Zebo
Elite Member
I'd buy Rosewill before Veiwsonic. Save money.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824021019
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824021019
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New monitor - ViewSonic VP930 or Samsung 970P
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I was told that ViewSonic Europe has dead pixel policy of max. 2 dead pixels. So, if monitor has 3 dead pixels, it is considered faulty, but anything below that is considered as a good and functional panel (not to be covered by warranty).
My story with the VP930 has been a mixed experience. The first one I got had 3 dead pixels and 2 subpixel faults (i looked them more critically later), and I returned it. I got back a monitor, which was just DOA. No signal, no image, no nothing. I had to return it also. The third one had 1 dead pixel, and 2 subpixel faults, but it had a broken base, which had missing parts of plastic and cracks on the back (!?). That was week ago. I called back to them again (And I was quite pissed) and explained the situation, and they told me that they had been sending me replacement monitors (warranty serviced) by accident, altought they should have sended me a brand new one in the beginning. They appologized, but they didn't have any new ones in stock. so I had to wait another week to get a brand new one.
The New monitor arrived this morning, I didn't have time install it, I just very quickly checked that it really is a brand new one (and my first impression was that it was, the protective plastic layer in the panel seemed to be there and everything was packed like in the original new package I had in the first place). I'm going to install it later today (and check again that it really is a unused; I'm getting paranoid with this) when I get home from work. I really hope/wish/pray that this one would be a good one.
My story with the VP930 has been a mixed experience. The first one I got had 3 dead pixels and 2 subpixel faults (i looked them more critically later), and I returned it. I got back a monitor, which was just DOA. No signal, no image, no nothing. I had to return it also. The third one had 1 dead pixel, and 2 subpixel faults, but it had a broken base, which had missing parts of plastic and cracks on the back (!?). That was week ago. I called back to them again (And I was quite pissed) and explained the situation, and they told me that they had been sending me replacement monitors (warranty serviced) by accident, altought they should have sended me a brand new one in the beginning. They appologized, but they didn't have any new ones in stock. so I had to wait another week to get a brand new one.
The New monitor arrived this morning, I didn't have time install it, I just very quickly checked that it really is a brand new one (and my first impression was that it was, the protective plastic layer in the panel seemed to be there and everything was packed like in the original new package I had in the first place). I'm going to install it later today (and check again that it really is a unused; I'm getting paranoid with this) when I get home from work. I really hope/wish/pray that this one would be a good one.
The newest monitor (4th one I have) is good. I haven't seen any dead pixels yet, I tryed find them with dead pixel buddy, but didn't find any. Backlight bleeding is also lowest so far, mild X -shape is still there, but it isn't as bad as in the previous ones. Sticker on the back says that is has been manufactured on January 2006. Hopefully they are getting the quality right. I'm satisfyed with this one. Good image quality, no ghosting, nice colors.
Yeah, mine arrived on Friday, also manufactured January 2006. Very pleased with it so far.
According to their warranty info on the European website, they guarantee no dead pixels, but adhere to ISO whatever class 2 for sub-pixel faults (http://www.viewsoniceurope.com/uk/Support/warranty.htm - check section 2) 🙂.
Have you found any problems trying to use the included software to adjust the colours? If I start their powersuite thing, all the tabs apart from "preferences" are greyed out. You seeing the same?
According to their warranty info on the European website, they guarantee no dead pixels, but adhere to ISO whatever class 2 for sub-pixel faults (http://www.viewsoniceurope.com/uk/Support/warranty.htm - check section 2) 🙂.
Have you found any problems trying to use the included software to adjust the colours? If I start their powersuite thing, all the tabs apart from "preferences" are greyed out. You seeing the same?
If you're looking at those monitors because they are advertised as 8-bit, I've got bad news for you Neither of them are 8-bit. I was in your position as well. You might want to give this thread a read:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1833162&enterthread=y
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1833162&enterthread=y
I have that exact same problem. First installation didn't even start the software, second installation has that problem you mentioned. But I haven't got time to mess around with it, I just moved to a new apartment last weekend 🙂. But I would like to know the solution for that also, If you have one. I try to dig in to it later.
