A fresh look at an old favorite: my new NEC LCD2490WUXI SV

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Snowdog

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Well I finally realized for someone wanting an IPS sRGB monitor, there was practically no choice. You have have to pay the high price for the NEC 2490WUXi. Hopefully we will have turned the corner (to OLED?) when my 4 year warranty expires. The future trend is more TN(but is that a bad thing), more Glossy, and more wide gamut. There is a hefty price for this monitor. Is it worth it?

After three weeks of waiting, this beat up box finally arrives and I proceed to find out:
boxee8.jpg



First the Cons. No monitor is perfect. I'll start with the issues with this one:

Price 3x what a 24” TN would cost. Ouch, but if you have stringent requirements sometimes you have to pay a high price.

Overpowered Back Light. Daytime is not much problem, my computer backs onto a big windows which is a great bias light. But at night a couple of light bulbs are no match for the powerful backlight which has to be tame with additional panel blocking, robbing contrast. This problem is common though, but the NEC at least allows you calibrate in an even blocking curve. I'll go into more detail in the section on calibration.

Input Lag: I am sensitive and I felt it a bit initially on this panel. It is fairly consistent 2 frames(more to follow in lag section). Now that my CRT is unplugged, I don't notice anymore. The Dell 2405 must have been really bad, because it was always noticable to me. This is the biggest con for some hardcore twitch gamers, if this panel had no lag it would be the only panel anyone needs.


Now what makes it great:


Faithful sRGB: (Must Have). I absolutely required standard sRGB. PC color management is a mess. With a faithful sRGB monitor everything is just right. No color shifts between applications. No Disneyland colors. Everything just looks right. A good monitor like good speakers should be neutral. This is as good as it gets. Out of the box it looked great. Unlike most reports of calibration doing wonders. I didn't notice it doing much of anything. It just looks right.

Excellent Viewing angles: ( Another Must Have) I have owned 5 panels now (2 S-PVA, 1 TN, 1 S-IPS and 1 H-IPS A-TW). Nothing I have used or seen in the LCD world compares to the near CRT viewing angle of this panel. From any reasonable user position, it pretty much equals a CRT in delivering a solid image stage. It doesn't vertical shift like TN, horizontal shift like VA or white bloom like an unfiltered LCDs. I can't stress enough how great this is. Finally a completely stable image, that doesn't change with every head movement, image detail that is stable and consistent all over the screen. This is as good as it gets.


Screen coating and Text Quality: NEC delivers the best IPS AR screen I have seen. Not nearly as dusty looking as the Dell 3007-HC I had for a short while. The equal of any matte screen I have seen. Text quality is excellent. Pixels are sharp clear and well defined with no fringing unless you turn on cleartype. Examples cleartype on and off.

cleartypeonxp7.jpg
cleartypeoffgx4.jpg


Control/calibration: Wow, there is nothing that comes close that I have seen. I have never been a big fan of graphics card calibration. You only get 256 color levels. The more calibration and adjustment, the more of that range you lose, but calibration/profiles have mix of responses depending on the application you use. The NEC 90 series has the solution. 12 bit internal LUT calibration done in the monitor (I have the SV package) and consistent across all applications games and even operating systems. Brilliant! Not only that but you can keep different calibrations on tap. If some application needs its own, it is a button press away. Again, this is as good as it gets.

To sum up, Best available neutral sRGB, Best available viewing angles, Best available control/calibration, excellent AR coating. So is it worth the price? Well something a little unexpected occurred during comparisons, that is leading me to say, Hmmmm.

I will follow up with pics/measurements and a blasphemous comparison...
 
I think the Lag Story on the NECs is already well known, but I am going to contradict something that others have stated. My testing is not 100% scientific. It was a quick test before I kicked my CRT to the curb. I won't really repeat it. I wanted to determine if overdrive had an effect. Others say no. I am not so sure. I ran 3 lag testers to get more samples per image and to see how the screen refresh pattern has an effect.


First I ran with overdrive on. I shot ~20 images. I put three lag testers on each page. My impression is that ~32ms (2 frames was most common) followed closely by ~48ms, with a ~16ms sample and a couple of ~64ms lags. I thought I was getting the occasional odd stutter while gaming like this.
lagoverdrivewk7.jpg



Next I went back to overdrive off. I shot another couple of bursts. This time there seemed to be a shift to getting more ~32ms (2 frame lags), than ~48ms (3 frames). There were no ~64ms (4 frame) lags in the sample shots. My odd stutter seems to have left. The average does seem to be right around 2 frames or ~32 ms.
lagnooverdrivexf1.jpg


My conclusion on lag measurment. There seemed to be definite tilt to slowing down with overdrive on. Maybe I didn't shoot enough samples and that was merely coincidence. I will grant that,but for me, I saw no value in having overdrive on and even the hint it may cause an issue, it is staying off. Others may want to test this more, but I am done with this. I gave away my CRT, so a retest is not possible.

Measured Reaction time: Now something a little different. It is one thing to get a look at what the camera sees in a a frozen instant in time. But does that reflect in how much lag this will add to my reaction time. So here I test the whole system including the human element. My reaction time on CRT, vs my reaction time on the NEC. The results (28ms) do line up with the expected 2 frame delay. I chose 10 clicks as it gets a more average response, less likely to be swayed by a lucky hit.

reactiontimevz4.png



Subjective impression of the lag.
I was braced for Dell 2405 experience, where the moment I hook it up, it feels like my arm was replaced by a zombie arm and even dragging the mouse around becomes a chore. But thankfully this didn't happen. At first I thought I sensed a bit of that, but it quickly faded and I am having no lag related issues. Though this is not a lag free panel and a consistent ~32ms (2frame) lag will remain an issue for some.

Gaming:
I tend to ony play RPG and RTS games and I don't feel any lag in mouse character movement at all. For me again, Zero issue. I just don't feel this level of lag. I do feel the slightly higher lag on Dells though. I can't answer for the competetive twitch gamers though. I suspect the will want zero lag TN panels regardless. The rest of us with more pedestrian gaming needs will probably not feel anything different.

Bottom line: as one of my potential Cons with this monitor, this is laid to rest for me. I thankfully have ZERO issue with the NECs lag in my usage. For me a stable 2 frame (~30ms) lag makes the grade. NON ISSUE for me. Yay! :)
 
To start. I will include the info I always want to see, but almost never do. What is the range of native brightness/contrast/black/power consumption.

To capture this. I reset the panel to factory settings. I used the native color space, native gamma curve to ensure there was no panel blocking happening. I double checked that native was the same as R-255, G-255, B-255 in custom. Then I measured power consumption, white, and black at 25% steps in the backlight control.

Points of Interest:

Contrast is clearly 700, not 800 advertised. It stays at this level at every level of backlight control. This tested under the situation to get the best contrast, uncalibrated, native, it only goes down from here.

The backlight control in barely adequte, only dropping to 175 cd/m2 on the low end. This is common with 400-500 cd/m2 units today, but unfortunate. A lower powered backlight would give a lower black when you need it in dim light.


