xtractdigit Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 At the moment, a CRT screen is more suitable than an LCD screen for the playing of motion graphics such as are in games and video. This is because LCD technology is not yet as rapid as CRT technology at refreshing the screen, the technical term for which is the refresh rate for a CRT monitor - the frequency at which the screen is redrawn, in Hertz (Hz), or cycles per second. At refresh rates below 70Hz, most people can see the screen flicker, which causes them eye-strain. Strictly speaking, the refresh rate for an LCD monitor is called its pixel response time, because LCD technology doesn't refresh the screen in the same way as with a CRT monitor, but for the sake of convenience, I'll just call the process the refresh rate for both types of monitor. This is usually between 20 and 50 milliseconds. It is measured in milliseconds not Hz, as with CRT monitors. The lower the pixel response time, the faster the pixels refresh (turn off and on), making the screen update faster - an important factor for gamers. When an LCD screen displays images that show rapid movement, a blurring effect called ghosting will be evident. How much ghosting there is depends on the quality of the monitor. However, the technology has improved to the point now that ghosting has almost been eliminated on LCD displays of quality. The screen resolution is determined by the number of pixels in use by the viewable area of the screen. The pixels are the small dots that give colour to the screen. If the screen resolution is 800X600 pixels (480,000) for a 15" CRT monitor, the screen has a width of 800 pixels and a height of 600 pixels. But if the same screen size has the screen resolution set to 1024X768, nearly double the number of pixels (786,432) are employed to create the image. For CRT monitors, remember that monitors set to run at high resolutions make the images on the screen appear smaller on the same monitor that is set at lower resolutions, because the same information is displayed at the higher resolution but in less space. That is why it's common to see web pages shrink when the screen resolution is increased. The HTML code of such pages is set to cover a set number of pixels. By increasing the resolution there are more pixels per square inch, so the information on the page shrinks. If the HTML coding is changed to make the contents spread over the entire width of the screen instead of across a set number of pixels, then the page fills the whole screen again at the higher resolution. Moreover, remember that with a CRT monitor the higher the screen resolution the lower the maximum refresh rate, because there are more pixels to refresh. For the resolution you'll use most, you'll want to run a refresh rate of at least 70Hz to avoid flicker, which causes the eyes to tire. 85Hz is probably the ideal resolution. An LCD monitor works best using its 'native' resolution, and not so well set to its other supported resolutions, because these aren't actual, they're emulated resolutions. This is not the case with CRT monitors, which work equally well with all of the many resolutions that they support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offshore Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 Your post would have been accurate 2 years ago. Things have shifted a bit since then to say the least Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtractdigit Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 Your post would have been accurate 2 years ago. Things have shifted a bit since then to say the least To put it more simply. Are refresh rates applicable to LCD monitors? Unlike CRT display technology in which the speed the electron beam is swept from the top to the bottom of the screen determines flicker, an active matrix display uses an active element (TFT) to control each individual pixel and thus refresh rates are not really applicable to LCD technology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drizt Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 8ms refresh rate is the equivalent of 125Hz refresh rate... yes i know LCD's dont reach 8ms all the time, more like 12, but even then its still equivalent to 85Hz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MelwayMan Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 Well I've bitten the bullet and have ordered one through work. I just can't see the value in the Philips panel for the extra $2000. Hopefully it'll arrive in the next week or so. Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwo Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 Well I've bitten the bullet and have ordered one through work. I just can't see the value in the Philips panel for the extra $2000.Hopefully it'll arrive in the next week or so. Tim Does anyone know if the Phillips will accept 1080p over DVI? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drizt Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 No it will not.. Sharp D90 1080p lcds will but they are not released here.. so far they are the only ones Does anyone know if the Phillips will accept 1080p over DVI? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Therm3l Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 I just got one. If it fitted in the back of a Commodore I would have been unpacking it right now... FYI, the box is apparently 890x1320x370. A VT Commodore is about 840 high..... *sigh* So I'll have to wait till monday to get it delivered. In the showroom I hooked my laptop up to the panel and ran 1920x1080@60Hz into it over vga (Geforce Go6600). I didnt see what the panel thought it was displaying, I just looked at the amazing picture it outputed. It was pretty sharp, absolutely flicker free. Given that it was plain analog vga, I cant wait to see it with DVI. The desktop was good enough (on vga) that I think I'll use it as a PC monitor until I can find space to put my 76cm CRT it replaces. I played some TopGear on the laptop and it was really good. There was some tearing with a 25hz/30hz incompatibility, but that happened with my laptop and my CRT with its vga input as well. I suspect some powerstrip tweaking will sort that out (if I end up hooking up a HTPC up to it). Playing an xvid source with fast moving cars, I couldnt see any ghosting. The refresh rate looked good. Got the sales guy to hook up a LG9921 via HDMI to the set. It displayed 576i, 576p, 720p and 1080i all flawlessly. Truth be known, there wasnt alot of difference between 576p, 720p and 1080i. Which just shows that the internal scaler is at least as good as the LG. And I've been really impressed with the LG and my CRT. They had a Sharp 46in Aquos the same showroom as the Acer, and I think the Acer is at least as good as that (comparing the cricket today). There is a new Phillips 37in 1080 panel in HN in Adelaide, and it looks... ordinary. It was playing a Phillips DVD demp loop. There was a Benq 3750 sitting next to the Phillips - and that looked positively awful. I think that the work experience kid had hooked those panels up - no way they should look that bad. I've seen the Acer in three different showrooms now, and all have looked great. Im going to make a comparison to the Bravia V series 40in everyone talks about. The Acer doesnt seem to have _quite_ the color saturation that I have seen the Bravia display, but its a million times sharper. I also think that the saturation on most showroom panels are overly bright for eye grabbing color from a long way off - not something you'd live with in your lounge room. Cant wait till Monday..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murcod Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 There is a new Phillips 37in 1080 panel in HN in Adelaide, and it looks... ordinary. Is that the new 1920 x 1080 37" that everyone's been waiting for? What was the price? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Therm3l Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 Is that the new 1920 x 1080 37" that everyone's been waiting for? What was the price? I think it was 5k. It was alot more than the Benq. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justifier Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Bought this tv the other day based on comments on this forum. (thanks people) Must say that overall I am very happy with it. I do have an issue, however, regarding the 1920 x 1080 @ 30hz from DVI from a PC. When I view my desktop the text is poor (maybe due to the interlacing) such that the text is broken up and hard to read. Has everyone else got the same? This also impacts on picture quality when viewing video from the PC on the tv although you need to look carefully. It results in a slight staircasing effect on fine lines. Also has anyone successfully pumped 1920 x 1080 @ 50 or 60hz into DVI yet? The set is specified to support 1080p which I would think is 1920 x 1080 @ 60hz. As a previous poster commented no matter what I feed the Monitor whether it be 30i, 50i, 60, 75 or 85hz it always shows 1920 x 1080 @ 30i and exhibits the text problems. Comments and help would be most appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrangryfish Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Bought this tv the other day based on comments on this forum. (thanks people) Must say that overall I am very happy with it.I do have an issue, however, regarding the 1920 x 1080 @ 30hz from DVI from a PC. When I view my desktop the text is poor (maybe due to the interlacing) such that the text is broken up and hard to read. Has everyone else got the same? This also impacts on picture quality when viewing video from the PC on the tv although you need to look carefully. It results in a slight staircasing effect on fine lines. Also has anyone successfully pumped 1920 x 1080 @ 50 or 60hz into DVI yet? The set is specified to support 1080p which I would think is 1920 x 1080 @ 60hz. As a previous poster commented no matter what I feed the Monitor whether it be 30i, 50i, 60, 75 or 85hz it always shows 1920 x 1080 @ 30i and exhibits the text problems. Comments and help would be most appreciated. I would be trying with a dual link DVI cable coming from a ATI x1800 or Nvidea 7800gtx. Dual link DVI is probably the only way of getting 1920x1080@60hz. Those graphics cards are not cheap though.. But about the same as a good HD STB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justifier Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 I have got a XFX 7800GTX card and I am running a dual link cable from the second port. However I have heard that only one port is enabled with dual link capability (not sure which one). I will try swapping the ports tonight. At the moment I runa 19" CRT off port 1 and the Acer LCD of port 2 in clone mode. Selecting 1920 x 1080 @ any hz only displays 30hz on the Acer. The Acer doesnt seem to want to do anything but 30hz regardless of what is sent to it....