'Full HD'... What else do I need to know? *Updated* ...with problems.

[Charlie98]

I just got a nice, new Samsung 24" LCD monitor for the desktop. I'm coming off my 10 year old Sony 15" TFT panel, so while the new monitor certainly has a nice picture, and I'm loving the widescreen, I'm rather underwhelmed with the video playback.

The monitor is fed HDMI through my 560ti/448 (in sig below.) Both H.264 playback and straight up DVD play is almost grainy... it's horrible. Gaming is awesomeness... but I just can get past that video playback.

I realized after I ordered it, this monitor isn't 'Full HD...' does that really make a difference? I'm going to have to go down a size (24" is just too big for my desk... ) probably to 21.5", the HD choices are limited to the Asus unit, which is about as ugly as my old Sony is.

EDIT: I just turned around and looked at the box... 'Full HD 1080p' right on the box. WTF? Now I'm really cornfused.

I'm open to suggestions or other things to look for. I can't really afford a $400 120Hz unit, as much as I would like, so that's out. The biggest I could probably go would be 22" with an HDMI input, primarily.

 

[IGemini]

Obligatory stuff:

- Installing the most recent drivers the card and monitor may help
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/LS24B350HL/ZA#drivers
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-301.42-whql-driver.html

- Make sure your monitor is running at its native resolution (1920x1080)

 

[VirtualLarry]

DVD video playback can look grainy at 19 x 10. You might need to get better player software, or enable some of the advanced video enhancements for playback.

 

[Charlie98]

DVD video playback can look grainy at 19 x 10. You might need to get better player software, or enable some of the advanced video enhancements for playback.

Examples?

 

[kami]

You might also just be seeing natural grain and flaws in the video that were not apparent on that tiny little screen before

PC monitors are often tuned to be super bright and the default settings are not ideal for video playback. You can look into doing a simple brightness and contrast calibration to start. There are lots of sites with test images and instructions if you google monitor calibration.

 

[cantholdanymore]

You might also just be seeing natural grain and flaws in the video that were not apparent on that tiny little screen before.

+1

Specially if your video is SD and you're trying to watch it full screen. I also found that some low quality/old DVD's may look horrible too.

 

[Cerb]

http://imgur.com/9SCLY

How do they look compared to that (except for the lower res w/ black bars)? That's 1680x1050 from a GTX 460, using MPC-HC's EVR Custom Pres., with pixel shader resizing, but no additional post-processing.

If that's about how they look, your problem is simply that a lot of DVDs are not encoded with quality in mind (certain releases of particular movies will look better, such as just about any Superbit), and to get a better perceived picture, you'll need to have some post-processing involved.

If they look pixelated, instead, then something is up.

 

[JimKiler]

I just got a nice, new Samsung 24" LCD monitor for the desktop. I'm coming off my 10 year old Sony 15" TFT panel, so while the new monitor certainly has a nice picture, and I'm loving the widescreen, I'm rather underwhelmed with the video playback.

The monitor is fed HDMI through my 560ti/448 (in sig below.) Both H.264 playback and straight up DVD play is almost grainy... it's horrible. Gaming is awesomeness... but I just can get past that video playback.

I realized after I ordered it, this monitor isn't 'Full HD...' does that really make a difference? I'm going to have to go down a size (24" is just too big for my desk... ) probably to 21.5", the HD choices are limited to the Asus unit, which is about as ugly as my old Sony is.

EDIT: I just turned around and looked at the box... 'Full HD 1080p' right on the box. WTF? Now I'm really cornfused.

I'm open to suggestions or other things to look for. I can't really afford a $400 120Hz unit, as much as I would like, so that's out. The biggest I could probably go would be 22" with an HDMI input, primarily.

That is indeed full HD per the specs: 1920 x 1080. Are you watching movies like Aliens, which were filmed on super grainy celluloid?

 

[Charlie98]

I used more modern movies, a mix of ripped movies I'm very familiar with (A Few Good Men, Casino, Black Hawk Down) and DVD's (New in Town, Star Trek.) It was not pixelated, but very 'blotchy' if that makes sense. The colors were washed a bit and it looked very 1-dimensional. These are the same movies that look fine on my 1080p 120Hz TV, even though I know that is not a direct comparison, and very good on my old 15" Sony monitor (I reran them just this AM to make sure I wasn't seeing things... )

I did have to reduce brightness to avoid having to wear sunglasses, but, basically left the rest of the settings stock. Again, it wasn't the color, simply the reproduction.

