Bad color banding with HDMI

[big_cliche]

Just bought an Acer S243HL 24" LED-backlit monitor. I've hooked it up to my computer with a DVI to HDMI cable. The monitor doesn't have any DVI inputs, only a couple of HDMI jacks and an analog VGA.

The problem is that I'm getting some pretty bad color banding. It's not noticeable all the time; I can only see during certain events. For example, it's there when the Win 7 login screen fades out and the desktop fades in. The banding is also noticeable during movie playback--especially the dark scenes. For some reason, there's no banding on photographs.

This only happens with HDMI; VGA color is nice and smooth. The thing is, VGA is less than optimal for 1080p.

So I moved the PC to my living room and connected the HDMI to my plasma TV. Same problem--there was some obvious color banding on the plasma screen. So now I know that it's a video card problem/setting. I took a look at the 8800GTX control panel and didn't find much. RGB is the only HDMI color format it will let me select. Color depth is, of course, set at 32 bits.

Anyone know what might be wrong?

 

[akugami]

Dunno as I have no experience with HDMI but have you tried a different HDMI cable? Maybe it's the DVI to HDMI adapter?

 

[big_cliche]

Different cable, same problem.

I'm not using a seperate adapter; both cables have a DVI connector on one end and an HDMI on the other.

 

[CrystalBay]

I've noticed this sometimes also. I wonder if it is related to the pixel pitch of the panel...

 

[big_cliche]

I doubt that it's pixel pitch. After all as I mentioned in the first post, the same thing happens when I connect my plasma tv to the computer.

Since there's no banding with VGA, I'm thinking that I should just buy a high quality VGA cable that doesn't blur the image at 1080p.

 

[postmortemIA]

some monitors have more banding issues than others. my old gateway 24" has same problem, banding and crushed blacks, but otherwise colors were terrific

i am afraid you'll have to live with it.

 

[Painman]

Just curious, OP, if what you're seeing is better described as Posterization. A good display will reveal posterization artifacts all over the place - the source material is generally the culprit for most of this type of artifacting, not the display.

Color banding is something else within the context of display quality. Look at this. Does it transition smoothly from black through grey to white, or does it have uneven transitions and/or prominent green and pink areas?

 

[big_cliche]

Just curious, OP, if what you're seeing is better described as Posterization. A good display will reveal posterization artifacts all over the place - the source material is generally the culprit for most of this type of artifacting, not the display.

Color banding is something else within the context of display quality. Look at this. Does it transition smoothly from black through grey to white, or does it have uneven transitions and/or prominent green and pink areas?

With HDMI
-The gradient is slightly uneven, but not too bad.
-I'm getting what looks like posterization in dark movie scenes (BD, so it shouldn't be because of video compression).
-Also, when the Win7 Login screen fades out (and also during other fade in/fade out events), it looks like I'm in 256 color. The desktop looks fine--no color problems at all.

With VGA
-The test gradient is smooth
-No posterization at all during movies or Win 7 login.
-Slightly blurry text, thanks to cheap VGA cable.