Dual Monitors

[cjmaddy]

Good grief, - some people are hard to please!

Mark, - I've tried that, - but she wouldn't let me paint her hands black!

Morgan, - My son's an optician, I've made you an appointment! - (Special rates to friends of relatives! )
If blacks don't look black on your monitor, then you know what to do! - Buy a new monitor!

Michael, - I wouldn't dare attempt to play with Morgan's mind!

Patrick, - Correct! - It IS black!

Tiny, - That sounds like the sort of challenge I might have a go at! - (Watch this space! )

Michael, - The blackest parts are probably around the windscreen and inside the grill, (The tyres are dark grey.)
Here's a higher definition copy. (It looks this good on both monitors, - surprisingly!)

[Yellow Tang]

12 smileys! Congrats Cliff, that's a new record. And 6 different types. Unbelieveable!

Who would've thought, the tyres are dark gray. AARRGHHH.

[Marian Nichols]

Black is black
and
White is White

[Jav400]

So far I think we have spent about 2 dozen posts coming to the conclusion that if Cliff likes his LCD it's a good thing, for him, whatever color it shows.

[cjmaddy]

How's this grab you Tiny? - It's one of the nView Tools, 'Calibration Screen', for adjusting flat panel displays.
The pic was taken under artificial room-light, - I have not done any colour correcting. - but of course it's had to be compressed a lot to post here, - but you get the point!

ps. YT, - I think Marian or Ed have the smiley record, - at least for on one line they do!

[Jav400]

I don't know.................................now it looks gray to me.

Jav ducks and runs for cover.

[BigScreen]

That's what I get for not coming around here more... you guys have a conversation about dual monitors without me!

I have two ViewSonic VP171b (black versions of Cliff's monitor) and I can vouch for the fact that these things are very bright, and out of the box, black is really more a grey.

But, after tweaking the brightness and contrast to appropriate levels, black is very black. Is it CRT black? Probably not, because of the technologies involved. If you have the room completely dark, and you put up the starfield screen saver, things aren't completely black as compared to pitch black darkness, but CRT's aren't necessarily perfect in all regards either.

I can also display the entire greyscale range that is displayed on dpreview's web site:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos20d/

(go to the bottom of the page)


After running ColorVision's Optical calibration software, the color rendition is excellent, even though I thought it was very good before doing so.

In comparison to the ViewSonic P95f+ that I had running side by side until I got my second LCD, the CRT was "fuzzy" (and it was a very good quality, pro-grade monitor). It took no more than about a day to order up a second LCD to replace it and sell it off!

I'm currently running them via a dual-head Matrox G450 card through analog outputs. It would be interesting to see if the monitors got any better when run via their DVI inputs, but Matrox has a very good reputation when it comes to the quality of their analog outputs, so I don't expect much of an improvement.

The refresh rate is indeed 16ms, and I notice no ghosting whatsoever when watching movies or TV shows, but not being into 3D gaming, I don't have any perspective on that.

Any assumptions anyone has about the quality of LCD monitors should not be generically applied to monitors in this league. They are pricey units, and much better than the average Samsung 172's and lesser models that are out there.

I believe that I'm a pretty good judge of them, as I've spent lots of money on monitors in the past in order to get decent quality. I'm a big believer in spending money on the things that matter most, and your primary component is the monitor you look at. If you do a moderate to high amount of work on a computer each day, the money spent is well worth it, IMHO.

The only two things I can think of that would improve them are:
- get a third one for a total of 3 1280x1024 desktops
- get the 21" versions that do 1600x1200



Bring on full dual-monitor Aquarium Screen Savers!!

[cjmaddy]

I'm a big believer in spending money on the things that matter most, and your primary component is the monitor you look at.

I couldn't agree with you more! - What's the point of having the very latest all-singing all-dancing 26GHz beast, and then looking at a crappy monitor?

BTW, - Have you checked out Aqua Garden? - I think you'd be impressed!

[Marian Nichols]

Yep, I can vouch for that. I only have the one, but it is sooooo soothing to watch.

[James]

Originally posted by feldon28
Black is still elusive on LCDs. People get so excited about the brightness level of LCDs (probably just regurgitating marketing hype) but pay little attention to black which is actually grey.

I'm totally agree with Morgan, black is still elusive on LCDs, it can be easily to find out, find a way to make the LCD screen showing all black, then turn off the power of LCD and turn on again, you'll definetly see the difference, although my LCD's black is elusive but not as worse as showing grey, but only by turning off the power would show the pure black. I think people pay little attention to black is because how the human eyes work, the retina of the human eyes can be easily tricked by the colour contrast, the cones are sensitive with colours in the fovea but not good at distinguish the level of light's brightness. so the rods in retina coem in to play, rods can neither distinguish colours nor see fine detail, but they are sensitive to the brightness of the light. Too bad that the function of rods get overwhelmed when there're too many colours in vision. That's why we see those grey-black as pure black when we see it with other colours.

[patscarr]

Originally posted by feldon31:

You choose Monitor 1, get all your settings how you like them, then make sure "Black" is unchecked.

Then you choose Monitor 2, get all your settings how you like them, and make sure "Black" is unchecked.  

Thanks Morgan. That was very helpful!

I'm in the dual monitor club now!

[patscarr]

How can I have my dual monitors have different wallpapers? I'm using Dualview and if I uncheck "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor" all I get is blackness.

[cjmaddy]

Pat, - Does this help?....

[patscarr]

Nope.

[cjmaddy]

Click on 'Desktop Management' on the far left, and get more options than those presently showing.

[patscarr]

Oh my Gosh! I had clicked on that before and no extra options showed up, but now when I click on it, there are extra options! Thanks Cliff.

[cjmaddy]

Eureka!!!

[patscarr]

Whoops! I spoke too soon. I found this option and clicked "apply" but as you can see, nothing changed. Now what?

[cjmaddy]

Come on, Pat, what are you doing? ... You've 'Enabled', nView Desktop Manager, and clicked on 'Desktops', then, 'Properties...' - Good so far! ... You've clicked on the '2' on the right-hand monitor. Now you need to click on 'Change Background' and choose a different picture! - Then click on 'Apply' then 'OK' three times, ...... then, BINGO!, you should have different wallpapers!

ps, - It isn't rocket science! ..... If I can do it, - anyone can!

[feldon34]

From the screen snapshot he posted he HAS picked a different backdrop for each.