I wonder if 1080p is just too much 2-3' from my face (on my desktop.) I just expected more. More of a concern, these are movies on the HDD that are going into the HTPC build I'm working up... if they roll like that on the big screen, my wife will beat me to death for spending that kind of money on piss-poor playback.

 

[Cerb]

The colors were washed a bit and it looked very 1-dimensional. These are the same movies that look fine on my 1080p 120Hz TV, even though I know that is not a direct comparison, and very good on my old 15" Sony monitor (I reran them just this AM to make sure I wasn't seeing things... )

Being washed out, in comparison, is the nature of TN. That 2ms GTG spec may help, if it's also low input lag, for gaming, and the trade-off is colors. Even if it has a sRGB or aRGB preset, the colors won't be like an IPS or PVA monitor or TV.

I wonder if 1080p is just too much 2-3' from my face (on my desktop.) I just expected more. More of a concern, these are movies on the HDD that are going into the HTPC build I'm working up... if they roll like that on the big screen, my wife will beat me to death for spending that kind of money on piss-poor playback.

If you still have a CRT, you don't get low-res grainy movies looking better. HD content will look better on a HDTV, but you'll see the flaws of the SD content in the process. Make sure to research your TV, and buy it from somewhere you can easily return it, so you can test these things out. In my limited HDTV experience, Samsungs have generally done quite well, as far as having good upscaling and post-processing for grainy analog TV and DVD. But, my experience in that area is fairly limited, and I'm not as bothered by minor quality flaws as some people are (a little blockiness or misquito noise I can take; bad color and sharpness filters make me want to go Office Space on some TVs).

 

[cantholdanymore]

If the same movies/files look good in your HDTV then it may be a drivers issue

 

[ZeroRift]

I agree with the sentiment that this is a driver / configuration issue.

You might also try:

A DVI cable instead of HDMI. This sounds silly, but made a significant difference in contrast / brightness on an older Acer 1080p monitor I had.

Plugging your monitor into the HDMI cable that's feeding your TV and see if the picture is comparable.

 

[Throckmorton]

Is your resolution set to 1920x1080? How has no one asked that yet?

 

[ZeroRift]

Is your resolution set to 1920x1080? How has no one asked that yet?

check post #2.

 

[Charlie98]

I agree with the sentiment that this is a driver / configuration issue.

You might also try:

A DVI cable instead of HDMI. This sounds silly, but made a significant difference in contrast / brightness on an older Acer 1080p monitor I had.

Plugging your monitor into the HDMI cable that's feeding your TV and see if the picture is comparable.

And I wondered about that. My Sony is fed via DVI, but the Samsung HDMI. I thought HDMI was supposed to be the better of the two so have been looking for monitors that support HDMI without an adapter vs DVI.

The Samsung is on it's way back to Newegg, now I'm researching a replacement. They make the same unit in a 22" (actually 21.5") display and I'm debating that, or dropping down to 1600x900 resolution in a 20".

I may just make the trip down to MicroCenter and see if I can compare these side by side....

 

[birthdaymonkey]

If you want video playback to look good, I'd strongly consider an IPS display. Dell's 21.5" U2212HM often goes on sale for $179 or less, or you can get a similar panel from another manufacturer for around the same price.The smaller dot pitch of 1080p on a 22" monitor should help with your issue.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...on=ips&x=0&y=0

On the playback side, you might want to try using the madVR filter in conjunction with MPC-HC, which offers better upscaling and postprocessing than the default renderer. This helps especially with DVDs and SD content. Most importantly, you have to make sure the monitor is calibrated at least in terms of brightness/contrast/gamma. There are lots of websites that will guide you through a basic calibration using your monitor's onscreen display. Having any of these values set incorrectly will make banding and compression artifacts much more evident.

 

[akugami]

I think the "blotchyness" is banding.

See how the above picture shows a lot of banding on the bottom half of the monitor when it should be a smooth transition from light to dark?

Google "lcd test" and download it to your computer and run some tests to see if there is excessive banding on the monitor you got.

 

[doesn't_compute]

Normal DVDs cannot playback at 1080p. 720 is the most you will get from a normal DVD.

