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Banding on all LCD's

J

josh6079

Diamond Member
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Is there anyway that the DVI cord could have a play in gradient banding? I only ask because I am the owner of the Dell 2007WFP, the ViewSonic VX2025WM, and now an NEC 20WMGX2 and all of them have banding. I have also owned the Dell 2005FPW and noticed this as well. I'll post some pics soon showing the different gradients of all the monitors, but it just seems like everyone I get ends up having it. :frown:
 
What's odd is in the last several days I have noticed a strip of what I can only describe as "lighter than the rest of the screen" going from end to end horizontally across my 2005fpw. ... Could this be caused by a particular video card's signal? I have noticed on my XTX that sometimes no picture shows up when I turn on my PC and I have to turn off and back on my monitor in order to get a picture.

Thankfully only visible in occasional dark-colored background circumstances
 
You do know that LCD will "never" have the smooth look CRTs do going from one color to another... At least nothing for retail market.
 
Yeah, the LCD gradient banding is unavoidable unless you get one of the very expensive 10-bit models.
 
Someone I know has a 2007FP rev. A00 and it shows color banding on test patterns when using the DVI input. I had him switch to the VGA cable and the test pattern colors are all smooth. I saw no adverse effects on text or graphics when using the VGA input. I use a 19" - 6-bit Acer LCD that only has VGA input; the gradient test patterns are smooth, as are graphics and text shows no ghosting at. Some people have a thing about using VGA input, but my feeling is that if it works better on your particular monitor, use it and be happy!

As for the cord itself playing a role in the banding, maybe. When I used a high end CRT, I had text ghost on VGA, but it disappeared when I switched to a high quality Monster BNC cable. Since high quality cables are expensive, I would suspect that the DVI cables supplied with LCD monitors are not the highest grade. It might be worth buying a high end cable to test.
 
Banding shouldn't be much of a problem with the NEC. Advanced DVM can increase the banding (but the picture is impressive nonetheless). If you have that on, try turning it off and see how banding is. The contrast is so high with Advanced DV that the levels of color become very distinct. Also try lowering the sharpness to get the Gaussian blur CRT effect and see if that blends better.

There are two terms here. Varying brightness amongst a white background is a problem with the crystals (some are too 'tight' AFAIK). That's sometimes called banding. The other banding is the non-blended transition from one color to another. In a way, that's how it's supposed to be. There should be 256 distinct levels of brightness in the gradient. The color info sent is not infinite. Since CRTs blended the gradient and that looks more optimal to the eyes, people think there's something 'wrong' with the LCD. There is no defect at work here, it's just that LCDs don't have the blending capability (the 10-bit gamma ones do a better job). It is not like backlight bleeding or dead pixels where one unit (same model) will experience it less than another. Adjusting contrast and brightness can help (there's a chance another unit will have slightly different brightness).
 
What about in my case? There is a strip of slightly lighter color about one inch thick going across the LCD. It's tough to explain, and does not look like the banding in the examples shown.

 
Josh, just keep the monitor on standard. Don't bother with the other settings since they WILL create banding. Make sure advanced DVM is on. I don't know what you mean with banding cos that test is not supposed to show a smooth gradient -- its supposed to be a ramp.

You're supposed to compare the 1st 2 or 3 and the last 2 or 3 to see if there's a distinguishable difference. On the NEC you should see the last black bars all be different and the first 3 or so bars also be different. So that's not it's fault 😛

Also, remember what I told you about using a correct "Native" color setting.

Try this: after doing all I said, create a gradient using photoshop (32 bit) 1680x1050 size. Make it your desktop wallpaper and prepare to stand corrected. I did that @ first to see any banding and sure enough if I have it on anything other than standard, it has banding. But the standard setting will provide great greyscale performance (color too, of course)
 
Oh. I thought the gradient test was supposed to show a completely smooth gradient without any "steps" in the transitions. QFT about the native color (6500K) gersson, thanks for the insight. 😛 Those pictures I took are on default everything.

If that is the case then my ViewSonic and my old 2005fpw are fine too. Never the less, this monitor is f****** awesome!! The colors between it and even the ViewSonic are noticable and, beings how I'm at work right now, I'll get some trio pics of it and the 2007WFP and VX2025WM.
 
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