Windows Vista Ready LCD Monitor Round-Up - Part 1 February 19, 2006

Introduction

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So what is HDCP?

HDCP stands for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection and it’s an Intel-initiated program that was developed with Silicon Image. Manufacturers participating in the program must pay an annual fee of $15,000 and a device fee of $0.005. This is a content protection system as opposed to a copy protection system. Essentially, this protocol ensures that high-definition content such as HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, and copy protected MPEG-2 is encrypted at every stage of the transmission. All HDCP does is guarantee that premium high-definition content can be output over a digital display interface such as HDMI or DVI. A lot of information can be found from Microsoft’s own documents on the Protected Video Pathway - Output Protection Management (PVP-OPM).

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/stream/output_protect.mspx

Although DRM clearly has implementation issues, we all must recognize that it is a “necessary evil” of the industry. Regardless of your personal stance on DRM, the content industry (i.e. Hollywood) refuses to offer unprotected high-definition video content. That’s the end of the story. They own the rights to their movies, and they can do what they choose. They set the rules. If you want to “fight” the adoption of HDCP, the only solution you’ll have is to fight with your wallet, and not buy any HDCP-products (which would include practically every HDTV on the market with an HDMI connector) or run your own movie studio. Otherwise, you’re going to be limited to DVD quality.

One of the problems that Hollywood has with PCs is that while it’s technically challenging to hack a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player, it’s much easier to hack a PC running HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. At one point, the content industry would have liked to have prohibited playback of these devices on the PC. From Hollywood’s perspective, there’s little incentive to support high-definition video on the PC.

Microsoft on the other hand believes that there’s a clear role for the PC in multimedia. With software like Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, and Apple’s own Front Row, it’s clear that a desktop computer can work as a media hub. It’s much easier to time-shift television when you can take advantage of the CPU, GPU, and HDD you already have in your PC. When you buy a dedicated HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player, you have to buy a H.264 decoder. On the other hand, when you go with HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, your gaming GPU and CPU prevent the need for extra H.264 hardware.

HDCP (cont’d)

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What happens if you don’t have HDCP?

Without HDCP, you will only be able to output premium content of analog connections. In the case of VGA or high-definition component video, PVP-OPM will either constrict (decrease resolution) or completely disable output. Relevant quotes from Microsoft’s article include:

“It is strongly recommended that YPbPr not be promoted to users as a connection method to HD displays—customers will be unhappy when the PVP-OPM component is required to tell the driver to constrict or even turn off HD analog YPbPr outputs.”

“There have been some successes in getting content owners to make some allowances for [analog VGA]. Consumers would certainly be unhappy if it were immediately outlawed; so instead, many content owners are requiring that its resolution be constricted when certain types of premium content are being played. Eventually they may require that analog VGA outputs be turned off completely; but for the moment, it is possible to provide the necessary level of protection by constricting the information content.”

As you know, FiringSquad strongly recommends that LCD monitors be connected using digital interfaces such as DVI. This is the only way we test our monitors.

Where can I find HDCP Monitors?

To date, we have only identified 12 HDCP compliant monitors! Five are going to be featured in next week’s review (we’re still waiting on one of the monitors to arrive):

1. Gateway FPD2185W
2. HP f2105
3. NEC MultiSync 20WMGX2
4. Samsung SyncMaster 244T
5. Viewsonic VP2330wb

The remaining HDCP PC monitors that we are aware of include:
6. Dell 3007WFP
7. Samsung 214T
8. Samsung 930MP
9. Samsung 940MW
10. Samsung 242MP
11. Sony MFM-HT95
12. Sony MFM-HT75W

In the consumer electronics world (CE), virtually all modern DLP, LCD, and Plasma televisions support DVI-HDCP or HDMI/HDCP. Although HDMI and HDCP are separate standards, we are not aware of any HDMI-enabled televisions that do not also incorporate HDCP. HDCP is also used in other home theater equipment as well such as DVD players that upconvert to higher resolutions and high-definition digital set top boxes available from digital cable and satellite providers.

