What is dot pitch?

Kodiak

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a pixel is made of three dots (Red, Green & Blue) of varying intensity.
Dot Pitch is the distance (in mm -- that's millimeters, or about 0.04 Inch for you non-metric people:) between those dots (NOT between pixels)
Basically, the smaller the dot pitch, the better the monitor is.
Be aware that there is a different dot pitch for horizontal spacement and vertical spacement. Comparing horizontal dot pitch of one monitor to vertical dot pitch of another makes no sense and isn't helpful. If you're comparing horizontal to horizontal or vertical to vertical, smaller is always better, but be aware that there are other important characteristics to the monitor (i.e. don't buy a monitor JUST because it's dot pitch is small... look for picture quality, parts quality, flatness, warranty, price/performance, etc:)
Hope this helps:)

Oh, and also, bigger monitors obviously have larger dot pitches. So if a 21" monitor has larger dot pitch than your 10-year-old 14", that in no way means that its an inferior monitor:)
 

oskarfr

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Thanks Kodiak...

That was very informative, and very good thing to know. As for mm or the whole metric system I'm very familiar, as I am europian. But no offence taken though. :)

You seem to know thease things, so I'll ask one more question. What is a good dot pitch?

I'm planning to buy a 17" Philips, which I think is an very good monitor. It has 0.25 dp og 0.21 hdp. Now is that good?

Óskar
 

Kodiak

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Phillips used to make some pretty good monitors, but I haven't seen one in a while myself so I can only presume they are still very good:)
the dot pitch itself is pretty good, and probably better than average in 17" monitors these days. It is not the BEST that you can get (number wise)
I'm getting a 19" Samsung which still has lower pitch .20 & .24
However, the best advice I can give you is, if you can, go and check it out yourself in a shop or somewhere. Many other factors influence the purchase of monitor, even some you might not consider (I purchased this monitor, among other things, because of its size... some other 19" monitors with same specs are about 4 inches bigger in frame... don't ask me what they waste all that space on:)

check color quality, sharpness (*especially* around the edges and in the corners), which resolution it supports at which refresh rates, the warranty etc.
If you can't see it yourself (buying online or something), try to find somebody who's seen or has that model -- I'm sure of 5000 people on these boards SOMEBODY has seen the phillips in action:)

Good Luck:)
 

JoeHead

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Nice try but the dot pitch goes like this. There are three phosphorous dots (GREEN, BLUE & RED) which make up a triad. These repeat. Now the dot pitch is the diagonol distance between the the same color phosphor.

And you are correct with the lower the better.

Also look at verticle refresh rate. You will want 75 - 85 min. at the resolution you view. This will reduce strain on your eyes. Also make sur it does not use interlacing (refreshes everyother line so the speed up refresh rate).

<b> Fragg at will!!! </b>
 

Kodiak

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actually, my monitors (Samsung 955DF and others) don't mention diagonal dot pitch, but rather vertical and horizontal separately, as I've mentioned...
same goes for all the advertisements I've looked in the last month in search of a monitor for me -- including various samsungs, sonys, etc.
(if you want to use phytagoras, I'm sure you could arrive at diagonal pitch:)

The dots etc I mentioned before...

I haven't seen anybody or anything using interlacing in quite a while... actually the last time I clearly remember it as an issue was in Amiga days:)
 

Arrow

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It seems like manufacturers are turning to vertical/horizontal dot pitch to advertise their products. I remember when virtually every manufacturer used the standard diagonal.

Rob
Please visit <b><A HREF="http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048" target="_new">http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048</A></b>
 

Kodiak

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I guess Osarkf didn't trust either one of us, he just asked the same question again:(

I'm guessing they are switching to horizontal & vertical in part because it sounds so much better... think of this:
My monitor: .20 one way, .24 other way... using phytagora for diagonal:
sqrt[ (.20)^2 + (.24)^2 ] = .31 -- not nearly as good as the other two sound:)

(is my calculation wrong? the .31 pitch *sounds* bad, even though its a great 19" monitor:)
 

oskarfr

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What do you mean I didn't trust you? I did ask that question a little for but never got an answer, so I tried a more direct approch and made a posting with the question as a subject.

But I think I got the answer now, thanks to both of you... :)
 

Kodiak

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ah sorry, my bad, this morning the other post ("phillips CRTs") was ahead of this one, I thought you asked this thread first, and then posted it in the other one unsatisfied with our answers...
:smile:

My apologies...
 

warmfuzzies

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Ok, so heres my two pence worth, as there are two main sorts of crt, aperture grill and shadow mask, there so happens to be two dissimilar ways of using the technology.
aperture grill uses a triangle of guns, 120degrees apart, and the aperture at the front end has the holes for the electrons to fire through in a triangle type shape.
shadow mask has the three electron guns lined up horizontally so there often appears to be three lines of colours. thus if you use a magnifying glass you can often diferentiate these technologies easily.
the dot pitch combined with the refresh rates in the horizontal plane are still the issue. lower dot pitch and higher refresh is preferable, but keep an eye on geometry and loss of cohesion in the corners.
shadow mask also uses two thin wires at about 1/3 2/3 up the screen, these are neccessary evils, in the begining of thes tech, the mask used to distort, casuing all sorts of picture issues, the wires are basically a system of supporting the mask.

nuff said. I'm off to buy a iiyama 451 pro.........