Widescreen Gaming Forum

Thanks Tamlin, hope you get over that flu bug soon.

Hmmm, I'll have to check on the US bundle price but it may be too high for me. In fact the $1,239.99 on Newegg for the display itself is quite a bit more than I was budgeting. I'm really wondering though if the comment about the black level on the Planar 26" was overstated. They may have had the brightness set a bit high.

Thanks Frag! Hopefully its soon over.

Checked provantage for you and it seems the bundled Spectraview version is 1399:
http://www.provantage.com/nec-display-solutions-lcd2690wuxibksv~7NECL091.htm

Noticed they've actually almost shown the correct response time when overdrive is on:

12 ms - Rapid Response

6.5 ms - G to G

Its actually 13 ms BtW (7 W->B, 6 B->W) and 7 ms GtG.

16 BtW and 8 GtG with overdrive off.

Great for gaming!

You also have the 2490wuxi, which is the same panel tech and electronics only smaller and with sRGB gamut. It has gotten exelent response in forums though and is worthy considering.

The blacks of the 2690/2490/planar 26" is pretty similar when it comes to measured black depth. When it comes to the black level seperation and the optical black, the NEC's are better much because of the polarizer they use and the 12-bit gamma correction giving smooth stepping. But, ambient lightning and calibration is very important for the optical black. The more correct white point you have according to the light in your room, the deeper black seems. Lower brightness as you say give deeper black as well. There are many ways to increase optical black. :D

Just make sure your return options are good no matter which screen you get. NEC US have good service from what I have read in several forums, so you should be pretty secure there. But, when you stretch your budget this far, its always important to get full satisfaction. :D

Hmmm, well maybe they just critiqued the Planar 26" too hard trying to compare it to one like the NEC with 12 bit gamma correction. Just because it uses the same panel doesn't mean it should be compared in a class of pro level displays. I really only want the display to be for gaming, movies, HDTV, net, etc, not photographic or pro video work. However I would like it to scale well, I don't want to have to play all games at 1920x1200. Do part of the built in features of the NEC allow it to scale to any res well? That alone might make it worth getting the NEC. I'd like to just calibrate it once via the 14 day trial then leave it if that's possible.

The problem is there's not enough reviews on the Planar to get a good cross section of opinions about it.

Hmmm, well maybe they just critiqued the Planar 26" too hard trying to compare it to one like the NEC with 12 bit gamma correction. Just because it uses the same panel doesn't mean it should be compared in a class of pro level displays. I really only want the display to be for gaming, movies, HDTV, net, etc, not photographic or pro video work. However I would like it to scale well, I don't want to have to play all games at 1920x1200. Do part of the built in features of the NEC allow it to scale to any res well? That alone might make it worth getting the NEC. I'd like to just calibrate it once via the 14 day trial then leave it if that's possible.

The problem is there's not enough reviews on the Planar to get a good cross section of opinions about it.

I've read some of the critique of the Planar and I think much of it is blown way out of porportion. Most people who I've read bought that screen seems to like it much. It is also one of the screens with least amount of input lag (less then 1 frame average), including compared to TN's. :)

The NEC is filled with a lot of features that gives you optimal control over the picture (once you have figured out what to adjust in the big jungle of feature that is). All these features have a noticable effect on picture and you have an extreme amount of adjustment options compared to other screens. Even with only gaming in mind, its nice to have such picture control. With Spectraview, you can create many profiles for many uses and games and when you change profile in Spectraview, it will automatically adjust brightness etc on the screen according to what you calibrated it to. Great for gaming if you game at different times of day with different light and if you want different settings. I'll not go into all, since it will be a looong post then... :D

I'll answer you about scaling though. Its one of the best I've ever seen. There are two issues with it, so I'll start with those:
It doesn't accept interlaced input (480i/576i/1080i) and when displaying 480P, you get a tearing line sometimes. Not much, but it comes.
Besides that, you have more options and adjustments then most screens (as usual)

Scaling have 4 options: Full screen, scale to aspect, 1:1 and custom. On custom, you choose yourself how much you wish for it to scale.

