worth it.

How much memory on the card, for the $80?
 
Colin

Colin

New Member
I dunno. Is this the actual video card that has the monitor port? (shows how much I know about computers).
If so, I guess I should get a better card than an $80.00 one, huh.
 
P

Pro Signs & Graphix

New Member
Yes, the video card has the "port" on it. As for the $80, that was once a very cheap price, but not any longer. My card is a dual-out 256mb, and it cost $125. The "dual out" is for when I do get an LCD, my CRT is going to be used as a TV, unless I get off the money and get to 2 LCD's, for productivity (at least that is the excuse I give).

The whole reason I even have this card, or the machine for that matter is that the boy's machine was hit by lightning - another excuse for ME to get my dual processor, etc. etc. - Otherwise I was running a P4 1800 with a 64mb video, which was still plenty fast, unless applying Photoshop filters.

If you computer is fast enough now, you probably would be just fine with the VGA cable. I will lookup an article regarding icc's where they say that LCD's and digital are actually better than VGA CRT's - dunno.

I just do not have the "true" LCD experience to say one way or another (although I want my desk space BAD). I am wondering who else would know about color and quality - Techman. Barry, Doug - someone - again dunno.
 
DRPSignsNGrafix

DRPSignsNGrafix

New Member
When it comes to the video card. Now adays a 256mb video card is actually good for what we run. I just bought new PC. Mine was having lots of problems. Tired of Reformatting harddrive and the slowness in it. So i went to the best reccomended place in town by lots of comuter geeks. Told them the programs I use and that I have them open all the time. Told them the monitor i have now. And what I wanted to do in the future. This is what i got....

All INTEL stuff. Told a lot more stable.
P4 3.0 Gig CPU Dual Core. The mother board has a 16x video card on it. Tech guy said would be fine for what i do. But if i wanted faster and nicer and the ability to go to Dual Monitors to put a video card in. So he put a 256mb Video card in. Price 69.00. The system has 2gb of ram. small hard drive only 80gb. But i only have programs on it. Everything else is stored on second 160GB harddrive. I use a Pro View 17" Monitor. The whole system was less than $1,000.00 It's got DVD writer, and CD writer, all in one reader and a bunch of other stuff. As well as the OS. So when it comes to video card. It's worth the $70-80 bucks. I run
Flexi Pro 7.6v2, Corel X3, Photoshop CS2 and i like to leave them all open at the same time. I know it use to slow my machine down to a crawl. Now no problem. Plus i'm on the internet. Now i just need to get another LCD monitor. Then i'll be all set. Just my 2 cents.
 
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