The ViewSonic software is quite the ideal piece of crap. It has always freezed my Windows at boot-up in XP32, and in XP64 the useful tabs aren't enabled.
Calibrate with other software instead and it will still turn out just as good (probably better). Though one may think so, there is nothing specific they put in that software that's better than any other calibration software.
Calibrate with other software instead and it will still turn out just as good (probably better). Though one may think so, there is nothing specific they put in that software that's better than any other calibration software.
drunkencactus
Junior Member
I have also been interested in purchasing the VP930b.. I think I will make sure the the vendor has the Jan 2006 stock.. and also make check the screen on site for dead pixels..
See my post regarding calibration in this thread. http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1838106&enterthread=y
This is beginning to drive me severely mental.
Both the German and UK Viewsonic sites now categorically state 16.7 million (8-bit), not 6 + dithering, or 6 + FRC or anything. The AUO specs, admittedly not in-depth, for the panel used on the monitor, state 8-bit.
However there are a lot of people on various fora who seem to be convinced that it's actually 6-bit with dithering, as well as mauri's call to the Viewsonic contact centre place. To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced by that call - working in a tech support environment, it seems perfectly possible to me that the person on the phone called someone in Germany, who looked on the German site, which at the time said 6bit + FRC, and took this as gospel. Now the German site appears to have changed its tune.
So does anyone know, categorically, whether the damn thing is proper 8bit or not?
I was going mental with the decision also, but I just decided to go with VP930. After faulty units I got a perfect one and I'm very satisfyed with it. I don't know if it is 8-bit or not (I've even read someone suggesting that id would be 8-bit plus dithering for the speed). But I simply don't care anymore. It is a good allrounder in my opinion at that pricepoint.
Funny that the german site changed the specs also (they seem to state also that it is a 8-bit at the moment, and If I remember correctly I checked the same from AUO while ago). But I'm not putting much faith in their customer service (atlest the local one here, or what they told me), after so much hassle and wasted time I had to put up with them.
Funny that the german site changed the specs also (they seem to state also that it is a 8-bit at the moment, and If I remember correctly I checked the same from AUO while ago). But I'm not putting much faith in their customer service (atlest the local one here, or what they told me), after so much hassle and wasted time I had to put up with them.
Actually the german service line also told me that it is "not 8 Bit", but without telling me what it is then. I can tell you that it definitely is not pure 8 bit, because I used an 8 bit VP191 before. On pure 8 bit panels there is only ONE setting at which it can display all 16.7 mio. colors, every change of contrast or color-settings will reduce the number of colors being displayed (most notable seen in increased banding).
I was the one who suggested that it might be 8 bit + FRC just like Eizo uses, but it may as well be 6 bit + FRC. Whatever it is it works very well and can display all 16.7 mio. colors, not just 16.2 mio. All 256 shades of grey and the basic colors red, green and blue are displayed. And even better, in contrast to a pure 8 bit display you can lower the contrast or any colors without losing any of those 256 shades, they just become darker but the total number stays the same. Only when raising contrast above 70% you will lose colors, because all the lightest tones are replaced by white then (you can't go lighter than white, so that's normal). That means that gradients are always smooth, not matter what setting! Unfortunately there are some defect units out there that show very very heavy banding once you change contrast-settings. If yours shows such a behavior, have it replaced, 'cause banding should only be mild.