Sharpness control gives you free anti-aliasing and keeps your image sharp during non-native resolutions. Its very effective actually. The best part about the sharpness control is that it remembers the selections. You can have a sharpness settings for each resolution you use and it will stick. Additionally, you can also have different sharpness settings for each input (DVI-I, DVI-D and VGA).

The scaler itself works very good. Here you can see for yourself:
2690 scaling

Sounds like some very good things but one possibly bad for my intended purposes.

It doesn't accept interlaced input (480i/576i/1080i)...

Does this mean if I want to hook a TV tuner up to it like the OnAir HDTV GT I cannot get 1080i broadcasts?

Scaling have 4 options: Full screen, scale to aspect, 1:1 and custom. On custom, you choose yourself how much you wish for it to scale.

Does this mean you could basically use ANY common game res regardless of aspect ratio?

I also have a couple other questions. How do you watch letterbox movies on yours? Do you zoom it or leave it 1:1? Reason I ask is I'm not sure I would like having the huge black bars top and bottom on a 16:10 screen. It's bad enough watching letterbox ratio on my 16:9 HDTV.

Also, do you know if the Planar has that kind of scaling capability or would I be severely limited on game res? I kind of thought the Planar was critiqued too harshly. Maybe some expect too much from it having the same panel as the NEC. The scaling really matters to me though.

If I do end up getting just the NEC display itself, can I use the Spectraview for 14 days to fine tune it or do I need to have special hardware? Looks to me like there's a lot of stuff you can tweak in the software even without calibration hardware.

Anyways I probably should mention that I plan on this system having a 9800GTX and Nehalem 45nm quad with integral memory controller, so it may not be until the end of the year before I can build it. Thus I'll be keeping an eye out to see if any displays smaller than 30" will have the new scaling procesors like the Dell, HP and Gateways are using. 24" is too small, ideally I'd like to go 26" or 27". I have considered a 27" HDTV but none are made like I want (1080p 120Hz).

Sounds like some very good things but one possibly bad for my intended purposes.[quote]It doesn't accept interlaced input (480i/576i/1080i)...

Does this mean if I want to hook a TV tuner up to it like the OnAir HDTV GT I cannot get 1080i broadcasts?

If you mean this, then it won't be any problem. It goes through the PC, so your GFX will send it to the screen as a progressive signal. Most newer external equiptment have their own interlacer/deinterlacer, so you can choose if to output interlaced or progressive signal regardless of input signal. Its only if you have old equiptment that doesn't output progressive signals this would be a problem. :)

Does this mean you could basically use ANY common game res regardless of aspect ratio?

I'm not sure what you are asking about here. Yes, I can use any common game resolution regardless of aspect ratio. I can choose for the signal to be displayed without scaling (1:1), scaled to full vertical height while keeping aspect ratio intact (scale to aspect), scaled to full screen, or choose how much I want it to scale horizontally and vertically. On custom there is also an option to change input signal on the screen to counter any overscan in the signal (H. res and v.res). I can also select where I want the image to be on the screen with H position and V position.

I also have a couple other questions. How do you watch letterbox movies on yours? Do you zoom it or leave it 1:1? Reason I ask is I'm not sure I would like having the huge black bars top and bottom on a 16:10 screen. It's bad enough watching letterbox ratio on my 16:9 HDTV.

It depends a bit. I do both. Sometimes I use Zoom Player, where I can zoom quickly in and out by scrolling the mouse and sometimes I use different settings in media player classic. Or I just let it run in windows media player. :)

Also, do you know if the Planar has that kind of scaling capability or would I be severely limited on game res? I kind of thought the Planar was critiqued too harshly. Maybe some expect too much from it having the same panel as the NEC. The scaling really matters to me though.

Unfortunately, there are little reviews and in most forums they speak about its capabilities for graphical work. In this review, he talks a bit about gaming and scaling though:
Planar review

If I do end up getting just the NEC display itself, can I use the Spectraview for 14 days to fine tune it or do I need to have special hardware? Looks to me like there's a lot of stuff you can tweak in the software even without calibration hardware.

