off topic- lcd or crt?

[sidewaysup]

Hi all, sorry this is off topic, but I value your opinions. I am currently using a 15" older crt. Time to upgrade to a larger monitor. My main concern is what will be best for my eyes, and be graphic/color friendly.
I have read lcd's are better for eye-strain, but may not show colors as well as good crt's.
Anyone find this true?
The lcd's I have used seemed harder on my eyes than my old 15", though they have been notebooks.

What have you guys experienced?
Thanks

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pu...sp?id_=1690997

[sidewaysup]

Hi all, sorry this is off topic, but I value your opinions. I am currently using a 15" older crt. Time to upgrade to a larger monitor. My main concern is what will be best for my eyes, and be graphic/color friendly.
I have read lcd's are better for eye-strain, but may not show colors as well as good crt's.
Anyone find this true?
The lcd's I have used seemed harder on my eyes than my old 15", though they have been notebooks.

What have you guys experienced?
Thanks

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pu...sp?id_=1690997

[dk_art]

wow ... I havent been in this board for a while http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Anyway, a while back (more than a year) I had bought a 19" CRT monitor. It was pretty good but after a while my eyes were really starting to annoy me (kindof dry gritty sensitive feeling). I read all the info on eye strain, monitor refresh rates and blah blah blah. Nothing helped.

I decided I was going to get an LCD and in my opinion it is far better on my eyes than the CRT was.

Anyway, I do notice on gradient fills faint banding. Basically an LCD has fewer colours (or have they improved in the last year or more) and does some dithering to compensate. The banding on mine (NEC multisync 1530 LCD 15") is more noticable in the darker areas of a gradient fill and then it seems to get dark too quickly at a certain area and doesn't look as smooth. I notice this same effect in any gradient colour palette in programs.

Really if you can, I would say a flat screen CRT is the best for image quality. I have been thinking of getting a CRT but still using the LCD for most things (and the majority of the time) but do shorter amounts of work on the CRT for seeing a better rendition of the colours.

David K ... www.dkingdesign.com http://www.dkingdesign.com/stuff/signature.jpg

[gwpriester]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Basically an LCD has fewer colours (or have they improved in the last year or more) and does some dithering to compensate. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't think there is any difference. Both CRT and LCD monitors can display 24-bit or 32-bit color.

My DELL 17" monitor is every bit as good as any CRT monitor and much easier on the eyeballs as there is no flicker at all. The colors are incredibly clean and I am not aware of any banding of colors.

As the prices of flat panel LCD displays have become affordable, I would definitely go that route. If for nothing more than the saving in space on your desktop.

DELL is now offering an 18" monitor for around $500 US which is what I paid for my 17" a year ago. And unlike a CRT in which all the screen is not used, with a flat panel monitor every square inch of the display is used.

Gary

Gary Priester

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[RAMWolff44]

I got my monitor upgrade just last night. My older Gateway V900T 19" (18" viewable) is now the property of my room mate and I got a ViewSonic G810-2 20" viewable screen for $400.00 from a friend that bought it and then upgraded 2 months later to a flat panel. He is a reputable architect in the SF Bay Area, where I live.

I am more than a little impressed but I do notice with the extra realastate that my eyes are bit more sensitive. Refresh rate is at 85Htz and so I ended up setting the brightness down about 20 pts and that was just about right for me. At night is when I really notice it. I like the screen, it's a glare free screen and compared to my old monitor it is a dream come true.

So there are good things and bad things about a CRT and LCD. I too have heard other graphics artists that have an LCD screen complain about redraw issues and some color stuff but that was over a year ago. I'm sure the technology is much better by now!!

Good luck to you! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Richard http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

---Wolff On The Prowl---

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com/

[dk_art]

"The colors are incredibly clean and I am not aware of any banding of colors."
------------------------


Perhaps your monitor is better than mine but I'd like to know what you see if you do a large gradient filled rectangle with shades ranging from white to black at the opposite ends. Do you notice any banding in the darker areas and also a point almost at the black area where it seems to suddenly all be black.



