2007WFP gradient banding

JiOwon · 04-14-2006, 10:51 AM

I'm looking for other people who have Dell 2007WFP and are experiencing colour banding issues. I see JMWarren has see these problem with his Dell screens but I'm not sure if he's resolved that. I too notice the issue more when using the DVI port.
What get's me is that my 2 year old Thinkpad T41 laptop screen doesn't show the banding i'm seeing with the Dell.
I've tried the 2007WFP on both my main system with a pcie 6600GT and another system here which has an agp Radeon 9600XT. Both displayed the same results.
I've not been able to try another DVI cable yet but will do soon - however I'm doubtful that would change things.
If anyone has any ideas as to why this is happening I'd be interested to know.

B4RK0D3 · 04-14-2006, 10:53 AM

Mine is actually scheduled to be delivered to me today. I'll let you know as soon as I find out -- if there is banding, I will definitely send it back. It's important to me because I'm a graphic designer, so I understand how you feel.

JiOwon · 04-14-2006, 11:00 AM

cheers I'm certainly interested in how other 2007WFP's are performing.
What I'm seeing is quite noticeable and if it were a common problem with the 2007WFP's I'm sure I would have read about it in one of the reviews.

JMWarren · 04-14-2006, 11:40 AM

Yeah, I've still got the same issues with my 2007FP. My third one will arrive on Monday. Apparently the LG panels may be the problem as several people have reported the same problem as I've got on their L2000c's.

borez · 04-14-2006, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: B4RK0D3
Mine is actually scheduled to be delivered to me today. I'll let you know as soon as I find out -- if there is banding, I will definitely send it back. It's important to me because I'm a graphic designer, so I understand how you feel.

Hi there,
I'm also in the same situation as you as well.

By any chance, do you have any access to monitor calibrators (ie, Spyders, Eye-One Displays) etc?

It'll be great if you could profile your monitor, and show us the gamut range of this monitor..

imported_Crusader · 04-14-2006, 02:20 PM

Makes me glad I have a 2005FPW with no issues.

Def not trading "up" now!

B4RK0D3 · 04-14-2006, 02:35 PM

akugami · 04-14-2006, 02:39 PM

I actually had banding in EQ2 when I played that game briefly in my 2005FPW. Haven't seen it in any other game though or any other shows nor do I see it in pictures (jpegs mostly). I even downloaded a screen tester and it didn't show any banding so I'm inclined to think it was a setting with EQ2.

JMWarren · 04-14-2006, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: akugami
I actually had banding in EQ2 when I played that game briefly in my 2005FPW. Haven't seen it in any other game though or any other shows nor do I see it in pictures (jpegs mostly). I even downloaded a screen tester and it didn't show any banding so I'm inclined to think it was a setting with EQ2.

Yeah, alot of games have banding in them. Doom III can be pretty bad.

B4RK0D3 · 04-14-2006, 04:41 PM

IlllI · 04-14-2006, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: B4RK0D3
So my monitor just came in. I hooked everything up and tested a few games on it (first and foremost, heh). Ran beautifully, out of the box. I haven't even installed the monitor drivers yet.

I opened up Photoshop and created a few different gradients and went to fullscreen. Yeah, there's a bit of banding...but then again -- it's right out of the box. No color profiles, drivers, etc. I'll post an update when I get everything properly set up!

This thing is amazingly beautiful, by the way. I almost wet myself.

i too am interested in this lcd. keep us updated

JiOwon · 04-15-2006, 03:04 AM

I know someone with a spyder which I hope to be able to borrow sometime soon.
I want to like this monitor - no backlight issues, no bad pixels, just the right size and most things do look quite good - no noticable shadowing in games (guild wars, ut2004, hl2/cs, fary cry - once i get IL2 running in wide screen I'll be playing that quite a bit as well).
However this banding issue is somewhat un-expected and I'm noticing more ana more - even in web pages now. eg. http://www.yellowpages.com.au

JMWarren: was the second monitor any better at all? Do you think the third monitor will be a newer revision?

kmmatney · 04-15-2006, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by: JiOwon
I know someone with a spyder which I hope to be able to borrow sometime soon.
I want to like this monitor - no backlight issues, no bad pixels, just the right size and most things do look quite good - no noticable shadowing in games (guild wars, ut2004, hl2/cs, fary cry - once i get IL2 running in wide screen I'll be playing that quite a bit as well).
However this banding issue is somewhat un-expected and I'm noticing more ana more - even in web pages now. eg. http://www.yellowpages.com.au

JMWarren: was the second monitor any better at all? Do you think the third monitor will be a newer revision?

Where are you seeing the banding on that page? I looked with my LCD out of curiosity but didn't notice any...

JMWarren · 04-15-2006, 09:28 AM

The second was exactly the same as the fisrt. My fingers are crossed for the third one.

imported_greyhound · 04-15-2006, 09:47 AM

Well, on my L2000, I didn't see any banding of note except on the darker half of the grayscale on xtknight's test pattern. Adjusting contrast certainly has an impact on that issue. No anomalies thus far in normal use.

JiOwon · 04-15-2006, 11:34 AM

The banding on that page is in the light yellow background - probably not a good example since it's so light I guess.
Using xtknight's program i can notice banding in all three colour and the greyscale - most noticable in the darker areas.

