hifi_enthusiast Posted August 20, 2006 Posted August 20, 2006 Measured using Spdyer2Pro (www.colorvision.com) after calibration. Luminance: Dell 2405FPW: Black point 0.35, White point 150.0 - CR= 429:1 Samsung: Black Point 0.66, white point 333 - CR = 504:1 (auto contrast turned off) The above illustrates the problem with trying to use LCD TVs as computer monitors - THEY ARE VERY BRIGHT, they are designed intentionally bright i guess for use in daytime conditions. You cannot turn down the brightness of an LCD TV too low as it will fail the '4 black bars test' (this is a test where 4 black bars of different shades are displayed - if you turn brightness too low, the 4 black bars merged into 1 big black bar). Colour Gamut (no of colours the TV can reproduce): Dell has a wide colour gamut overall, with the edge in the yellows and greens. Red is a tie. Samsung has a small advantage in the deepest blues. The colour gamut plot of the Samsung is roughly the same as sRGB. I would be very very interested to measure the colour gamut of those TVs that claim 1 billion colours. I actually wouldn't be surprised to find out that they still reproduce fewer colours than my Dell 2405 which only claims 16.7 million ;)
eagle11624705802 Posted August 20, 2006 Posted August 20, 2006 Measured using Spdyer2Pro (www.colorvision.com) after calibration. Luminance: Dell 2405FPW: Black point 0.35, White point 150.0 - CR= 429:1 Samsung: Black Point 0.66, white point 333 - CR = 504:1 (auto contrast turned off) The above illustrates the problem with trying to use LCD TVs as computer monitors - THEY ARE VERY BRIGHT, they are designed intentionally bright i guess for use in daytime conditions. You cannot turn down the brightness of an LCD TV too low as it will fail the '4 black bars test' (this is a test where 4 black bars of different shades are displayed - if you turn brightness too low, the 4 black bars merged into 1 big black bar). Colour Gamut (no of colours the TV can reproduce): Dell has a wide colour gamut overall, with the edge in the yellows and greens. Red is a tie. Samsung has a small advantage in the deepest blues. The colour gamut plot of the Samsung is roughly the same as sRGB. I would be very very interested to measure the colour gamut of those TVs that claim 1 billion colours. I actually wouldn't be surprised to find out that they still reproduce fewer colours than my Dell 2405 which only claims 16.7 million ;) brightness? hmm, how about those LCDs that have backlight control? LCDs tends to look greyish when in normal lighting but tuning down backlight can restore the black level but do they still pass the black bar test? samsung measured their color together with backlight gradation level, thus giving the high DYnamic color. and most other other brands are measured only using 1024 x 1024 x 1024 to get 1.07b. ( but anyway on samsung's spec they did memtioned dynamic color & dynamic contrast, it's just that alot of consumers don't get the meaning )
Xtra Posted August 21, 2006 Posted August 21, 2006 Measured using Spdyer2Pro (www.colorvision.com) after calibration. Luminance: Dell 2405FPW: Black point 0.35, White point 150.0 - CR= 429:1 Samsung: Black Point 0.66, white point 333 - CR = 504:1 (auto contrast turned off) The above illustrates the problem with trying to use LCD TVs as computer monitors - THEY ARE VERY BRIGHT, they are designed intentionally bright i guess for use in daytime conditions. You cannot turn down the brightness of an LCD TV too low as it will fail the '4 black bars test' (this is a test where 4 black bars of different shades are displayed - if you turn brightness too low, the 4 black bars merged into 1 big black bar). Colour Gamut (no of colours the TV can reproduce): Dell has a wide colour gamut overall, with the edge in the yellows and greens. Red is a tie. Samsung has a small advantage in the deepest blues. The colour gamut plot of the Samsung is roughly the same as sRGB. I would be very very interested to measure the colour gamut of those TVs that claim 1 billion colours. I actually wouldn't be surprised to find out that they still reproduce fewer colours than my Dell 2405 which only claims 16.7 million ;) You could start a business to gets consumer's TVs calibrated! This will be the likelyhood you get to calibrate them and at the same time knows the result. Chances of getting TVs from manufacturer to check on their TVs will be difficult and it will be the last thing on their mind. The sales dept will definitely vote against such "disaster attempt" on their "prop up" attributes' TVs!
hifi_enthusiast Posted August 21, 2006 Author Posted August 21, 2006 brightness? hmm, how about those LCDs that have backlight control? LCDs tends to look greyish when in normal lighting but tuning down backlight can restore the black level but do they still pass the black bar test? Yup, you got the point exactly. You can turn down backlight to give what looks like 'good' black level, but then the LCD fails the black bar test because all the black bars merge into one black lump. So you have 4 LCD TVs in a room, one of them looks like it has 'blacker' blacks then the others. The next question to ask is: does the one have the blacker blacks still pass the black bar test, if it does, then it 'truly' has better black levels. Regarding calibration, this is the one big advantage HTPC has over DVD players, it's easy and cheap to calibrate an LCD TV for HTPC playback. The basic Spyder2express (exact same hardware as Spyder2pro) is only US$62 now i think. Given the cost of an LCD TV, thats a no-brainer purchase IMHO if you're using HTPC. [there's also a product called Spyder2TV where you manually adjust the TV set's controls, but that is not as precise as a PC based system]
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