OT; PC Screen?

[The Medway Handyman]

OK. Done that. Now what?

[Rod]

Well, you are actually trying to find out what your display adapter is. So click on "Display adapters"! (Just a possibility that the whole tree could be collapsed - click on the [+] symbols at left if needed.

Write or type the name of your display adapter. (I assume you will only have one of them.) Post details for further advice from someone/anyone here.

[geoff]

In message , fred writes

I bought from RL Supplies

might have gone up since then (November)

[geoff]

In message , Peter Johnson writes

nah - go the whole hog and replace the guts of the computer too

motherboard £45

digital and HDMI outputs, supports up to 7.1 audio

processor about £80 , 2gig memory - £15

While you're at it, ... you'll need a big furroff TV which can make best use of the HDMI output

[John Rumm]

Yup, I understand where you are coming from, but the flat panel built in speakers will be very much poorer in comparison. That may not be an issue - just be prepared.

Bring up the system properties program (see Rod's description), click the hardware tab at the top, then the device manager button. Click the "+" by the "Display adapters" entry.

[The Medway Handyman]

OK it says ATI RADEON XPRESS series 200.

Wot that mean then?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

So that's why they're no use as TVs?

[John Rumm]

Looking at the ATI site:

that is a reasonably recent adaptor - so there is a pretty good chance it will handle wide screen modes without any difficulty.

So basically choose whatever monitor you fancy (it looks like if you get a companion card for the one you have, you can run a three monitor desktop - that should give a nice bit of workspace ;-)

[John Rumm]

I don't think there is not enough contrast, sharpness, or colour resolution in a broadcast TV picture (or even a SD DVD) to really pick out the aliasing faults that happen with a computer display at the wrong resolution. With a computer image, an abnormally thin or thick down stroke on a text character is immediately obvious and ugly, but there is not enough sharpness in the TV image in the first place to really make a difference. Note also the TV resolution will be well under half the native of the display which makes single pixel wide errors less obvious anyway.

The main issues with (at least some) LCDs and video is lack of a decent black level, a tendency to solarise subtle colour differences creating flat patches of colour rather than continuous tones, and a tendency to smear moving images due to slow response times. Note that the best LCDs are now very much better than many of the older ones. Many still suffer with maintaining any subtlety in dark images. So choose your set carefully if you are an Alien fan!

[Rod]

And viewing angles. The laptop screens here are all pretty poor - the displays are unusable at angles significantly away from 90 degrees - vertically or horizontally. Trying to watch TV on them would be a bad joke - lean a bit one way or sit up/slouch and the screen changes colour/brightness/whatever.

[Bill]

In message , Mike Dodd writes

I just feel I ought to say that, in spite of their seedy-looking stores and some immature-looking staff, I have been very pleasantly surprised by Comet. When I found what turned out to be a common audio problem with many laptops, the manager of the local store joined me in loading a certain file onto several of the display machines. I found him pleasant and very helpful, going well beyond the call of duty. He also understood what I was talking about. I bought an Acer machine there. It was not overpriced.

In contrast, a more recent contact with Dabs ended in a total failure of minds to meet, and I was forced to bypass them and go straight to a manufacturer (Lenovo) to provide all the advertised components of a purchase.

On these two deals, I'd rate out of 10, Lenovo 9, Comet 8, Acer 4 (useless support), Dabs 3 (for quick delivery).

We do need the likes of Comet to see things like TV's and vacuum cleaners before buying online or elsewhere. Be careful what you wish for.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Pretty well the same applies to LCD TVs - or rather the ones I've got or seen. Could be the very latest/most expensive are better.

[Adrian]

"Dave Plowman (News)" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Just to counter that, this laptop (Dell D830, c.12mo old) doesn't change colour/contrast brightness across a viewing angle of about 160deg horizontally - reflections start to kick in at the outer edges of that, but nothing too bad. Vertically's a bit more restricted, starting to change at about 30deg below and roughly half that above. Still, that's what the hinge is for.

I don't recall my previous laptop (Dell D800, c.4yo now) being much different.

[dennis]

You can see that on HDTV (1920x1080 pixels) on the wrong size panel, there are a lot of 1366x768 panels miss sold as HDTVs about (I inherited a Philips one recently, its OK as a monitor though).

[Rod]

An old Toshiba, a not very old HP and even a MacBook - all change substantially by altering the viewing angle. Not to the extent of not being able to see anything - just very odd colours/brightness/contrast. The HP is especially bad vertically.

One Samsung monitor is pretty good but does change a bit.

Our TV, though relatively early as LCD sets go, ain't bad. Pretty much never notice anything.

But have to concur - they (laptops, monitors and TVs) do vary a lot.

[Rod]

We have found their products descriptions so odd as to be positive lies. For example, printer resolution expressed as horizontal *times* vertical (working on manufacturers' figures) so actually pixels per square inch. Or screen resolution that was number of pixels on the entire screen.

If these were locally produced, I'd just put it down to staff ignorance. But they are (apparently) produced centrally so someone should know what they are doing up in head office, shouldn't they?

[dennis]

The horizontal viewing angle on the Philips I have is wider than a CRT. The vertical isn't.

[John Rumm]

Laptop panels are the worst for this (and I suppose the ones it matters least for). The better desktop monitors are pretty good side to side and only get a slight brightness variation up and down. TVs have improved a fair bit in this respect as well.

[John Rumm]

Interestingly there are a huge number of sets for sale with 1280x768 displays. Not only can these not do full HD, but their aspect ratio is wrong as well - being nearer to 16:10

A friend of mine recently bought a Hitachi set like this. Once he worked out why he could never get a picture with the right aspect ratio, he took it back to the shop and swapped it. The bods in the shop had never even noticed!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

A CRT doesn't change according to viewing angle. Unless it's got some form of fancy filter across the tube.