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New Monitor Question.

#1

Espy

Espy

So we lost power this weekend and I had to haul my editing rig out to a friends house so I could keep working. I figured it would be easier to just buy a new monitor (and I've been planning on doing that for awhile) than disassemble my 3 monitors on their big arm they are connected to.

So I found this guy at Best Buy: Samsung - C750 Series 27" LED HD Monitor
Basic details are thus:
"3000:1 contrast ratio
300 cd/m² brightness
Displays up to 16.7 million colors
1920 x 1080 resolution
Digital (2 HDMI) and standard analog VGA inputs

And I plugged it into my ATI Radeon HD 5770 using a DVI-HDMI cable and I mean, the thing is just stunning to behold. Bright and beautiful.

So here's why I'm here posting: It's at it's highest setting and I'm noticing that while most stuff looks really great text is not very smooth. I've exhaustively gone through the settings to see if I'm missing something but now that I'm back on my Macbook Pro here at work I can really see the difference (and it's not a Retina screen). I can take some screen shot comparisons when I get home. Granted this is how it was on my older monitors but I figured it was because they were several years old and had a lower resolution. Is it a graphics card thing?

So am I missing something here? Anyone have any ideas? I have 15 days to take this thing back and while I could live with the less than perfect text I figure if I'm going to plunk down several hundred bucks for this I should make sure this is the best I can do. Anyone with ideas or thoughts, I'd love to hear them. I'm tagging PatrThom and stienman since they tend to have some good thoughts and knowledge on this but please anyone chime in.


#2

strawman

strawman

If this isn't it, there may be other reasons, but try this first and tell us the results.

There is a bug in Snow Leopard that disables LCD (sub-pixel) font smoothing on many third party LCD displays, including models from Dell, Samsung, LG, HP, EIZO, and Lenovo. Here are the details:

Snow Leopard introduces simplified Font Smoothing options under the Appearance pane in System Preferences. Prior to Snow Leopard, the available options were:

Automatic - Best for Main Display
Standard - Best for CRT
Light
Medium - Best for Flat Panel
Strong

In Snow Leopard, you can only choose between Automatic and Standard CRT. Since few people use CRTs these days, most users now have only one option: Automatic. The problem with the Automatic option is that OS X incorrectly detects many third party LCD monitors as CRTs, and consequently, disables LCD font smoothing.

You can force OS X to use LCD font smoothing on all displays with this Terminal command:

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2

The number 2 here corresponds to Medium - Best for Flat Panel. You may also use 1 for light smoothing, and 3 for strong smoothing, as per the original OS X font smoothing options.

...


Should anyone need to remove the preference, restoring the default, use:
defaults -currentHost delete -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing
And to read the current value (a “…does not exist” error indicates the setting has been properly removed from the global domain):
defaults -currentHost read -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing


...
I just used this command to successfully restore proper font smoothing on OS X Lion 10.7.2.


(defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2)

...

I also experimented with various settings: system default settings, completely disabled, "1", "2" . I chose a value "2", after a long hesitation:
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2
On Lion it's more application-basis. For one application is more suitable value "1", for other value "2". Finally, I stick with a value "2" as most suitable and universal for my NEC Display MultiSync PA271W on OS X Lion 10.7.2.
Click to expand...
Source: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090828224632809 (stupid site, but I was able to get the info needed)


#3

Espy

Espy

INTERESTING. I just went in over screen sharing to check what font smoothing was set at. On my Macbook Pro it's set at 4 and on my Mac Pro it's set at 8. So I changed that to 4 as well. I'll take a look when I get home then see if I need to run any of the terminal commands.

I hope it works, the thing is beautiful.

You sir, win one free beverage of your choice on me should you happen to visit my area. Or you can throw all your kids in our pool.


#4

Espy

Espy

Ok, so I've got a guy over on the Apple Support forum who keeps telling me that it's a TV set and not a computer monitor because it has HDMI instead of dual link DVI. I mean, I get it, I thought it was weird that it was HDMI-DVI instead of dual link DVI but what the hell is he talking about? He's insisting that it isn't a computer monitor despite Samsung, Best Buy and Amazon saying differently. In fact when I look over Best Buy's monitor selection it has lots of monitors with HDMI, so I don't think thats very strange in the age of HD video game systems.


#5

Dave

Dave

My son uses his big screen HDTV as a monitor all the time. The guy at Apple just isn't a genius.


#6

strawman

strawman

It's only a 1080p monitor, why would it need dual link DVI? As far as the HDMI == TV, that's completely wrong, but I can see that Apple itself might choose to believe so since they push their preferred connection technology.

At any rate, what they're essentially telling you is that OS X will treat it as a TV set when using HDMI. Silly, but the above commands can force the system to treat it differently.