Max resolutions from normal DVDs:

To record moving pictures, DVD-Video uses either MPEG-2 compression at up to 9.8 Mbit/s (9,800 kbit/s) or MPEG-1 compression at up to 1.856 Mbit/s (1,856 kbit/s).



The following formats are allowed for MPEG-2 video:

• At 25 frames per second, interlaced (commonly used in regions with 50 Hz image scanning frequency):

720 × 576 pixels (same resolution as D-1)704 × 576 pixels352 × 576 pixels (same as the China Video Disc standard)352 x 288 pixels

• At 29.97 frames per second, interlaced (commonly used in regions with 60 Hz image scanning frequency):

720 × 480 pixels (same resolution as D-1)704 × 480 pixels352 × 480 pixels (same as the China Video Disc standard)352 x 240 pixelsThe following formats are allowed for MPEG-1 video:

• 352 × 288 pixels at 25 frame/s, progressive (Same as the VCD Standard)
• 352 × 240 pixels at 29.97 frame/s, progressive (Same as the VCD Standard)

HD DVD & Blu-Ray can playback 1080p.
Look at the back of the DVD box and see what the resolution is.

 

[Cerb]

Normal DVDs cannot playback at 1080p.

Sure they can, with upsampling.

720 is the most you will get from a normal DVD.

Max resolutions from normal DVDs:
720 × 576 pixels (same resolution as D-1)704 × 576 pixels352 × 576 pixels (same as the China Video Disc standard)352 x 288 pixels

At 29.97 frames per second, interlaced (commonly used in regions with 60 Hz image scanning frequency):

720 × 480 pixels (same resolution as D-1)704 × 480 pixels352 × 480 pixels (same as the China Video Disc standard)352 x 240 pixelsThe following formats are allowed for MPEG-1 video:

352 × 288 pixels at 25 frame/s, progressive (Same as the VCD Standard)
352 × 240 pixels at 29.97 frame/s, progressive (Same as the VCD Standard)

That's 576, not 720.

HD DVD & Blu-Ray can playback 1080p.
Look at the back of the DVD box and see what the resolution is.

??? When has a DVD package ever had the resolution on it? I've never seen that.

 

[doesn't_compute]

Sure they can, with upsampling.

Don't you mean upscaling or upconverting? It doesn't make a picture any clearer.

That's 576, not 720.

Yeah, what he said. Low res.

When has a DVD package ever had the resolution on it? I've never seen that.

My bad. I haven't bought a DVD in ages. I am used to checking res on the back of video games before buying them.

 

[Charlie98]

*UPDATE*

So, I picked up the 20" version of the Samsung unit at BestBuy (Same price as NE, sales tax vs NE shipping... break even.) SyncMaster S20B350H, a 1600x900 monitor. The smaller size is perfect for my desk area and I'm very pleased with it.

I've tried to install the correct drivers for the monitor and while they install, they are completely unstable. As soon as I open MagicTune Premium, Samsung's adjustment utility, it crashes and closes. I've uninstalled it and reinstalled it directly from Samsung's website... no joy. That is not to say the monitor doesn't work and I can't adjust the picture with the manual controls. There is also a LED Gamma utility that I can't seem to get to respond at all... it just sits down in the tray at startup.

The stock picture leaves a bit to be desired and I'll have to get it adjusted correctly before I'll want to watch any video; my initial vid samples certainly view better on this monitor than the 24", and I think with some adjustments it will be acceptable.

On the playback side, you might want to try using the madVR filter in conjunction with MPC-HC, which offers better upscaling and postprocessing than the default renderer. This helps especially with DVDs and SD content. Most importantly, you have to make sure the monitor is calibrated at least in terms of brightness/contrast/gamma. There are lots of websites that will guide you through a basic calibration using your monitor's onscreen display. Having any of these values set incorrectly will make banding and compression artifacts much more evident.

I'm working on that right now, too. I downloaded MPC-HC, and I have VLC on my laptop that I may download and try as well.

 

[Cerb]

Don't you mean upscaling or upconverting?

Yes.

It doesn't make a picture any clearer.

No, but that is how full-screen playback works on modern displays, whether it is done by the player of display. With a 1080P display, a 480P video is played back at 2.2x its original dimensions.