Black levels are adequate. They serve the purpose, but there is nothing exciting about a minimum .22 cd/m2 black level these days but they are not that bad either. They could be much better if the backlight had more modulation.

Power usage seems quite frugal. I had to test my power meter against a 60W bulb (it read 57W) after seeing this because it was lower than expected.

backlightnq0.png


Warm up
The manual say warm up for 20 minutes before calibration. If you are are running the backlight on low, this is inadequate. At 20 minutes my black level was a nice .20 cd/m2. It took an hour before it finally hit and stabilized at the .25 cd/m2 level. Since then I have calibrated it again after leaving it run for 6 hours on high. Verifying the stability of the above readings. Additional info. If you run at low the monitor will actually stay a bit darker indefinitely, so for me the monitor deliver a white level of 148cd/m2 and black of .22cd/m2 in regular usage. Even if you run on high to heat up the panel and then drop to low with 166/.25 it will continue to cool to its normal 148/.22 in normal usage, so this is the real low limit and it is a decent level. Update with 1200 hours of usage, the calibrated values are now 140/.20. So perhaps having a very bright panel at the beginning is good, because brightness will decline constantly.




Calibrating the Beast:

Calibration is simple and sensible. There are many provide profiles and you can modify for your own needs. I used the photo profile and modified it for manual intensity. A D65, gama 2.2 profile with minimum brightness and maximum contrast was what I was aiming for and it delivered. I was now calibrated with only a small loss of overall contrast do to a small drop in brightness. Do I actually see the big change many people report with calibration? No. While the colorimeter is a nice toy, I would have been perfectly happy with the image quality without one. I made a second 100cd/m2 targeted profile to use if working at night on code. So far I haven't used it. I find the current settings are good for entertainment usage around the clock.

firstcalibrationlc7.png


I made a second 100cd/m2 targeted profile to use if working at night on code. So far I haven't used it. I find the current settings are good for entertainment usage around the clock. Notice the difference. The first was manual, this has a light level target. Very simple to go either way. Personally I think manual is the way to go if it isn't too bright for you. But here is my "tired eyes, late night" profile:

calibration100bx2.png


Used the 100cd/m2 profile for some coding after dark last night. It worked perfectly nice and easy on the eyes, still decent contrast. This pretty much erases the backlight issue from the "Con" list or moves down it's significance, it would still be nice to do this purely with backlight control. Here is a pic (note screen looks 4:3 because I was remoting to a work machine which is 1600x1200). Edit: I never ended up using this profile after this point. The initial 175cd/m2 minimum was tempered by calibration, and panel aging. Stable minimum is now 140cd/m2, removing the need for a dimmer setting.
codenightxt7.jpg



Effect of colorcomp on calibration: With colorcomp active, calibration has very little to do. Essentially colorcomp offers a factory calibration as well as an adjustment for unevenness. But with colorcomp=3, I lost 20 points of brightness and 100 of contrast. I would use the minimum you feel is necessary. I am going with colorcomp off to max contrast. The first curve below shows color comp ON and the negligible adjustments made in calibration(making calibration practically unnecessary), the second shows colorcomp OFF and the more significant adjustment needed.
Think about: if you want to go without a calibrator this panel essentially offers factor calibration.

curvecompaz5.png
curvesgh1.png


Calibration Update, at 2680 hours: It has been a while since I calibrated. About 1400 hours and there are no worries (at 2680 total hours now). Nothing visible has changed. Normal panel fading is slowly dropping brightness levels at the minimum setting. Here are the numbers and also the correction curves with NEC factory calibration and panel compensation turned on ( AKA colorcomp). As you can see with over 2600 hours on the panel, the factory calibration still remains near perfect.
cali2680.png


Overall calibration is a dream on the NEC with SVII. You have control off important parameters in the profile definition and once those are set, the package just sets everything up. Once you set up these profiles you can simply switch back and forth between them. Then it just works everywhere! Games/movies/apps/Linux. Everything just looks right.

Rating on Calibration and control: A
 
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Compared to my Dell 2405fpw: (owned ~1 week)

The Dell 2405fpw was the first LCD I bought after reading many glowing reviews. Talk about a wake up call. I thought the reviewers must be blind. Talk about outclassed in every imaginable way. The NEC goes medieval Duke Nuke 'em on the Dell, and tears it a new one. The 2405 was a lag monster, I wish I would have measured it. But it must be up there with the other greats in Dell lag history. Then there was the motion smear, everything that moved turned to mush and the final boot to the 'nads was the 178 degree "viewing angles" Which fell apart in about 5 degrees. Text would keep shining and causing pain to look at it. The NEC is everything this was not, a comfortable stable viewing experience.

Compared to my Dell 3007wfp-HC (owned ~1 week)

This was recent. I wrote about it here:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1303691

This is an interesting comparison, because I paid about the same price. It comes down to quality vs quantity. The Dell had two things going for it. It was bigger(size and pixels) and totally lag free. This was hugely offset by poor image quality. Garish wide gamut issues, screen uniformity terror (clouding, dark corner, bright corner). The non uniformity was worsened by the off center glow and screen size. I am glad I did both so I won't have any lingering doubts, but in no way at all do I regret choosing quality over quantity. The Dell was a PITA and the NEC is a joy.

Compared to what should have been. The MIA standard 24" IPS.

When it comes right down to it. I mostly don't care about the 12 bit LUT, internal calibration, etc... All I really wanted was a basic sRGB IPS 24". That would have saved me a LOT of money and it would have been just as good for me. HP looks headed this way now, but they waited for the wide gamut panel. Something I really want to avoid. I bought overkill for my needs just to get a decent normal colors with decent viewing angles.

Compared to the other LCD I own. A 17" TN Dell 1707fp. :eek:

This is where the surprising and blasphemous part comes in. The cheapo TN holds it's own, it made the Dell 3007-HC look really wrong but here the TN matches the screen coating of the NEC almost exactly. Pixel structure seems almost identical. Text is almost identical and most mind boggling: The cheap uncalibrated TN seems to match the calibrated NEC IPS pro screen for color!

Yes thats right. The "It's only 6bits" crowd don't have a clue what they are talking about. Normally when people drop a big load of cash on something like this they will try to justify it, but color IMO is not a justification. I poured through my collection of wallpapers and and test images and the that uncalibrated TN matched every tonal nuance of the expensive IPS on shot after shot. If TN has horrible color, then so does calibrated NEC 90 series IPS monitors. Or it could be that the "horrible 6 bit color" crowd are just blowing smoke. The only issue was the TN was a bit darker near the top and lighter near the bottom. TN suffers only one real problem and that is it's vertical viewing angle.

sunsetbeachny7.jpg


Some other comparison shots:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/9379/testpatternsuw5.jpg
http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/7110/sunsettreevs9.jpg

Speaking of viewing angle. How about white glow? I don't have another IPS to compare with, but do TNs white glow? It seems they do. I never really noticed before. I don't think it would be a huge issue to have white glow on a 24" panel if it were uniform to start with. But anyway, not something I will have to deal with.
planettiltsmallmb0.jpg

Version with more angles:
http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/2071/planettiltao7.jpg
 
Black levels are adequate
Click to expand...

