What is a 640x400 LCD TV supposed to do with higher resolutions ?

[Hodgkinson]

Well, my second SM2032MW has just turned up. The first one had a defective left speaker and has just been sent back.

Hopefully this one will work better than the last.

PS. Super-high res laced modes from the AGA chipset have more horizontal resolution than my XP PC! :-o  The only problem is that the mouse pointer shimmers and wobbles on the screen when its moved over objects on the workbench (Also set to high res).
Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this.

PPS. Currently using a AmigaKit 23pin RGB - SCART cable with the shielding modified to be now properly grounded.

PPPS. I chose the SM2032MW after reading all your comments here :-D Now I can run both my PC and A1200 on the same monitor ;-)

Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

Im still unpacking the monitor ;-)

I've only noticed the shimmering in the super high res laced modes so far (Having said that I've never had the interlace modes work decently on any other monitors/TV's before), and all the other modes seem to be nice and stable on the "old" LCD. I've tried the old montitor with the composite and its amazing just how much of a improvement RGB makes.

On the same basis Deluxe Galaga and Starfighter look fine with movement on the LCD in their native modes (Yey!), albeit they don't quite fill the screen.

Re shielding, I did it since I could see noise in the dark areas of the screen - It seemed to make a slight improvement. To shield the cable, I connected the screen of the cable to the D Connector shell - Thus grounding the shield. Its important that it isn't grounded at both ends though as this results in ground loops.

When I get the new monitor hooked up I'll try to remember come back and let you know what its like.

Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

Hang fire with the RGB cable mod - I'll see if I can upload a photo of the alterations.

I might be able to help you better if you could identify the screen modes that appeared worst, what aspect ratio and brightness settings were on your monitor at the time, and what screen mode/size/colour/overscan/Icontrol settings you were using so that I can attempt to match my A1200 to your system settings.

I’m assuming that the video is directly from the AGA chipset and fed into the monitor via the SCART plug.

Hodgkinson.

PS. My opinion is that the monitor bases themselves are reasonable, but on the other hand it feels like your going to break something when you try to attach the base to the monitor! :crazy:

[Hodgkinson]

The RGB Cable mod photo/description has just been uploaded to the photo section of this site. It should be visible <24hrs.

Hope it’s of some use,
Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

OK Then. Just fired up the new SM2032MW monitor on the Amiga after testing it out on the XP PC (Everything’s fine with the PC and the left-hand speaker is now operational!).

Pretty much the same as the last monitor as far as the Amiga picture is concerned when operating with 15Khz RGB from the video port and into the monitor via SCART. A fair amount of noise in the background (Of any image) - Even with the RGB cable mod - Although this could be due to any number of environmental factors.

Also, the high and super-high res modes (PAL or NTSC) - And especially the interlaced counterparts of those modes - Seem to be susceptible to some kind of flickering/fogging with moving objects on the workbench. For instance, the mouse pointer (Set to high res mode in my case) seems to leave a foggy trail behind it whilst the monitor updates. The same applies when dragging a drawer, the outline of the drawer leaves a trail behind it. Opening and closing drawers sometimes has a more pronounced effect (As you'ld figure).
On the other hand, this effect doesn't seem to be noticeable in games that bring up their own screen or bash the hardware directly, probably due to the vastly reduced resolution that they use.

For the tests I’ve been using the fixed wide-mode on the monitor with all the colour settings left on some particular fixed mode. For this particular monitor mode interlacing seems to be a necessity with the higher resolution modes in order to get the aspect ratio of objects on the screen to appear correct - Without it objects are stretched vertically.

At the moment, the composite input looks exceptionally crummy (Mind you, a phono cable with RF running down the opposite channel might have something to do with this...), letters tend to fade into themselves in the super-high res mode. I've yet to test the tuner by feeding the A1200 RF modulator output into the RF socket (Need to find a coax adaptor) – Hopefully this might allow Picture-In-Picture when running with a PC on the VGA input.

Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

Just a quick reply...
As for the animation, without going and double checking I'd say that mine was doing pretty much what you describe there. Not sure about the exact specifics at this point in time though, but I have noticed the effect sometimes on the majority of the screen, espicially when booting.

It’s odd that you notice the odd animation effects in the low res modes. As I turn the screen resolution down, and turn off interlacing, the animation problems *virtually* disappear. As for Deluxe Galaga and Starfighter that run in their own screen I can't see any artefacts at all except for the noise in the black areas of the picture.

The wide mode on the monitor is the only mode that allows the image to fill the whole screen (Along with autowide), so that's the mode that I've concentrated on testing. I wanted to avoid the autowide mode to avoid having my overscan settings screwed up, and it seems wasteful to have a huge monitor and not make best use of it. If I find 5 minutes I'll give the other settings a try.
Oh, I did try out the NTSC monitor mode. Although it did work, no improvement in the animation front there im afraid and bright colours generated a halo around them (Such as the mouse pointer).

Re the cable, I had a stereo phono cable, with one channel plugged into the composite output and the other plugged into the RF modulator for testing purposes. The composite side of the cable went into the AV input on the monitor (And the RF channel remains disconnected due to a lack of a suitable adaptor at the moment), and im figuring that, in hindsight, that RF pickup and radiation from the other channel of the cable could of distorted the composite image. I hope that makes sense.

Hodgkinson.

PS. I’m looking around for some ferrite clip-on beads for the SCART cable to try to further remidy my background-noise problem.

