Samsung 226BW 22": 3000:1 Contrast, 2ms response time

gunner1 said:
A certain amount of variation in brightness/saturation due to viewing angle issues with TN type panels is to be expected, but this is usually expressed as slight brightness differences in the top and bottom of the screen, not the variety of problems you describe.
Click to expand...

Even slight viewing angle changes can create noticeable differences in picture quality. My chair reclines so every time I lean back the picture starts to darken. Titan Quest looks absolutely terrible on this monitor at stock settings. Even if the settings are adjusted, the picture quality still varies too much from viewing angle changes. There appears to be no 'middle ground' where viewing angles within a certain angle all look the same. Basically low angles are dark, high angles are light and everything in between is a gradual progress from one extreme to the other.

For the money, a terrible monitor. I'm sure the 2ms is a marketing gimmick as well.

Rob
 
When I'm watching widescreen format dvd's on the standard 1680x1050 resolution, how wide should I expect the bars on the top and bottom to be? I'm getting around two inches I believe off the top and then another two off the bottom, this is just a little more than I was expecting really, but is it normal?
 
Fading Phoenix said:
When I'm watching widescreen format dvd's on the standard 1680x1050 resolution, how wide should I expect the bars on the top and bottom to be? I'm getting around two inches I believe off the top and then another two off the bottom, this is just a little more than I was expecting really, but is it normal?
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Yes, that is normal. You'll see it most in movies in 2.35:1 format.

Check out this webpage: http://www.tvcalculator.com/. It should give you an idea of what the screen should look like with different source image formats.
 
Okay thanks. I was expecting it to be more like halfway between that and the 1.85:1 actually, but I can live nonetheless. ;)
 
UGH. Could someone summarize these 77 pages for me, Pls? thaanks:) I was about the pull the trigger, but reading 77 pages.... crikey!

A versus S
how to check the service menu
any real issues
 
RobG said:
Even slight viewing angle changes can create noticeable differences in picture quality. My chair reclines so every time I lean back the picture starts to darken. Titan Quest looks absolutely terrible on this monitor at stock settings. Even if the settings are adjusted, the picture quality still varies too much from viewing angle changes. There appears to be no 'middle ground' where viewing angles within a certain angle all look the same. Basically low angles are dark, high angles are light and everything in between is a gradual progress from one extreme to the other.

For the money, a terrible monitor. I'm sure the 2ms is a marketing gimmick as well.

Rob
Click to expand...

You are entitled to your opinion. I don't think you can do any better for $300'ish though.
 
gunner1 said:
You are entitled to your opinion. I don't think you can do any better for $300'ish though.
Click to expand...

Sadly, I think you are right about that. The 24" lcd's are considerably more money and I don't feel like spending that much. I will stick with my 2185fpw and although it isn't perfect either, I think it's still much better than the 226BW.

Rob
 
ego42 said:
Nevetheless I'm quite sure that _some_ resolutions are displayed windowboxed on my 226BW, however I have yet to check this again when I get home. Whether it is the case of 1280x800 I do not know.
Click to expand...

I checked now with the following result: On my setup (Radeon 9800SE, latest Omega Drivers) 1280*800 does get stretched, however 1440*900, 1360*1024 (4:3!), 1360*850 and 1360*768 are 1:1 pixel mapped with black borders all around. Can't see any pattern in that though ;)
 
ego42 said:
:rolleyes:
Do some thinking and try to find out yourself why the ability to distinguish pure black (RGB 0,0,0) from very dark gray (RGB 5,5,5 for instance) is actually a good thing and why gray letterboxing on DVDs is actually the fault of anything but the display device. View the Contrast test at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ on your old and your new LCD and see for yourself how much of the grays your old LCD was actually hiding from you..

It is pitiful how often people blame their displays for showing deficiencies caused by other parts of the video-chain such as first and foremost the video source (crappy DVD).
Click to expand...
I did as you suggested, and rolling your eyes didn't seem to help prove your point, though the part about me being pitiful did hurt my feelings a bit :).

Turns out my old cheapo LCD actually displayed the contrast test beautifully, showing all the levels distinctly. (I thought it did so well, if you want a picture to prove it I'll post one at your request.) As mentioned in the site notes, on an ideal monitor all the squares should be distinguishable, even the first row. My old cheapo monitor did a great job showing them. Now, unless I'm misinterpreting the test, I think that shows that my old LCD was not hiding shades of gray from me. So, if the old monitor was not defective, does that mean the Samsung was?