BUT there are some drawbacks! First of all I also had to return several monitors before getting a good one. My first two had very serious issues with flickering colors in certain color regions. Since the third one had a dead pixel (great dead pixel policy by Viewsonic!) and the fourth one was a used unit with a scratch on the surface I have seen a total of 5 units of this monitor. ALL of them feature some kind of flickering in some of the very darkest colors. The first two units were a complete mess concerning that, but the next three only show very mild flickering with only one single color being affected most. Also only grey, green and yellow colors are visibly affected. Several users here have reported about that and Viewsonic had admitted that it is a known problem. So if it's a real problem with your unit then ask for replacement. My first unit also lacked all the darkest shades of green, but all others did not show that behavior. The second one had unbearable problems with almost everything, and the third one showed a very notable crystaline effect whenever something was moving on screen. So Viewsonic seems to have some bigtime problems with their quality assurance.
There is another issue with this series which showed up on ALL units. You cannot really use the manual color settings. Once you change any of the color-channels red/green/blue by only one click (no matter if up or down) the whole channel will be boosted by appr. 11%. The boost will vanish one you change contrast by just one click. So the only way to manually set colors is to:
- reduce contrast by 11%
- go to manual color settings, lower ALL colors channels by one click first (so that they are all boosted)
- chose your desired color-settings
- increase contrast by 11% again
By the way, the PerfectView software is the same as Portrait Displays' Pivot Pro coupled with Image Tune. Unfortunately it does not run well with newer video-cards like my 7800GT (hangs the system). That's too bad, because it offers auto-pivot when you flip the screen and is said to offer profiles for different color settings (so you can switch between reading mode and gaming mode and such).
I was the one who suggested that it might be 8 bit + FRC just like Eizo uses, but it may as well be 6 bit + FRC. Whatever it is it works very well and can display all 16.7 mio. colors, not just 16.2 mio. All 256 shades of grey and the basic colors red, green and blue are displayed. And even better, in contrast to a pure 8 bit display you can lower the contrast or any colors without losing any of those 256 shades, they just become darker but the total number stays the same. Only when raising contrast above 70% you will lose colors, because all the lightest tones are replaced by white then (you can't go lighter than white, so that's normal). That means that gradients are always smooth, not matter what setting! Unfortunately there are some defect units out there that show very very heavy banding once you change contrast-settings. If yours shows such a behavior, have it replaced, 'cause banding should only be mild.
BUT there are some drawbacks! First of all I also had to return several monitors before getting a good one. My first two had very serious issues with flickering colors in certain color regions. Since the third one had a dead pixel (great dead pixel policy by Viewsonic!) and the fourth one was a used unit with a scratch on the surface I have seen a total of 5 units of this monitor. ALL of them feature some kind of flickering in some of the very darkest colors. The first two units were a complete mess concerning that, but the next three only show very mild flickering with only one single color being affected most. Also only grey, green and yellow colors are visibly affected. Several users here have reported about that and Viewsonic had admitted that it is a known problem. So if it's a real problem with your unit then ask for replacement. My first unit also lacked all the darkest shades of green, but all others did not show that behavior. The second one had unbearable problems with almost everything, and the third one showed a very notable crystaline effect whenever something was moving on screen. So Viewsonic seems to have some bigtime problems with their quality assurance.
There is another issue with this series which showed up on ALL units. You cannot really use the manual color settings. Once you change any of the color-channels red/green/blue by only one click (no matter if up or down) the whole channel will be boosted by appr. 11%. The boost will vanish one you change contrast by just one click. So the only way to manually set colors is to:
- reduce contrast by 11%
- go to manual color settings, lower ALL colors channels by one click first (so that they are all boosted)
- chose your desired color-settings
- increase contrast by 11% again
By the way, the PerfectView software is the same as Portrait Displays' Pivot Pro coupled with Image Tune. Unfortunately it does not run well with newer video-cards like my 7800GT (hangs the system). That's too bad, because it offers auto-pivot when you flip the screen and is said to offer profiles for different color settings (so you can switch between reading mode and gaming mode and such).
Michael
Elite member
Perfectview/Portrait Display was crashing my system hard with my new 7900GT. Worked with 7300GS, though. I can rotate no problem with the standard NVIDIA software, I just need to do it manually.
I'm annoyed that they'r so unclear on the 930b being 8-bit and they don't reply to emails.
