LCD – For the Novice and the Expert
by Kristopher Kubicki on September 4, 2003 12:13 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Glossary
Analog Input — The old fashioned way of connecting monitors to computers, uses a 15 pin cable for most PCs.ASV — Advanced Super View. A display mode for LCDs.
Cd/m2 — Candela per meter squared. A measure of luminescence.
CRT — cathode ray tube.
Contrast — The difference between light and dark shades.
Contrast Ratio — The measurement between light and dark shades on an LCD.
DLP — Digital light projection — this technology is an evolution of projection and rear projection that may totally replace rear projection TVs in the near future.
D-Sub (15 pin) — The analog connector between the video card and the computer is more properly referred to as the D-Sub 15 pin cable.
DVI — Digital Video Interface. This interface is the preferred connection when dealing with LCDs. These come in three forms: DVI-D, DVI-I and DVI-A. DVI-A is analog signal over DVI; DVI-D is digital over digital; and DVI-I is the most versatile, capable of digital or analog signal.
FFS — Fringe Field Switching, one more LCD Display mode.
Ghosting — The type of signal interference associated with harmonic oscillation over the cable or connector. The result is usually an “echo” of the original image superimposed across the screen.
IPS — In Plane Switching. An LCD display mode.
LCD — Liquid Crystal Display.
Luminescence — The brightness of something, measured in candela per meter squared.
MVA — Multi Domain Vertical Alignment. An advancement on the traditional VA display mode.
Native Resolution — The monitor physically has a certain amount of pixels wide and tall. Typically, this is usually 1280x1024 on larger displays. The native resolution is the resolution your display can handle without any scaling issues.
Nematic phase — The process of twisting liquid crystal substrates to allow or inhibit light to go through.
© VESA
Nits — the improper name for candela per meter squared. (Lumiensnace)
OSD — On Screen Display. The menu for a monitor.
Pixel — The cluster of Red, Green and Blue sub-pixels that create the illusion of a full color spectrum.
PVA — Patterned Vertical Alignment. Another LCD display mode primarily developed by Samsung.
Response Time — The time (in milliseconds) for the pixel to fully untwist and then twist (or go from black to white and back to black). The “rising” (Tr) component is the time from black to white. The “falling” (Tf) component is from white to black.
Scaling — An LCD monitor contains only so many pixels in the display. Therefore, displaying an image that is not the exact same resolution dimensions will result in an image that is skewed and distorted.
Sub-pixel — A single liquid crystal in front of a red, green or blue filter.
Streaking — Similar to ghosting, streaking occurs when interference along the cabling or connectors begins to comp
Substrate — The heart of the LCD. This is the glass sandwich that holds all the transistors and liquid crystals.
TN — Twisted Nematic. An older LCD display mode.
Viewing angle — The measurement that refers to how viewable the screen is at extreme angles. Some manufacturers list angles like 120 degrees, which means 60 degrees left and right. Most simply list values like “70 degrees left and rights.”
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KristopherKubicki - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
#42 - this will be addressed in Part II =)Kristopher
Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
Very nice article. Easy to read, fun and very informative.However, as someone here stated earlier, the reference to how some companies manage to get more than the 262000 colours with the 16ms AUO substrate is missing. It seems that they do this by alternating two colours, which would in effect mean the actual total rise and fall time for that one colour is more than 16 ms. But perhaps this is to be discussed in the follow-up to the article? I'm really interested in reading about the grey-grey times for the panels, so I'll be looking forward to part II.
AbRASiON - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
Wouldn't touch one until it beats a CRT in every single way - periodFor work yes, sure right now, one res all day, no games, no worries.
For home, multiple resolutions, more dos boxes - linux sessions (ok I don't have any but if I did) - games which I don't have a strong enough video card for native resolution etc etc.
also the stupid ghosting / shading effect of the high refresh (16ms is too high)
Until it beats a CRT in every single way - I'm not going over - EVEN IF CRT's end up costing more.
Plus CRT's are getting better, my 22" Philips (100hz 1600x1200) is only like 45cm deep - quite short really considering.
virtualgames0 - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
I think you missed a big issue with LCD image problems that I have commonly observed. Most LCDs are very dim, and almost all of them I've seen are nowhere close to comparable to a CRT, the only ones I've seen that were comparable was the NEC.Another problem I have commonly observed is that the majority of LCDs have very visable "gate lines(as you called it in the artlce), so then you can see that every pixel is seperated, and it makes everything look pixelated, and it feels like you're trying to look through that mesh...
spikemike - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
I'm not 100% sure but i believe a 1280x1024 LCD monitor is actually built in a 5:4 ratio. So the pixels are still square.n0d3 - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
What I missed, and I'm sure it will be coverd in an update, was something more about resolutions. Here's why.Today, people seem to be using 'weird' or 'odd' resolutions a lot, basically because it seems better to have bigger numbers. For instance, 1280x960 is not acceptable (The drivers for my old Connect3d radeon 9000 did NOT support this resolution) however 1280x1024 is just fine. This strikes me as odd because monitors still use a 4:3 ratio. A lot of resolutions conform to this 'standard' 640x480 800x600 etc etc. But in the higher range they seem to 'cheat' a lot more. From what I can understand, this would cause a distorted display. This is very true for CRT's but LCD's seem to be heading that way asweel, wich is something I Don't get. I say this because it is always recommended to use an LCD at it's own resolution, wich is the amount of pixels on the substrate. I can hardly imagine that they would produce non 4:3 screens, allthough ofcourse it is possible.
Some more info on this would be greatly appreciated since I could be wrong about this and tell people wrong things : )
P.S. and yes, I know that if your monitor is capable of going up really high in resolution the distortion on lower resolutions should be minimal, nevertheless, it is deffinatly there.
Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
Thanks for a very informative article.I have a Samsung 172T and I have to say the image quality is outstanding. I don't play a lot of FPS games, but for varied use including games and video,using DVI, there are no significant motion blur problems. This monitor is head and shoulders above comparable units I've seen, at least for general use. The price of this unit has dropped significantly since I bought mine almost a year ago. (It may be discontinued).
Been an Anandtech reader since 1996. Keep up the great work!
spikemike - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
I'm still not sure if you have it quite right, each subpixel can be independently controlled, you can get 16 shades of blue 16 shades of green and 16 shades of red, giving you 12bit color or 4096 total colors, the red blue and green do not depend on each other, red can be full on, blue can be "1/2" on and green can be off. The main problem was the lack of color, slow response times, and the fact that the information would "bleed" into the column, having one off pixel in a whole column of on pixels would decrease the over all brightness of that columnKristopherKubicki - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
#33, I clarified the article a little to apply to both the EE folks and just the casual reader ;)Kristopher
spikemike - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
oops i meant posts 29 and 30 were mine