How to judge the quality of a monitor?

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Opticreep

I'm about to plunk down a lot of cash for a 21" CRT flat screen CRT
monitor, like the Viewsonic G220f.

I know that most people will state the obvious, and say that I go for
the monitor with nices specs, and whose display looks best to me. The
problem is, I'm a terrible judge of product quality. I'd like a
method that's a little more concrete than simply choosing a monitor
that "looks best" to me.

Any suggestions on what programs I could use to help judge a monitor's
display quality? Any methods to help me notice things like
distortions, color irregularities, black oversaturation, and so forth?
The salesman will allow me to test the monitor on my computer, so
presumably I can use any programs I want to test this.

Of particular problem to me is the color fidelity. If I see a red on
the screen, how can I make sure that it's the proper shade of red?
How do I know whether to lay the blame on the monitor quality itself,
or the color settings on the graphics card drivers?
 
Opticreep said:
I'm about to plunk down a lot of cash for a 21" CRT flat screen CRT
monitor, like the Viewsonic G220f.

I know that most people will state the obvious, and say that I go for
the monitor with nices specs, and whose display looks best to me. The
problem is, I'm a terrible judge of product quality. I'd like a
method that's a little more concrete than simply choosing a monitor
that "looks best" to me.

Any suggestions on what programs I could use to help judge a monitor's
display quality? Any methods to help me notice things like
distortions, color irregularities, black oversaturation, and so forth?
The salesman will allow me to test the monitor on my computer, so
presumably I can use any programs I want to test this.

Of particular problem to me is the color fidelity. If I see a red on
the screen, how can I make sure that it's the proper shade of red?
How do I know whether to lay the blame on the monitor quality itself,
or the color settings on the graphics card drivers?
Click to expand...

Download 3dMark2001(or 2003) for free from www.download.com

That's a good demo program. You can also use it to test the speed of your
PC for gaming purposes, but it will really show off your monitor also, if
it's a good one.

If you have a DVD drive (ROM or RW) and want to see how the professionals
would judge it, run Digital Video Essentials. It's useful for tuning up the
audio and video of your home theater, also, so it's a good investment.

http://store.yahoo.com/dvdinternational/dve.html

(there's one place to get it, but you could also search froogle for better
prices, probably)

That will allow you to properly adjust contrast, brightness, and individual
(RGB) color levels, as well as gray level, saturation, sharpness . . .
everything. But be aware that a monitor properly adjusted for watching
movies may not look best for office work.

So it still comes down to trusting your own eyes.

And once you've run the above tests and run your own favorite programs, I
think you'll find an NEC brand monitor to be closest to what you are looking
for. In my professional opinion, the best image quality I've seen in a LCD
monitor was a NEC LCD1565. The NEC brand LCDs look better than Viewsonic,
Samsung and many other brands I've viewed, and the LCD1565 model is the best
of the NEC brands. But that one is considerably smaller than what you are
looking for. :) -Dave
 
You could search the net for some reviews. As for Viewsonic, I usually advise
people to choose a monitor from the P series. Why don't you go for the
P225fb? the specs seem more interesting, although the best thing is to look at the
monitors in person.
 
I'm about to plunk down a lot of cash for a 21" CRT flat screen CRT
monitor, like the Viewsonic G220f.

I know that most people will state the obvious, and say that I go for
the monitor with nices specs, and whose display looks best to me. The
problem is, I'm a terrible judge of product quality. I'd like a
method that's a little more concrete than simply choosing a monitor
that "looks best" to me.
Click to expand...

One test would be in-store, hoooked up to a system. Set the
monitor to a higher resolution and refresh and see how high
it'll go before burring... compare blurriness to other
competitors, and read specs for max refresh rate supported
(be sure when comparing monitors that same resolution is at
same refresh rate, and output from same video card if
possible). Look for a model that supports at least 100Hz
refresh on the highest resolution you plan on using, suggest
an absolute minimum of 100Hz @ 1280x1024, it doesn't take a
quality monitor to achive that, it'd merely have to be
better than junk.

Any suggestions on what programs I could use to help judge a monitor's
display quality? Any methods to help me notice things like
distortions, color irregularities, black oversaturation, and so forth?
The salesman will allow me to test the monitor on my computer, so
presumably I can use any programs I want to test this.
Click to expand...

There are a bunch of test images, Google will find them.
Also try Futuremark's Video 2000,
http://www.futuremark.com/download/?video2000.shtml

Of particular problem to me is the color fidelity. If I see a red on
the screen, how can I make sure that it's the proper shade of red?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you want it sync'd to... many want it to
match their printer. When trying a monitor, adjust it's
color temperature with video driver set to defaults. It
should have good range, you should be able to adjust it to
look both too green and too blue, plenty of margin for red
in the "middle" to tweak later... though any halfway decent
monitor will be fine in this regard but since you asked...
How do I know whether to lay the blame on the monitor quality itself,
or the color settings on the graphics card drivers?
Click to expand...

Video card color settings shouldn't need changed... set them
to defaults. If it looks very bad, off-color, you might try
another video card if possible, just to be sure there isn't
something wrong with a particular card like an off-tolerance
output filter, but if it looks reasonable on your present
monitor that shouldn't be an issue.