#7

Espy

Espy

He's just a dude on their support forum and maybe he's right that while it's clearly not designed to be a TV it's running at 1920x1080, which is standard High Def. It's entirely possible that it can't handle the text like my Macbook Pro because it's a lower resolution (1920x1200 on my MBP). Thats what I'm trying to figure out. I have 15 days before I have to return it.


#8

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

You're right in that text won't look as good as your higher-res MBP but it shouldn't be that noticeable. I've seen stienman's fix before, and reputedly it should work, so cross your fingers.

And forum dude has no clue. TV vs monitor has nothing to do with HDMI inputs and everything to do with onboard image processing/scaling and (at least on a probability level) whether it has a signal tuner or not.


#9

Espy

Espy

I'm home and the text looks WAY better.

I'm starting to wonder if I should exchange it for something like this though: http://tinyurl.com/msfs9wq

Resolution is FAR better even if it's not as pretty. They have some open box models that are exactly what I paid for this one. I mean, 2560x1440 over 1920x1080? It has pretty great reviews even if it's a store brand or whatever. Anyone have any thoughts? The next closest thing is a Dell for 700.


#10

strawman

strawman

That is a fantastic price for that monitor. IPS panels are gorgeous, it's what makes the new ipad viewable in awesome color from any angle, whereas regular LCDs drop color at extreme viewing angles (and cheap LCDs drop color anywhere outside straight on).

The resolution and brightness look good. The contrast is acceptable.

You will be amazed at the difference between the monitor you bought and the monitor you've just linked. Don't worry too much about store brand vs name brand for this type of LCD - when Dell and Apple put IPS panels in their 27" monitors they charge $1,000 for them, and they aren't significantly better than the store brand.


#11

Espy

Espy

Alright. I may go pick it up tonight. I'm thinking of buying it then setting it up before I return the other one. Just to see.


#12

Dave

Dave

Take your MacBook to the store with an HDMI cable. Ask them if you can hook that shit up. Try it before you buy it, yo!


#13

Espy

Espy

Dave said:
Take your MacBook to the store with an HDMI cable. Ask them if you can hook that shit up. Try it before you buy it, yo!
Click to expand...
Good call. Will do.


#14

Espy

Espy

So I bought the Auria from Microcenter.



HOLY SHIT I ONCE WAS BLIND BUT NOW I SEE. :D


#15

Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

Espy said:
HOLY SHIT I ONCE WAS BLIND BUT NOW I SEE. :D
Click to expand...
aaaand stuck in my head for the rest of the day.


#16

Dave

Dave

Espy said:
So I bought the Auria from Microcenter.



HOLY SHIT I ONCE WAS BLIND BUT NOW I SEE. :D
Click to expand...
May I ask how much it ended up being and from where you bought it? (Or is Microcenter the name of the place and I've just never heard of it?)


#17

PatrThom

PatrThom

Espy , If you don't get the dual-link DVI cable, you will be limited to 1920x1080 max. If you want to go higher than that (and be able to use your monitor's native resolution for crisp pixel-perfect text) then yes, you will need a dual-link DVI cable.

HDMI is a different animal. Since there are so many different versions of HDMI (1.2, 1.3, etc) then there is no way to know exactly what your maximum usable resolution is unless you know which versions are being spoken at each end.

At work, gotta get back to work, but if you want a better explanation I can give one later.

--Patrick


#18

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Dave

Micro Center is a chain of mail order and brick-and-mortar computer stores. I bought my CPU, monitor, and SDD from the one just outside Cleveland.


#19

Espy

Espy

I did get the dual link DVI so I'm at full resolution PatrThom on this new monitor.

So the screen itself is ridiculous. It's just beautiful once I calibrated it. My only complaint is that it's one ugly monitor, especially when compared to the samsung HD monitor that was sleek and sexy. This thing is like a chunky monkey compared to it. So now I have 30 days to decide if I can handle it being so ugly. I think I can (although I really do care about aesthetics, but this is such a good deal... sigh).

My only concern is that despite the great reviews overall there are lots of folks saying they crapped out after a few days or so and they had to return them. Granted I have 30 days so I'm not worried about that, but I'm starting to think I should have bought the store protection scheme, even though I don't usually buy it for items less than 500.

Dave , I bought an open box one, so it was only 330 something before tax. And yeah, Microcenter is just a chain that carries all computer related crap.


#20

PatrThom

PatrThom

Espy said:
My only concern is that despite the great reviews overall there are lots of folks saying they crapped out after a few days or so and they had to return them.
Click to expand...
I know little to nothing about monitor reliability. All my monitors are of the "cheapest deal I could find if it craps out I'll buy another one" but I don't do anything critical with color (any more) so I usually don't care. IPS monitors tend to have more obvious image persistence, but that is more a limit of the technology.

--Patrick


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