PS3 on monitors

[Gradthrawn]

Thanks for those links. A 19" 906BW would probably be ideal. However, what is ithat in Eurospeak?! They don't have a 906BW at Samsung's UK page. Nor a 206BW. There's a SM940BW which is 19", but 4ms response. I can't find a 906BW on any stores either. Is that monitor even avilable over here yet? Or are they pulling the typical 'let's release it 6 months later to Europe because they're Europeans and we hate them' maneouvre?

Please forgive my American ignorance with products. I forgot companies gives you guys the shaft over there many a times. I take it the biggest issue would be the power supply (and the fee for ordering from an American site). I can't find the equivalent on the UK site. In fact, judging by the display designs on that site, they're pulling the 6 - 12 months later thing on you guys. I can't ascertain if the NA displays have universal power supply, unfortunately.

EDIT

Ah ha! Turkey! They have equivalent models (I think). Well, the 206BW and the 226BW, that is, no 906. Sorry.

EDIT 2

Italy! They seem to have a 906BW equivalent, the 961BW.


Of course, I'm making an incredibly large assumption that the power supplies are all the same...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Basically, it's just a mess! Germany have the same monitor as a 931BW it seems. The UK hasn't anything of the sort. The only widescreen monitor seems to be the 940BW. I'll enquire at Samsung, but I guess they just haven't bothered to launch here. Considering they make twice as much money from us as from the US, it's mind-boggling why they always leave us last!

 

[Arwin]

You can definitely get the 226BW here, that I am sure of. But do consider the 225BW, you should be able to get it for a good prize, and believe you me, for the PS3 this is just the right size.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Nope, you're not going to talk me into going 22"! I currently have a 15" monitor and this purchase is primarily as a PC replacement part. Heck, it might be years before I get a PS3, what with beinga laggard and all! 22" is too large an area at my viewing distance for PC work. However, 19" widescreen is a nice size, and it turns out the 931BW is available, £149 from Komplett. Might well go for it.

 

[ban25]

I have three 22" Dells at work at 1680x1050...works out great.

 

[Skrying]

Shifty I would highly recommend against getting one of the really cheap 19" monitors. They are of very (very...) bad quality. These use TN panels but the real downer is not that but rather the dithering they use. For instance I have a 19" widescreen to my left, in front of me is a 22" (brands are pointless, they generally all use the same popular panel). The 19" is horrible however in use. For example, enabling ClearType (font smoothing) on the 19" results in green text instead of black. On the 22" (a TN panel also) this effect does not occur because its dithering is of a much higher quality. I've seen at least 9 models now of the 19" widescreen variety and they all have this issue. Not only this but the colors are far worse, its simply low quality.

Seriously, put forth the little extra money and you'll be much happier. Seriously, I can't imagine using a 15" and I think you'll truly enjoy what a much larger monitor can offer. You don't have to be as far away as you're hinting at.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Shifty I would highly recommend against getting one of the really cheap 19" monitors. They are of very (very...) bad quality. These use TN panels but the real downer is not that but rather the dithering they use.

I noticed something about that in a review. What doesn't use TN though? Are the 20/22" Sammy's not? I assumed they were using the same screens. Can you recommend any non TN monitors with HDCP?

 

[Skrying]

I noticed something about that in a review. What doesn't use TN though? Are the 20/22" Sammy's not? I assumed they were using the same screens. Can you recommend any non TN monitors with HDCP?

TN is certainly the most common, its cheap but this is not to say it can not be good quality. My own 22" (and the Sammy's) are TN and I think they look awesome! They simply have good dithering though and that makes a world of difference. The Sammy's use Samsung's own panel which is quality, I would say they are generally a safe bet. As far as non TN monitors with HDCP... they're expensive to say the least generally. 24" screens are IPS which is very high quality but very expensive. There might be a few xVA panels out there but I actually dislike these more than TN, while they are 8-bit they tend to suffer from ghosting a bit more (these panels when I did a lot of research used "overdrive" for response times, which created a delay) and also if not viewed straight on tend to get a slight purple hue which just out right annoys me to be honest.

I'd recommend checking out the 20" Samsung and the 22" if you're willing to spend a bit more, I recently saw that they launched a 21.6" that falls in between those two in price also, not sure if its available everywhere yet though.

 

[Arwin]

I'm 100% certain that the Samsung 225BW (and up) is 8 bit per color though ...

 

[Skrying]

I'm 100% certain that the Samsung 225BW (and up) is 8 bit per color though ...