Unlike the CE market, the transition to high-definition content-protected video on the PC is going to be shaky. The video cards aren’t ready, and just as importantly, the monitors aren’t quiet ready yet either. Most manufacturers seem to be trickling down their HDCP support from the flagship products and working their way down. The only HDCP LCD PC monitors under 20” come from Sony. That said, as much ire as we want to give to the monitor industry for being slow to release HDCP PC monitors, Dell, Gateway, HP, NEC, Samsung, Sony, and Viewsonic have all beaten the graphics card manufacturers in this race.

It’s interesting to note that Gateway, HP, NEC, Dell, and Viewsonic only have one model in their entire line-up with HDCP support. Sony was first to market with an HDCP monitor, and Samsung has several choices. While you might assume that this is because Sony and Samsung have a strong presence in the consumer electronics market, HP and Dell are both aggressively backing Blu-Ray technology as well. All of these companies plan to have additional HDCP monitors in the coming months. This round-up is missing monitors from LG and BenQ. Unfortunately, these two manufacturers did not have an HDCP-compliant monitor for us to review.

If we’re missing any PC monitors with HDCP support, we’d be glad to add them to our list. Just send us an email. For our definition of a PC monitor, however, the display should have a 0.30 mm pixel pitch or smaller. Once you have a display with >0.30mm, it will join the millions of HDTVs sold in the last few years that feature HDCP.

The monitors

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Gateway FPD2185W - $600 with 1 year warranty

(+ $40 sound bar + $36 DVI cable)
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HP f2105 - $700

($650 after mail-in-rebate if purchased before 4/8/2006)
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Monitors (cont’d)

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NEC MultiSync 20WMGX2 - $800

($750 after mail-in rebate if purchased before 2/25/2006)
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Samsung SyncMaster 244T - $1400

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Viewsonic and features comparison

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Viewsonic VP2330wb - $1400

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LCD Features Comparison
	Panel Type	Size	Resolution	Pixel Pitch	Contrast Ratio (higher is better)	Brightness (higher is better)	Pixel Refresh (lower is better)	Warranty	Estimated Street Price
Gateway FPD2185W	S-PVA	21"	1680x1050	.270mm	1000:1	300 cd/m2	8ms	1-year	$600
HP f2105	MVA	21"	1680x1050	.270mm	1000:1	300 cd/m2	8ms	1-year	$650
NEC 20WMGX2	S-IPS	20"	1680x1050	.258mm	1600:1 (A-DVM), 700:1 native	400 cd/m2	6ms	3-years	$800
Samsung 244T	S-PVA	24"	1920x1200	.270mm	1000:1	500 cd/m2	6ms	3-years	$1400
Viewsonic VP2330wb	MVA	23"	1920x1200	.258mm	800:1	250 cd/m2	8ms	3-years	$1400

Testing the monitors

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The approach to LCD monitor evaluation that I’ve developed focuses on real-world and objective performance metrics rather than subjective comments. Since our last article, I have substantially improved the testing protocol, most notably the addition of improved pixel refresh tests. Even if you’ve read the previous two LCD round-ups, I recommend reading through this section carefully.

Image Fidelity / Color Accuracy

To make our colorimetry measurements, I set the monitor’s contrast to the optimal value and set brightness to the maximum possible level that does not produce clipping. I then measure peak white and black levels and evaluate color temperature at white and 20% gray. Then I evaluate color accuracy using 24 scientifically selected colored squares in a wide range of colors that represent natural objects such as human skin, foliage, and blue skies. These are the same 24 colors made famous by the GretagMacbeth ColorChecker used by photographers around the world. We measure color accuracy at the color temperature preset that is closest to D65 standard (often called Warm 1, or sRGB, or 6500K).

