24" Widescreen CRT (FW900) From Ebay arrived,Comments.

Foe-hammer said:
I posted this earlier in its own thread, but thought i'd also post it here to hopefully help.


I've spent many hours, and many a day tweaking the hell out of the HP FW900 monitor i just recently purchased, and have been able to achieve great results particularly for the xbox360 via vga. So i though i'd might as well share this with others that may be interested.

1) let the monitor warm up for about an hour

2) set the color temp to 6500k, brightness level to 65, and contrast level to 80.

3) Have a game in that has a lot of different, bright colors in the image, such as halo 2 mp beaver creek stage for the 360, or CoD2 mp stage.

4) Now do the image restoration.

5) Turn the Contrast level up to 100, and the brightness level down somewhere between 15 to 35 (The xbox 360 will be between 15 to 20; with the beginning of 16 being perfect for me). Just start at level 40 and lower the brightness level down to where you just get a true black. The space station stage in halo 2 sp when your outside, and looking up into space is a good black level meter.

Now for the most important steps to get rich, vibrant colors.

6) Go to the color temp option, and expert. Turn up the Red, Green, and Blue Color Gains all the way up to 100.

7) Now go to the Color Bias and turn up the Red to 55, the Green down to 43, and the Blue Color Bias turn it up to 74. This will give the best, rich, most vibrant picture possible.

8) To further achieve better results, mainly concerning increasing the max contrast level, you will need a program called WinDAS and an interface cable that hooks into a little back door tab on the back right bottom side of the monitor (as your facing the back side). With this program you are able to change any video variable on any sony trinitron crt monitor. The two things i did was decrease the brightness so that my 360 true black level increased from 16 to 36. The other was increase the max contrast level to what would be equivalent to 150. Now the colors on the xbox360 via vga cable are vibrant and full of contrast; no more vga washed out colors, and low contrast picture. A true godsend.
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The monitor is here!!!
All I can say right now is: amazing.
I followed your guide and it looks astounding after the tuning, Foehammer. One thing though, what did you exactly mean by image restoration?I used the "fine tune color" option in COLOR>EASY; I couldn't find "image restoration" even in the user .pdf.
Games are really brought to life.
 
XAleX360 said:
The monitor is here!!!
All I can say right now is: amazing.
I followed your guide and it looks astounding after the tuning, Foehammer. One thing though, what did you exactly mean by image restoration?I used the "fine tune color" option in COLOR>EASY; I couldn't find "image restoration" even in the user .pdf.
Games are really brought to life.
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Glad to see you enjoying it! I hope to join you soon. If you come across any good tips then let me know because I too plan to game on this sucker.
 
Oh yeah.. almost forgot to mention something that I think is very important that I'm sure some of you can help me out on.. maybe foehammer perhaps?

My current pc specs:

EVGA nforce sli mobo (not 680i but older one)
AMD64 3500+ socket 939
XFX 6600 256mb (non-gt version)
250gb western digital hd 7200rpm (x2)
2 gig ddr400 corsair ram
450w L&C power supply (only one +12v rail @ 18a)

Now before you say "Eww!", keep in mind that I plan to completely overhaul everything after Crysis comes out with a 680i mobo and the latest DX10 gear (maybe even quad-core as well). The reason why I haven't upgraded yet is because I've managed to run my games @ 1280x1024 with my setup and I'm saving my money to go all out when appropriate.

Saying that, I'm sure my current rig would struggle with the FW900 so I ask you this:

I was hoping that just by making a couple swaps, I could game somewhat reasonable (with older games such as quake 4, doom 3, etc) and hold off until later this year to make serious upgrades. I was planning to pick up an AMD64 4000+ processor for $100 and the EVGA 7600gt for just over $100 to go along with the rest of my setup.

Do you think the above will suit me fine for another 6 months? For the time being, I will probably only play at 1280x1024.. and possibly 1600x1200 if it will allow me, but no big deal. Either way, will running 1920x1200 for windows use be adequate with this setup as well?

Thanks soo much for all the help provided on this forum.
 
I will probably pick one of these up from the place in Macomb, MI, toward the end of next week, if all goes well. :D

Trying not to get too excited in case it has problems, but still...... ;)
 
I think I regret shelling out 500 for mine at this point...

I use it for PC only.

I was able to adjust the focus POTs without removing the case, and when combined with convergence tweaks, the monitor is still blurry in all 4 corners.