Although you want a more concrete method, what looks "best
to you" is all that really matters in the end.
 
I'm about to plunk down a lot of cash for a 21" CRT flat screen CRT
monitor, like the Viewsonic G220f.
Click to expand...
I'd like a method that's a little more concrete than simply choosing
a monitor that "looks best" to me.

Any suggestions on what programs I could use to help judge a monitor's
display quality?
Click to expand...

Don't rely on graphical images because they hide too many flaws.
Instead use text displays of the letter H and the "+" sign. Fill the
screen with a white "H + H + H +" pattern (blank space between each
character, blank line between each text line). This will show you the
quality of the focus and also the color convergence (look for rainbow
fringes around each character). Repeat all this, only make the
characters violet in color because that will show the red-blue color
convergence (harder to see with white characters). Check not only the
center but also the perimeter, especially the corners, because poor
focus or misconvergence can be very annoying. Try these tests at the
highest resolution and vertical scan rate you plan to use because many
monitors look less sharp at higher resolutions and faster horizontal
rates.
 
Any suggestions on what programs I could use to help judge a monitor's
display quality? Any methods to help me notice things like
distortions, color irregularities, black oversaturation, and so forth?
The salesman will allow me to test the monitor on my computer, so
presumably I can use any programs I want to test this.
Click to expand...

Here's one that I use:

http://freepctech.com/rode/004.shtml

Most of the tests are good, especially grayscale and fullscreen.
 
Don't rely on graphical images because they hide too many flaws.
Instead use text displays of the letter H and the "+" sign. Fill the
screen with a white "H + H + H +" pattern (blank space between each
character, blank line between each text line). This will show you the
quality of the focus and also the color convergence (look for rainbow
fringes around each character). Repeat all this, only make the
characters violet in color because that will show the red-blue color
convergence (harder to see with white characters). Check not only the
center but also the perimeter, especially the corners, because poor
focus or misconvergence can be very annoying. Try these tests at the
highest resolution and vertical scan rate you plan to use because many
monitors look less sharp at higher resolutions and faster horizontal
rates.
Click to expand...

Glad to see several people giving good advice without an overdose of
unqualified "what looks best to you". When I was actively involved in
consumer electronic products and before Internet access became
widespread, I used to see a lot of magazine articles that advised
people to base their buying decisions on what sounds or looks good to
them. While this certainly has some basis, not everyone has the finely
honed skill to properly judge the quality of sound reproduction or TV
picture. Human senses can get adapted too easily to what they're used
to seeing or hearing.

E.g., when Dolby recording became popular, people who regularly
listened to dolby cassettes on non-dolby systems got so used to the
excessive treble that playback on a good dolby system sounded dull and
somehow "wrong" to them. And then there are people who prefer the
distinctly reddish (or greenish or purple) picture on their ageing TV
to a properly balanced colour. It's easier to make objective judgement
of factors like resolution, geometry and convergence.
 
E.g., when Dolby recording became popular, people who regularly
listened to dolby cassettes on non-dolby systems got so used to the
excessive treble that playback on a good dolby system sounded dull and
somehow "wrong" to them.
Click to expand...

My ears hurt just thinking about that.
 
Opticreep said:
I'm about to plunk down a lot of cash for a 21" CRT flat screen CRT
monitor, like the Viewsonic G220f.

I know that most people will state the obvious, and say that I go for
the monitor with nices specs, and whose display looks best to me. The
problem is, I'm a terrible judge of product quality. I'd like a
method that's a little more concrete than simply choosing a monitor
that "looks best" to me.

Any suggestions on what programs I could use to help judge a monitor's
display quality? Any methods to help me notice things like
distortions, color irregularities, black oversaturation, and so forth?
The salesman will allow me to test the monitor on my computer, so
presumably I can use any programs I want to test this.
Click to expand...

Here's a free program to test monitors. You would need to independently
set up and check the driver resolution you plan on using.

http://www.geocities.com/tvdarekz/

See Monitor Tester, for moniteste.exe, near the bottom of the page.
Of particular problem to me is the color fidelity. If I see a red on
the screen, how can I make sure that it's the proper shade of red?
How do I know whether to lay the blame on the monitor quality itself,
or the color settings on the graphics card drivers?
Click to expand...

If you are looking for a final "hard copy" output, you will need to
adjust the driver color settings so that the final output looks the same
as you see on the monitor. This is a subjective as well as hardware
sensitive setting.

Virg Wall
 
Opticreep,
Be aware that your most scientific efforts to conduct an in-store monitor
comparison will be meaningless if the monitor(s) you are checking is hooked
to a hub shared with other monitors off the same computer. Some monitors,
that would perform well when hooked up normally to a computer suffer
dramatically when hooked up with a "Y" type connector. This might cause you
to pass up an otherwise fine monitor. And of course, who knows who had been
messing with the settings before you ever got to it.

It's really tough to conduct a reasonable test in such an uncontrolled
environment.

Just for the record, I am not a technician - only a consumer who made the
above observations while doing research.

Ken
 
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