[PLUG] LCD Monitor Resolution Question

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Thu, Dec 15, 2005 at 09:07:04AM -0800, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
> I'm looking for a flat screen monitor to replace my Mother-in-law's big 
> glass box monitor. As I recall, LCD monitors used to come as 
> one-resolution-is-all-I-can-do, but that something changed in the last 
> couple of years.
> 
> Does anyone know just what changed (if I heard this correctly) to allow 
> LCD monitors to cleanly display any of the various resolutions available 
> for glass monitors? Or, was this just a problem with laptops, and 
> doesn't affect stand alone monitors? My Thinkpad has a decent looking 
> normal resolution of 800 x 600 and, while it will display 640 x 480, it 
> doesn't look very good - especially the fonts (or maybe it's just the 
> fonts -- I don't remember which; I just know it's not too good at 640 x 
> 480).
> 
> Mom needs 640 x 480 on a 17" monitor. When I'm over there fixing things 
> for her, I usually change the resolution (this is a Win98 box) while I'm 
> working on it, but then change it back for her. So, I'm hoping to find 
> the combination of things I need to get her the resolution she needs, 
> and the flexibility to have the resolution I want.
> 
> I'm willing to consider 800 x 600 on a 19" screen and see if that works.

I've just been through the "find a flat screen monitor" quest.  I ended
up with a 1280x1024 Viewsonic VA912B from Compusa, about $300 IIRC. I
ended up using the DVI interface to get maximum display quality.

We can assume that Win98 will never get any new drivers, so all you will
be able to drive is 640 x 480 (or 800 x 600) analog from your existing
card.  I haven't seen any big flat screens with this resolution.  I also
suspect if there is any pixel aliasing the monitor will look ugly (the
VA912B does this) so you will want a display that will show a multiple
of your desired resolution, so 1280 x 1024 on a 19 inch LCD may be your
best option.  Yes, there are $500 1600 x 1200 displays out there, but I
assume you have better ways to spend your money.

Unfortunately, you are still subject to how well the monitor does the
analog capture - even if it is capturing at an exact multiple, it
might look fuzzy.  That can be a function of the video source; some
of the newest video cards do some kind of clock dithering to reduce
EMI, and that would be a pain in the butt for the monitor analog
video capture.  I guess the best suggestion I can make is to consider
a 19 inch 1280x1024 monitor, and be ready to return it if it doesn't
look good.  BTW, a good test pattern is a grid of alternating
black/white pixels in a checkerboard pattern - guaranteed to make an
LCD monitor with bad analog capture display obvious streaking and noise.

When shopping for monitors, bring along a USB thumb drive with some
pictures to look at, arranged as a web page.  Most stores are glad to
let you look at your own pictures, and you can detect lots of problems
that way.  For example, I don't care about game and video performance,
but some monitors are optimized for that, costing some static performance
and off-axis viewing angle.  Look at the monitors from the direction
of "over Mom's shoulder" - many monitors look ugly from some directions,
depending on how they arrange the magic LCD goop to optimize various
things.  Monitors differ - select the one that works best in your 
specific situation.

Sorry I can't provide more help directly answering your question ("buy
X from Y") but hopefully that helps you conduct your search.


At the risk of making a long email longer, you have another option for
Mom - set her up with a Linux box running Win98 under Win4Lin (which
is how I run the occasional windoze program).  Win4Lin does not work
with some games and 3 button mouse apps, and it is a pain in the butt
to install, but the older versions at least work on top of a native
Linux file system, and communicate through Linux, so you get all the
firewalling and Linux file security and drivers and so forth.  Right
now, I have Win4Lin running on one of my virtual desktops on my laptop,
so I can run Internet Exploder on some poorly designed websites.  The
newest versions of Win4Lin, and alternatives like VMWare, use a big
opaque file as the disk partition for Win98, which means I cannot get
directly at the files inside it from Linux.  But all this may be more
distraction than you want, even if in the long term it prevents problems
with an unsupported OS.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs