Question about monitor connection

[xpatUSA]

I just bit the bullet and ordered a "proper" monitor - an NEC P232W with all mod cons and resolution that beats my myopic eyes even with glasses on.

I have always used the analog connection betwixt computer and monitor, perhaps not knowing any better. But I've also splurged out on a new recent model Dell (Win 7, ever the laggard) which has more than just the 15-pin blue 'D'-type on the back!

So should I enter the world of digital video connection - and what advantages might that bring?

Thanks,

[dje]

I just bit the bullet and ordered a "proper" monitor - an NEC P232W with all mod cons and resolution that beats my myopic eyes even with glasses on.

I have always used the analog connection betwixt computer and monitor, perhaps not knowing any better. But I've also splurged out on a new recent model Dell (Win 7, ever the laggrd) which has more than just the 15-pin blue 'D'-type on the back!

So should I enter the world of digital video connection - and what advantages might that bring?

Thanks,

Ted I would go digital. The old VGA interface is analogue and would probably work fine but why not go digital and avoid possible issues with analogue technology such as drift in colour accuracy over time ? One has to wonder how much importance the video card and monitor designers give to the quality of the VGA interface these days when designing their products.

With digital, you've probably got a choice of DVI, HDMI or Display Port, depending on your equipment. I would probably go Display Port, simply because it's the latest designed specifically for computer/monitor interfaces. The other two would be fine though as well, for a HD monitor like yours.

Dave

[Shadowman]

I use it for connecting laptop to projector, fewer connections (audio/video) needed.

[tao2]

As dje said above - Display Port (1.2 version), it's the most up to date connector, much faster than DVI/HDMI. Plug intae the graphics card, plug intae monitor (or ye may have a dedicated input on the PC). Good tae go.

[xpatUSA]

Thanks Gents,

Looks like I've got HDMI at each end. So I'll try that sometime after the monitor is delivered and I can order the correct cable.

No idea what Display Port is - a card, perhaps? Since I mostly look at stills and the occasional YouTube, I'll give it a miss for now.

[Mike Buckley]

Before ordering an HDMI cable, make sure that it isn't provided with the monitor.

[DanK]

No idea what Display Port is - a card, perhaps? Since I mostly look at stills and the occasional YouTube, I'll give it a miss for now.

Here is an explanation I found. I have used DVI and HDMI, and they have worked fine.

[xpatUSA]

Here is an explanation [for DisplayPort] I found. I have used DVI and HDMI, and they have worked fine.

Thanks for the link Dan.

I've been researching the difference between VGA and HDMI. Apparently the so-called "VGA" port on the computer can be anything up to QXGA (2048x1536) depending on the driver hardware, so I do expect that my 1920x1080 monitor will be catered for quite well.

Most articles state that HDMI is "better" without going too deeply into why or by how much. Some do say "because it's digital" which I take with a pinch of salt, knowing that the very basis of a digital camera - the ADC chip - has got plenty of analog circuitry inside it, not to mention all them photodiodes and FETs on the sensor chip itself . . .

. . . not to mention the growing market for audio LP/45 disk players - or the re-appearance of tubes (valves) in guitar amplifiers - or indeed those here who shoot film by preference.

Hell I might even stay with VGA myself until they pry it from my cold, dead fingers . . .

[DanK]

At the retailer I use for such things (Monoprice.com), HDMI cables are dirt cheap: http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=3992

[dragon76]

Hi Ted

I think that monitor would come with DVI-D, HDMI, D sub and display port cables. In regarding display port, NEC monitors are very picky and sometimes only work with manufacturer provided cable. See This. So, if it doesn't come with one, I'd buy a DVI-D (dual link) cable as it is a screw plug type and would fit firmly to the monitor and provides stability.

Cheers

Dean

[xpatUSA]

Thanks Dan and Dean,

Yes, it showed up today with no less than seven cables in total. The thing fired up right away and almost blinded me (factory default seems to be, like, max. Right now I'm on the VGA cable I already had, and sRGB which doesn't look right with it's rather bluish whites (6500K). Another beer might fix that ;-)

Currently digging into the manual that came on the disk hoping to discover that it is at least a true 8-bit (not 6-bit dithered) in VGA or HDMI.

However, getting used to 16:9 versus years of 5:4 will take a while for this old man. Right now, I don't like it at all.

Thanks all for your help so far . . . .

[motordrive]

I bit the bullet about two months ago. I had been using a Samsung consumer monitor but spent the money and purchased a Eizo Color Edge 240. I upgraded my older graphics card to a newer model with DVI/HDMI and Display port. Eizo states using the Display port (thunderbolt) will give me the best color gamut which I am using. This panel has a button to switch between sRGB, Adobe RGB and the raw color feed from the graphics card. I always leave it on Adobe RGB. I use a Datacolor Spyder 5 in conjuction with Eizo's Color Navigator which handles the monitor profile. The software reminds when it's time to re-do the profile. It makes a the world of difference when working with images.