From our measurements, we can produce our own color charts showing how the monitor differs from the reference standard. This helps you visualize how a monitor can produce colors that are too warm or too cold. The actual colors that you see on your monitor are meaningless. You should focus on the difference between the colors in each graph.

The difference between the reference standard and what the monitor displays can be summarized in a single number, the average delta E across those 24 patches. The smaller the delta E is, the more accurate the colors are. Since delta E’s can be skewed by one or two bad color patches, the color charts are the best way to understand the color performance of the monitor. The closer the monitor is to the reference color standard, the better your movies, games, and photos will look.

We also provide you with a measurement of the true contrast ratio of the monitor. Thanks to our precision colorimeter equipment, we are able to accurately measure the black level, giving the most accurate measure of contrast ratio possible. In our experience, the colorimeter is able to distinguish a 0.01 cd/m2 from a CRT and 0 cd/m2. A high contrast ratio helps to give text and images the extra “pop.”

In addition to testing monitors at maximum brightness, we also test the monitors when the brightness is set to 100 cd/m2 (or as close as possible). While running your monitor at the maximum brightness is good for games and movies, media professionals often prefer calibrating their monitor to 100 cd/m2 to minimize eyestrain. The dimmer brightness is particularly useful in the markets of digital photography and desktop publishing. Importantly, most CRTs only have a brightness in this range.

Pixel Refresh

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Up until now, the challenge has been in determining a useful real-world system for evaluating pixel refresh. That is, while it’s possible to use photo-diodes and measure the actual transition time in milliseconds, these measurements will not help anyone get a true sense of how those numbers translate into the real world. Fortunately, the consultants at PRAD in Germany (http://www.prad.de/en/index.html) have a Pixel Persistence Analyzer tool which they call PixPerAn. Although there are several different tests with their PixPerAn software, the most precision tool we’ve found (in terms of repeatability of results) is the scrolling text test. In this test, text is scrolled from right to left at increasing speeds. The tester must type the randomly generated string of letters that are scrolling by. The speed increases with each correct answer until the tester is unable to accurately read the text. You should download the Pixel Persistence Analyzer at http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/pixperan.html so that you can understand what text scrolling at a tempo of 8 looks like, as compared to text scrolling at a tempo of “23.”

I can easily reach a speed of 23 on a CRT refreshing at 100 Hz. At a tempo beyond 23, I have trouble reading the text even though it feels like the CRT is capable of keeping up. So far, all LCDs we’ve tested score worse than 23 points so we expect this test to be useful for some time. To prevent random luck from skewing results, the reported scores represent the fastest times achievable as a sequence of three tests. That is, because certain letter combinations are tougher to read when they’re adjacent to each other (such as mn and fl), it is possible to occasionally get letter sequences correctly at one speed but then fail when trying a different sequence of letters. To address this problem, scores only count if it was achieved in a sequence of three or more. So when I report a score of 17 on an LCD monitor, it means that I first correctly answered the letter sequence at a tempo of 15, then correctly answered the text at a tempo of 16 speeds, and then correctly answered at a tempo of 17. I spent an equal amount of time with each monitor, and there isn’t a difference between monitors that I tested earlier versus those that I tested later.

Cabling

We test exclusively with the DVI connection. This is in contrast to the way most monitors are tested at major technology publications.

Summary

We’re still waiting on one final monitor to come in, but in the mean time, we strongly recommend that you grab a copy of PixPerAn. If you’re a CRT owner, you can use it to see just how fast a tempo of “23” really is. If you’re an LCD owner who thinks that LCD monitors no longer blur, try PixPerAn to see just how much blurring occurs at speeds substantially less than 23. Of course, it’s important to remember that blurring is not a problem in itself. As long as you can still achieve the high scores in the action games you enjoy, the blur actually helps improve the experience.

I’ll be back next week with all of the hands-on testing. I’ll give you a hint though. Evolution is real: almost every monitor in the upcoming round-up is outperforming last year’s “2nd place” winner.