It would not be for me!
IMO, the contrast ratio is one the most (if not the most) important feature and current LCDs monitors lamentably fail in this area.
I would never pay more than $1K for a monitor that cannot render black properly.
 
RadXge said:
I would never pay more than $1K for a monitor that cannot render black properly.
Click to expand...

You simply don't realize what monitor we are talking about.
Best instrumentally measured black value of this monitor touches 0.19, while the best possible so far is 0.10
But don't be a victim of figures.
Those who don't understand what these figures really are should be informed in terms of quality: this monitor renders black better than any other so far.
 
When was this monitor put on the market and how does it hold up with console gaming xbox 360/ PS3?
 
Nice review Snowdog, and congratulations on the new screen. May she serve you well for the next number of years (at least four based on warranty).

Also thanks for putting up the power numbers.

One question: Did it actually come with the dumbbell straight from Tech Data or was that an added option? :)

And yes, I tend to agree, that for color quality, a well calibrated monitor out of the factory (whether TN, MVA, or S-IPS) will look just as good from the actual color quality angle.

Best o' luck!
 
pixelperfect said:
When was this monitor put on the market and how does it hold up with console gaming xbox 360/ PS3?
Click to expand...

Early 2007. It's excellent for both with HDMI to DVI cables.

Tamlin_WSGF said:
Nice review! :)
Click to expand...

You changed your response and took out the pepper :)

RadXge said:
It would not be for me!
IMO, the contrast ratio is one the most (if not the most) important feature and current LCDs monitors lamentably fail in this area.
I would never pay more than $1K for a monitor that cannot render black properly.
Click to expand...

I think in that case, then any LCD monitor or TV is pretty much out of the question. Even black levels of .09 CDM/2 are visible in dark conditions, and even Samsung with their vaunted S-PVA TVs cannot get much lower than that. But with the LCD2490/2690 the measured black level can be deceiving vs. what is perceived. I never found my 2690 to have insufficient black levels even next to said .09 cdm/2 black V2400W sitting next to it, and the second I stood up (looked from above) the V2400W became bright and the NEC did not.
 
Heh, good one! I also don't like the "TN bashing" :)
Some are very good considering their price.
And thanks for the review.

Snowdog said:
Compared to the other LCD I own. A 17" TN Dell 1707fp. :eek:

This is where the surprising and blasphemous part comes in. The cheapo TN holds it's own, it made the Dell 3007-HC look really wrong but here the TN matches the screen coating of the NEC almost exactly. Pixel structure seems almost identical. Text is almost identical and most mind boggling: The cheap uncalibrated TN seems to match the calibrated NEC IPS pro screen for color!

Yes thats right. The "It's only 6bits" crowd don't have a clue what they are talking about. Normally when people drop a big load of cash on something like this they will try to justify it, but color IMO is not a justification. I poured through my collection of wallpapers and and test images and the that uncalibrated TN matched every tonal nuance of the expensive IPS on shot after shot. If TN has horrible color, then so does calibrated NEC 90 series IPS monitors. Or it could be that the "horrible 6 bit color" crowd are just blowing smoke. The only issue was the TN was a bit darker near the top and lighter near the bottom. TN suffers only one real problem and that is it's vertical viewing angle.
Click to expand...
 
10e said:
You changed your response and took out the pepper :)
Click to expand...

Yes, I did. :) It was a correction to the Dell screen he used for comparison and wasn't nessesary anymore when he edited the model number.

I do disagree and could have given some pepper myself about 6-bit TN's with dithering compared to true 8-bit, but I don't have time for lenghty discussions and I like controversial statements. :D

It IS a nice review! :)
 
Here I will add any extras as they come up.

-------------------------------Why Matte instead of glossy?------------------------------------

At the begginning I stated I wanted to avoid gloss screens. Here is some elaboration and observation. I can see the pop, but I look a little deeper into what is going on.

For years in the 80s it was a big factor in most reviews to mention the effectiveness of the Anti-reflective coating as everyone hated reflections. Now they bring them back worse than ever. I have spent some time checking out screens from glossy/matte monitors to the latest glossy LCD TVs.

First realization: No difference in image quality when ambient light is controlled/viewing angle controlled:
I was at a big box store with row upon row of monitors, on a lower shelf (about 8feet away) there were some that because of the angle I was viewing them and the overhang of the shelf, had no reflections or diffusion at all. Here is the kicker:

In these conditions I could not tell any difference between the matte and gloss screens. I couldn't tell which was which.

I am starting to suspect those who like glossy, like reflections, much like they way a waxed car looks best when it has shiny deep reflections. Except I don't trying read off a waxed car. I prefer reading from non-shiny matte paper. I think the reflections are the biggest aspect of the "POP" everyone talks about.

The comparison in the Electronics shop under bright light doesn't lend itself to making good choices. You won't be sitting one next to the other at home and shining bright lights on them. Read what I bolded. When I saw a row that was shadowed and had no reflections or diffusion, I couldn't tell the difference. When they measure the values, there is no difference. What does change is the reaction to light, being diffusion or reflections.

In the case of very strong lights facing the actual screen, matte can look pretty bad because you will get some strong diffusion, that destroys black, but it is subtle in that people don't think: "Hey I wouldn't do that at home." Now on the glossy they get a sharp bright reflection of the image, but the rest of the blacks are better. People automatically think I wouldn't do that at home, so they ignore the reflection because they wouldn't do that. They don't recognize and ignore how the same light is ruining the matte image and that they wouldn't do that at home. It is not a fair comparison.

In a lower light home environment you are going to suffer much less diffusion but reflections will never go away.

I took this picture back when I had a CRT:
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/7954/marblereflectionap0.jpg

Conditions: Lights out. Window is behind the back of both monitors. Pic was around 8:20pm, and my window faces north and it is overcast. So only indirect light coming in behind the monitors still reflections on the semi gloss CRT. The matte LCD showed nothing. The CRT along with the reflections, showed streaks fingerprints etc...

I have a matte LCD and it looks very black in daytime. In the dark it doesn't matter what coating you have, it will glow grey.

Bottom line, people really assume the opposite. But bright light shining on screens is actually more detrimental in store to matte screens, you need to protect both technologies from that. But gloss screens are more insidious. The reflect with ANY light. While matte screens will get much better in the home as they don't get massive diffusion from insane lighting.

Once you get the matte monitor home in a light controlled environment, it will have plenty of POP, it will also not have reflections and will not show dirt/fingerprints like crazy.

Don't be fooled by store lighting and the fashion of the moment. Matte is really the better choice.