Anyway, in regards to the original questioner, I would suggest making sure you inspect a large (full screen if possible) gradient fill going from white to black and see if there is any banding in the darker tonal areas and if there is a sudden area that is all black instead of showing a smooth transition.

Of course , in many images this sort of thing would not be noticable especially if you don't use dark tones a lot.

Here's a page which has a couple points describing my particular LCD monitor's problems (namely #4 and 6) ... (maybe this is a couple years old )

http://www.displaymate.com/lcds.html


However I have read that at least a couple years ago many (or most) LCD monitors had fewer colours and other tonal issue (like mine does).

Perhaps most are better now but I'd still make sure I checked a gradient fill before buying one for graphics use.

David K ... www.dkingdesign.com http://www.dkingdesign.com/stuff/signature.jpg

[Soquili]

Hi Sidewaysup,

I bought an LCD monitor last week and I've noticed a lot less eye strain. As Gary mentioned there is no flicker, and the colours are very rich. I just tried David's suggestion of using a large rectangle with a linear fill and it shows up very smooth, no banding.

I highly recommend going with an LCD monitor. They are becoming very affordable, mine cost $388.00 USD at Wal-Mart http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Soquili

[RAMWolff44]

http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

I was curious, Soquili, about the size of the screen you are working from. That wasn't mentioned and the price is a very good price.

It's the wave of the future, for sure, in fact here is an article I read this morning about the future of computers:

http://informationweek.com/story/IWK20030404S0003

It's 8 pages long but it's worth the read. Very interesting stuff. Personally I will look more seriously at a flat screen monitor in a couple of years from now when the technology mentioned in the article has worked it's way down into the home and small business users arena. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Richard http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

---Wolff On The Prowl---

http://www.ramwolffsworld.com/

[Khazi]

I've been using a couple of Iiyama 510 Pro 22" CRTs for a couple of years now at home (and have a similar set up at work). They are superb monitors (I work at a resolution of 1280 x 1024, 32 bit colour & 85 Hz refresh rate).

However, we are slowly taking delivery of more & more LCD screens at work (air traffic control), and I am very impressed. So much so, I am investing in two Iiyama 19" LCD monitors for myself.

My current big issue is with weight and available space, as the CRTs weigh a ton and have a huge footprint.

I gather that even with the larger LCDs (unless you spend a fortune) the colour is restricted to 24 bit (16 odd million colours). The redraw is marginally slower, but they're small prices to pay for the gain in desk space. With a new Matrox Parhelia 256 Mb video card and DVI connections, I'm looking forward to a whole new experience!!



Chris

[dk_art]

"NO banding on my monitor http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif "
-------------------

And I suppose you don't have any "stuck" pixels either ... I have 1! (could be worse, some people get many on a screen and some warrantees only replace a monitor if over a certain number per square inch .. LOL )


Well I checked the info on my monitor (NEC Multisync LCD1530V which I think was first released in 2000) and it says

"16 194 277 colours with dithering"

... so I imagine (and backed up by other things I've read) that my monitor simulates 24 bit colour but is actually somewhere between 16 bit and 24 bit.

The banding is very faint and most apparent in darker tones but I did spend an hour and a half calibrating my colours (using the monitor controls and the gamma and red, green blue controls on my graphics card) last night have improved my dark tones so at least they don't go black a bit before they should (noticable in a gradient or color pickers). I still have faint thin banding in pure gradient tones but normal images aren't affected visually.

I found a great spot for visual tests including these two pages used to help calibrate the white point and black point of a monitor.

http://www.scarse.org/adjust/black.html

http://www.scarse.org/adjust/white.html


Sorry for getting off topic here. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

David K ... www.dkingdesign.com http://www.dkingdesign.com/stuff/signature.jpg