min LCD's spec good enough for fast HDgames/films

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Hi I decided to run a test last night at work to find out if buying an LCD tv (Specifically a 37wlt58) would be fast enough to cope with fast paced games.

so last night i took my xbox with its official component cable and lik-sangs component to VGA convertor into my office at work, the great thing about this convertor is that it splits the signal off to two monitors at the same time.

First off let me tell you that im a very picky person,

I cant stand dead pixels, not even one and i find them easy to spot on any LCD
I suffer from the Rainbow effect on DLP projectors which gives me headaches after watching 30mins of a DVD
I can easily tell the difference between PAL and NTSC, and S-Video vs RGB, I can even notice the improvement of component over RGB

right so now you have some kind of idea about how my eyes work

so the two monitors up for review are

LG 19" L1910S
1280x1024 native res, 400:1 Contrast Ratio, 250 Image brightness, 25ms response

VS

Belinea 17" 10 17 30 (11 17 31)
1280x1024 native res, 500:1 Contrast Ratio, 300 Image brightness, 13ms response.


as you can see the specs are not too dissimilar with the exception of response time.

Xbox Dashboard at 720P

LG: Nice and crystal clear obviously squashed due to it being a 4:3 monitor but picture was perfect no blur and pin sharp
Belinea: Couldnt accept 720P.

Conker:LAR 480P
LG: Nice picture bit on the dark side, noticible blur but could live with it... well until
Belinea: Wow much more detail, can see the background much more clearly and only a tiny hit on blur, more than good enough to play on.

Halo2 480P at the last battle in campaign
LG: Dark... very dark, blurry when turning but still very playable
Belinea: Heaps better, can actually see all the detail of the dark background! blacks are black and textures are crisp and clearvery very tiny hint of blur, not enough to bother me

Forza motorsport hillclimb in a VERY fast 2.1sec impreza
LG: still too dark, can play the game but very noticable blur, textures are poor and the menu has a redish tinge to it
Belinea: once again much better, textures are crisp and clear plenty of brightness (Tho that menu the res tinge is not their but i cant see the lines so something is wrong turning contrast/brightness down doesnt help much)
and here is the important part! there is blur, it is still very playable and the blur isnt horrendous, but the simple fact is when playing it you know it could be better and sharper if that blur wasnt there when moving.

so to round it all up, if your going to be playing platform games or slow shooters like halo2 then specs similar to the belinea will do, if your going to be playing fast paced action packed racers/shooter or anything that moves very quickly you would be best off getting something that is better than the belinea to be happy.

IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE all these games would only play in 480p, i will try to get a 720P game as i think 480P may cause additional processing for the monitor, like i said 720p was fantastic on the LG which performed poorly for 480p, i only got a brief glimpse of a 720p dvd (Ice age) on the LG and it looked good, unfortunately the xbox didnt like it much.

so until i can get some 720P stuff going, only apply this to 480P gaming for now.

il try and update sometime tonight or tomorrow with 720P comparisons

anyone feel free to chip in with things i could try or do to make the test better/fairer or with your own input, tho please remember when i did these tests i was looking at both monitors at the same time running thru the same feed
 
I am not sure what the point is.

Just looking at the spec of the LG you can tell there is going to be some degree of blur. PAL needs 20ms and NTSC needs 16ms. 25ms on the LG is going to definately cause some problems. You don't say what refresh 720p was running at, but presumably 50Hz as the LG coped much better than the 480 which would be at 60Hz - I am not an XBOX person so don't know what sort of timings this thing puts out. As for black detail, could it simply be a matter of brightness, contrast and gamma adjustment? Also, are you sure that the converter/splitter is not splitting the signal this resulting in some signal degregation?
 
My point is to try to establish a minimum rough requirement for LCD's in order to play high def games in.

