DosFreak,

Congrats on your new Dell 27" LCD monitor! 😳 Makes my Lacie ElectronBlueIV 22" seems very small... Like those huge Apple 30" LCDs you see in Best Buy. In the future, you also might want to invest in a Colorimeter for both your new Dell LCD and Sony E500 Trinitron monitor. I have the GretagMacbeth "Eye One Display 2" now sold as the Pantone "Eye One Display 2" since the recent GretagMacbeth/X-rite merger. Same unit and software, works quite well. There are competitors mentioned in the review web-site link above.

Until that happy day, as to your Sony Trinitron E500 (21"??) CRT monitor... Since you have a Sony Trinitron, when you say you reduce 'gamma' you really mean that you play around with the 'contrast' and 'brightness' controls on the monitor itself, right? (There not being a 'gamma' button on the Sony monitor) 🤣 You may have the problem that even if you reduce the black-level ('brightness') control to zero, you still have a faint grayish background when you should have complete black, which would match the unlit portion of the CRT screen edge next to the monitor bezel?

As Trinitron monitors age, in many cases the overall black-level ('brightness') goes UP. There are two ways to fix this problem. First way is to play with an internal control in the monitor which is a 'sub-brightness' or gain adjustment. Usually an adjustment screw somewhere near the flyback transformer. Yes - you can be killed by the voltages from a freshly unplugged monitor, etc - death, injury, very bad things. This will however allow you to make the front panel controls have a usable range again, until the monitor finally goes kaput.

The other way is to use the 'color' or 'image' restoration function of the high-end Sony monitors, if said function is available. Here is a description off the web about how the Sony monitor black-level adjustment might be accomplished. Despite what the article says, make sure your monitor is fully warmed up for two hours before attempting. No power-save or screen blanking - keep a neutral gray color background on the screen during this time. You don't do this outlined procedure more that around 2-4 times in the life of a monitor in most cases.

Now if you can get your black-level ('brightness') so that you have a usable 0-100 range again, try a primitive quick n' dirty non-color calibrated setup. Before continuing make sure that you do not have ANY color, contrast, brightness or gamma correction enabled in your video card driver control panel tabs, or with Powerstrip, or any other LUT modifiers, etc.

First set your Sony Trinitron monitor color temperature to either the 6500K or D65 setting. Next set your while-level ('contrast') to around 85 (that is 85 on a 100 scale), then set your black-level ('brightness') to around 75/100. Now use the graphic file attached to this message [VideoBlackLevel.gif] as the Windows desktop background image. Next lower the Sony black-level ('brightness') control from 75 to whatever lower setting is necessary to make the nominal 16 IRE value level blocks ever-so-slightly visible. This means that the blocks labeled from 1 to 14 should NOT be visible and that they should also be as black as the black inter-block spacing, not to mention the unlit edge portion of your CRT monitor.

If this works out you have set a ROUGH video level black. I don't want to fight the PC display world 0-255 black to white levels vs the Video display world 16-240 black to white levels. I believe that Microsoft is moving towards the Video display world's 16-240 values for Vista, DirectX 10... This quick black-level setting will only help if you can get the Sony Trinitron CRT sub-brightness control adjusted enough to give your front panel brightness control enough range to make black really black, not hazy gray...

Hope this helps,

dvwjr

Looks like I'm going to have to open it up. I do not have the option in the OSD for the "Image Restoration" feature. My monitor was made in March 2001 (Same year I bought it) so I though I might have gotten lucky but I guess not.

Found this:
http://www.geocities.com/gregua/windas/

How much life will this monitor have once I make the adjustments? Is it worth bothering? I have a TON of old CRT's at work just laying around (none are 21" though). I'll probably go scrounging around at work, I think I saw a 21" on someones desk. Mabye I'll con them into using one of the 17-19" LCD's we have...

