Worth it? 22" $199 Westinghouse LCD monitor.

[Noya]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7802577&type=product&id=1142292834310&ref=06&loc=01

Is this monitor a decent deal at $199 (I've only recently heard of Westinghouse) ? Worth getting up at 3 in the morning?

They're supposed to have a minimum of 10 per store.

 

[Noya]

Best Buy shoppers are FREAKS!

I get there at 2am and there is a line of probably 300-400 people. I chatted with one guy in the parking lot and he said there people lining up at 8:00am on Thanksgiving. And this is in Oregon, where we've been having record rain and lots of wind. He said people started going crazy when they turned the spotlights on. People cutting, almost a couple of scuffles.

I rolled by the electronic stores on Monday about 5pm, the week of the PS3 launch and there was already a good 20-30 people at BB...and they were only getting 20 60gb and 8 20gb. I went to Target a whole 30hrs before and was first in line...

 

[Hose]

It's probably worth $200, especially if it has 3-year warranty. (There are 4 major makers of LCD panels... about 80% of the world market, so odds are this model has one of those.)

As we get closer to Xmas and in the sales after, prices will come down to "near BF" levels, so you probably didn't miss much...

 

[Noya]

I hope so because I was all set on a 22" monitor. I guess I can just run dual CRT's through a cheap video card for now.

 

[tool_462]

I was lucky and got one (Rochester, MN Best Buy) and it is simply amazing. Cheapest 22" I could find online with under 8ms response time was around $400 and it wasn't widescreen. This monitor is great!

 

[Noya]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2010190020+1309822582&Subcategory=20&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=

Newegg has a lot under $400 shipped. The cheapest bieng $315 shipped.

 

[lschiedel]

I bought one of these monitors at the BF sale too.
I currently am just using it as a tv connected to a progressive scan (component) dvd player/tv tuner.

I did notice a strange problem.
If i am a couple of feet away, the tv quality SUCKS.
But if i move AWAY from the screen to say 10 - 15 feet, the quality goes way up.
It seems like its an angle problem.
The color depth from below the monitor appears very low and posterized.
But if i move away, (and therefore from a higher angle?) the colors look closer to a real tv.
But if i stand up while close, the colors dont look any better then while sitting down.

So why does this monitor look so posterized while even somewhat close but terrific from a distance?

 

[Noya]

As I've read, it's probably because as a PC Monitor (1680x1050 res.) it's scaler it not that great. So feeding it a 720x480 res. DVD requires a lot of scaling. My recommendation would be to use a PC to play DVDs as it should scale the DVDs much better. If it still doesn't look great...there's a program called PowerStrip that does 1:1 pixel-mapping I believe, which in the home theater world is the best alternative to a multi-thousand dollar outboard scaler. Best of Luck.

Edit: I still wish I had one , I started messing with Adobe Premiere last night and one 17" CRT just doesn't cut it :roll:

Edit: I just found this:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/powerstrip.html

 

[lschiedel]

So i thought about this some more and i think i have an answer.

The reason the monitor looks so much better from a distance while showing TV is that it is a 6 bit display that dithers to get 8-bit.
Thus gradual color gradients (like in skin tones) look posterized from close up where your eye doesnt blend the dither patterns, but give smooth transitions as you get further from the screen.

The strange thing is, the problem is not anyware near as bad with dvds. They look good at any distance.
Maybe my tuner is exagerating the effect somehow.

 

[Hose]

The monitor can only display the TV's input... 480 lines. Of course it would look better from a distance, just as would TV.

 

[Noya]

DVD's are also only 480 lines; though a much cleaner signal.

 

[lschiedel]

Yes TV is only 480.
But my issue wasnt with the resolution of the picture.
It was with color banding and posterizing.
Skin textures had bands of similar color like a relief map.
On a regular tv, the same show had smooth gradual color transitions.
When i stepped away from the monitor (from 4 feet to 10 feet) the skin tones now appeared to have gradual transitions.
Examining the image gives me the impression that (like ink jet photos) the dither patterns are ineffective at close distances, but blend into the missing colors at farther distances.
This monitor is a 6 bit display, which means 64 shades of each color (rgb).
In order to simulate an 8 bit per color (256 shades of rgb), it must use a dot pattern that varies from 100% one shade, to 75%/25% two shades, to 50%/50% two shades, to 25%/75% two shades, to 100% new shade.
This dot pattern does not effectively yeild the inbetween shades unless the viewer is far enough that the dither pattern blends together.