-------------------------------Backlight Bleed?------------------------------------

Personally I am not a fan of long exposure taken in the dark that exaggerate the effect of backlight bleed. But it seems people want to see such things. So here is my compromise. A 1 second exposure of a black screen in the dark. You can see some clouding and uniformity issues. But I have absolutely no issues in any regular usage.

1secdarkaj3.jpg
 
very nice! very very nice.

Thank you, i think the biggest thing here is the comparison to TN (for me at least)
I think many people want the IPS, but the dollars come into play.
for me, as much as i want the doublesight, i might settle for a new BenQ.
less buyers remorse ;)

looking forward to more comparisons.
 
Snowdog said:
I think the Lag Story on the NECs is already well known, but I am going to contradict something that others have stated. My testing is not 100% scientific. It was a quick test before I kicked my CRT to the curb. I won't really repeat it. I wanted to determine if overdrive had an effect. Others say no. I am not so sure. I ran 3 lag testers to get more samples per image and to see how the screen refresh pattern has an effect.


First I ran with overdrive on. I shot ~20 images. I put three lag testers on each page. My impression is that ~32ms (2 frames was most common) followed closely by ~48ms, with a ~16ms sample and a couple of ~64ms lags. I thought I was getting the occasional odd stutter while gaming like this.
lagoverdrivewk7.jpg



Next I went back to overdrive off. I shot another couple of bursts. This time there seemed to be a shift to getting more ~32ms (2 frame lags), that ~48ms (3 frames). There were no ~64ms (4 frame) lags in the sample shots. My odd stutter seems to have left.
lagnooverdrivexf1.jpg


My conclusion. There seemed to be definite tilt to slowing down with overdrive on. Maybe I didn't shoot enough samples and that was merely coincidence. I will grant that,but for me, I saw no value in having overdrive on and even the hint it may cause an issue, it is staying off. Others may want to test this more, but I am done with this.

Subjective impression of the lag.
I was braced for Dell 2405 experience, where the moment I hook it up, it feels like my arm was replaced by a zombie arm and even dragging the mouse around becomes a chore. But thankfully this didn't happen. At first I thought I sensed a bit of that, but it quickly faded and I am having no lag related issues. Though this is not a lag free panel and a consistent ~32ms (2frame) lag will remain an issue for some. Though if I were actually going up against a buddy on a game with response time as a factor, I would want that 32ms back.

But as one of my potential Cons with this monitor, this is laid to rest for me. I thankfully have no issue with the NECs lag in my usage. Yay! :)
Click to expand...


I was seriously considering the 2690 because of the color calibration that would make things so much simpler for calibration to work for videos and games, and not having to worry too much whether a program supports icc color calabration or not.

But looking at the input lag you mention, it doesn't sound as attractive as the HP LP2475w if gaming is gonna be a big part of the reason for getting a lcd monitor that isn't a TN.

The HP LP2475w was reported as having between 16-35 ms input lag which most of the time was 16 ms, which is pretty reasonable for a non tn panel. Also it has HDMI and display port connections, AND it has more adjustability for the monitor viewing placement. Not to mention it is far cheaper then the NEC isn't that right ?

In light of all that, i am leaning more toward the HP LP 2475W for my next monitor soon ;)


Unless anybody has any violent disagreements :D
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by RadXge
I would never pay more than $1K for a monitor that cannot render black properly.
Click to expand...
You simply don't realize what monitor we are talking about.
Best instrumentally measured black value of this monitor touches 0.19, while the best possible so far is 0.10
But don't be a victim of figures.
Those who don't understand what these figures really are should be informed in terms of quality: this monitor renders black better than any other so far.
Click to expand...

I own a Pioneer Kuro Plasma I know what good blacks look like (BTW the minimum luminance level of this HDTV is 0.001ftl….).
I have played The Darkness and Condemned 2: Bloodshot on a Samsung 275T LCD (which has better black that the NEC) and the Pioneer plasma and the difference is staggering.
The NEC's black may good enough for you but it is not for me.
 
RadXge said:
I own a Pioneer Kuro Plasma I know what good blacks look like (BTW the minimum luminance level of this HDTV is 0.001ftl….).
I have played The Darkness and Condemned 2: Bloodshot on a Samsung 275T LCD (which has better black that the NEC) and the Pioneer plasma and the difference is staggering.
The NEC's black may good enough for you but it is not for me.
Click to expand...

Thats comparing Apples to Oranges....Of course a Plasma HDTV is going to have superior blacks compared to a LCD monitor. The NEC is one of the best PC LCD's you can get for rendering blacks accurately. And don't go into the whole 'PVA's have better blacks' thing....because all things considered (viewing angle's/black crush/etc.), they really don't.
 
Very nice review. If only they sold this monitor in Europe, i would gladly buy it. Was thinking of importing it from the US, but can't find any international retailer. :(
 
Frameless said:
Very nice review. If only they sold this monitor in Europe, i would gladly buy it. Was thinking of importing it from the US, but can't find any international retailer. :(
Click to expand...

Hazro monitors are being sold closer, in the UK :)
But the same situation as with 2490 - no retailers, no service.
 
Biges said:
Hazro monitors are being sold closer, in the UK :)
But the same situation as with 2490 - no retailers, no service.
Click to expand...

Well i live in Malaysia. So the Hazro is out of my grasp since it's only found in the UK :(

The NEC is only available in SIngapore. If i buy there i won't get the warranty as it is locally in Singapore only ... :rolleyes:

The HP i just called up the shop and found their reseller has stock and can ship to me today if i order now ! :eek:

Seeing as the Hazro is S-IPS and also has no Polarizer according to people, i feel alright getting the HP instead since it is AVAILABLE, A GOOD MONITOR, and I CAN EASILY USE warranty incase of any problems.


The price quote for it was Rm 3000 :eek:
 
Does the 2490 work with the PS3 using HDMI/DVI cable? I just tried my PS3 on my Dell 2001FP with a HDMI/DVI cable and it didn't work. I read some posts saying PS3 can't work with DVI monitors due to HDCP? thing.
 
Rendition said:
Does the 2490 work with the PS3 using HDMI/DVI cable? I just tried my PS3 on my Dell 2001FP with a HDMI/DVI cable and it didn't work. I read some posts saying PS3 can't work with DVI monitors due to HDCP? thing.
Click to expand...

Mostly all new monitors support HDCP over DVI, and NEC 2490 supports it.
 
Snowdog said:
Compared to my Dell 2405fpw: (owned 1 week)

Yes thats right. The "It's only 6bits" crowd don't have a clue what they are talking about. Normally when people drop a big load of cash on something like this they will try to justify it, but color IMO is not a justification. I poured through my collection of wallpapers and and test images and the that uncalibrated TN matched every tonal nuance of the expensive IPS on shot after shot. If TN has horrible color, then so does calibrated NEC 90 series IPS monitors. Or it could be that the "horrible 6 bit color" crowd are just blowing smoke. The only issue was the TN was a bit darker near the top and lighter near the bottom. TN suffers only one real problem and that is it's vertical viewing angle.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/2071/planettiltao7.jpg
Click to expand...

