LCD Monitor success!

[Franko]

Wrong, it is never perfect and that is the point. A pixel that exists conceptually as a discrete rectangular area within your framebuffer is mapped to a diffuse point on a screen by an analogue system that is highly susceptible to electric and magnetic fields. Everything about it, from it's position, shape, brightness and even it's colour are affected by multiple, nonlinear effects. You will never get the same combination of these effects from one day to the next. Your CRT display literally is never the same twice.

Simple answer to that Cobblers...

Contrast this scenario to LCD, where you have well-defined rectangular (usually square) pixels that aren't susceptible to any such effects.

You forgot to mention these lovely square or rectangular pixels have a tendancy to end up stuck or dead...

Basically, what you have described is a trial and error manipulation of the fields around your monitor. If you move your monitor, the necessary placements to counter things like the prevailing magnetic field direction all change too.

I refer you to my first answer given in this post...

[Ral-Clan]

I have to admit that CRTs beat LCDs almost every time in terms of picture quality.  

I love the low power consumption, wide screen aspect ratio and thin-ness of LCD monitors.  

But CRTs can handle tons of scan rates and resolutions and they always look great.  You can also view them from any angle without changes in brightness.

The only thing that really sucks about CRTs is how heavy and large they are.

[Franko]

I have to admit that CRTs beat LCDs almost every time in terms of picture quality.  

I love the low power consumption, wide screen aspect ratio and thin-ness of LCD monitors.  

But CRTs can handle tons of scan rates and resolutions and they always look great.  You can also view them from any angle without changes in brightness.

The only thing that really sucks about CRTs is how heavy and large they are.

I agree with you 100% on that, apart from the motion blur the viewing angles on this crappy technology is awful...

[Karlos]

Don't get me wrong, I prefer many things about a CRT picture, but one has to be realistic.

Simple answer to that Cobblers...

Nope, it was spot on. You can refuse it all you like, but a digitally driven LCD display is as close to an exact representation of what is in the display memory as you are ever going to get. A CRT can't even come close. Project a perfect grid of lines on your CRT and see how uniform they aren't on close inspection. The whole picture is distorted, which is why any decent CRT has so many geometry adjustment settings.

You forgot to mention these lovely square or rectangular pixels have a tendancy to end up stuck or dead...

Whereas CRTs suffer no degradation issues :lol:

[Franko]

Don't get me wrong, I prefer many things about a CRT picture, but one has to be realistic.

I am being realistic and the view of TV's engineers I know back me up on this. Most of them still prefer CRT TVs in their homes as they cannot stand the motion blur, ridiculous viewing angles and lack of decent contrast/brightness ratios. I am in full agreement with them.

Nope, it was spot on. You can refuse it all you like, but a digitally driven LCD display is as close to an exact representation of what is in the display memory as you are ever going to get. A CRT can't even come close. Project a perfect grid of lines on your CRT and see how uniform they aren't on close inspection. The whole picture is distorted, which is why any decent CRT has so many geometry adjustment settings.

I don't just use my monitors for computers I also use them for TV/DVD viewing and the SNES and thanks to a box of tricks I built can do so quite easily even on my MicroVitic Multi sync which has separate H & V syncs which few if any TV or DVD boxes give out, and anyone who has viewed them side by side with an LCD, have agreed the CRT picture quality is superior...

Whereas CRTs suffer no degradation issues :lol:

Of course they do over time but this can easily be repaired and if you keep the brightness and contrast at reasonable levels you will get many years of good use from a CRT without the picture becoming soft also they don't suffer from what most LCDs do, that is an uneven backlight...

[hardlink]

... but good ol' NTSC and PAL work great through my CV3D scandoubler.

I had high hopes when I read the topic that  someone (besides Indiana Jones) had found the Holeey Grail: an LCD monitor on this side of the pond that works with Amiga 15KHz RGB signals. The Quest continues.

[Belial6]

Wrong, it is never perfect and that is the point. A pixel that exists conceptually as a discrete rectangular area within your framebuffer is mapped to a diffuse point on a screen by an analogue system that is highly susceptible to electric and magnetic fields. Everything about it, from it's position, shape, brightness and even it's colour are affected by multiple, nonlinear effects. You will never get the same combination of these effects from one day to the next. Your CRT display literally is never the same twice.

And that is why our US television standard was superior for so many years over the European ones.  You guys with your PAL system that never does what you really want it to.  Here in the US we used NTSC (Never The Same Color).  Our analog interference was a FEATURE!