Every time I look at the time in the bottom right, or the My Computer icon in the top left, it's like I need to put glasses on.

This is unacceptable really... with a 2002 model, I guess I just have to deal with it. What other options are there to fix such poor focus, after having tweaked the POTs?

Talk about disheartening.. I mean every time I look at the time I think "damn what a waste of money"

Granted, I do run it at 2304x1440 (60Hz, the supported 80Hz is just too blurry), and the lower my resolution, the less pronounced the blur is, but it's still there.

500$. Christ.
 
oldskooler79 said:
4
My current pc specs:

EVGA nforce sli mobo (not 680i but older one)
AMD64 3500+ socket 939
XFX 6600 256mb (non-gt version)
250gb western digital hd 7200rpm (x2)
2 gig ddr400 corsair ram
450w L&C power supply (only one +12v rail @ 18a)

Now before you say "Eww!", keep in mind that I plan to completely overhaul everything after Crysis comes out with a 680i mobo and the latest DX10 gear (maybe even quad-core as well). T4
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Smart one.. I can already feel the guilt from buying a rig this Christmas, knowing I should wait til mid 07 and the DX10 hoopla to make a splash.
 
uberwurst said:
Smart one.. I can already feel the guilt from buying a rig this Christmas, knowing I should wait til mid 07 and the DX10 hoopla to make a splash.
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I'll buy a new PC in early 2009, when the superiority of PCs will be clear and before the next generation of consoles arrive in 2010.;)
 
Hmm, I don't know. With 25 I surely have a true black, but it is a little less bright than what I want. Do you know anything that I can found in Rainbow Six, Saints Row, Lost Planet, Gears of War, PES6, Dead Rising, Splinter Cell, Oblivion that I can use to compare as a true black object?
 
try reading the review.

Most recent DVD's are double sided, one side with a standard TV/monitor version and widescreen on the other. We simply flipped our DVD to widescreen, loaded up our DVD software, and saw our jaws drop to the ground. Even with a software-based decoder on a GeForce, image quality was amazingly good, better than any crummy TV will give you.
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that quote answers both of your questions.
1. the disk has both a widescreen (16:9) ratio and a normal ratio (4:3)
2. they said software and GeForce, which implies its being played on a PC.
 
Just an FYI Xbox360 has the same overscan issues in 1080p on my 20WMGX2 LCD so I think this is more of a 360 issue rather than the FW900 itself.

I didn't think the LCD would even work at that res being its a 1680x1050 native panel but surprisingly it did:

360_1080p.jpg

The monitor having a Black Level adjust saves the 360 VGA's 'washed out' effect some people complain about with LCDs, as you can see its a seperate adjustment from Brightness and actually acts as a Gamma adjust. The Sharpness adjustment is nice to have as well.

At 720P the 360 looks amazingly good on this LCD, The monitor does a very good job of scaling down to 1280x720:
360_VGA_720P.jpg
 
ThEMighTyTh0R said:
try reading the review.



that quote answers both of your questions.
1. the disk has both a widescreen (16:9) ratio and a normal ratio (4:3)
2. they said software and GeForce, which implies its being played on a PC.
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I am using a pc to play Ronin and all my other widescreen dvds using Win dvd and WMP and I cannot get it even close to filling the screen like they show in that picture. That is why I asked the question. I meant not how they are running the movies on the monitor but how they are getting it to fill the screen like that. They don't say it is being stretched and the way the reviewer words it he makes it sound as if dvds are suppose to fill the whole screen perfectly or near perfectly but none of my dvds come even close-- as in I have huge black bars on the top and bottom. The bars look like I'm watching on a 4:3 display or something.
 
HardB said:
I am using a pc to play Ronin and all my other widescreen dvds using Win dvd and WMP and I cannot get it even close to filling the screen like they show in that picture. That is why I asked the question. I meant not how they are running the movies on the monitor but how they are getting it to fill the screen like that. They don't say it is being stretched and the way the reviewer words it he makes it sound as if dvds are suppose to fill the whole screen perfectly or near perfectly but none of my dvds come even close-- as in I have huge black bars on the top and bottom. The bars look like I'm watching on a 4:3 display or something.
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The FW900 is 16:10 aspect ratio (just like 99% of widescreen PC monitors) There are no 16:10 aspect ratio DVDs so the only way to fill the entire screen is to stretch it which of course wouldnt look proper. Even on 16:9 HDTVs a lot of DVD's still have black bars on top and bottom, it just depends what aspect the movie was filmed in.
 
