Problem with Viewsonic VX1932wm LCD

[orc]

thanks vinaych. i don't have the halo problem though watching divx and hd videos. btw when was yours manufactured?

i've read a similar RTC problem with the LG L226WTQ which apparently has gotten fixed with a newer firmware. Samsung 226BW enables RTC (they call it RTA) to be disabled through a hidden service menu. I've yet to read about RTC problems on Viewsonic TN-panel LCDs, since i believe vx1932wm is just its first 2ms model.

hi orc. i wonder if newer vx1932s exhibit the same problems. this may have been solved with a firmware upgrade.

vinaych, also if you could ask if there's a way to disable RTC in a hidden service menu, much like in Samsung's.

I think the one I had before was the newer one though I didn't check the batch info. The display was more crisp and vivid compared to what I have now. Also when I switched to sRGB in that I used to get a message saying the brightness and contrast were disabled. But the replacement one I have now doesn't display it.
So its quite possible the new batch has a newer and better firmware.
But since games and dvds play well and simple scrolling causes these tearing problems could this issue be attributed to the RTC alone?

 

[vinaych]

Very good observation, drafter
My monitor's mfg. date is 11-6-2007.. what is yours?

Hey orc, didn't you get your monitor replaced?
Or, is this tearing present in the replaced one??
I shall try to contact the service guy reg. this RTC problem..

It is better to call up Viewsonic customer care (1800 11 9999) and ask for Technical help on RTC disabling..

Viewsonic doesn't have a service center of their own here in B'lore. They carry out service through outsourcing. I believe, that the ViewSonic guys would be giving better answers regd. this RTC issue.

I'm a bit busy tmrw, if either one of you find time, could you make a call to the customer care?

 

[janitha]

Very good observation, drafter
My monitor's mfg. date is 11-6-2007.. what is yours?

Hey orc, didn't you get your monitor replaced?
Or, is this tearing present in the replaced one??
I shall try to contact the service guy reg. this RTC problem..

It is better to call up Viewsonic customer care (1800 11 9999) and ask for Technical help on RTC disabling..

Viewsonic doesn't have a service center of their own here in B'lore. They carry out service through outsourcing. I believe, that the ViewSonic guys would be giving better answers regd. this RTC issue.

I'm a bit busy tmrw, if either one of you find time, could you make a call to the customer care?

Not even Banglore, even at Delhi, their services are outsourced to "rteservices", whatever it means!

 

[drafter]

vinaych mine's april 14 2007. i'd call the toll-free number you gave, but I believe it's only for India customers. i don't suppose there's a universal number for all viewsonic customers anywhere in the world. where i am, there's even no viewsonic service centers.

orc, it could be all RTC. RTC introduces artifacts in moving objects, needing compensating algorithms to minimize or eliminate them. don't know why in our case we don't see it readily apparent playing videos. it doesnt mean it's not there though. i think it's there, i guess masked by ambient colors, contrast/brightness, or noise in the video.

our monitors may come from the same batch and implement the same algorithms. do you know when yours was manufactured?

here's an anandtech thread explaining RTC among other LCD technologies (search for RTC; it's also called 'overdrive' and 'overshoot'.)
*forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=2049206&enterthread=y

from xbitlabs, a 2005 article on monitors with RTC--this page reviews samsung monitors with very bad RTC implementation.
*www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/response-compensation_15.html

at first i didnt think it was RTC because of what looks like 'tearing' in the msn site and the displaying of different tints. reports of RTC problems have web text and borders having trailing bright shadows underneath when scrolling.

but in the process of calibrating and trying to remove the tints, i saw exactly this. for example, scrolling this thread by dragging the scrollbar i'm seeing bright white shadows trailing underneath the text (like 'ghosting'). borders display the same thing though not as noticeable. depends how you've calibrated, chances are you'd see the borders display in different tints.

after calibration, i don't see the purplish tint in the friendster site. it's now a bright white tint that appears to make the pattern flicker. same with msn shopping site--i'd see gray and white bands flashing. i guess the tints make it appear the image 'tears' pointing possibly to a different problem (graphics card perhaps). but i think our problems can be reduced and attributed to RTC errors. it's not unlike 'ghosting', which display artifacts that lag behind the movement. You'd also see 'ghosting' RTC errors by just dragging a window across your desktop.

 

[orc]

Very good observation, drafter
My monitor's mfg. date is 11-6-2007.. what is yours?

Hey orc, didn't you get your monitor replaced?
Or, is this tearing present in the replaced one??
I shall try to contact the service guy reg. this RTC problem..

It is better to call up Viewsonic customer care (1800 11 9999) and ask for Technical help on RTC disabling..

Viewsonic doesn't have a service center of their own here in B'lore. They carry out service through outsourcing. I believe, that the ViewSonic guys would be giving better answers regd. this RTC issue.

I'm a bit busy tmrw, if either one of you find time, could you make a call to the customer care?