You need a "puck" or hardware calibrator. Spyder2express is among the cheapest and most is compatible. If you know someone who has one, you can borrow it. Otherwise, there are several presets you can change and extremely many options to tweak the image. For movies, you'll like the 6-axis saturation option which goes great with cartoons and the black level slider which gives greater optical black (but at the expense of black level detail).

Anyways I probably should mention that I plan on this system having a 9800GTX and Nehalem 45nm quad with integral memory controller, so it may not be until the end of the year before I can build it.

I'm also waiting for the 9800GTX! :D Take your time, more screens can show up that you want more. But, then again, there comes always a "better screen". I'm really satisfied with the NEC though, so I'm spending my budget on GFX next.

I'm not sure what you are asking about here. Yes, I can use any common game resolution regardless of aspect ratio. I can choose for the signal to be displayed without scaling (1:1), scaled to full vertical height while keeping aspect ratio intact (scale to aspect), scaled to full screen, or choose how much I want it to scale horizontally and vertically.

Looks like the Planar has everything yours does in scaling except for custom mode of course, which would be pretty nice. I would settle for the scaling the 30" Dell, Gateway and HPs are starting to get incoprporated though, which is more like a best fit of any common game res be it 4:3, 16:10, or 16:9. That is what I was talking about regarding scaling.

For the most part the Planar would probably do OK for my needs, but with display tech changing so fast I may end up finding a 27" 1080p UltraSLim DLP is coming out or something like that, which wouldn't require the separate TV tuner. BTW, yeah that was the one I was talking about. Autumn Wave has great products and support for them, though I can't help thinking nothing would do TV as well as a TV.

Thanks a lot for your help.

[quote]I'm not sure what you are asking about here. Yes, I can use any common game resolution regardless of aspect ratio. I can choose for the signal to be displayed without scaling (1:1), scaled to full vertical height while keeping aspect ratio intact (scale to aspect), scaled to full screen, or choose how much I want it to scale horizontally and vertically.

Looks like the Planar has everything yours does in scaling except for custom mode of course, which would be pretty nice. I would settle for the scaling the 30" Dell, Gateway and HPs are starting to get incoprporated though, which is more like a best fit of any common game res be it 4:3, 16:10, or 16:9. That is what I was talking about regarding scaling.

For the most part the Planar would probably do OK for my needs, but with display tech changing so fast I may end up finding a 27" 1080p UltraSLim DLP is coming out or something like that, which wouldn't require the separate TV tuner. BTW, yeah that was the one I was talking about. Autumn Wave has great products and support for them, though I can't help thinking nothing would do TV as well as a TV.

Thanks a lot for your help.

You're welcome :)
Besides, you help out others here so you should get help when you need it yourself.
Just ask if there's anything you wonder about and I'll do my best to answer.

Just ask if there's anything you wonder about and I'll do my best to answer.

Well now that you mention it I was hopng I could get your input on this thread I just started about upcoming TV tech and models: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/node/

Like I've said before I prefer 16:9 aspect ratio for both games and movies and since I want to incorporate all my entertainment into one display on my next build including TV, I'm still considering an HDTV as a display.

There are several new models of 32" LCD 1080p HDTVs coming including a 120Hz Sony. There's also the OLED and PLED tech but that seems to be a bit confusing and controversial given the info that's available on them.

This post is really directed to Tamlin as he has a lot of experience using this monitor with a Spyder II.

I have followed your advice Tamlin and downloaded the Spectraview Profiler which is now ver 4.1.7. However when I try and use the preset option with a white point of D50 or manually change it to 5500 the screen ends up with a really bad magenta cast.

I am not very experienced with colour management and don't really pretend to know very much about it although I know this cast cannot be correct, having been a designer on Macs for over a decade using a variety of monitors in the past.

I have reset the screen to the original manufacturer settings prior to each profiling and set the mode to programme.

If I choose to measure the white point manually at the start of the calibration then I get far more predictable results (without the magenta cast) however do you know why why this should be happening when I select one of the presets?

I also notice when using the preset D50 that the achieved result for the 130 cd/m2 is something between 20 and 30, although not quite sure what this figure means.

Your help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

E. Cameron