Test patterns and paint shop gradients aside I should say this monitor does game extremely well. Empire at War looks great in WS, likewise for Guild Wars, finally got IL2 going in widescreen and played an hour or so of CS:source - I'm happy my 6600GT can cope with the native res (just) (the whole rig is overclocked which helps a bit - in fact come to think of it my system is almost identical to JMWarren's)

Another game - PlasmaPong - seems quite good for testing this screen

*warning* this is a crazy game but sickly addictive.
link: http://www.plasmapong.com/ freeware/donationware
I did notice some banding in this game - again mostly in the darker colours but otherwise it does look very good - everything moves so quickly you really need to be wanting to find the problem to see it (a curse of mine). Try alternating the colour patterns using the number keys - some interesting effects.

JiOwon · 04-15-2006, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by: Crusader
Makes me glad I have a 2005FPW with no issues.

Def not trading "up" now!

Crusader would you be able to take a photo of your screen while running xtknight's gradlin-v0.2-fs.exe ? Would be most appreciated - very curious. I'll try to do the same tomorrow sometime (after chocolate)

link: http://xtknight.atothosting.com/tool...in-v0.2-fs.exe
(to exit from that program press the Escape key)

cheers
J

guidryp · 04-15-2006, 12:02 PM

Grrrrr! I give up. New CRT it is. Banding rules out the monitor for photo editing. Please everyone make sure you are running 32 bit color.

xtknight · 04-15-2006, 12:10 PM

Here is another good pattern to use to test banding:

http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/color_gradients_4.html

Save the picture and resize it so you can see easier. After some (rather tricky) gamma and OSD contrast adjustments I've gotten my VP930b so it's quite hard to see transitions between colors and those that do appear are very subtle. Changing brightness does not affect the banding (at least on my monitor), which is actually quite a godsend. I can increase brightness without turning my grayscale into a sloppy mess. Interestingly enough I have never, ever noticed banding in real usage, and having discovered the VP930b dithering you'd think I'd have the eyes for this stuff.

FightingChance · 04-15-2006, 12:28 PM

I know I'm late to the party, but even on this CRT I'm on I notice banding on the Yellowpages.com.au page.

IlllI · 04-15-2006, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: JiOwon
I know someone with a spyder which I hope to be able to borrow sometime soon.
I want to like this monitor - no backlight issues, no bad pixels, just the right size and most things do look quite good - no noticable shadowing in games (guild wars, ut2004, hl2/cs, fary cry - once i get IL2 running in wide screen I'll be playing that quite a bit as well).
However this banding issue is somewhat un-expected and I'm noticing more ana more - even in web pages now. eg. http://www.yellowpages.com.au

JMWarren: was the second monitor any better at all? Do you think the third monitor will be a newer revision?

how bad is the banding? i seem to have it on my lcd too (a different model then the dell) but the only way i can notice it is if i put my face like 3 inches away from the screen. other than that, from my chair, i cant tell it has any at all.

guidryp · 04-15-2006, 01:16 PM

First off lets all make sure we know what we are talking about.

The Gradlin program should display ever second line as a smooth continuous tone change:
row 1: Red Blocks
row 2: Red Smooth
row 3: Green Blocks
row 4: Green Smooth
row 5: Blue Blocks
row 6: Blue Smooth
row 7: Grey Blocks
row 8: Grey Smooth

Put graphics card in 16bit mode, properties-> display-> settings-> color quality -> medium (16 bit) and now:

row 1: Red Blocks
row 2: Red blocky
row 3: Green Blocks
row 4: Green blocky
row 5: Blue Blocks
row 6: Blue blocky
row 7: Grey Blocks
row 8: Grey blocky

Now if you graphics card is in 32 bit mode (color quality highest 32 bit) and see any of the even numbered rows as anything but smooth toned, you have banding and it will be difficult to use the monitor for photo editing and you may see this occaisionally when watching videos etc...

So if you only see it from 3 inches, I wouldn't worry about it, If you see it on a CRT, check your settings, I have never seen it on a CRT in highest color (32bit) mode.

Flip back and forth between 16 bit and 32bit to see the difference. 32 bit will undoubtedly be better, but really it should be perfect smooth tones.

LiekOMG · 04-15-2006, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: FightingChance
I know I'm late to the party, but even on this CRT I'm on I notice banding on the Yellowpages.com.au page.

Yeah, I can notice a tad bit of banding on my CRT too on the yellowpages site. I also notice the banding on those 4 color gradients linked earlier. Granted, the banding is slighly more pronounced on my LCD (then again, my LCD is like 8 year old technology), but its not all that much worse compared to the CRT.

xtknight · 04-15-2006, 04:49 PM

Are you guys talking about the background on yellowpages? Maybe it's just compression or bad rendering.

guidryp · 04-15-2006, 05:24 PM

The Yellow pages background has an extremely tiny amount of vertical banding I guess. But I think that is a product of the mixed color gradient chosen. Note this is extremely hard to see on a CRT and not what I am generally talking about.

Now if I switch my setttings to 16 bit color. It gets some seriously obvious vertical banding. If you notice banding switch back and forth between 16bit and 32 bit mode to make sure there is a pronounced difference (much much less on 32 bit), if there isn't a pronounced difference something is seriously wrong.