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrangryfish Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Another way to test it might be to get a DVI to HDMI cable/converter as maybe 1080p is only possibly via HDMI on the ACER. Eg: http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/DVI-hdmi_adapt.html Might be worth a try? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justifier Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Thanks mrangryfish I will give that a try too. rwo wrote: Now for the important stuff. BF2 @ 1920x1080 (set to 60Hz in the menu although I believe the monitor was only showing it at 30hz) looks AWESOME. The res made the old X700 chugg a fair bit, but the picture was near on excellent and extremly sharp. Gone are the days of needing stupidly high AA to get a sharp picture. I can't wait to get one of these home and hook it up to a decent video card!Quick summary: Pros: 1. Excellent picture 2. 1920x1080@30hz was still more than watchable, Desktop was extremly sharp with easy to read text Was the text really sharp rwo? I can only get disjointed hard to read text at this res. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ajax9000 Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 I have got a XFX 7800GTX card and I am running a dual link cable from the second port. However I have heard that only one port is enabled with dual link capability (not sure which one). I will try swapping the ports tonight. At the moment I runa 19" CRT off port 1 and the Acer LCD of port 2 in clone mode. Selecting 1920 x 1080 @ any hz only displays 30hz on the Acer.The Acer doesnt seem to want to do anything but 30hz regardless of what is sent to it....... Can you be kind enough to us all and when you are testing the DVI connections extract the EDID and post it for us to look at (see post #100)? Also, using dual link output from the Nvidia won't help if the DVI input is single link, but no one seems to know if the AT3705 has dual link input. Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrangryfish Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 Also, using dual link output from the Nvidia won't help if the DVI input is single link, but no one seems to know if the AT3705 has dual link input.Adrian This is why I think its worth trying a DVI to HDMI adapter.. I wonder if there is a dual link DVI to HDMI adapter though? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mybrains Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 A suggestion with the 1080p on the acer. U can try RGB/VGA connector. also u could see if there is any way to access the service menu and turn of the interlacer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
syd888 Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 Has anyone tested foxtel on this tv? i've read somewhere that the picture is terrible on the sony bravia lcd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justifier Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 Has anyone tested foxtel on this tv? i've read somewhere that the picture is terrible on the sony bravia lcd. This is not the fault of the TV but rather the quality of the foxtel signal in general. Whilst foxtel does transmit in 576i the quality of the picture is often degraded due to the poor quality of the recordings they transmit. I also think they limit the bandwidth of their transmissions which further degrades the quality. You will find some of the programs on fox (particularly new shows) look OK whilst older shows look crap. To answer you question the foxtel on the acer looks about as good as on my old panasonic 76cm widescreen CRT. If you look close enough there is a lot of pixelisation and noise. At 2-3 feet it is annoying but after about 8ft its OK. I use SVHS for foxtel which gives better percieved contrast but its still crap compared to what a 1080p IMAX HD download looks like on this amazing TV. Lets hope one day foxtel go HD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerSkel Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 ok guys, went into dj's today armed with my laptop just to see what my 'imho' is after reading all the reviews and i must say on the whole i was very very impressed... i decided to ditch their rca leads in favour of my dvi-d lead and it just kept getting better. laptop has a ATI Radeon 9700 series with 128mb graphics card. DVD. watched a few scenes from the end of matrix and picture was as sharp as anything i've seen. for me the blacks were more than acceptable as were