Hi snowdog, color in my opinion is indeed a justification(for a photographer).

The wallpapers and test images you have are all sRGB profiled or untaged images, the color in sRGB images has been "cliped" to display images that are visually appealing. One major disadvantage to this method is that a lot details that are critical to photographers were lost in this process (This problem is especially apparent in the display of highlight and shadow details.)

Another problem with sRGB is that it is not suited to be printed than a Adobe RGB profiled image. I shoot a lot of images and I print a lot of images. The only way for me to get almost identical print as it appears on the screen is to go to my school's mac lab and use their calibrated cinema display monitor. My 19" cheap samsung tn panel at home just can not handle kind of work I do in regards to displaying correct color. A fairly easy way to compare color is to fire up a 16bit RAW image freshly taken from a digital camera, with enough shadow and highlight detail and put it in photoshop on each monitor screen to compare side by side, only then the ability for wide gamut display to show extra details in critical areas of an image would be revealed.

I do not belong to "'It's only 6bits' crowd" but I do think that a 6bit pannel that can only display 16.2m colors is definitely not in the same league as a 8bit panel which displays 16.77m colors in a more accurate way.

I'm glad you've made a great choice on your LCD purchase for your personal needs. But I believe some people do need to know that the ability to render more color accurately is indeed a critical part of LCD design. :D
 
Absolutely.

The LCD2490WUXI works flawlessly with the PS3, and if calibrated, gives more accurate colors to PS3 games/movies because it is a monitor that handles internal calibration, which applies to all inputs and devices, not just those that have a color profile (ICM file) installed.



Rendition said:
Does the 2490 work with the PS3 using HDMI/DVI cable? I just tried my PS3 on my Dell 2001FP with a HDMI/DVI cable and it didn't work. I read some posts saying PS3 can't work with DVI monitors due to HDCP? thing.
Click to expand...
 
Great review. I was going back and forth between this monitor and the Doublesight 26". I think I am just going to spend the extra money and get the NEC after reading your review. Although I still can't decide if I want the 24" or 26". The price difference is that much, but not sure if the 26" is going to be over kill sitting only 4 feet away.
 
Snowdog - great review - thanks!

I'm really keen on this monitor - but like others can't buy it in the UK.

I know there's a 24" S-IPS hazro out there - but its not really the same animal - it has a glossy screen and non-adjustable stand. There are also reports of banding issues.

As per a previous reply - I wonder if anyone has been able to import the NEC2490 from US to UK ? - and if so does it work with/without a stepping transformer to cater for the higher uk mains voltage?
 
Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I didn't want to start a new thread (and I don't have enough posts to post in the for sale forum).

I am selling a LCD2490WUXi-BK-SV (with SpectraView), but I'd prefer to deal with someone local in Chicago. I just thought I'd throw this out there. Mine was purchased earlier this year and is in perfect condition other than one dead subpixel (appears red on a black screen). Frankly it's way more monitor than I need, but I have enjoyed playing with it.

Mods: please let me know if there's a better spot for my post.
 
I have a Sony FW900 24" widescreen CRT. But alas, my eyes are aging and I'm beginning to crave the pixel-perfect digital sharpness of an LCD.

My biggest concern, however, are black levels. Nothing is quite so satisfying as the shadow details and inky blacks of a well-adjusted CRT. In LotRO, when I'm Thorin's Hall or otherwise playing a "dark game". . . I'd hate to have the immersion ruined by "grey blacks."

So. . . has LCD come as far as I hope and some are claiming? Is 800:1 or 700-ish:1 enough to satisfy a CRT-o-phile? With this being the pinnacle of 24" LCD monitor-ness. . . will I be able to adjust to this and enjoy it even where black levels are concerned? I know it's not entirely possible to answer such a question. But if there are any owners of the monitors who are similarly picky about black levels, I'd really love to hear your impressions and whether you were every able to truly accept the black levels provided LCD where this monitor is concerned.
 
Overall I am quite happy.

But In measured black it is no contest, CRT wins.

But during daylight I would never really notice any difference. In fact LCD would look blacker because it goes brighter and our vision is relative.

But playing a dark game in the dark. It will look gray.

I would suggest picking up a dirt cheap 17"-20" LCD and use it for a while to see if you can live with the shortcomings on black before investing in a high end monitor that really won't have better blacks.

The only time I find it noticeably weak is when I turn out the lights to watch a movie and the black bars are a touch grey. All my games look black enough for me.
 
lifanus said:
The only way for me to get almost identical print as it appears on the screen is to go to my school's mac lab and use their calibrated cinema display monitor. My 19" cheap samsung tn panel at home just can not handle kind of work I do in regards to displaying correct color. A fairly easy way to compare color is to fire up a 16bit RAW image freshly taken from a digital camera, with enough shadow and highlight detail and put it in photoshop on each monitor screen to compare side by side, only then the ability for wide gamut display to show extra details in critical areas of an image would be revealed.
Click to expand...


If you can't match your prints to your monitor, something is very wrong with your monitor. I've got a 19 inch Samsung TN panel(940B), with my favorite RAW editor (Lightroom 2), and have no problems exactly matching my prints. Of course, I compared my CRT and Samsung after opening the box and never bothered to install the magic tune software because the monitor matched the CRT pretty well in terms of color.
 
Hurin said:
I have a Sony FW900 24" widescreen CRT. But alas, my eyes are aging and I'm beginning to crave the pixel-perfect digital sharpness of an LCD.

My biggest concern, however, are black levels. Nothing is quite so satisfying as the shadow details and inky blacks of a well-adjusted CRT. In LotRO, when I'm Thorin's Hall or otherwise playing a "dark game". . . I'd hate to have the immersion ruined by "grey blacks."

So. . . has LCD come as far as I hope and some are claiming? Is 800:1 or 700-ish:1 enough to satisfy a CRT-o-phile? With this being the pinnacle of 24" LCD monitor-ness. . . will I be able to adjust to this and enjoy it even where black levels are concerned? I know it's not entirely possible to answer such a question. But if there are any owners of the monitors who are similarly picky about black levels, I'd really love to hear your impressions and whether you were every able to truly accept the black levels provided LCD where this monitor is concerned.
Click to expand...

I just recently acquired a used 2490 on an unexpected opportunity. Prior to that I was using a Sony GDM-F520 CRT. I haven't gone back to the CRT or anything, but there are plenty of times I wish I were still using it. I don't find the black level of the 2490 distracting in general computer use, but it stands out like a sore thumb in gaming. I was playing through Doom3 and it is just not the same on LCD. I also fired up Bioshock and right away I noticed walking around into "grey" areas which used to be deep inky black. Aside from blacks there's smearing, lag, ghosting, etc... I'm no pro-gamer by any stretch, but I noticed...

It's only a little surprising, I thought the 2490 might be a bit better. I haven't purchased an HDTV yet, but was going the direction of plasma for reasons like this. Sometimes I second-guessed myself, now the decision is set in stone - plasma or nothing.

