Samsung 970P

[Z33]

Beginning of 2005 I bought a Dell 2005FPW... I loved and hated the widescreen aspect of it. Great if the game supported it. Bad if it did not. The colors were great. The response time was fine. Noticed just a little bit of ghosting, but not much. Had to look for it really to notice it. The backlight bleeding was bad. Dell even sent me a second one hopefully to solve the problem (I believe i had the A1? revision. So i returned the Dell 2005FPW (backlight bleeding this bad = defective imo)

Then I bought a Viewsonic VP912B. I loaded it up and the colors were not that great. Not very vibrant ETC. But not bad enough to warrant a return though. Very little backlight bleeding to (tad on the top middle) and the black level wasnt that black. I noticed no ghosting on this monitor. Response time must of been very fast (Advertised 12MS Typ).

I still was not satisfied. I wanted the colors of the Dell 2005FPW, the response time of the VP912B. I did not want ANY backlight bleeding (very annoying to me).

So I got myself a Samsung 970P. Very Expensive for what it is. BUT this time, you get what you pay for. No backlight bleeding (no dead pixels either), very dark blacks, and the colors. ohh the colors. I just keep stairing at this screen and thats about all i can do.. SO purty.. Also the ghosting is probably some were inbetween the 2005FPW and the Viewsonic. Not noticable unless I really look for it..

If you want the best of the best 19" LCD I dont see how anything can be better than the Samsung 970P... atleast atm

 

[xtknight]

Glad you found one you liked. So the VA912b and the 970P were like night and day in terms of colors, huh?

That's because the VA912b doesn't have near the contrast of the 970P.

Edit: 970P is not 8-bit.

 

[Z33]

Yes thanks for the information. Sortof knew that but wasnt 100% sure if the 2005FPW was a 8bit or not. i had a VP912B (is not made anymore). It is a 450contrast. 400brightness. 12MS response typ. monitor. Was suppose to be one of the better 19" monitors during that time (back in feb~)..

I was looking at the viewsonic VP930B. But i heard there was some backlight bleeding problems. I did not want that at all. (even if it is minor). But GL!

 

[ddekany]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Glad you found one you liked. So the VA912b and the 970P were like night and day in terms of colors, huh?

That's because the VA912b needs to dither to reach the full spectrum while the 970P and 2005FPW do not. The latters are called 8-bit LCDs, and the former is a 6-bit.

Well, I have to face this misinformation on many forums, and sorry but I can't resist to tell again and again: 970P is a 6 bit monitor, that clearly uses dithering (not FRC; some people call that dithering too). (At least the ones that you can buy nowadays here in Hungary... so certainly the elsewhere too.) Surely it looks great, but it's still 6 bit, not 8 bit. The detailed article is here: primary site, the mirror site if the previous is down.

 

[Z33]

if it is 6bit with dithering. how come the colors seem so mcuh better than my old monitor? also... how come there website claims 16.7million colors (which i thought always meant 8bit while 16.2 meant 6bit with dithering)

 

[xtknight]

Well, yeah, it has only been very recently discovered that the 970P is really a 6-bit. Can't count on the 16.7m (not that you ever truly could).

Anyhow it's because of the much higher contrast on VAs than on TNs.

 

[Z33]

according to this review the colors on this monitor are really good (did test etc) so....

review


but if it is really 6bit (besides that website any other proof? or is this a general thing that everyone knows with the 970P?) then how come they charge so much for it? i mean dont 6bit monitors usually cost $400 or less?

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: Z33
according to this review the colors on this monitor are really good (did test etc) so....

review


but if it is really 6bit (besides that website any other proof? or is this a general thing that everyone knows with the 970P?) then how come they charge so much for it? i mean dont 6bit monitors usually cost $400 or less?

What a remarkable page! It really makes the 970p unimpressive if true. Perhaps Z33 could load up one of the test patterns on the site and take a photo of his 970P for us? (be sure the shutter is at <= 1/120 of a second for a clean screen capture)

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
It really makes the 970p unimpressive if true.

Why? It has the best DeltaE of them all after calibration.

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
It really makes the 970p unimpressive if true.

Why? It has the best DeltaE of them all after calibration.

Personally, deltaE is something I've never been very cocerned with. I'm not an artist of any kind so color accuracy isn't super important to me. Seeing the speckly dither pattern is something that concerns me though.

 

[ddekany]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
It really makes the 970p unimpressive if true.

Why? It has the best DeltaE of them all after calibration.

I believe that anybody who is such a professional user will not accept the dithering. This monitor is certainly good enough for gaming and like, but hardly for image authoring.

 

[5150Joker]

Unfortunately the OP is right, Dell 2005 monitor's suffer from backlight bleeding. I had to exchange 3 of them to finally get one that had zero backlight bleed but man is this thing perfect! Like the OP mentioned, fantastic colors, great response time and no backlight bleeding (rare for a 2005 FPW like I mentioned).

 

[Z33]

i dont ever watch DVDs on my monitor. way to small so i didnt care about the DVD score. everything else is what was important to me and it scored being the best of the best



also according to that review AND cnet.com the 970Ps color quality is excellent. and the VP930B is poor......