DosFreak,

From your pictures it looks as if you have no problems controlling the black-level on your new Dell 24" LCD display. It does look as if you have the Sony Trinitron 'too bright' and no real black problem. The software and interface cable you reference in you post look interesting - a homemade version of the Sony techs' DAS adjustment software. If there is the proper serial port service connector on your Sony E500 you should try getting the cable and try the WinDAS software. It cannot make up for a defective resistor or blown cap, however...

As to the worthwhileness of keeping the Sony E500, that depends on how long the tube has actually been in use. Let me give you an example using myself at work and at home. Most IT departments and many at home have their systems set to go into power down mode for at least the monitors (CRT or LCD) after 20 minutes of no activity. This keeps low the actual number of hours the CRT monitor is using its beam(s) to hit the phosphors. The really determines the 'life' of the monitor. Our monitors at work are setup so, as most probably are yours in your IT workplace to go into power-save/power-down mode fairly quickly. Here at home I have WinXP power down the monitor after 15 minutes with a preceding 'black' screen saver that which kicks in at 7 minutes. Now the electron beam is still sweeping on the 'black' screen saver screen but the phosphors are not being tickled so they last longer. 😀 Then the true 'power-down' mode kicks in and the CRT monitor just keeps the tube and its electronics warm with just a few watts being used. Now on my personal PC workstations I've have had two IBM 21" monitors (made by Sony Japan) and now an 2005 now out-of-production Lacie Electron22Blue IV (rebadged Mitsu Diamond Pro 2070 Trinitron). I expect that CRT to last until a good OLED or SED technology replacement appears to give me CRT-like contrast, black-level, color gamut performance. The working life-span of a color corrected CRT monitor is around 4-6 years. Then they either give out, or become 'gaming' monitors given to young nephews or nieces who now get a 'really cool' huge monitor good for another few years. They are happy with the no 'ghosting' for their PC game system vs the parents LCD display...

One other nice thing about the Lacie ElectronBlue IV series (19" and 22") is that with the Pantone "Eye One Display 2" colorimeter it is one of the "auto-configure" CRT units. Put the sensor on the monitor screen, plug the in the USB cable, run the software and it tweaks the black-level, white-level, the individual color temperatures etc without you touching the OSD controls. Really plug and play just like the expensive color correct CRTs with built-in color/monitor adjustment. If you can find one of these used or new-in-box left over with some dealer they are worth it... They also have this 'cool' dark-blue monitor shroud that keeps stray light from hitting the face of the monitor with its dark-blue bezel. 😁 The other CRT monitors supporting this 'pushbutton' adjustment functionality include: Eizo - CG18, CG19, CG21, CG210, CG220; Lacie - Electron 19b3, Electron 19b4, Electron22b3, Electron22b4; Mitsubishi - DP930SB, DP2070SB; NEC - LCD2060NX, FP1375X, FP2141SB; IBM- P275; Sony - SDM-S205F/K; Hewlett Packard p1230. The EyeOne Match software v3.6.1 works with Win2000, WinXP, MacOS 10.3.2 or later. Vista soon.

So you have to think back to the life-history of your Sony E500. Did you keep the actual number of 'VIEWING' hours low as compared to the number of just 'ON' hours by using the monitor power-down mode? Is the power-supply still good? Sony made a very good bottle for their Trinitron lines of CRTs, until they got sloppy/cheap near the end of the CRT production runs. If you are happy with the Sony E500 color saturation and intensity, the geometry and convergence, the focus - then KEEP the Sony E500 monitor. Get that black-level down OR scrounge another good CRT monitor from work. 🙄

Just remember that the VideoBlackLevel.gif is just a ROUGH approximation of what a properly calibrated CRT or LCD should look like as far as black-leve/white-level... The 16 scale is actually 14 IRE units. The IRE scale is 0-100, the 8-bit digital video scale is 0-255 with analog video being 16-235. Digital video black is 0 IRE, where as North American analog black is 7.5 on the IRE scale. So again, you have to put a colorimeter on the display to get it 'correctly' calibrated. Then there is the whole PC display vs consumer Video display black level arguments you can find on the AVS forum. Plus the question as to how well your CRT or LCD holds 'black'.