mathesar said:
The FW900 is 16:10 aspect ratio (just like 99% of widescreen PC monitors) There are no 16:10 aspect ratio DVDs so the only way to fill the entire screen is to stretch it which of course wouldnt look proper. Even on 16:9 HDTVs a lot of DVD's still have black bars on top and bottom, it just depends what aspect the movie was filmed in.
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OT - Can you please reply to my PM? Thanks ;)
 
Can someone tell me or give me a link where I can find a trancoder, got a PS3, want to strap it to the fw900.
 
HardB said:
I am using a pc to play Ronin and all my other widescreen dvds using Win dvd and WMP and I cannot get it even close to filling the screen like they show in that picture. That is why I asked the question. I meant not how they are running the movies on the monitor but how they are getting it to fill the screen like that. They don't say it is being stretched and the way the reviewer words it he makes it sound as if dvds are suppose to fill the whole screen perfectly or near perfectly but none of my dvds come even close-- as in I have huge black bars on the top and bottom. The bars look like I'm watching on a 4:3 display or something.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)

They have to be cropping/stretching.
 
So other than being a post whoring thread; why do we need this to be a sticky? It's pretty stupid.

The monitor is cool but who the hell cares? There's tons of threads on monitors that are not sticky.
 
Volucris said:
So other than being a post whoring thread; why do we need this to be a sticky? It's pretty stupid.

The monitor is cool but who the hell cares? There's tons of threads on monitors that are not sticky.
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...
 
Volucris said:
So other than being a post whoring thread; why do we need this to be a sticky? It's pretty stupid.

The monitor is cool but who the hell cares? There's tons of threads on monitors that are not sticky.
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your just jealous... and a troll

FW900 is a beaut, i believe it is the only widescreen CRT monitor, all other monitor threads are of LCDs, and there are so many of them.
 
Volucris said:
So other than being a post whoring thread; why do we need this to be a sticky? It's pretty stupid.

The monitor is cool but who the hell cares? There's tons of threads on monitors that are not sticky.
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There are pages and pages of very good info in this thread...thats why its a sticky.....
The info in here would take a long time to find, this thread , puts its all in one nice neat package :)
 
I just got my FW900, and it was THIS thread that made me want one.

You guys fucking rock.
 
GreenMonkey said:
Agreed.

This thread is the best source of FW900 information on all the internets :D
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Ah, well, I spoke too soon. I need some help. I've read through this thread concerning moire-canceling, yet I can't seem to get my monitor to display properly.

I've tested it at many different resolutions and refresh rates. I have manually adjusted the moire-cancellation settings, but they didn't help; all they did was further blur my screen.

When viewing moire textures (like http://www.scarse.org/adjust/moire.gif), all I get are wavy lines instead of straight or perfectly diagonal pixels.

Is there any way to fix this? It severely hinders my ability to use this monitor for graphic design.
 
S-B said:
Ah, well, I spoke too soon. I need some help. I've read through this thread concerning moire-canceling, yet I can't seem to get my monitor to display properly.

I've tested it at many different resolutions and refresh rates. I have manually adjusted the moire-cancellation settings, but they didn't help; all they did was further blur my screen.

When viewing moire textures (like http://www.scarse.org/adjust/moire.gif), all I get are wavy lines instead of straight or perfectly diagonal pixels.

Is there any way to fix this? It severely hinders my ability to use this monitor for graphic design.
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Hrm well when I view that pattern I'm seeing wavy lines as well , if I re-size the window and move the pattern around the lines only appear on the left & right sides of the screen , if I enable Moire cancel and turn it up to 25 the lines disappear , of course as you mentioned the picture loses sharpness at the same time.. Im not sure if CRTs are capable of displaying that type of image without some moire being present? This page has more info: http://www.displaymate.com/moire.html
 
mathesar said:
Hrm well when I view that pattern I'm seeing wavy lines as well , if I re-size the window and move the pattern around the lines only appear on the left & right sides of the screen , if I enable Moire cancel and turn it up to 25 the lines disappear , of course as you mentioned the picture loses sharpness at the same time.. Im not sure if CRTs are capable of displaying that type of image without some moire being present? This page has more info: http://www.displaymate.com/moire.html
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Well, smaller CRTs should display it properly. I've turned up the setting to 35 (I'm using 1600x1000) and it seems to be better, of course it's not the greatest, but it should be enough to get me by with design.