BTW, once calibrated with SpectraView, I get nowhere near 800:1. It's somewhere in the 200s or 300s depending on factors. Even when I set SV to prioritize contrast ratio instead of grey-scale I still see it brighten up the black to make it more grey (my theory on what is going on - the 'black' must have a tint that it is correcting for). I have something like 0.11 cd/m2 black before calibration and somewhere between 0.25 and 0.4 after, depending on backlight settings.

Overall I'm still using it, because I like text sharpness (when Cleartext doesn't get in the way) and I wanted widescreen (not an issue for you with an FW900 already) but if I didn't get a deal I probably wouldn't have bothered yet for full retail. Perhaps I'm too fussy, having used GDM-F series Trinitrons since 1999. The 2490 is doing a great job with colour and clarity, and in a lot of photo work it looks very similar to the CRT, although sometimes highlighting shortcomings like ISO noise more than the CRT would.

I have to say the 2490 has an impressive OSD. I'm not sure that there's any other LCD I'd rather have other than another NEC 90 series.
 
Surly73 said:
BTW, once calibrated with SpectraView, I get nowhere near 800:1. It's somewhere in the 200s or 300s depending on factors. Even when I set SV to prioritize contrast ratio instead of grey-scale I still see it brighten up the black to make it more grey (my theory on what is going on - the 'black' must have a tint that it is correcting for). I have something like 0.11 cd/m2 black before calibration and somewhere between 0.25 and 0.4 after, depending on backlight settings.
Click to expand...

If you are getting contrast of 200-300 you are doing something very wrong (or have a defective monitor). My calibrated contrast is 672. I don't know how you ever saw 0.11 black unless it was before the screen warmed up. Once warmed up mine is never under .20 regardless of setting. One thing I do different than most. Is calibrate with the manual backlight control (which I turn to zero) instead of to a defined white level. This helps maintain maximum contrast.

I get exactly the same black calibrated or not, after calibration it is the top brightness that lowers a bit, this lowers the contrast a bit. Uncalibrated contrast of a little over 700 is available.

My calibrated white and black levels are 148cd/m2 and black of .22cd/m2. At this level black looks black if there is any room light at all (our vision is relative). Before I ditched the CRT, the 2490 looked better unless there was almost no light. At night with a single light bulb for lighting, black is still beautiful IMO. After using CRTs for 20+ years (still do at work), after buying 5 different LCDs of all types, and after my months with the 2490, there isn't a computer monitor on the planet I would trade for. This panel represents the best that is currently on offer IMO. I hope it keeps working a long time.

The only time I am disappointed is in the dark. If I shut the lights to watch video on it. The black bars are then obviously not black.

Note that the 2490 offers competetive black levels with other LCDs. It doesn't really better them for the most part unless they have issues. What it does offer is the best "Image staging" of any LCD so that contrast doesn't washout off angle and turn both black and white into grey mush. With the NEC you avoid things like this. (Nec left, TN screen right)

planettiltsmallmb0.jpg
 
Snowdog said:
If you are getting contrast of 200-300 you are doing something very wrong (or have a defective monitor). My calibrated contrast is 672. I don't know how you ever saw 0.11 black unless it was before the screen warmed up. Once warmed up mine is never under .20 regardless of setting. One thing I do different than most. Is calibrate with the manual backlight control (which I turn to zero) instead of to a defined white level. This helps maintain maximum contrast.

I get exactly the same black calibrated or not, after calibration it is the top brightness that lowers a bit, this lowers the contrast a bit. Uncalibrated contrast of a little over 700 is available.

My calibrated white and black levels are 148cd/m2 and black of .22cd/m2. At this level black looks black if there is any room light at all (our vision is relative). Before I ditched the CRT, the 2490 looked better unless there was almost no light. At night with a single light bulb for lighting, black is still beautiful IMO. After using CRTs for 20+ years (still do at work), after buying 5 different LCDs of all types, and after my months with the 2490, there isn't a computer monitor on the planet I would trade for. This panel represents the best that is currently on offer IMO. I hope it keeps working a long time.

The only time I am disappointed is in the dark. If I shut the lights to watch video on it. The black bars are then obviously not black.

Note that the 2490 offers competetive black levels with other LCDs. It doesn't really better them for the most part unless they have issues. What it does offer is the best "Image staging" of any LCD so that contrast doesn't washout off angle and turn both black and white into grey mush. With the NEC you avoid things like this. (Nec left, TN screen right)

planettiltsmallmb0.jpg
Click to expand...

I'm more than eager to discuss just how "wrong" I could be doing calibration, or determining a possibly defective nature of my panel. For starters, I'm using a DTP-94 colorimeter, I suppose there's a chance that different colorimeters do a better job than others. Note that this is always used in a fairly dim environment. I do photo work, general computing, and some gaming (more my wife doing it).

Second, I wasn't going to get into a big long "thing" right now, but I might as well start somewhere.... I don't know a lot of technical details about this monitor. One thing I didn't know squat about was the "low bright mode". Why do we need a mode to drop the brightness 50%, and why is it "advanced" to drop it another 25%? Why couldn't they just make 0% real dark and 100% full bright? I think it may have been you posted that the low bright modes actually digitally reduce the brightness and the backlight reaches min brightness at 0% with no "low bright" mode.

I observed that calibrating in "manual brightness" mode with the slider resulted in a 0% brightness which used low bright mode - so that would be reducing the number of shades the monitor could display - what's the point in that?

I calibrated to the out of the box "photo" mode targeting 140 cd/m2 - it was kind of bright , black was .4 after calibration and contrast was in the 200s. I calibrated to 0% manual brightness - it was nice and dim, black was .20-.25 but it was using "low bright". I now have targetted 130 cd/m2, which I manually compared through the OSD to 0% with no "low bright". Black is still in the .2s, it's bright but "OK" and contrast is in the high 300s I think.

I still notice that the process of calibrating brightens the blacks. I see this happen during the process. When it erases all the values and re-measures black point it is really black - .1x as I already said. After targetting the whitepoint and doing a bunch of greys it applies the LUT curve, black brightens to .25, and it sweeps greys again to measure the corrected curve. This is less of a problem with "maximize contrast" set instead of "grey scale" but it still does it.

Further, when I switch inputs to a non-connected one I will see one second of the "really black", before it looks like the LUT kicks in and I see the "really dark grey" of my calibrated black. As I said, my theory is that the colorimeter is seeing a tint to the black and needs to elevate it to correct the shade. I'm all ears on SVII settings... I've read a number of other threads including some with contributions from you. In particular this one.

I don't really notice elevated blacks in a lit room in places like a browser background. In a pitch black room on a black screen I may have some backlight leakage - hard to say what is "normal". I always see purple on the left and green on the right. In pitch black the lower right quarter of the screen is a bit brighter than the rest but it doesn't stand out unless I'm in a black room showing a black screen and looking for it - particularly during calibration where it cranks the backlight. On the other hand, sometimes I can't see it in black/black conditions or black screen (screen blanker) dim lighting (one 15W table lamp in the whole room).

