Computer Monitor

[Jill Lampert]

Can anyone recommend a computer monitor for editing? I have recently bought an HP 23 inch monitor, and it is giving me headaches and making me feel queasy. I love editing, and like to spend hours at a time at the computer, but with this one I have to give up after an hour or so because I am so uncomfortable.
If you have one that is still on the market and that you really recommend, do let me know!

Jill Lampert

[Mike Shaw]

What is making you feel queasy Jill? It could be all you need to do is adjust the refresh rate or something. Is the screen set to the 'native' resolution for such a size monitor - 1920x1080 I think? I have an HP 23inch on my 'internet and general duty' PC - and can sit at it for hours (and do!) without any ill effects. That machine does have Avid Studio on it, for playing around.

However, for 'real' editing I have a different PC set up with a pair of matched 19 inch Hanns-G monitors, costing around £90-100 each. They're set up as though they're 'one' monitor - so the mouse goes from one screen to the next, and the monitors are butted up together very close. I prefer this set up to a single monitor for editing, as I can place for example, assets and viewers on one screen and timelines on the other. (Not all editors cater for dual monitor usage btw). I don't think Hanns-G are necessarily the best monitors around: for me it was important to get a pair that were colour matched display-wise. But, I cannot say they wouldn't make you feel queasy as well.

The other thing I should mention is that, the larger the monitor, I believe the better the graphics card has to be - it has to feed the 'higher' resolution. It may be - (and I could well be really wrong about this) - that in trying to supply the large monitor screen the graphics card is having problems with refreshing the screen and that could be causing a nauseating flicker perhaps.

I recently had to buy a new graphics card for my 23inch monitor machine - I wasn't getting 'queasiness' - its just that the card couldn't cope with a game I wanted to play using such a large screen, and it (the game) stuttered along. The old card was a Radeon 5250, now replaced with an nVidea 460, which works very well. I discovered after that the 5250 card costs around £30-£50: the new card cost me just over £150.

[Storyteller]

I've just bought an LG E226V-PN from DCL (Digital Components Ltd, http://www.dclstore.co.uk), via Amazon at £129.99. It's a 16:9 22" monitor with inputs for VGA, DVI, HDMI, and has a beautiful bright, clean display. Worth looking at, in my view.

Peter

[col lamb]

Almost any Samsung will be a great monitor, my own is a 23" 1920x1200 with HDMI DVI etc

[Mike Shaw]

I think Jill needs to assess why the monitor is making her feel queasy - it can't just be the make of the monitor, surely?

[Jill Lampert]

Mike, I wish I knew what the problem was. Maybe you can help me work it out!
My computer has an Intel Core i7 CPU 920@2.67GHZ
6 GB Ram
Windows Vista 64-bit operating system
The graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce 896MB GTX 260

I think I have installed the latest NVIDIA driver and the latest HP driver for the monitor. The monitor is set at its native resolution which is 1920 by 1080. The refresh rate is 60 Hertz, and as far as I can tell there isn't an option for changing it.

It is difficult for me to know why it is causing me such problems. There is no obvious flicker. I'd say that Text doesn't look nearly as crisp or bold as it is on my laptop, or was on my previous monitor which died. I can't actually see anything wrong with the video, but I know that I can sit at my laptop (even now) for hours and it feels steady and comfortable, whereas there is something about this monitor that doesn't feel stable to me. It is subtle. But I don't think I can be more precise than that. It's more a feeling than something I can spell out about what is happening. But I'm passionate about editing, and it is weird to find I want to stop after an hour or so.

Any thoughts/suggestions welcome!

Jill

[Geoff Addis]

Hi Jill,

Part of the problem may be that you are using a computer monitor with a native frame refresh rate of 60Hz. to display 50Hz. based video. I would suggest that you get a television receiver with a suitable HDMI, Component or Composite video input as this would be able to cope with the 50z refresh rate rather than having to convert it to the 60Hz. needed by the computer style monitor. The chances are that a TV receiver used in such a way will give you a more accurate rendition of the colour of your video - computer monitors have a wider colour gamut than that used for television signals that we are likely to produce.

Don't stop editing!!

Geoff

[Michael Slowe]

Although Jill is obviously talking about the monitor that she is using to display her editing interface there is also the matter of a decent standard monitor for checking the actual output picture for colour grading etc. As a matter of interest Jill do you have a separate monitor for this alongside your work area? For actual editing I agree with Mike that two screens are preferable because there is never enough space for all the windows you want open (bins with clips, timeline, audio FX, etc) and most systems allow the cursor to cross over screens as you move the mouse. I'm sure Jill's problem relates to the refresh rate and she is queasy from a mismatch somewhere along the line. For what it's worth I have two 22'' HP TCO'03 screens for editing. They were farly cheap, nothing like the price of the Apple ones but I would never rely on them for colour grading, for that I have an old Sony CRT 14'' Pro monitor which, although only displaying in SD, is amazingly accurate having been properly calibrated, and will display in either 4:3 or 16:9 aspect.

Jill, I hope some of the other suggestions cure your problem, editing is a lengthy business and one hour hardly gets you viewing a few clips!

[Mike Shaw]

It doesn't look as though there is anything wrong with the spec of your machine - or the graphics card. There may be a clue in the text not being quite so crisp though.

I don't know Vista at all - I went straight from XP to Win 7 - but I found how to check the refresh rate in Win 7 which is probably similar or the same in Vista: BUT, I checked the refresh rate on my monitor - which sounds like its the same model - and that is set to 60Hertz, so I'm pretty sure it won't be that. Sounds to me like the monitor needs to be run at 60 - usually the higher the better. This has very little to do with mains frequency (50Hz) although the two often do get confused: the refresh rate is the number of times per second the screen is 're-drawn'. Of course, there may be some kind of interaction between that and some mains interference or something - make sure all power cables and things like speakers are kept away from the screen.

If you want to try changing the refresh rate (but I'm pretty sure it won't help to make it slower!), right click on the screen, and from the pop-up menu select something like 'Screen Resolution' (Win7) or Properties (XP): afraid I don't know what it would be in Vista. Either way, a screen will pop up, lots of guff all over it about the display set up, and somewhere there should be a line or a button 'Advanced Settings'. If you click on that you'll be taken to another little window that relates to your graphic card, with tabs across the top. One of those tabs should say 'Monitor' - click on that one, and there should be, somewhere in the window that opens, and option to change the Refresh rate. But in all honesty, I don't think that will be the answer now.

It sounds to me - with uncrisp lettering - as though either the monitor's focus is out of kilter (and I've just looked at mine, which sounds like its the same as yours - there is no way I can see to adjust the focus). It also sounds as though you perhaps have a virtually imperceptible 'shimmer' on the screen. In XP there was a way to change the displayed font size and make sure it was displayed crisply or with anti-aliased characters. I don't know about Vista, but in Win7 you go to the Control Panel (Start Menu), select 'Ease of Access - Optimise Visual display' and among all the 'text-to-speech' stuff there should be options to adjust the font size and play around with settings for the display: somewhere there should be an option to turn on 'Clear Type': if that is not selected, I suggest selecting that may help. You can also change the colours on the screen.

It is of course difficult to solve problems like this 'remotely' - I'm really just suggesting some areas you may like to look into. Another thing you could do is go back to the store where you bought the monitor and see if they have any on display you can look at to see how stuff compares. If it is a decent store (not necessarily PC World - where I( got my monitor), you could discuss the problem with one of the technicians. I'm afraid I have no faith in PC World providing a satisfactory answer though.

Good luck in your searches for a solution!

[Jill Lampert]

Thank you everyone for your helpful suggestions.

Mike, thank you for taking so much trouble to think about my problem. I have experimented with Clear Type and other settings for the display, but it doesn’t help.

I have also tried to change the refresh rate, but although I can get to the drop down menu where I would expect there to be a choice of refresh rates (and there was on my previous monitor), for this monitor there is no choice. 60Hertz is the only refresh rate on the drop down menu.

I bought the monitor from Amazon…so I can’t go and look at other monitors there! But I have been to PC World to try to look at monitors. At the time I went they didn’t have any 23 inch monitors on display. But the way the monitors that they did have were displayed made it impossible for me to detect any difference between the quality of the output of the various monitors. They were all lined up in a row. Each was displaying the same sequence of film. It looked like a bit of something like star wars and some children’s television. There was light bouncing off each of the monitors which had a slightly dazzling effect, and I was lost in a visual confusion.

I could talk to them about my problem, but my past experience is that the technicians are too busy to talk and I know a lot more about computers than most PC World shop floor staff do.

I suspect that either there is something slightly wrong with my particular monitor, or that there is nothing wrong with it but that for some reason it just doesn’t suit me.

That’s why I’ve come to the conclusion that I should forget about the HP 23 inch monitor and buy another. I have put that off because I don’t want to buy another monitor and find that it is well known to have problems! So here I am looking for recommendations from people who use their monitors for editing.

Mike, Michael and Geoff, I am interested in your advice about how to get the best colour match and convenience for editing. I shall study your advice and maybe work towards a more satisfactory editing environment. However, at this stage I am I am still a rather unsophisticated editor. I use Adobe Premiere Elements, and I don’t use a separate sound program or special effects program yet.

My urgent need is just for something I can sit in front of happily for hours!

Jill

[Mike Shaw]

it is beginning to sound like a possible monitor fault, though I cannot imagine what it might be.

As for a 'wise choice' of a new monitor - I'm not really up on models: I've had Samsung, LG and currently Hanns-G, all seem to me to be OK.

There are programs to help get the colour balance of a monitor correct (you can Google them). However, as Michael pointed out, what you see on a monitor is usually quite different from what is seen on a TV screen, colour wise.

My problem is that everyone sets their TVs up (or has the shop set them up) a different way - some have vibrant colours, some soft colouring and so on. So rarely are our movies seen the way we want them to be seen.

I will leave it to others to recommend monitors: I'm not a good judge of monitor quality I'm afraid. As long as the picture/display is clean and sharp - and the colour across the two monitors I'm using match - I'm happy (not being queasy would also play a big part in that of course!).

I don't know Premiere Elements: check that it can cater for a dual monitor display before going that route.

[col lamb]

Within any environment the electricity supply includes what are called transients which are variations in frequency and small spikes within the cycles. These occur due to many factors such as load, equipment connected and the switching methods of the electricity supply Company.

Fitting a good quality mains filter is a must with any electronic equipment, the extension leads that you can get at the likes of PC World that have decent surge protection will filter out the transients and ensure stability of supply to equipment. You can also buy surge protection plugs and adaptors in lieu of the above.

Having monitors close to the PC or other electrical equipment can induce transients into local circuits, so the rule is keep them away.

Whilst any monitor will include circuitry to stabilize the supply they are built to a cost and hence there are limitations.

Working under fluorescent lighting does not help and those of us in the trade spend a lot of time and effort designing the lighting systems where users of PC’s work. So if you do work under fluorescent lighting then that may be a contributing factor. The energy saving light bulbs that are in widespread use are fluorescent. Another way of improving local lighting is to fit daylight lamps, they are identified as such and are coloured blue.

As for colour rendering, you can buy a spider which fits onto the monitor and then its own software is used to calibrate the monitor and also to set up the monitor gamma compensation.

If you do change your monitor do ask the Company about their exchange policy and only buy from a source who will exchange for another or offer a full refund.

[Geoff Addis]

Generally speaking, computer monitors do not support 50Hz refresh and I think that it is most unlikely that you will have one that does.

In my system I am able to display my video side by side on a Dell 2408 60Hz refreshed screen or on a Samsung TV fed via the HDMI input and there is quite a marked difference in the respective images, particularly in the definition of moving images. Although the Samsung is colour balanced using the Matrox MX02, the difference is quite obvious even without colour balancing. (To do the colour calibration most accurrately it is necessary to have a blue screen only capabilty on the connected tv ie. you turn off the red and green signal processing in the monitor or you can use the correct blue gel/glass filter in front of your eye). Also, more often than not, a television will have a better response time than a PC display (this is the time taken for the display electronics and LCD/Plasma screen to respond to a change in signal (brightness) level) and this helps to reduce smearing, so making the resolution appear better on images with motion.

I too have a Spyder Elite 3 colour management device, but that is designed for photographice use, not video; I believe that Datacolor also produce a another unit designed for video use. As far as I can tell, calibration of a monitor using this device does not effect the colour gamut of the connected monitor as this is determined mainly by the design of the LCD/Plasma display, but perhaps Col, will correct me on this if I am wrong.

Geoff

[Michael Slowe]

You technical chaps seem to have covered every eventuality so I'll not venture there save to repeat to Jill that it is almost impossible to judge the final output from an edit on a computer screen. Once you have solved your sickness (you have my sympathy) think about a proper stand alone monitor. It can be as small as you like but must be correctly set up so you can properly judge your output as you grade and edit. Mind you, your films look pretty good to me, so it can't be an urgent requirement.

[granfer]

I use this Test Utility to judge the set-up of my monitor... some may find it useful, others not.... but it's FREE.

http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/testsoft ... -test.html

Forgot to add it before, so have achieved it now. Is there no end to my computer skills?????