fast moving scenes. had a quick look at pc game Rome Total War and as a display this lcd is AWESOME - as discussed by others it syncd in at 1920 x 1080 and the desktop icons etc were very sharp with no flicker at all. i could probably sit and just watch the desktop all day and be content... also did a quick slide show of some digital pics i had and was blown away with quality of this display. colours were great and the level of detail was superb. viewed some SD tv i'd copied to dvd and while not being fantastic it was perfectly acceptable - probably not the best way to test but the internal sd tuner couldn't be used because of where the unit was setup in the store. don't know how much longer i can procrastinate!! Finally, I ran the Monitor Asset Manager as suggested by Adrian, so someone smarter than me might like to comment on what this has to offer: Monitor Windows description......... ACR Monitor Manufacturer description.... Acer AT3705 Manufacturer................ ACR ———————————————————————————— Plug and Play ID............ ACRAC08 Serial number............... 134 (155300134) EDID data source............ I2C bus (real-time) ———————————————————————————— Manufacture date............. 2005, ISO week 53 EDID revision................ 1.3 Display type and signal..... Digital Sync input support.......... Separate Screen size..................... 820 x 460 mm (~39") Power management.......... Active off/sleep Color characteristics Display gamma............... 2.50 Red chromaticity............ Rx 0.640 - Ry 0.330 Green chromaticity.......... Gx 0.290 - Gy 0.600 Blue chromaticity........... Bx 0.150 - By 0.060 White point (default)....... Wx 0.280 - Wy 0.290 Timing characteristics VESA GTF support............ Not supported Horizontal scan range........ 30-80kHz Vertical scan range........... 50-85Hz Video bandwidth.............. 110MHz Extension blocks.............n/a Timing recommendation #1.... 1360x768 at 60Hz Modeline................ "1360x768" 85.500 1360 1424 1536 1792 768 771 777 795 +hsync +vsync Timing recommendation #2.... 1920x540 at 60Hz Modeline................ "1920x540" 74.250 1920 2008 2052 2200 540 542 547 562 +hsync +vsync Timing recommendation #3.... 1920x1080 at 30Hz Modeline................ "1920x1080" 74.250 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1094 1124 interlace +hsync +vsync Standard timings supported 640 x 480 at 60Hz - IBM VGA 640 x 480 at 72Hz - VESA 640 x 480 at 75Hz - VESA 720 x 400 at 70Hz - IBM VGA 800 x 600 at 56Hz - VESA 800 x 600 at 60Hz - VESA 800 x 600 at 72Hz - VESA 800 x 600 at 75Hz - VESA 832 x 624 at 75Hz - Mac II 1024 x 768 at 60Hz - VESA 1024 x 768 at 70Hz - VESA 1024 x 768 at 75Hz - VESA 1152 x 864 at 75Hz - VESA 1280 x 720 at 60Hz - VESA 1280 x 960 at 60Hz - VESA 1280 x 1024 at 60Hz - VESA 1360 x 768 at 60Hz - ACR 1400 x 1050 at 60Hz - VESA 1920 x 540 at 60Hz - ACR 1920 x 1080 at 30Hz - ACR Raw EDID base 00: 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 04 72 08 AC 86 00 00 00 10: 35 0F 01 03 E8 52 2E 96 2A E6 9D A3 54 4A 99 26 20: 0F 47 4A AF EE 00 71 4F 81 C0 81 40 81 80 90 40 30: 01 01 01 01 01 01 66 21 50 B0 51 00 1B 30 40 70 40: 36 00 34 CC 31 00 00 1E 01 1D 80 18 71 1C 16 20 50: 58 2C 25 00 34 CC 31 00 00 9E 00 00 00 FD 00 32 60: 55 1E 50 0B 00 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 FC 70: 00 41 63 65 72 20 41 54 33 37 30 35 0A 20 00 58 Display adapter Adapter description......... Auxiliary port Adapter device ID........... 0x4E501002 Display settings............ n/a User/computer information Registered user name........ Paul Windows version ............ Windows XP Windows build .............. 5.01.2600 Service Pack 2 this was the mediagate model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joker Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 Looks like it's doing 1080p@30...maybe that's the max this TV can go. But, since many have commented there's no flicker, so i guess no worries... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MelwayMan Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 Is this something a firmware update could potentially fix? It wouldn't be the first time firmware upgrades have been made available for LCD or Plasma panels... Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a-switcher Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 Great to see this tested. I dont know, is 30Hz like 16ms? Wth DVI shouln't we be talking ms not Hz? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joker Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 Is this something a firmware update could potentially fix?It wouldn't be the first time firmware upgrades have been made available for LCD or Plasma panels... Tim I can see the problem with this TV is that doing a firmware upgrade would not be easy as Philips ones, with those you can simply d/l the firmware to a USB drive and off you go... I suspect with Acer, you will have to do it in a repair centre.... UNLESS.....does anyone know how to get to the Service Menu? (I asked Acer, they wouldn't tell me as expected ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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