I believe this means my Samsung 226bw A panel was somehow not adequately displaying the same shades of gray as my old monitor. Unfortunately, the A panel is already with UPS waiting to be shipped back, so I can't run any more tests on it. But a replacement should be coming soon, so I'll post back on those results.
 
Ok, here is what Titan Quest looks like:

The colour settings have been tweaked, otherwise yellow looks like the second picture. The first picture is almost straight on view. The second picture is looking *slightly* down. You can see how drastic the colour shift is and how poor it looks.
While the camera can affect how the actual image looks, it still is a very good representation of what I see when playing titan quest. So if I lean back in my chair I see pic1, if I sit up I see pic2. As I said already, picture 2 is (almost) how titan quest looks
with the stock monitor settings. I'm not impressed!




 
ego42 said:
I checked now with the following result: On my setup (Radeon 9800SE, latest Omega Drivers) 1280*800 does get stretched, however 1440*900, 1360*1024 (4:3!), 1360*850 and 1360*768 are 1:1 pixel mapped with black borders all around. Can't see any pattern in that though ;)
Click to expand...


is other program then POWER STRIP to add MORE RESOLUTIONS i want at least 1280x800 or 1440x900 i got 1280x960 and 1600x900 but i have a 6600GT nvidia si i am limited

tyvm:cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:
 
I got more money today for my birthday back on the 13th so I think ill get the 226BW from my circuitcity. They had a S panel on display so i hope they have more S panels.


How tall is the monitor? from the desk to the bottom of the LCD.
 
RobG said:
Ok, here is what Titan Quest looks like:

The colour settings have been tweaked, otherwise yellow looks like the second picture. The first picture is almost straight on view. The second picture is looking *slightly* down. You can see how drastic the colour shift is and how poor it looks.
While the camera can affect how the actual image looks, it still is a very good representation of what I see when playing titan quest. So if I lean back in my chair I see pic1, if I sit up I see pic2. As I said already, picture 2 is (almost) how titan quest looks
with the stock monitor settings. I'm not impressed!




Click to expand...

Use the Spyder2 profile posted earlier in this thread with brightness / constrast at 72.

The image quality / colors are fantastic on this monitor using that profile.

226bwix1.jpg
 
gunner1 said:
OK, you could try running the monitor from another computer and see if you get the same results. Have you turned off all of the special processing in the monitor (dynamic contrast, etc) as those will affect things. I would recommend using "custom" mode which has those things turned off.

A certain amount of variation in brightness/saturation due to viewing angle issues with TN type panels is to be expected, but this is usually expressed as slight brightness differences in the top and bottom of the screen, not the variety of problems you describe.
Click to expand...


I'm still getting the same problem with other computer... the black text on a white background has a weird slight green halo that makes everything look mis-registered. Has anyone noticed this problem??? I don't know if the problem is with my A panel... I'm going to try to find an S panel running to compare.
 
RobG said:
Ok, here is what Titan Quest looks like:

The colour settings have been tweaked, otherwise yellow looks like the second picture. The first picture is almost straight on view. The second picture is looking *slightly* down. You can see how drastic the colour shift is and how poor it looks.
While the camera can affect how the actual image looks, it still is a very good representation of what I see when playing titan quest. So if I lean back in my chair I see pic1, if I sit up I see pic2. As I said already, picture 2 is (almost) how titan quest looks
with the stock monitor settings. I'm not impressed!
Click to expand...

The stock settings are crap, no point in proving that time and again. The viewing angle dependent coulour shift is a real problem though, but it will hardly be better with any TN panel.
 
dch693 said:
I did as you suggested, and rolling your eyes didn't seem to help prove your point, though the part about me being pitiful did hurt my feelings a bit :).

Turns out my old cheapo LCD actually displayed the contrast test beautifully, showing all the levels distinctly. (I thought it did so well, if you want a picture to prove it I'll post one at your request.) As mentioned in the site notes, on an ideal monitor all the squares should be distinguishable, even the first row. My old cheapo monitor did a great job showing them. Now, unless I'm misinterpreting the test, I think that shows that my old LCD was not hiding shades of gray from me. So, if the old monitor was not defective, does that mean the Samsung was?

I believe this means my Samsung 226bw A panel was somehow not adequately displaying the same shades of gray as my old monitor. Unfortunately, the A panel is already with UPS waiting to be shipped back, so I can't run any more tests on it. But a replacement should be coming soon, so I'll post back on those results.
Click to expand...