Michael
I'm annoyed that they'r so unclear on the 930b being 8-bit and they don't reply to emails.
Michael
That was the same thing with me. Thay told me that it is "not 8-bit", but they couldn't tell me either what it was.
It was you (I digged it up, it was in the LCD Buyers Guide thread), thank you for suggesting that point. The other monitor I was looking at the time was Eizo S1910 and they stated that they use either 8- or 9-bit + FRC in some of their models (I remember reading so from one of their website, If I remember it correctly). So it might as well be 8-bit + FRC for VP930. But I don't know it for sure.
I also noticed that problem, It's good to hear that it is more common problem. I got blue screens when booting up windows after I installed my X1900XT (Pivot Pro asked me to reinstall after hardware change, and after that it never booted up, even with clean PerfectView installation). with my older X800XL it worked well. So I just uninstalled it in Safe Mode and I'm running without it. works good. I used xtknights guides to calibrate my monitor and all is good.
Portrait Displays knows about the problem and state that they will fix it "within the next few months". Actually new video-cards just ain't on their compatiblity list, so you cannot really blame them. But they will send you Pivot Pro v7.6 on request, which you can update online to v8.0. Pivot Pro has the advantage that it works noticeable faster than the build in pivot function of Nvidia drivers, no idea about the comparison to ATI drivers. You can easily test that by opening a context menü while in pivot and moving the mouse over the entries, it's really considerable slow with Nvidia pivot.
Concerning calibration, there is a major drawback when using video-card drivers to change anything, be it brightness, contrast, gamma or colors, you will always see a decrease in the total number of colors. That is because most video-cards use 8 bit per channel for a total of 24 bit (with the exception of some very special Matrox ones), that is a MAXIMUM of 16.7 mio. colors. Any change means to throw colors away, which is the same as for true 8 bit monitors. That is the reason why Eizo uses 8 bit + 2 bit FRC, so that you can change gamma, contrast and colors without losing color gradients. Like stated before on the VP930 you can also change colors and contrast (at least lowering it) without losing gradients.
When using PerfectView (or Display Pro) you wont work on video-card driver level, but instead send the settings directly to the monitor (just like using the OSD). That's preferable for the VP930 with all settings, and preferable for any TFT for brightness, since brightness settings on the monitor always means a decrease of backlight brightness, while on driver level it just means to throw the bright colors away. You can easily see that by banding on gradients, most easily for brightness and contrast, less obvious for gamma.
Concerning calibration, there is a major drawback when using video-card drivers to change anything, be it brightness, contrast, gamma or colors, you will always see a decrease in the total number of colors. That is because most video-cards use 8 bit per channel for a total of 24 bit (with the exception of some very special Matrox ones), that is a MAXIMUM of 16.7 mio. colors. Any change means to throw colors away, which is the same as for true 8 bit monitors. That is the reason why Eizo uses 8 bit + 2 bit FRC, so that you can change gamma, contrast and colors without losing color gradients. Like stated before on the VP930 you can also change colors and contrast (at least lowering it) without losing gradients.
When using PerfectView (or Display Pro) you wont work on video-card driver level, but instead send the settings directly to the monitor (just like using the OSD). That's preferable for the VP930 with all settings, and preferable for any TFT for brightness, since brightness settings on the monitor always means a decrease of backlight brightness, while on driver level it just means to throw the bright colors away. You can easily see that by banding on gradients, most easily for brightness and contrast, less obvious for gamma.
To correct color tinging problems in the grayscale, one is forced to use the video card's gamma processing. This is how it is done by professional calibration tools since there is no alternative to it in the monitor's controls. With the monitor-control method, the gamma ramp can not be explicitly specified in whole, only the color balance. Therefore you can use the monitor's controls to get a 'ceiling' and use the video card's gamma as a deviant from that to get the results you want. Colors are lost, but the ones that are never belonged in the quantized 8-bit color space, and they would interfere with dithering algorithms if you don't get rid of them.
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