If my panel is defective, it seems to be subtly so, but how can I be sure? It has NO stuck or dead pixels - it would be a gamble. Furthermore, the deal didn't include a box :(

If anyone has 2490 packaging they don't want, let me know...

I'd also like to understand Overdrive better, and how the backlight works. What % and cd/m2 levels will get me lowest backlight, but no fake electronic "low bright" crap to interfere with the number of shades/hues displayed by the monitor?
 
Surly73 said:
I'm more than eager to discuss just how "wrong" I could be doing calibration, or determining a possibly defective nature of my panel. For starters, I'm using a DTP-94 colorimeter, I suppose there's a chance that different colorimeters do a better job than others. Note that this is always used in a fairly dim environment. I do photo work, general computing, and some gaming (more my wife doing it).
Click to expand...

Are you using the SVII software? If not I don't know anything about other software. I believe that is a quality colorimeter and if it is recognized by SVII I wouldn't anticipate a problem.

One thing I didn't know squat about was the "low bright mode". Why do we need a mode to drop the brightness 50%, and why is it "advanced" to drop it another 25%? Why couldn't they just make 0% real dark and 100% full bright? I think it may have been you posted that the low bright modes actually digitally reduce the brightness and the backlight reaches min brightness at 0% with no "low bright" mode.
Click to expand...

This is correct. The low brightness modes do not improve black. At min brightness your backlight will be at minimum. I think the only point of low brightness mode is for those who find the panel too bright at minimum brightness and don't have a calibration kit to lower it further, they can reduce brightness with one of the low brightness modes that use panel blocking and rob contrast. My recommendation, never use this mode.

I observed that calibrating in "manual brightness" mode with the slider resulted in a 0% brightness which used low bright mode - so that would be reducing the number of shades the monitor could display - what's the point in that?
Click to expand...

I have observed this NOT to be the case if you start with low bright mode OFF (don't calibrate with this setting on). This was backed by my results which immediately after calibration was brighter than pre calibration with even the most minimal setting on low brightness mode. I tried to lower it further with low bright mode but it is disabled.

I calibrated to the out of the box "photo" mode targeting 140 cd/m2 - it was kind of bright , black was .4 after calibration and contrast was in the 200s.
I calibrated to 0% manual brightness - it was nice and dim, black was .20-.25 but it was using "low bright". I now have targetted 130 cd/m2, which I manually compared through the OSD to 0% with no "low bright". Black is still in the .2s, it's bright but "OK" and contrast is in the high 300s I think.
Click to expand...

Yuk! Make sure you have low brightness OFF when you calibrate. I didn't know it was possible to have it on when you calibrate, but this seems to be what is happening. Maybe do as complete a reset on the panel as you can, bring up the the advance menu, Panel 8, Factory preset, then double check that color comp is off, low bright is off, most value for gamma, white point are at native. Turn brightness to zero and measure. You should have contrast near 700. Then do your calibration with manual backlight control.


I still notice that the process of calibrating brightens the blacks. I see this happen during the process. When it erases all the values and re-measures black point it is really black - .1x as I already said. After targetting the whitepoint and doing a bunch of greys it applies the LUT curve, black brightens to .25, and it sweeps greys again to measure the corrected curve. This is less of a problem with "maximize contrast" set instead of "grey scale" but it still does it.
Click to expand...

Again. I make sure low bright is off, color comp off, don't use target white value, use manual.

Further, when I switch inputs to a non-connected one I will see one second of the "really black", before it looks like the LUT kicks in and I see the "really dark grey" of my calibrated black. As I said, my theory is that the colorimeter is seeing a tint to the black and needs to elevate it to correct the shade. I'm all ears on SVII settings...
Click to expand...

I tested this on mine. I loaded a pure black image screen, then hit the input button. Absolutely no difference on mine. My black is exactly the same as the black on the empty inputs. You should be able to achieve this.

I don't really notice elevated blacks in a lit room in places like a browser background. In a pitch black room on a black screen I may have some backlight leakage - hard to say what is "normal". I always see purple on the left and green on the right. In pitch black the lower right quarter of the screen is a bit brighter than the rest but it doesn't stand out unless I'm in a black room showing a black screen and looking for it - particularly during calibration where it cranks the backlight. On the other hand, sometimes I can't see it in black/black conditions or black screen (screen blanker) dim lighting (one 15W table lamp in the whole room).

If my panel is defective, it seems to be subtly so, but how can I be sure? It has NO stuck or dead pixels - it would be a gamble. Furthermore, the deal didn't include a box :(

If anyone has 2490 packaging they don't want, let me know...

I'd also like to understand Overdrive better, and how the backlight works. What % and cd/m2 levels will get me lowest backlight, but no fake electronic "low bright" crap to interfere with the number of shades/hues displayed by the monitor?
Click to expand...

Clearly this is way off. I suggest repeating the calibration as I have outlined above. My monitor has now been on for an hour (takes that long to warm up) except for a quick off to enable the advanced menu. I will measure my current calibrated levels:

White 137cd/m2, Black .1933cd/m2. Contrast >700

Also remember my black/white/contrast/power table from when new. You should always have near 700 contrast regardless of backlight setting.
backlightnq0.png


The factor to note, if you have low bright off and colorcomp off, you should be able to attain contrast near 700. If it is half that, something is seriously out of whack.

Anything else I can do to help, let me know.
 
Thanks for taking the time. I'll try to respond to everything inline.

Snowdog said:
Are you using the SVII software? If not I don't know anything about other software. I believe that is a quality colorimeter and if it is recognized by SVII I wouldn't anticipate a problem.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am using SV2 1.0.42 Build 62625 with the Monaco Optix XR/X-Rite DTP-94 colorimeter which I was using on my CRT (with Monaco EZColor). The DTP-94 was end-of-lifed when Monaco/X-Rite merged, but was rated the best colorimeter out there.

Snowdog said:
This is correct. The low brightness modes do not improve black. At min brightness your backlight will be at minimum. I think the only point of low brightness mode is for those who find the panel too bright at minimum brightness and don't have a calibration kit to lower it further, they can reduce brightness with one of the low brightness modes that use panel blocking and rob contrast. My recommendation, never use this mode.
Click to expand...

This information wasn't given anywhere, but I think I saw you writing it to someone on this site. Since learning that I have not used the low bright modes. I've observed that the "set manually" in SVII results in less brightness than using the OSD to set 0% with low bright off. That told me that SVII manual brightness is going into "low bright" terrirtory. You've specifically observed different behaviour? Same version of SVII? My panel says rev D2 2008/06 on the back. I didn't see an OSD firmware version to give you.

Snowdog said:
I have observed this NOT to be the case if you start with low bright mode OFF (don't calibrate with this setting on). This was backed by my results which immediately after calibration was brighter than pre calibration with even the most minimal setting on low brightness mode. I tried to lower it further with low bright mode but it is disabled.
Click to expand...