OK, could you please explain again what was your probem with DVD playback on the 226BW? I'm not sure now what you meant by this:
dch693 said:
On my A panel, when playing back a DVD movie you could see where the black bars cut off and where the panel was trying to show black. On my Hanns-G it was pure black, on my A panel it was dark grey.
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What part of the screen was black, what part was grey? Are you referring to the difference between the DVD mattes and the rest of the screen or what is your point exactly?
 
ego42 said:
OK, could you please explain again what was your probem with DVD playback on the 226BW? I'm not sure now what you meant by this:

What part of the screen was black, what part was grey? Are you referring to the difference between the DVD mattes and the rest of the screen or what is your point exactly?
Click to expand...
OK, I'll try to explain better. When playing a widescreen DVD, there are obviously going to be black bars on the top and bottom of the DVD image. However, on my 226bw, there was also apparently a region of dark gray around the DVD image. So I would see (horizontally from top to bottom) black bar, gray bar, DVD image, gray bar, black bar. I'd never seen that on any screen before whether it was a CRT or LCD. I, too, initially thought the 226bw was perhaps showing me more than other screens. This happened on all my DVDs. That wasn't the worst of it. DVD playback was pixelated. It was most apparent in dark areas where you'd see "pixel swim", kind of a sparkly effect. Again, I'd never seen that before on any other screen.

Once I switched back to my 19", I could see none of those problems.
 
RobG said:
For the money, a terrible monitor. I'm sure the 2ms is a marketing gimmick as well.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I agree with that. 2ms might be true, but the rest of the monitor is disappointing. My enthusiasm over how big the monitor is fades away as I get used to it. What's left is a disdain for how bad the colors look and how much the image changes as I move my head around.

Even if I don't move my head around, the top is always darker than bottom no matter from what angle I look.

You might say all TN panels are like this, but it's not true. I have never seen this level of variation depending on angles on any monitor. You might say it's good enough for a 300$ monitor, but that's not right either. We had no idea about these problems before we bought it. Samsung advertises it as a perfect monitor. No product has a right to be this bad no matter how cheap it is,unless the weaknesses are admitted openly by the manifacturer.

For what it's worth, to anyone who is still contemplating about whether to buy this monitor, I don't recommend it.
 
dch693 said:
OK, I'll try to explain better. When playing a widescreen DVD, there are obviously going to be black bars on the top and bottom of the DVD image. However, on my 226bw, there was also apparently a region of dark gray around the DVD image. So I would see (horizontally from top to bottom) black bar, gray bar, DVD image, gray bar, black bar. I'd never seen that on any screen before whether it was a CRT or LCD. I, too, initially thought the 226bw was perhaps showing me more than other screens. This happened on all my DVDs. That wasn't the worst of it.
Click to expand...

OK, so I got it right the first time after all ;) If you think about it you realize that the gray bars (it's the "black" matte in the DVD MPEG2 stream padding the image to 16:9 aspect ratio) are not created by the display device but that they appear already when decoding the MPEG2 stream. There's simply no way the display device could show these bars as brighter than the rest of the screen when in fact they would be pure black (RGB 0,0,0) which means that they actually are not pure black, which may be attributable either to the DVD source or your graphics card, but definitely not the LCD. You would see these bars on most other displays (both LCD and CRT) if you turned up the brightness high enough and maybe lowered the contrast a little. That's why I'm saying it's not the Samsung's fault because it simply provides you with more shadow detail (in photographic terms). Now you may enjoy the detail in some cases (such as games), and if it annoys you, you can simply make the gray bars black by lowering the monitor's brightness and setting gamma correction (and of course lose the shadow details). Generally, what you're saying only shows that the factory defaults on the 226BW are set too high and the monitor is initially too bright, but it's easy to correct that and it's something that should be done with any monitor after all. Try this http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1030893629&postcount=1393 when you get yor replacement, chances are you will be much happier with your panel after that (just like quite a few other ppl on this forum).

dch693 said:
DVD playback was pixelated. It was most apparent in dark areas where you'd see "pixel swim", kind of a sparkly effect. Again, I'd never seen that before on any other screen.
Click to expand...
The "pixel swim" is a known problem caused by dithering (TN panels have only 6 bit colour resolution to display 8 bits of colours so dithering is used). Truth is that it is mostly (if not only) owners of A panels that complain about this so it seems safe to assume that this is one of the areas where A panels really are worse than S panels. And again, it is probably exaggerated by the default brightness of the panel, I'm quite sure that when you apply the setting above this problem will diminish.
 
