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

[Hodgkinson]

Just sent a complaint to Samsung.

[Phantom]

It's good to hear that you can use an Amiga with an LCD/TV. But I have a lot of questions to ask.

1. I want to use my A1200 only to play games and a little workbench, that means the native modes (ECS,AGA games).

2. That cable from AmigaKit (RGB -> SCART), is the best solution to connect your Amiga to an LCD/TV?

3. You get the same picture quality like the original monitors of Amiga (1084S)? I care mostly in ECS and AGA games.

4. Searching for that LCD/TV the horizonal frequency must starts from 15KHz?

I heard that LG monitors are most suitable connecting to an Amiga.

[arkpandora]

Hi,

Well,

1. The quality of the result depends on the quality of the scan doubler, whose role is to change the PAL/NTSC video signal into a VGA signal displayable on a LCD.  My only experience with LCD TV is the Samsung 2032MW I'm talking about in this thread.  In my opinion, its scan-doubler is too bad for anything else than watching movies/television and word processing.  So if you want your Amiga to look like an Amiga, then you have two solutions : either finding a better TV, or use a good external scan doubler between your Amiga and the monitor (in that case the monitor must meet the requirements of the scan doubler instead of the Amiga).  Hodgkinson has just showed me a video that compares the Samsung to a Sony KDL-26U2000 LCD TV : although the result on the Sony is worse than on a CRT TV or monitor, it is much better than the Samsung.

2. To my knowledge, SCART is the best solution indeed.  Component may be an alternative, but as I'm not a specialist somebody else should answer you.  According to Hodgkinson, the SCART cable from AmigaKit will do the job.  At http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=2449, he posted some more information.  An external scan doubler may impose a particular format.  In any case, don't use Composite or Aerial if you want the best quality.

3. I believe that picture quality will always be worse, unless you manage to find a perfect LCD TV, but even in that case pixel upscaling would bring you a worse result.  On my Samsung, everything is bad : animation, colors and upscaling.

4. Any LCD TV will accept the default Amiga screen modes which are used in a default Workbench and most games.  If you want to connect your Amiga through a VGA (D-Sub) input only, then the LCD must accept 15 KHz through the VGA input indeed.  If you use an external scan-doubler, then you don't need 15 KHz, but the monitor must meet the scan doubler's other requirements.

LG monitors are probably better than my Samsung, but I cannot assure you of that.

[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:

[gwyche]

@Hodgkinson

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

I very much appreciate all of the information in this thread. My conclusion is that LCD is a bleeding edge technology for Classic Amigas. No LCD solution compares favorably with CRTs as of 2008-03-23.

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

ggw

[gwyche]

@Phantom

You Signature mentions CyberVision64 CD, so I turn my attention to you.

I am looking for the specifications of the CyberVision3D. If this is easily supplied I would be grateful.

Are CyberVision3D and CyberVision64 3D the same?

Does this discussion of LCD's poor performance with Classic Amigas also apply to LCD's connected to the CyberVision?

ggw

[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.

[gwyche]

@Hodgkinson

1. Uni (Lack of space, LCD needed anyway)
Uni?
LCD required?

2. Don't have any 15Khz monitors
How does LCD solve this? I thought they don't do 15KHz.

3. Can't fit/don't have spare scandoubler
So LCD has built in scandoubler? or in some way LCD avoids interleave flicker but nature of LCD?

4. Don't have Gfx card (A1200D)
Good reason.

5. Current VGA monitor is only 15"
Very good reason.

6. Nuisance of having to have a spare TV hooked up for 15Khz screenmodes.
Same as #2 above?

7. And probably one or two other reasons...
Please add them as they come to you. I value your input.

ggw

[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.

[gwyche]

@Hodgkinson

So #1, it would be fair to say, is truly a foot-print issue, both weight and size? I still don't know to what "Uni" refers, what did that mean?