I still have this strange "ghosting" issue of sorts. Not true ghosting, but rather some sort of shadow. For example, moving my cursor around, the shadow next to it (like a 90% transparent copy of my cursor) follows it around. This shadow appears on pretty much anywhere that it can be visible (meaning on everything except black or other very dark colors).

I did this in Photoshop. It's pretty similar to this, except sometimes it's slightly wavy (like white on gray).
333zkab.png
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S-B said:
Ah, well, I spoke too soon. I need some help. I've read through this thread concerning moire-canceling, yet I can't seem to get my monitor to display properly.

I've tested it at many different resolutions and refresh rates. I have manually adjusted the moire-cancellation settings, but they didn't help; all they did was further blur my screen.

When viewing moire textures (like http://www.scarse.org/adjust/moire.gif), all I get are wavy lines instead of straight or perfectly diagonal pixels.

Is there any way to fix this? It severely hinders my ability to use this monitor for graphic design.
Click to expand...

i had moire turned off..after looking at that gif file, i turned it on and had to adjust to 39 to get rid of it. no matter where i put it on my screen i could no longer see any wavy patterns.

im using 1920x1200@85hz.
 
Moire has never really bothered me personally. I mean, I do get it, it just doesn't bother me.
 
Good luck finding either of those in stock. They seem to be going on eBay for at least $80-90 each.
 
ellover009 said:
I did some research, here's the few transcoders that I have looked at so far.
(vdigi) VD-Z3
(Neoya) X2VGA2 2.0
(Datapro) CSV-955A

which one is the best, or at lest best quality?
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CSV-955A is the part number for VD-Z3. As for a comparison, here's an old Xbox-Scene thread about this (note that X2VGA2 isn't compared in this thread):
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=435811

By the way, as far as I know, these do 1080i, not 1080p.

Check out this thread as well:
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=573425&mode=linear
 
S-B said:
I still have this strange "ghosting" issue of sorts. Not true ghosting, but rather some sort of shadow. For example, moving my cursor around, the shadow next to it (like a 90% transparent copy of my cursor) follows it around. This shadow appears on pretty much anywhere that it can be visible (meaning on everything except black or other very dark colors).

I did this in Photoshop. It's pretty similar to this, except sometimes it's slightly wavy (like white on gray).
Click to expand...

Have you ruled out a possible cable issue? My BNC cables randomly cause similar ghosting/shadows (most noticable with text) but wiggling or twisting the bnc connectors on the monitor side fixes it.
 
mathesar said:
Have you ruled out a possible cable issue? My BNC cables randomly cause similar ghosting/shadows (most noticable with text) but wiggling or twisting the bnc connectors on the monitor side fixes it.
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I have similar problem with mine and I am using VGA cable, the minute I take the monitor away from the desk everything is perfect. I think it's some sort of electromagnetic interference or your cables. I removed some elements from my desk and it has decreased.
 
mathesar said:
Have you ruled out a possible cable issue? My BNC cables randomly cause similar ghosting/shadows (most noticable with text) but wiggling or twisting the bnc connectors on the monitor side fixes it.
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ellover009 said:
I have similar problem with mine and I am using VGA cable, the minute I take the monitor away from the desk everything is perfect. I think it's some sort of electromagnetic interference or your cables. I removed some elements from my desk and it has decreased.
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You guys might be right. I'm going to try moving my monitor around. I'm using VGA, and I've since switched to 1920x1200@60hz (I don't know why my laptop won't output this resolution at 85hz).

By the way, what direction was the shadow effect going towards for you guys, and where are the objects (like your computer) that could interfere located in relation to your monitor? My shadow effect is to the right.

EDIT: Nope, I tried moving the monitor around, shadows are still there. I'm going to try moving this over to one of the other PCs to see if the problem continues.

EDIT 2: Nothing. I moved the monitor about 5 meters away to another computer and tried hooking it up there, but the shadows were exactly the same. Could this problem be fixed by adjusting the screws inside the monitor or by getting another cable (BNC, VGA)?
 
I when I moved mine I literally took it off the desk and put it in the floor about 4ft away. As for the shadows the appear to be a highlight of an item and they appear at the right of the item, only vertical lines, light ones, if you move a desktop item it's shadow will follow it.
 
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