7331 said:
What's left is a disdain for how bad the colors look and how much the image changes as I move my head around.

Even if I don't move my head around, the top is always darker than bottom no matter from what angle I look.

You might say all TN panels are like this, but it's not true. I have never seen this level of variation depending on angles on any monitor.
Click to expand...
With regard to the color, have you tried calibrating it? You need to if you want accurate colors. As for the viewing angle thing, yes, all TN panels are like this. Our monitors at work are like this, my laptop is like this, my sister's monitor is like this, etc. I think the reason the level of variation appears greater is because the monitor itself is bigger. The larger size makes the viewing angle issue more noticeable. It's no worse than any other TN panel.
 
svgtom said:
With regard to the color, have you tried calibrating it? You need to if you want accurate colors. As for the viewing angle thing, yes, all TN panels are like this. Our monitors at work are like this, my laptop is like this, my sister's monitor is like this, etc. I think the reason the level of variation appears greater is because the monitor itself is bigger. The larger size makes the viewing angle issue more noticeable. It's no worse than any other TN panel.
Click to expand...

I believe that he has used calibration settings provided from other reviews, etc, of the display and still has not been satisfied with the performance.

Honestly, if this panel looks that bad to someone they should get rid of it. Suck it up and spend $600 to get a 20" IPS panel or get a slightly better performing TFT panel for a similar price increase.

It's going to be another few years before we see CRT like performance and pricing out of large widescreen displays.
 
ego42 said:
That's why I'm saying it's not the Samsung's fault because it simply provides you with more shadow detail (in photographic terms). Now you may enjoy the detail in some cases (such as games), and if it annoys you, you can simply make the gray bars black by lowering the monitor's brightness and setting gamma correction (and of course lose the shadow details). Generally, what you're saying only shows that the factory defaults on the 226BW are set too high and the monitor is initially too bright, but it's easy to correct that and it's something that should be done with any monitor after all. Try this http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1030893629&postcount=1393 when you get yor replacement, chances are you will be much happier with your panel after that (just like quite a few other ppl on this forum).
Click to expand...
I actually did try those settings already, as well as the other suggestions in the post. At one point, I lowered the brightness to between 0 and 25. Please believe me when I say that I tried to fool with the settings for a few HOURS each of the six days I had this monitor. I really wanted it to work and not to have to return it. I tried every combination of brightness, contrast and gamma adjustment I could find. I did it both on the monitor and using the videocard settings. I still had the gray bars. However, I don't want to give the impression that the gray bars were that much of an issue. I felt it was a manifestation of a problem in comparison to all my other displays, but it wasn't the biggest issue. The pixel swim thing was the most annoying. Now I really wish I had taken pictures of my screen before I returned it. I do still believe there was a problem with the display and if I had to guess as to the issue, I'd say the default gamma and brightness of the monitor was just too high. Lowering the adjustments on the monitor and videocard settings could only minimize the problem, but not fix it. At this point, the discussion might be academic if my replacement does not have these issues. We'll find out soon enough and I will be sure to post back on what I find.
ego42 said:
The "pixel swim" is a known problem caused by dithering (TN panels have only 6 bit colour resolution to display 8 bits of colours so dithering is used). Truth is that it is mostly (if not only) owners of A panels that complain about this so it seems safe to assume that this is one of the areas where A panels really are worse than S panels. And again, it is probably exaggerated by the default brightness of the panel, I'm quite sure that when you apply the setting above this problem will diminish.
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You might be right. I couldn't eliminate the pixel swim even when lowering the brightness to 0.

Thanks ego42 for the suggestions. I will let you know if my replacement has the same display characteristics.
 
I know what gray bars you're talking about. I get the same thing when I'm watching videos filmed in 2.35:1 aspect ratio, which I had kind of asked about earlier. I basically already tried what Ego42 mentioned though. With me it was just a combination of lowering the contrast and the gamma just a tiny bit on my video card and now if I'm looking at it head on I can hardly notice the difference. Unfortunately, because of the viewing angles, if I lift my head up too high, the gray becomes noticeable again.
 