Nope, all 22" monitors currently on the retail market are 6-bit TN panels. The reason why you're semi fooled is because they use rather high quality dithering process. TFT Central is a good place to check out the panel used in a monitor, you can use their search and its fairly decent. For instance, on the Samsung 226BW you'd need to just type in 226BW, I had no luck including brand name. You'll quickly see however that indeed it is a TN panel, also its response time and who provides the panel(s) to the monitor. Just for note there are no TN panels that are 8-bit, all are 6-bit.

Again, I'm going to reinforce with my opinion that going to a 8-bit panel is not a "must" and for me personally far from it. A good quality TN is great to me visually, I love my Gateway 22" for a number of reasons. Image quality, inputs (component, composite, S-video, DVI, VGA) and it has HDCP for the future. I paid a pretty penny for it at around $350 USD, but this particular monitor includes inputs I couldn't find on others and a must have feature for me (Picture-in-Picture). But at this point in time you can find much cheaper 22" monitors that use the same panel as the Gateway but with less variety in input and features.

 

[Arwin]

If you say so, but Samsung themselves say they are 8 bit per color.

 

[Skrying]

If you say so, but Samsung themselves say they are 8 bit per color.

Do they, or do they list 16.7M colors? This is commonly done when dithering is used.

 

[Arwin]

Do they, or do they list 16.7M colors? This is commonly done when dithering is used.

Well, in the manual it says:

Display Color
8 bit color (16.7 M)

Of course, you could still be right. Would someone like me to do some kind of test? I just tried a gradient from yellow to orange in Gimp 2, and I can't see any color banding. But I reckon that may point to dithering as much as anything else. If I were to bet I'd say possibly dithering, but it's too hard to tell for me.

 

[Colourless]

6 Bit panals are usually listed at having 16.2 Million colours. If they are stating 16.7 Million colours then it's an 8 Bit panal. At least that is true for Samsung. Other manufactures may not follow that convention.

 

[Skrying]

6 Bit panals are usually listed at having 16.2 Million colours. If they are stating 16.7 Million colours then it's an 8 Bit panal. At least that is true for Samsung. Other manufactures may not follow that convention.

For the last time, the 22" Samsung are NOT 8-bit panels. They use TN and there are NO TN panels available that are 8-bit. Look at Newegg and then check out the various manufacturers sites and see what they list for the same panel. Its different, why? Because companies can get away with that crap. Read many forums dedicated to LCD monitors or monitors in general and you'll find it quickly confirmed that the Samsungs are 6-bit panels for the 22" models.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think Samsung have changed their policy. They used to list monitors as 16.2 million colours, which I took to mean TN/dithered colour. They currently list the 931/206 etc. as 16.7 million colours. However they're not 8 bit, as this comparison I found states...

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/19inch-6.html

Regrettably, all 19â€￾ widescreen monitors are based on TN matrixes as opposed to models with larger diagonals among which you can see *VA and S-IPS matrixes as well.

Now I just need to find out what TN means

 

[Skrying]

I think Samsung have changed their policy. They used to list monitors as 16.2 million colours, which I took to mean TN/dithered colour. They currently list the 931/206 etc. as 16.7 million colours. However they're not 8 bit, as this comparison I found states...

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/19inch-6.html

Now I just need to find out what TN means

This post on HardForums will give you an idea of some of the advantages and disadvantages of the different technologies used in the panels. I'd suggest not reading further in that particular thread, it will give you a headache. You'll probably be able to do a bit more research from there.

 

[Arwin]

Doesn't say much about 6/8 bit though. I remember the whole 6bit discussion from a few years back though, and they were on the way out back then. I'd be really surprised if it is true that all TN panels are still 6 bit at this point in time, to be honest. You may be right, but I'd need some more proof and information to be sure.

 

[KOF]

The PS2 linux VGA adapter will work if your monitor supports Sync on Green. There's a database for tested monitors:
http://playstation2-linux.com/sog.php

Though you'll probably find the answers you're looking for if you google your monitor model number and "sync on green". Of course, that's just the first hurdle, it's got to handle a 720p/1080p signal properly and hopefully allow 1:1 pixel mapping so it doesn't get stretched if you have a 4:3 or 5:4 monitor.

There are aftermarket adapters too, like HDFury which is theoretically the best solution by transcoding HDMI to VGA. It's basically a HDCP stripper, but it's very expensive, as are component to vga transcoders for that matter (but around 1/2 the price of a HDFury).

Even if my monitor supports SOG, (which it does) would the Linux VGA adaptor work with games? I've heard it only works with Linux, not games.

 

[Mmmkay]

It should do, it only pin converts Component to VGA. It doesn't receive a different signal from the PS2 or alter the characteristics of the signal in any way. Just have your PS3 set up to output Component and it should be okay. In theory.