Dell 24" lcd beware

J

jackal2513

Active member
great for games but utterly abysmal for stills and video
it renders any dv footage unwatchable and you have no idea what it really looks like
compression and grain are forced out of the picture tenfold
I had a samsung 243t 24" lcd before this and that was way way better but now ive just ordered a 19" CRT to house my after effects comp window
 
Don't know what you're talking about; I've been using this monitor for months and its been amazing for both my photography and video work! :)
 
I also don't know what jackal2513 is talking about... The 2405 is a sweet monitor, arguably the best 23/24" 1920x1200 display on the market. I have it as the primary display on a workstation with a Samsung 243T as the secondary and the Dell is a much, much better display. Although, the 2405 is nearly 2 years newer and just uses the updated Samsung panel vs. the old model in the 243T.

Perhaps he's complaining about the quality when using an analog video input via VGA, component, etc... Why buy such a display and not push an all digital signal to it? Actually I did try the component input with a DirecTV HD10 and Discovery HD looked awesome on the 2405 via the component input. I wouldn't use this thing as a studio output monitor (buy a real studio monitor or at least a nice HDTV for that purpose).
 
Are you cutting on Final Cut Pro?
There is some setting in it for video output that may be making your image look like garbage. Look for a FCP guru is this is the case. I do all my compositing and editing on an etch-a-sketch myself.
 
nope, using DVI feed from a 1800XT

as all the reviews clearly state, its way overbright as an LCD and looks far too grainy when watching video or DVD. I guess it looks ok if youre not used to anything better .
 
im not the only one either:


"Owning the dell.. I do think the monitor really shows off all of the imperfections.. and noise that I wasn't seeing at all on my old CRT which could handle the 720 stuff no problem. This same footage now on the Dell is almost picked apart. I do think it's a great monitor for footage that is bright and evenly exposed but it looks bad in the darks and such."

"EVERYTHING looks like crap on LCD monitors. Look at your stuff on a CRT--much nicer."
 
You do realise that you can change the brightness?

I don't know about anyone else, but I owned a high-end graphics editing CRT before this, and my Dell is simply even better. Face it, CRTs are dead.
 
Hes just tired of buying the $24 LCD 'pixel cartridges'... the 24's go
through those pixels at a crazy rate :)
 
i use a Sony 24" GDMFW900 crt professionally at work and have done for many years and there's just no comparison. LCDs are at best a poor choice for digital work but teh Dell is in my experience the worst of the 24" crowd. At work the coders use the 24" P234 sonys and no way are they as grainy or unkind to the moving image.

And yes, i do realise you can control teh brightness. Its currently on zero. Even with the Radeon control panel brightness ALSO turned down the (and regardless of whatever other settings you fiddle with) the imagery is awful.
 
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Turn the sharpness down (off). It just makes everything just look better.

My Sony tube CRT HDTV looked HORRIBLE on standard-def. It had some sort of super-hyper edge enhancement on. Standard-def was grainy and unwatchable until I turned all that junk off; now it looks sweet.
 
jackal2513 said:
nope, using DVI feed from a 1800XT

as all the reviews clearly state, its way overbright as an LCD and looks far too grainy when watching video or DVD. I guess it looks ok if youre not used to anything better .
Click to expand...

What reviews?

Overbright? Hardly... And with a 1000:1 contrast ratio, it's about the best there is on the market for an LCD panel this size considering both PC monitors and HDTVs. If you're seeing grainy images perhaps your source material isn't all that great - crap in, crap out. Or perhaps you need to adjust some settings. The onboard scaling of this monitor is pretty poor, so if you're viewing anything on it without viewing in its native resolution, then you're just asking for bad images. There's the typical "screen door effect" to this display, but what 24" or larger LCD doesn't have this? Or any other LCD with < 100ppi, for that matter.

And what about the P234 do you like? I guess it makes sense that you like it and the Samsung 243T -- It's the same exact panel as the Samsung 243T, the predecessor to the Samsung panel used in the Dell 2405. Could it be the 16ms response time helps smooth over imperfections in video? Or the lackluster 250cd/m^2 brightness or the 500:1 contrast ratio, or...

I'm missing something here... Either your settings on your 2405 are FUBAR or you have a dud or something. Sure, this is all subjective to the viewer to some extent, but I have to agree with alpha54, you must be using a different monitor than I.

While we're on the issue of subjective opinions regarding displays, I never could stand using aperture grille monitors. The horizontal support wire alone is enough to steer me away and the super-low phosphor persistence and flat color reproduction never did it for me. I'd gladly put up with the lower brightness and splotches of a shadow mask CRT just to get the extra color saturation and to eliminate those support wires... :P

Anyway, I don't even know why I'm typing this post. This is pointless and stupid... You don't like the 2405, fine with me. If it's still under warranty, I'll give you $400 for it. :)
 
You sorta want your production monitor to highlight the imperfections. Then, you know that when something looks good on IT, it'll look good on anything. You never want to shoot/edit with a FLATTERING monitor; then you're dependent on such...
 
Elton said:
I noticed lag on a friend's Dell. I think it's pixel response is relatively slow.
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It has a response time so 12ms, I believe. This will be perfectly fast for most people, but some will notice lag. It seems perfectly smooth to me, but like I said, it may not for everyone :)
 
AppliedVisual said:
If you're seeing grainy images perhaps your source material isn't all that great - crap in, crap out.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't called a full height anamorphic plate from an up and coming Warner Brothers blockbuster shot on a Panavision and scanned with a Northlight at 6k crap material. It should never look as bad as it does on the dell. But I am willing to give the sharpening adjustment a go, thanks for the tip. Specs, numbers and brochure padding mean zilch.
 
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I have the 24inch 900 screen too, but Dell monitor 24 lcd is much better.... I love my dell monitor for previewing and editing.... 900 no where near the image of my new dell.... you might need to get you color corrected with spyder 2 or something like that
 
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