720P in the US standard is 60hz which is what the xbox will run at

as for black detail etc, both monitors had been adjusted while playing the games to see if problems could be fixed, the belinea needed very little adjustment to give a great picture yet the LG nomatter how i adjusted it still gave a poor picture in comparison.

actually another thing to note, when changing the contrast the blurring on the belinea increased/decreased.

the convertor that splits the signal has got a powerpack and obviously it is converting the signal, so there is some loss/gain due to that fact, but both ports output the same, i tested this easily as i have two of the same LG's side by side
 
To be honest, they aren't the most respected brands or most recent of LCD monitors either, anyone buying either a 17 or 19" is going to go for 8ms
 
i know their not new, this is the point, im trying to find out what is the minimum people can go to without getting irritating blur, if we were all rich we would all buy the most expensive TV's but alot of people arent and have to resort to other sets with poorer response times, these two LCD's are pc monitors and the only LCD's i have access too so thats why im using these.

wouldnt it be nice for people to know that if they went out to buy a new LCD tv that if it does atleast XXX contrast, XXX ms and XXX brightness that it would be good for playing HD games and DVD's?

id like to know, but if no one else does then i wont bother with the hassle
 
You can even notice the improvement of component over RGB?

A component signal is not as good as an RGB signal if you are using an Xbox without prog-scan or HD. Component only splits the colours down two signal paths whereas the colours are split into 3 with an RGB connection, creating less colour bleed. Component only provides benefits when you make use of prog-scan and higher resolutions which RGB scart can't handle.
 
actually component is better, because each wire is individually sheilded and it has error correction.

i played a DVD on my mates LCD projector and we could clearly see that component(Interlaced not progressive) was better than RGB
 
I think someone is pulling your leg...the reason why component is better than RGB is that it can generally also support HD and progressive scan whereas video RGB generally does not. Some units are also optimised for one or the other which is also a significant factor. I guess your mates projector handles interlaced component better than it does interlaced RGB. Also, at some point, component has tro be converted to RGB so the PQ is afected by whether soource or display does the YUV to RGB conversion.
 
neil c said:
Component only provides benefits when you make use of prog-scan and higher resolutions which RGB scart can't handle.
Actually as all DVD is encoded as component video then a component connection is preferable to any RGB connection even if viewing an interlaced picture. An RGB scart comes into it's own when the source signal itself is RGB.

JagoPlasma is generally correct to say a component interlace signal was better than RGB when viewing DVDs, however at lot comes down to the source/target equipment.
 
JagoPlasma said:
i know their not new, this is the point, im trying to find out what is the minimum people can go to without getting irritating blur, if we were all rich we would all buy the most expensive TV's but alot of people arent and have to resort to other sets with poorer response times, these two LCD's are pc monitors and the only LCD's i have access too so thats why im using these.

wouldnt it be nice for people to know that if they went out to buy a new LCD tv that if it does atleast XXX contrast, XXX ms and XXX brightness that it would be good for playing HD games and DVD's?

id like to know, but if no one else does then i wont bother with the hassle

Hi JagoPlasma, :hiya:

I'd be very interested to know an answer to this. I am desperately seeking a new HD ready LCD screen to cope with my gaming needs and if there were a hard-and-fast set of minimum LCD specs to use as a purchasing guideline then that would make life a great deal easier! Assuming we're talking about games consoles (PC game framerates can be much higher) I think it's a good idea to stay the lower side of the 16ms threshold due to it being the 'minimum' for a 60hz/NTSC signal (as per the above post from ianh64) but after this, it's not so easy.

The only problem is that figures don't tell the whole story. I have spent a bit time on these threads and it has very much been a learning process for me. What I have come to understand, though, is that any given LCD screen's performance is as much (if not more-so) to do with the ingenuity of the engineering that has gone into it's design as it it to do with the panels raw stats. That is to say a well-engineered 16ms screen can perform better than a poorly engineered 8ms screen.

I am essentially only quoting what I have learned from spending time on this forum, so please forgive me if this is not the case. However, assuming that this is true, a screen's ability to handle games cannot be judged effectively on the basis of it's vital stats alone.

I've been struggling this very fact as I've been looking at buying either the Panasonic TX32LXD500 or the Sony KLDV32A12. The Panasonic has 'only' a 14ms response time whereas the Sony has an 8ms response. Clearly, then, on paper the Sony should be better. However, several people have suggested that the Panasonic shows less evidence of blurring/smearing than the Sony. :confused:

I too am very fussy about things like this and completely sympathise with your motives for wanting to resolve a list of min specs for gaming. However, as a result of reading various topics about the misleading nature of quoted tech specs I have now accepted that the only way to know for sure if a screen is up to it is through first-hand experience.

I have yet to properly audition either of the TVs I have mentioned, but I will insist on carrying out a gaming test before I make my final purchase.
 

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