With one device (which happens to be this model of LCD) you :
o  reduce the depth required, giving you more room in front of the monitor, and
o  worries about the effects of weight on your desk +
o  effort (and dangers) of moving heavy things by reaching are significantly reduced

2 Fewer monitors are required for the specialized need of 15KHz for the boot screen (the only truly required need) since this model supports 15KHz

You included #3 in your reply, but didn't address the  "interleave" flicker. How does LCD avoid this?

#6 can be dropped as it is covered by #2.

I know nothing of SCART, so I go now to read about it where ever Google leads me.

Thanks

[arkpandora]

"Uni" means "I soon go to university and, you know, I want to seduce girls".

[arkpandora]

@gwyche

LCD displays are better than CRT displays in many important respects : that's the only reason why I wanted to abandon CRT.  However, until I find an LCD that gives better results through the video (15 KHz) inputs, I will go on using LCDs with VGA (31 KHz) computers only, and CRTs for 15 KHz appliances.

Any LCD monitor that works well with today computers should work well with Amiga graphic cards such as the Cybervision, as they use VGA (31 KHz) screen modes like today computers.  Our discussion only concerns the 15 KHz screen modes.  But on some (if not all) monitors, some animation problems may arise too when 15 KHz PAL modes go through an external scan doubler to the VGA input, because the native refresh rate of LCD displays is 60 Hz, not 50 Hz (and most don't accept 50 Hz through the VGA input anyway).

To my knowledge any LCD TV supports 15 KHz screen modes, as analog TV broadcasting standards use 15 KHz.  Not all LCD displays do however - when they don't we call them "monitors" instead of TV.

So yes, LCD TVs have a built-in scan doubler, which is probably responsible for the problems we describe.

I don't understand what you mean by "interleave" flicker.

[gwyche]

@arkpandora

Good luck with your Uni goals.

Thanks for the clarification.

By flicker I meant the action that occurs for which "flicker-fixer" hardware for the Classic Amiga was made.
Many people find that the time that the CRT electron gun takes to write the screen is seen as a flicker, specially when you dart your the focus of your eyes from one place to another. It is "doubly" bad when the interlace mode is not present many lines have to be drawn.

The more lines, the more time it takes to traverse them all.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I have another question.

No one on these threads talks about a "driver" program for these LCD monitors.

A member of our Amiga Club went to a sales place to buy an LCD to work with his CyberVision3D. His 1st purchase stayed black no matter what, so he took it back and was referred to the manager. The manager claimed to have owned an Amiga2000 a long time ago. He said that all of the LCD monitors (that they had?) required "drivers" and that he knew that no drivers were made by the manufacturers that would run on an Amiga. He suggested that our club member might look on the internet for a 3rd party driver.

What is that about?

ggw

[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.

[arkpandora]

@gwyche

University is a past concern for me (girls are not yet hopefully).

The Samsung 2032MW's scan doubler is a flicker-fixer as well, so that interlaced PAL screens don't flicker as a whole.  But on my copy the result is so bad that I find a flickering screen more natural and pleasant ; you can preview this result in Hodgkinson's video.  Not all LCD TVs have a flicker fixer obviously.

A driver is not required even on the Amiga, unless you can't manage to make your computer display the right screen mode.  If the screen stays black, then one has to try another screen mode.  Or it means that the monitor is unable to display the computer's screen mode(s), in which case drivers won't change anything.  I think that today monitors have some sort of ROM that contains the informations that in the past you had to give the computer in the form of a driver ; if your setup is recent enough, the computer should be able to detect these informations.

Before you ask : "PIP" means "Picture in Picture", a special mode some TV/monitors are equipped with, which allows a video input to be shown in a window over the VGA input.


@Hodgkinson

That's right : maybe LCD "TV" that are not marketed as "monitors" have better video inputs and worse VGA inputs than the others, and vice versa.  Then I have to give up the hope of having only one - and reasonably small - screen on my desk.