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

[arkpandora]

An EAB member has just told me in this thread that his Samsung model (a 225MW) has the same animation problems as mine.  So it could mean that no current Samsung model is able to produce decent animation through an RGB input.

In that thread I give the following more detailed description of the problem.

"Here is what any moving part of the screen looks like :

1. When an object moves off, it becomes blurred and starts flickering.
2. As its new position is slowly updated, you can see the objet at a new position while it has not yet been erased from a previous one : for example, when it moves you can see several copies of the mouse pointer (at best it is like the mouse pointer of a PC), while the Amiga mouse pointer's animation is normally perfect.
3. Once the object has been erased from a previous position, it leaves on the picture various distortions that disappear progressively.
4. The picture and objects take about one second to recover their normal appearance.

In addition, I noticed that the 380x284 resolution of the Philips CDI is scaled down to something like 320x200, which makes this monitor unusable with a Philips CDI and maybe other systems, although the CDI works well on any CRT TV or monitor."

Could anyone using an Amiga connected to any LCD TV or monitor's RGB input tell me whether the same symptoms arise ?

Thank you again.


@Flashlab

Please inform me of your results !

[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.

[arkpandora]

Hello,

Thank you for your comments.

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

This may again illustrate the poor building quality of the Samsung products.

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.

It looks like it is the same problem I describe in the previous post, isn't it ?  However, as far as my copy of this monitor is concerned, the mouse pointer always behave this way, and what's true for the mouse pointer is true for every moving or changing object (including for example the objects the pointer is moving over), so that animation in general is of very bad quality (for example any normally smooth scrolling is always jerky).

Can you tell me whether your symptoms (in PAL High Res or Low Res through SCART or any other video input) are exactly those I describe in the previous post, or not ?

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

If your answer to my question is "yes", then I suppose trying another cable wouldn't be of any help for me either.  I have tested the two different SCART cables I have always been using with my Amiga, without noticing any difference between them.  I don't know if they are properly grounded : how can I see that ?

Now I can run both my PC and A1200 on the same monitor

Then you mean that your Amiga on this monitor looks like an Amiga.  My monitor has been sent back to Samsung : I'm waiting for a replacement.

[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.

[arkpandora]

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)

On my copy, the problem shows up in every screen mode, interlaced or not.  It's even worse in interlaced modes, but as things are it doesn't make a difference.  Even in interlaced modes, the result on a normal CRT monitor or TV is incomparably better, except that the screen as a whole does not flicker on the Samsung - but every moving object does badly so it doesn't make a difference either.

all the other modes seem to be nice and stable on the "old" LCD.

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.

Then your copy seems to be better than mine.

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.

In case my new copy is as bad as the first, I will try this option if I can.

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

OK - thank you very much.

[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:

[arkpandora]

Thanks for your help.

The only video input I have used is the SCART input.  I first tried a standard PAL Philips CDI system with a standard SCART cable, then a PAL Amiga 600 with a standard RGB to SCART cable, both systems I am used to.  On the Amiga I tested the default High Res and High Res Laced screen modes in 4 colours, and ran a great variety of Low Res games.  In any case the result is what I described.


As for the monitor settings and aspect ratio, they don't change anything to the result either.

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!

I too almost had to sit on the monitor in order to fit it into the base.  Then suddendly both fit together, but as there is no noise you are not sure whether you have to stop pushing or not.  And the whole is not very stable.  Compared to my other LCD monitor, an outstanding NEC LCD1770GX, this Samsung looks like a child toy.

[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.

[arkpandora]

Thank you !

[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.

[arkpandora]

Thank you for this review !  It seems that your monitor is not much better than mine - if it is better at all.

The background noise seemed negligible here in comparison with discolouration, but on plain colours I especially noticed vertical stripes.

Your moving objects' flickering/fogging resemble feature 2 of the animation problem description I gave above :

1. When an object moves off, it becomes blurred and starts flickering.
2. As its new position is slowly updated, you can see the objet at a new position while it has not yet been erased from a previous one : for example, when it moves you can see several copies of the mouse pointer (at best it is like the mouse pointer of a PC), while the Amiga mouse pointer's animation is normally perfect.
3. Once the object has been erased from a previous position, it leaves on the picture various distortions that disappear progressively.
4. The picture and objects take about one second to recover their normal appearance.

Could you confirm you see these four features too ?

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.

As far as my copy of this monitor is concerned, animation in every Low Res game is as bad.  Only feature 3 maybe is not as marked.  For example, any scrolling (especially vertical) will be jerky and you can see every moving object's drawing petrify (change from its moving look to its static look) in the second after it stops moving.

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

I don't understand what you mean, as I suppose that Amiga screen modes in the wide-mode should be stretched horizontally, so that interlacing them would only emphasize that stretching.  Do Low Res and High Res look decent in 4:3 mode ?

If composite looks crummier than SCART, then I don't want to imagine what it looks.

a phono cable with RF running down the opposite channel might have something to do with this...

I don't understand either : what do you mean in simple words ?

[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.

[arkpandora]

Given the light building quality of this monitor, I wouldn't be surprised if every copy behaves differently.

If the animation problem is the same on your monitor in Low Res as on mine, then you should at least notice features 1 and 2 from my description.  Feature 1 would be obvious in screens that use a mouse pointer, pop-up menus or any sprite of which you can control the movement or presence on a still screen.  The mouse pointer and pop-up menu in the game "Future Wars" are perfect examples.  Feature 2 may sometimes only be obvious in constant speed scrollings that are normally perfect on a CRT monitor.  I have tried a great variety of games, but not Deluxe Galaga or Starfighter.  You may notice it clearly in the intro of "Test Drive II" or the intro text scrolling in "Vroom".

that RF pickup and radiation from the other channel of the cable could of distorted the composite image. I hope that makes sense.

It does : now I understand, thanks.

[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.

[arkpandora]

I will try PIP through SCART when I have my monitor replacement : as things are, it might work.

[Hodgkinson]

Just sent a complaint to Samsung.