Once SVII starts, I thought I remembered that the OSD was locked out of adjusting low bright. I definitely was not in low bright mode when entering SVII. I saw the OSD can be brought up when SVII asks you to set the brightness. I guess if it allows me to set 0% with normal bright it may reflect back on the slider SVII provides. I still contend that, on my setup, SVII's calibration-time slider allows for brightness below what I see when I set 0% without low-bright. This told me it was starting to activate low-bright so I changed it to a numerical target.

Snowdog said:
Yuk! Make sure you have low brightness OFF when you calibrate. I didn't know it was possible to have it on when you calibrate, but this seems to be what is happening. Maybe do as complete a reset on the panel as you can, bring up the the advance menu, Panel 8, Factory preset, then double check that color comp is off, low bright is off, most value for gamma, white point are at native. Turn brightness to zero and measure. You should have contrast near 700. Then do your calibration with manual backlight control.
Click to expand...

Oh yes, "YUCK" inspires confidence :D Seriously though. I have done two full resets of the panel since I got it. One as my standard practice when buying used gear. The next after reading someone (possibly you) recommend it to someone else because someone out there experienced muddy blacks until resetting. Color comp is 3 by default, even in factory settings. That's backlight evenness and I know it will shade the pixels to even things out, but isn't the result worth it in this case? Are you sure you want colorcomp off? Low bright was definitely off, gamma 2.2, native colortemp. I haven't had a ton of luck with SVII's "measure" providing easy to work with results so I didn't mess with it.

I'm game to try another full reset... FWIW I am in advanced OSD mode.

I have to say, as I sit and see my desktop and browser on the screen, I certainly wouldn't walk up and say "Wow, that is busted". Although I also wouldn't say "Damn, I have to get me one of these" like I did when I saw the Apple 30" CD two years ago.

Snowdog said:
Again. I make sure low bright is off, color comp off, don't use target white value, use manual.
Click to expand...

I only used target brightness/luminance because I felt that 0% with the slider control in manual mode was going into "low bright" territory. I popped the panel in and out of the difference luminance modes and felt that 130 looked the same to my eye (not the DTP-94) as 0% w/ no low bright.

Snowdog said:
I tested this on mine. I loaded a pure black image screen, then hit the input button. Absolutely no difference on mine. My black is exactly the same as the black on the empty inputs. You should be able to achieve this.
Click to expand...

This is definitely different than mine. It looks kind of like between commercials on TV where "black" in program material is actually 7 IRE, not 0 IRE, but there's a period of 0 IRE before commercials start. On changing inputs it goes to a blacker-black, then brightens up to display the OSD telling me there's no input. On a CRT I would find this appearance natural, but this shouldn't happen on an LCD IMO. On the curves display in SVII I see it applying a higher degree of correction in the very dark areas.

Clearly this is way off. I suggest repeating the calibration as I have outlined above. My monitor has now been on for an hour (takes that long to warm up) except for a quick off to enable the advanced menu. I will measure my current calibrated levels:

White 137cd/m2, Black .1933cd/m2. Contrast >700

Also remember my black/white/contrast/power table from when new. You should always have near 700 contrast regardless of backlight setting.
backlightnq0.png


The factor to note, if you have low bright off and colorcomp off, you should be able to attain contrast near 700. If it is half that, something is seriously out of whack.

Anything else I can do to help, let me know.
Click to expand...

I'm still not sure I buy in to colorcomp off, but I could certainly see that lowering the contrast. I do see a small brightness reduction when turning on coloromp, and that is documented in the manual. Blotchy whites and greys distract and annoy me.

When viewing the info below, recall that my pre-calibration black was <0.2 so IMO the panel can do it - something else is going on. (right?)

The text output from my last calibration:

Code: 
Software Version	1.0.42	
Calibration Status	Calibrated	
Calibration Sensor Model	Not Detected	
Calibration Sensor S/N		
Average Low Light Measurements	Yes	
Generate profile after calibration	Yes	
Automatically save profile	Yes	
Set as Adobe Photoshop Monitor Profile		
Set as Windows System Monitor Profile	Yes	
Calibration Steps	52	
Calibration Priority	Highest Contrast Ratio	
Recalibration Reminder Period	0	
Primary Color source	Calibration Sensor	
Display Name	LCD2490WUXi	
Monitor Serial Number	86105605YA	
Monitor Model Name	LCD2490WUXi	
OSD Lock Level	Don't Lock	
Monitor Hours Usage at last calibration	2919	
Current Monitor Hours Usage	2982.6	
Calibration Date	12/06/08	
Calibration Time	20:35:03	
Next Calibration Due		
Target Name	Photo Editing-120.TGT	
Target Intensity	120.0	
Target White Point K	6506 K	
Target White Point x	0.313	
Target White Point y	0.329	
Target Black Level		
Target Contrast Ratio		
Target Gamma Type	Value	
Target Gamma Value	2.20	
Target DICOM Scale Factor		
Calibrated Intensity	119.3	
Calibrated White Point K	6553 K	
Calibrated White Point x	0.312	
Calibrated White Point y	0.328	
Calibrated Black Level	0.34	
Calibrated Contrast Ratio	351.0:1	
Calibrated Gamma Value		
Calibrated White Point Delta E	0.61	
Calibrated Greyscale Delta E Average	0.57	
Calibrated DICOM JND Per DDL Average	1.823	
Calibrated DICOM JND Per DDL Standard Deviation	0.537	
Primary Red x	0.645	
Primary Red y	0.341	
Primary Green x	0.297	
Primary Green y	0.611	
Primary Blue x	0.146	
Primary Blue y	0.072	
Native Intensity	269.00	
Maximum Intensity at White Point	275.48	
ICC Profile Name	C:\Windows\system32\spool\DRIVERS\COLOR\LCD2490WUXi 86105605YA.icm

Here's some more info from my current calibration:

2008-12-13_090656.png

2008-12-13_090740.png

2008-12-13_090802.png

2008-12-13_090817.png
 
Other differences. I notice in your preferences, you are using auto luminance. That may be doing some automatic backlight control. I have this off. You are using a targeted contrast as well. I am using monitor default.

Colorcomp. I started with it off, because I wanted max contrast. I was going to use it off and see if I noticed anything that needed compensation. I didn't so I kept it off.

I have the exact same vintage of monitor as you D2, 2008/06.

Your curves are significantly different than mine. It looks like your uncalibrated setting was already matching the calibrated line almost perfectly requiring almost no correction. Mine diverges as the you go up the range. Requiring the correction line to drop below the 1:1 slope to compensate.

But yours is oddly perfect except at the black end of the scale where mine does nothing, your correction line is clearly indicating a pull up on the blacks?? Wierd. It is almost as if you specified you wanted a .35 black and it is pulling the LUTs up to comply.

curvesgh1.png
 
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