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
John

[george013]

I bit the bullet about two months ago. I had been using a Samsung consumer monitor but spent the money and purchased a Eizo Color Edge 240. I upgraded my older graphics card to a newer model with DVI/HDMI and Display port. Eizo states using the Display port (thunderbolt) will give me the best color gamut which I am using. This panel has a button to switch between sRGB, Adobe RGB and the raw color feed from the graphics card. I always leave it on Adobe RGB. I use a Datacolor Spyder 5 in conjuction with Eizo's Color Navigator which handles the monitor profile. The software reminds when it's time to re-do the profile. It makes a the world of difference when working with images.

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
John

I wonder what that means. To me there's no "best" gamut. Until now I've never heard of the dependance of the color and the connection.

George

[Black Pearl]

I wonder what that means. To me there's no "best" gamut. Until now I've never heard of the dependance of the color and the connection.

George

10-Bit Simultaneous Display

Using the DisplayPort input, the monitor offers 10-bit simultaneous color display* from a 16-bit look-up table which means it can show more than one billion colors simultaneously. This is 64 times as many colors as you get with 8-bit display which results in even smoother color gradations and reduced Delta-E between two adjacent colors.
*A graphics board and software which support 10-bit output are also necessary for 10-bi display.

[george013]

10-Bit Simultaneous Display

Using the DisplayPort input, the monitor offers 10-bit simultaneous color display* from a 16-bit look-up table which means it can show more than one billion colors simultaneously. This is 64 times as many colors as you get with 8-bit display which results in even smoother color gradations and reduced Delta-E between two adjacent colors.
*A graphics board and software which support 10-bit output are also necessary for 10-bi display.

Thanks.
But I understood the gamut is the possibility to show colors, expressed in an analogue way, so with a light frequenty.
An Adobe screen has a wider gamut, meaning the difference between the min and max frequencies of the emitting light is bigger than b.e. for a RGB screen.
Sending a digital value to the monitor tells the monitor to show a corresponding part of the max capacity it has for that color. The bit-depth doesn't change the gamut.

One more question. Does this mean that a monitor with a displayconnection can always show colors in 10 bit? I just ordered a video card without display port, I just noticed.

George

[xpatUSA]

There seems to be a little confusion creeping in.

As George has just said, gamut is not a function of monitor bit depth, is it?

That is to say that the gamut covered by equal primary chromaticities (x,y values) remains the same whether 6-dithered or 10-bit actual.

[motordrive]

I seem to have used the wrong term to describe color depth. In any case here is some info I got off the net. Actually there is a ton of info out there regarding color depth, etc. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

To support 10-bit color the following are needed:
A monitor supporting it.
A GPU supporting it (only AMD FirePro and NVIDIA Quadro support this?).
Compatible software. Unless I am mistaken there are very few programs out there supporting 10-bit color. Photoshop 6 is a notable example.

The questions are about how 10-bit monitors perform in comparison with 8-bit monitors:
In which situations would a 10-bit monitor give a noticeable advantage over an 8-bit monitor (say, for professional photography)?
Have 10-bit monitors been compared against 8-bit monitors based on subjective or objective tests? What were the results?
Human eyes can see only 10m colors, so would using a monitor with 1b colors make a difference?

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John

[Manfred M]

You have some very interesting views on colours. Let me try to set you on a more correct path.

10-bit support across the full range of video cards has been the standard for a very long time. A quick web search shows that for nVidia, that was 2008 and I suspect that AMD/ATI have an equally long history. So no, it has been available of discrete video cards made by these major players for a long time, not just the FirePro and Quadro workstation cards. These workstation cards use the same core graphics chips as the consumer cards, but run specialized driver software.

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answe...a-geforce-gpus

In my view a 10-bit display offers an advantage for anyone who is seriously into photography or video and want to take advantage of the wider AdobeRGB colour space. Take a look at the colours that are displayed in sRGB and AdobeRGB colour spaces, versus the CIE1931 gamut (i.e. the total human visual range). sRGB covers ~35% of the colour range that humans see whereas AdobeRGB is ~50% of the colours we see.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...comparison.svg

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...obergb1998.htm

I use a dual-screen setup on my photo editing computer. I have been using a 10-bit AdobeRGB compliant screen for about 7 years to do my photo editing (and yes, it is calibrated and profiled too) and use a less expensive sRGB screen to park my menus and for secondary work. The difference in colour quality and range is significant and noticeable. Just compare the range of colours the various colour spaces can show.


As for the 10 million colours versus the 16 million colours, this is irrelevant in this context It just means that we can't pick up many of the intermediate shades, but the boundaries of the CIE1932 versus sRGB versus AdobeRGB versus ProPhoto are what we should be looking at. Just as an aside, most of my edits are done using 16-bit ProPhoto that I resample into sRGB for posting. Prophoto effectively covers 100% of the colours that humans can pick up, as well as some colours we can't see. The video card's rendering intent are used to handle out of gamut colours.

[mikesan]

Manfred-

Thanks for the information on the capability of various video cards to support 10 bit output. The questions for me are: which monitors are able to utilize the 10 bit output, and which image software supports 10 bit color?

[mikesan]

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