[Hodgkinson]

I'll have a look at the low-res modes when I find chance ;-)

I've got some connectors coming in a few days to allow me to make up a super-duper-composite lead for the monitor in an effort to improve the composite mode - For some reason the monitor allows PIP (When using the VGA input on a PC) with the RF or AV inputs but not with SCART :-(
The plan is to have both the RGB and composite connected from the Amiga to the monitor so I can use RGB for full screen work and composite for PIP.

Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

Just sent a complaint to Samsung.

[Hodgkinson]

Quotes from emails to Samsung (As there doesn't seem to  be anything that would prevent me from uploading this info...):

My message

Hello,
Please see the attached files for a video of the previously described problem. Also attached is a photograph of the setup, two more photos showing the screen settings used for the video, and a txt document with a few notes relating to the equipment in the setup.

As the video shows, especially in the interlaced ('laced') mode, the monitor exhibits a fogging, ghosting-like appearance behind any moving object on the screen, and often objects may appear to flicker when they cease moving across the screen. As you can imagine; when the monitor’s RGB capability is being used to display a computer desktop image the flicker and fogging effects are quite noticeable.

The computer equipment used to create the display is a Commodore Amiga A1200 computer, which was originally designed for the video industry, and as a result the RGB output is known by many users for its' crisp sharp quality and smooth, judder-free scrolling.

Samsung reply

Thankyou for your email.
Unfortunately at the time in which the Amiga personal computer was released the technology was not designed in a way to allow for future proofing of this standard, this screen being LCD/TFT will produce a slight distortion in the way shown in the movie. even on the average PC this will happen to a very small degree but due to the limitations of the Amiga used this may be even more so. Unfortunately there would be no way to resolve this as it is more an issue of compatability between the equipment you are using.

OK, I probably shot myself in the foot by mentioning the Amiga :horse: but it doesn't help not letting them know what the equipment is, and besides they probably would of asked what the equipment was at some point anyway.

Im going to make the files that I sent to Samsung available online in a short while.

Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

Files now online here.

Hodgkinson.

EDIT: Link edit...New web page and im not sure what im going to do with it... :insane:

[Hodgkinson]

Would you all state why you subject your Amiga experience to other than CRTs?

-Uni (Lack of space, LCD needed anyway)
-Don't have any 15Khz monitors
-Can't fit/don't have spare scandoubler
-Don't have Gfx card (A1200D)
-Current VGA monitor is only 15"
-Nuisance of having to have a spare TV hooked up for 15Khz screenmodes
-And probably one or two other reasons...

As a point of info for others : The Samsung.ZIP is 25 Megabytes in size.

Oh yeah, thanks. I tried to shrink it using other formats since with the original AVI's it would of been >100MB !

Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

1. Current PC monitor is a 21" Sony Trinitron (As opposed to the A1200D with the 15") with a dying brightness control EPROM that needs regular hacking with some feedback resistors to bring the brighness back right again.
Due to it's sheer size, there's no way that it'll fit on the accomodation desk - It'll probably flatten it!

2&3&6. The 2032MW Samsung, as reviewed here, has a RGB 15Khz SCART input...

Other points - The 2032MW has a built in tuner, so it'll also work as a TV, and similarly with the SCART it can be used with a VCR.
So one monitor => PC, Amiga and TV. Oh and more than one at a time with PIP.

[Hodgkinson]

@arkpandora: :roflmao:

University accommodation flats aren’t exactly overly-spacious, and desk space can be somewhat limited. Most people just have a laptop and a printer, but as I want to take my medium-sized XP tower, and hopefully my main A1200D, I’m going to need a new, space saving monitor. Hence the reason for the LCD due to space.
Hopefully I'll get a room somewhere high in the block (Good for any Amateur Radio stuff that my dad wants to do), so imagine carrying this up all those stairs!

Re drivers, the 2032MW can have special drivers installed on the PC just for the monitor, but I didn’t notice any major difference between having the drivers installed and not having them installed, apart from the display options box now showing the correct monitor.
I've not tried it on my A1200D with DblPAL via VGA yet...

As for 15Khz, I find many games revert to a 15Khz screen, so having a monitor that can handle them is a big bonus.
SCART is a bit like a higher quality version of composite or SVideo, with seperate RGB lines and Sync rails. Since you amiga isn't having to encode to composite, then your monitor decode to RGB, there's a big increase in display quality over other traditional "TV" modes. (Albeit for some reason, the 2032MW doesn't support VGA with PIP SCART input, so im going to have to have to composite connected up specially for PIP...)

Oh. There seems to be a fine line between what is classed as a LCD monitor, that supports TV-Style inputs, and a LCD TV, that supports monitor-style inputs. Maybe im just over-complicating things, but I should imagine that it makes a big difference over the performance of the unit when being used for different roles.

EDIT: Interleave flicker - None noticible on the 2032MW with a static screen.

[Hodgkinson]

:pint: :lol:
Re the huge Sony I mentioned, we've only persevered with it because we got the monitor free (And the fault came with it free as well...).

Apart from that its one of the largest (Screen size, not sheer bulk) and highest quality monitors that we have :-D
Oh, im and my dad's worked in the TV trade for some years, so that kinda helps.

We've just scrapped off 5 older 13"/15" CRT monitors the other day, most in working condition, due to the sheer lack of space in the garage. Another 3 to go still...If anyone in the UK wants one for parts be my guest. Just Pmail me and pick them up (Some have dry joints, etc, others work fine).

Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

Re the Samsung 2032MW, i've just noticed that, occasionally, maybe once an hour or so, the monitor seems to loose sync for a split second. I’m still using SCART RGB and Super-High res interlaced PAL, and the loss-of-sync was noticed with a completely static WB screen.

Just wondered if anyone else might have noticed this?

Hodgkinson.