Strange LCD phenomenon

[Flavcool]

It all started when I thought DVD's were looking divx-like. Somehow there were blocks or marks visible in dark scenes. I then played the same dvd's on my CRT (from my desktop comp), and all looked fine!

I then decided to connect my 9300 directly to my CRT, and again, no problem.

The smoothness in the flow of color is just not there, there are big jumps in contrast or something. This effect is even more annoying while the movie is playing and not paused cause it tends to flicker around these edges.

After calibrating brightness and contrast for each color it got a little better but still no cake. I used ATi Tray Tools to calibrate brightness and contrast to match the 3 color gamma test patterns in "Adobe Gamma". I adjusted brightness for each color until the inside square and outsided square were the same color (I know these are made for gamma adjustments but adjusting the brightness for each color also worked to make the squares look like what they're supposed to, and did not give a non-linear brightness for colors like adjusting gamma would.)

Here are some pictures:

1) CRT (normal)

http://i1.tinypic.com/s3ik2s.jpg

2) CRT (normal)

http://i1.tinypic.com/s3iycy.jpg

3) LCD (uncalibrated colors)

http://i1.tinypic.com/s3iyog.jpg

4) LCD (calibrated colors)

http://i1.tinypic.com/s3iyvr.jpg

What could it be? Is it just a bad screen, or what else should I try?

 

[Yoshi911]

what resolution is it designed for? I've seen that before also, usually it was because it didn't like that resolution (to low)

 

[xtknight]

It's just the compression artifacts that the LCD is making apparent because it's so sharp. CRTs blend the pixels in a Gaussian pattern so they cover up blemishes like that.

Plus, to perfectly calibrate it, you'd need a sensor. Adobe Gamma is just a rough approximation and each channel is still linearly adjusted. You could (with gamma) lower the dark gray level on the LCD to a deeper blackish gray and that might eliminate the problem. You could also enable a higher level of postprocessing/deblocking in your DVD decoder's options.

 

[Flavcool]

Originally posted by: xtknight
It's just the compression artifacts that the LCD is making apparent because it's so sharp. CRTs blend the pixels in a Gaussian pattern so they cover up blemishes like that.

Plus, to perfectly calibrate it, you'd need a sensor. Adobe Gamma is just a rough approximation and each channel is still linearly adjusted. You could (with gamma) lower the dark gray level on the LCD to a deeper blackish gray and that might eliminate the problem. You could also enable a higher level of postprocessing/deblocking in your DVD decoder's options.

Hmm, yea I was thinking maybe it's just sharper...I was using adobe gamma to get each color in the right range but then i brought contrast in balance w/ the brightness decrease by testing w/ the brightness test patter on the AVIA pro dvd. (It's 2 almost black bars, you're supposed to make it so that only one bar is visible)

If I reduce gamma, then the bar (and thus other dark details) become lost but the problem does go away...

Resolution of the screen is 1920x1200.