Fading Phoenix said:
I know what gray bars you're talking about. I get the same thing when I'm watching videos filmed in 2.35:1 aspect ratio, which I had kind of asked about earlier. I basically already tried what Ego42 mentioned though. With me it was just a combination of lowering the contrast and the gamma just a tiny bit on my video card and now if I'm looking at it head on I can hardly notice the difference. Unfortunately, because of the viewing angles, if I lift my head up too high, the gray becomes noticeable again.
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Fading Phoenix, do you have an A, S or C panel? Wondering if Ego42 is right and this is mostly an A panel thing. Thanks.
 
Dark_Legacy said:
Use the Spyder2 profile posted earlier in this thread with brightness / constrast at 72.

The image quality / colors are fantastic on this monitor using that profile.

226bwix1.jpg
Click to expand...

HI the 2 ? are at 72 ? brigt.........and contrast ? did you touch the color ?if no ..... at what setting are you in the 7 pre-defined?

tyvm

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
RobG said:
Ok, here is what Titan Quest looks like:

The colour settings have been tweaked, otherwise yellow looks like the second picture. The first picture is almost straight on view. The second picture is looking *slightly* down. You can see how drastic the colour shift is and how poor it looks.
While the camera can affect how the actual image looks, it still is a very good representation of what I see when playing titan quest. So if I lean back in my chair I see pic1, if I sit up I see pic2. As I said already, picture 2 is (almost) how titan quest looks
with the stock monitor settings. I'm not impressed!




Click to expand...

I don't think applying the Spyder2 like stated above, will help, for video games, as they won't be applied to them. But when I turned my gamma down to 0.8, like ego42 said earlier, with my video card drivers, for example, Age Of Empires looked MUCH better. Which also looked REALLY bad imo without changing the gamma. Though, it's not being applied to all games for some reason (the Full screen 3D setting in the catalyst control center)...
 
everybody talks about colors and gama etccccccccc

if you can read french or have a translator program that site said 226BW SAMSUNG is the BEST 22'' LCD around they test almost 14 or more ...... 5/5 stars(only samsung)

and at INTERNET SETTINGS they say with lab testing all is almost perfect(colors...... gama etc ) just may be lower the brighness ( for personnal preference)

http://www.lesnumeriques.com/article-312-1708-36.html


cyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

they test almost 14 and more http://www.lesnumeriques.com/article-312.html
 
another thing if you put the monitor and level eyes in center of the screen you will have less problem for the difference in more dark in up of the screen than in the bottom

i can not do it because of my desk but for those can......... give me a feedback


cyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa:cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:
 
dch693 said:
Fading Phoenix, do you have an A, S or C panel? Wondering if Ego42 is right and this is mostly an A panel thing. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I have an S panel, luckily :) So I guess it's not only an A panel thing, like I said though I've made it so it's not even noticeable anymore except from certain angles, so maybe the S panel just has a wider range of capabilities to be able to fix this? I dunno.
 
Dark_Legacy said:
Use the Spyder2 profile posted earlier in this thread with brightness / constrast at 72.

The image quality / colors are fantastic on this monitor using that profile.

226bwix1.jpg
Click to expand...

I have used that profile and it helped with the colours, but the real problem lies in the colour shifting. As another person said, every time you move your head the colour instensity shifts and this is my #1 complaint. Even my cheap (Lenovo L191) 19" (4:3) LCD at work is far better and I think that's a TN panel as well. I downloaded a Titan Quest screenshot and held my 19" monitor in front of me at different angles and the colour was always good, never shifting drastically in saturation like the 226BW does.

Honestly, I really wanted to like this monitor, but the viewing angle is poor and no amount of tweaking can fix that. :(

Rob
 
Fading Phoenix said:
I have an S panel, luckily :) So I guess it's not only an A panel thing, like I said though I've made it so it's not even noticeable anymore except from certain angles, so maybe the S panel just has a wider range of capabilities to be able to fix this? I dunno.
Click to expand...
My mistake, actually ego42 said that perhaps the pixel swim issue is more of an A panel thing. Do you see pixel swim on your S panel when watching dark scenes in DVD movies?

Can I ask what video card you have? I have an nVidia GeForce 6600.
 
No I don't have any problems with that. I was going to say that I noticed it a little with extreme whites actually, but it doesn't seem to happen anymore. I'm assuming that it might have just been caused by the brightness being too high. Anyway, the blacks seem fine to me in movies. I'm not sure what card I'm using right now though. My computer listed in the signature is down for now, so I"m borrowing an old hp from home. I think it's a geforce 5700? or something else like that. I think this monitor looks great now though, so I can't wait to see it hooked up to my computer once it's running again.
 
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