 

[johndifo]

Originally posted by: Z33
according to this review the colors on this monitor are really good (did test etc) so....

review


but if it is really 6bit (besides that website any other proof? or is this a general thing that everyone knows with the 970P?) then how come they charge so much for it? i mean dont 6bit monitors usually cost $400 or less?

Hi all this is my first post

If this monitor is realy 6 bit, wich I think it is, it only have 262144 (64x64x64) true colors, these colors are good, but still lacks the true emission of the remaining 16million+ colors.

When testing colors with colorimeters they dont measure all the midtones, but the main ones.


I have a 970P and I see dithering artifacts when image moves fast, in DVD play due to the video noise, image is not quiet and pixels are always busy in the dithering grid morphing process, even in scenes where nothing moves.

here is also something very strange in the dark grays, they look all black. If I try to correct this the color balance become wrong.

Odd thing is the fact that the image is better when you look the monitor in a angle view, not in front.

cheers

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
Personally, deltaE is something I've never been very cocerned with. I'm not an artist of any kind so color accuracy isn't super important to me. Seeing the speckly dither pattern is something that concerns me though.

Oh, alright, I thought you were talking specifically about the results on page (which only mentioned DeltaE as far as I can tell). I wouldn't accept dithering if I were an artist either.

Originally posted by: johndifo
Odd thing is the fact that the image is better when you look the monitor in a angle view, not in front.

You'll have to ratchet up your brightness and unfortunately make the black grayish. My Samsung 710T (TN) did not display dark grays either, just all blackish. My VP930b doesn't have as much as a problem with that, but I assumed it was because it used the high-contrast P-MVA panel.

Originally posted by: Z33
also according to that review AND cnet.com the 970Ps color quality is excellent. and the VP930B is poor......

Hmmm...I wonder how BeHardware classified VP930b as poor when the DeltaE (their only reference) was within 0.2. I think they're nuts. They list 'as fast as TN <6 ms' under 970P as a negative. Anyhow, that review apparently wasn't aware of the dithering of the 970P and undesirable effects (probably dithering) of some colors in the VP930b.

 

[Z33]

its not only BeHardware. Cnet said it to... (that the colors werent very good on vP930B..

im a little dissappointed but its not big deal if the samsung is 6bit.. it just makes me feel i spent $500 on a pretty case (and no backlight bleeding)... but what i can see its still a very pretty monitor for what i use it for..

 

[xtknight]

(I only truly trust Tom's Hardware Guide and X-Bit Labs for reviews. BeHardware is actually translated from hardware.fr) The 970P has the best contrast and viewing angles of any 19" also as far as I know. Look at it this way: you couldn't have gotten a true 8-bit in ANY 19" LCD with response time at anything desirable if that makes you feel better about it. The 970P is probably better than my VP930b in color reproduction (but not by miles: they both use dithering). Not something worth stewing over unless you actually noticed the dithering yourself without having it being pointed out. I do feel all the review sites misled us into this way of thinking that all the VA panels are always 8-bit. (The PDFs for the panels continue to say 8-bit, so who knows.) I'm kind of angered by it as well, I was led to believe the VP930b had no dithering, but not enough to think twice about the purchase. It's still a great monitor, and I hardly ever notice this dithering (in fact never, in SRGB mode as far as I can tell?? (so far))

 

[johndifo]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Look at it this way: you couldn't have gotten a true 8-bit in ANY 19" LCD with response time at anything desirable if that makes you feel better about it.

Thats my concern about the 970P, I feel there is something strange in the image but, is there a better LCD for multi-use?

I can live with the dithering, what really hurts is the 970P beautiful image screwed by the "all black" dark grays.

I have 3 weeks to decide if I will return it to the shop or not, and I'm waiting to see LG L1980QPlus reviews, but I'm afraid its the same technology with diferent image processors, 6 bits on L1980Qplus is confirmed, lets hope a superior gamma balance, IMHO

 

[darXoul]

If you speak French, I strongly recommend to read hardware.fr. From what I see on behardware.com, I'm not sure they are translation experts

As for S-PVA panels, the one listed as 6 ms seems really much better in terms of ghosting / gaming performance than 8+ ms (though not necessarily superior to P-MVA 8 ms). The screenshots in head to head comparisons on lesnumeriques.com prove it.

In terms of image quality, two issues seem to bother S-PVA users: dark grays being black and video noise. Viewing angles are not as good as S-IPS of course, but this is common knowledge.

 

[Compellor]

Originally posted by: Z33
its not only BeHardware. Cnet said it to... (that the colors werent very good on vP930B..

Their review of the VP930b was one of the worst reviews I've seen. Tom's Hardware seems more accurate. After calibration the colors are near perfect and I see no color problems when viewing a grayscale image. I think they got a bad one or didn't calibrate it properly.

 

[xtknight]

I think, despite IPS panels being used in pro-photography monitors, that eventually VA ones will reign supreme because of superior contrast.

 

[ddekany]

Regarding the good results of colorimeter tests... I think colorimeters see only the average color of a larger area, not of individual pixels. So, just because the colorimeter mesurements of a monitor are good, it can have whatever grid and checkboard patterns and whatnot.