Your new Dell LCD looks good in the picture. How is for playing DOS or Windows games? Any motion or ghosting problems? Or has the issue for LCD displays gone away?

Best of luck,

dvwjr

As to the worthwhileness of keeping the Sony E500, that depends on how long the tube has actually been in use.

Well I've had this monitor since 2001 and I've used it every day since. (Not counting deployments, vacations, time sleeping, etc). Whenever I'm not using it it would always go into power saving mode or I'd just turn it off. I hate screensavers and have pretty much never used them except for set 5 minutes before power saving with this monitor.

I too would like an OLED/SED monitor but I got tired of waiting for a decent LCD and after tons of research the Dell 2407FPW fit my needs perfectly. (Except for that damn native resolution....). Also the brightness of this LCD kills me!

I think SED will take off far better than OLED. From what I've heard OLED doesn't last very long due to their organic nature (humidity is pretty rough on them). Although I think I heard that they are finding ways to extend their lifetimes and protect the monitors better.

So mabye OLED will have a short span of life before production costs on SED comes down. I really think SED is where it's going to be at in a couple of years.

I did a 5 year warranty on this Dell and baring some major disaster I don't think Dell will be going anywhere so I'm happy for the next 5 years. 😀

I haven't noticed any ghosting so far but I've only watched a couple of movies and played some slow paced games (like Command & Conquer 3).
I'll run some monitor testing programs and FPS's later today.

I don't have any HD movies to test since I swore never to buy them until the copy protection was broken (in a way it's been bypassed but who knows how long that will last)....and I don't think I have any HD quality video files laying around.

That Pantone device sounds pretty nice but it's probably overkill for what I use a monitor for! Still it is a PITA to tweak a monitor.....This Dell has three "Image Modes" , Gaming", "Multimedia" and "Desktop" which tweak the brightness/colors I'll have to play around with them. I don't think I noticed a custom profile option where you can save a profile for certain situations. That sure would be nice....

So you have to think back to the life-history of your Sony E500. Did you keep the actual number of 'VIEWING' hours low as compared to the number of just 'ON' hours by using the monitor power-down mode?

heh. I'm a computer geek. Sadly I have to eat/sleep/shower/work/etc so those hours outnumber the number of hours I actually used my monitor but it still racked up quite a hefty sum of view time. It would be nice if monitors had a counter like printers where it can tell you how many copies were made...

I've been watching a couple of movies on this LCD this weekend and I plan to throw on a couple more to check out the best settings for viewing. Need to check out some games as well. Doom 3/Prey/Serious Sam/UT 2004 should be good.

From everything I've read as far as ghosting goes on this 2407FPW there is ghosting in some situations but you really have to look for it. A Benq FP241wz monitor came out recently with a new panel that is supposed to be a little bit faster than this Dell but the price they were asking for and their Dead Pixel Policy didn't do much for me. The XBOX crowd seem to love it though. 🙄

Also I do not play racing games and I do not play FPS games competitvely so when I do play FPS's it's usually at a pretty slow pace so I probably wouldn't notice any ghosting anyway.

Hey, thanks for the "Image Restoration" description for the Sony monitors - it helped me to get useable brightness controls again 😁

I have a Sony G500, and it was a bit too bright, even with the brightness turned all the way down. Now, after the "Image Restoration" procedure, black is still black up to a brightness setting of 30%.

I already fear the day my CRT dies - it is the only acceptable solution when running weird VGA software in non-specified resolutions on old computers. LCD monitors either have ugly interpolation or won't sync at all, and it's not likely any new display will have support for tweaked VGA modes.

Another funny thing: The VGA signal of video cards has degraded over the years. While my old ET4000 displays bright, crisp colors in VGA mode, the picture of my ATI 9800SE looks like viewed through fog, using the same video mode and resolution.
On the other hand, the ET4000 might not be FCC compliant, as it is probably missing the dampening capacitors at the VGA output 🤣