[Speelgoedmannetje]

I've never tried that model, need to check out the specs for it first. I never usually use a screenmode of more than 640X512 (mostly 640x256), I'll dig around and see what I can find out about, but I'd be very surprised if it has no motion blur at all, as even Panasonic with their 600Mhz TV's have had to admit that despite the latest engine they use, motion blur has not been completely eliminated yet...

Hm, have you also tried LED displays?
I got a Samsung Syncmaster BX2235 and I have little to complain about. Granted, it does not have the absolute blackness of the OLED display of my GP2X Wiz, but the picture is awesome, and I haven't noticed any motion blur (unlike on my Samsung LCD tv).

But then again, I haven't used a scandoubler on it and maybe that's exactly what's to blame, the internal scandoubler of LCD tvs being of poor quality.

[tone007]

Hm, have you also tried LED displays?

You are aware that your "LED display" is actually just another LCD backlit by LEDs instead of a fluorescent light source, I hope.  The LED backlighting won't help in the area of motion blur should the LCD panel in front of the backlight still be a poor performer.

LED backlighting is definitely the way to go, but it doesn't cure everything.

[Franko]

Hm, have you also tried LED displays?
I got a Samsung Syncmaster BX2235 and I have little to complain about. Granted, it does not have the absolute blackness of the OLED display of my GP2X Wiz, but the picture is awesome, and I haven't noticed any motion blur (unlike on my Samsung LCD tv).

But then again, I haven't used a scandoubler on it and maybe that's exactly what's to blame, the internal scandoubler of LCD tvs being of poor quality.

I've checked out a few Samsung models, though I can't say I've checked that particular model. Trouble is no matter what the manufactures claim on the box or in their ads if you question them on their technical helplines or via email and push them hard enough they will all admit that even the latest TVs/Monitors have a degree of motion blur, it's just that most folk don't notice it except for fussy buggers like me...

[tone007]

Don't CRTs also have a degree of motion blur, even close to undetectable, due to the persistent nature of phosphors?

[Khephren]

Don't CRTs also have a degree of motion blur, even close to undetectable, due to the persistent nature of phosphors?

I think your right, on some old 'star field' style effects in some demos, you can see slight 'warp speed' trails, due to phosphor persistance.

On the other hand, lots of 2d games from old systems use phosphor glow to blend colours, deliberately so. These can look damn ugly on LCD, Armalyte (c64) is a good good one to look at.

There is hope though, I read that someone is working on a 'phosphor glow' filter for emulators. Won't help those of us with real hardware though

[Karlos]

There is hope though, I read that someone is working on a 'phosphor glow' filter for emulators.

I suppose with (hardware accelerated) alpha blending, you could simply have a fixed length queue of frames. Each new frame, added to the front of the queue, is rendered 100% opaque and then each of the N previous frames is blended on top with an exponential reduction in opacity.

[tone007]

I suppose with (hardware accelerated) alpha blending, you could simply have a fixed length queue of frames. Each new frame, added to the front of the queue, is rendered 100% opaque and then each of the N previous frames is blended on top with an exponential reduction in opacity.

..and make it variable!  One day I may want to emulate a 1702, and the next I might want to emulate a 1084S!

Monitor emulators, the wave of the future. ..or past.

[orange]

I had high hopes when I read the topic that  someone (besides Indiana Jones) had found the Holeey Grail: an LCD monitor on this side of the pond that works with Amiga 15KHz RGB signals. The Quest continues.

me too, also PicassoIV works good here with all LCD monitors after spending some time configuring it , so this is nothing new or special.

[Ral-Clan]

..and make it variable!  One day I may want to emulate a 1702, and the next I might want to emulate a 1084S!

Monitor emulators, the wave of the future. ..or past.

The future is already here.

WinUAE and VICE (commodore 8-bit emulator) already have PAL TV emulators, which add scanlines, blur, colour smearing, and noise artifacts.

Honestly, on my LED monitor, this sort of monitor emulation really makes it look like a television from the 1980s!  It's actually awesome....really gives things that retro feel and is the icing on the cake....one of the things that was really missing from retro computer emulation was the feel of the old monitors....the emulation was often too crisp and scan-doubled.

Oh, and I bought one of those Samsung BX LED monitors mentioned above.  Got it last week.  I'm using in with WinUAE.  It's a really good monitor, but like all LCD/LED monitors suffers somewhat from the limited field of view and aliasing of lower resolution screenmodes....but in 1920x1080 native resolution is sharp as a tack.