@vinay Yes. I got my monitor replaced. And the tearing problem is now occuring on the new one. I will see if I can call them. Though last time I tried it was not working.
@drafter I haven't check the manufacturing date. Will let you know once I reach home.

 

[drafter]

watching videos closely, i'm definitely seeing transparent trails or fringes in movement. noticeable in the actors faces even with moderate movements. i may have mistaken it as regular noise in the video, but i realize t's definitely not from the source video or an exaggeration of compression artifacts in the video.

the image is similar to what you see when you oversharpen an image in photoshop. but there's no trails/fringe/halo when subject is stationary, consistent with RTC overshoot errors.

i emailed viewsonic yesterday. hoping i get an early and helpful response from them. looks like, at least earlier batches of vx1932wm really have a problem with bad RTC. it's really disappointing they continued selling these on the market.

 

[sai_cool]

Those dammed VS engineers have not come yet!!

and yes, the msn website does show that blurry thing with colors vividly running around the screen...

i think we all made a mistake in buying a viewsonic...

 

[orc]

watching videos closely, i'm definitely seeing transparent trails or fringes in movement. noticeable in the actors faces even with moderate movements. i may have mistaken it as regular noise in the video, but i realize t's definitely not from the source video or an exaggeration of compression artifacts in the video.

the image is similar to what you see when you oversharpen an image in photoshop. but there's no trails/fringe/halo when subject is stationary, consistent with RTC overshoot errors.

i emailed viewsonic yesterday. hoping i get an early and helpful response from them. looks like, at least earlier batches of vx1932wm really have a problem with bad RTC. it's really disappointing they continued selling these on the market.

Mine is dated 03-01-07. So all these batches are defective as you said.
I did check a couple of videos closely too. But could not find any such thing you mentioned. Seems each monitor has varying degree of defects related to RTC.
And how did you mail viewsonic? Did you use their online form which asks for the serial number or did you directly mail them?
I too mailed them directly and havent even got a acknoledgment yet.
Also check the US support link in the viewsonic site. They are only mentioning the vx1932wm-3 model. So maybe they are flooding India and some other countries with these defective models.
Anyway we could wait for vinay to ask that service guy and meanwhile I will mail them again using that online form to see if they will respond.

 

[janitha]

Post whether any of you got reply to mail.
The age of miracles is not over!

 

[drafter]

i sent an email directly to viewsonic customer support in singapore (which i read from a press release handles customer support mail for south and southeast asia).

the singapore site also has an online form. it says they will respond within 3 working days, so it might be worth a try sending our emails there.

i suppose that's what they're doing--selling earlier models (vx1932wm-1) here in asia. their vx1932wm pic is also different from that in asian sites, with an all-black base stand.

there are quite a number of lcd monitors released recently which turned out to have really bad RTC errors. the Dell 2407wfp is one: *www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/dell_2407wfp-hc.htm

Wished I'd known about RTC before. There's hardly any consideration of this on many consumer reviews on the web. x-bit labs, tom's hardware, tft central are among the few sites that take this into account. It's probably a good thing to avoid entirely monitors with RTC (and cannot be disabled through the OSD) especially these 2ms panels which currently can only be achieved through using RTC.

@orc
btw, has it been a week since you got your replacement unit? as you said, you can have it replaced with the vendor if its within the week. why not try have it replaced and get a unit manufactured in july and later--the later date the better. im guessing july, since the vx1932wm-3 user guide is appended with the month july 2007.

 

[vinaych]

Hey, I tried the service guy's number.. no answer!! Saturday must be off, i guess
Have to wait till monday!!!

 

[orc]

@orc
btw, has it been a week since you got your replacement unit? as you said, you can have it replaced with the vendor if its within the week. why not try have it replaced and get a unit manufactured in july and later--the later date the better. im guessing july, since the vx1932wm-3 user guide is appended with the month july 2007.

It's been exactly a week today. But the problem is these 'technical people' at the vendor won't understand these things. I doubt they would understand what ghosting or RTC is. And I know them very well. they would simply blame the site itself. And unless these people think the problem is there, I won't get any replacement. So I thought I would wait for sometime and call viesonic directly.

 

[vinaych]

You are right, orc. It is better to call Viewsonic directly.

@drafter: If you are from Singapore, there is a Viewsonic contact number in the UserGuide. Try that.

 

[vivek.virgo]

hi,

I bought a 22" widescreen VX2235WM a few months back and i am really disappointed with the display. the contrast is pathetic and light colors are hardly noticeable.

it's now running at a low resolution as my old motherboard ASrock K7VM3 with onboard graphics does not seem to support required res of 1680*1050.

I want to know if the monitor will show improved colors & contrast ... if run at 1680*1050 and connected via DVI ? Or is this monitor simply defective ? In short will adding in a graphics card help ?

I just hooked up my old 14" Viewsonic CRT and it gives great color output ! Can anybody point out a solution to this?

Thanks,
Vivek

 

[drafter]

@vinaych
not from singapore. i live in the philippines. there's only a handful of shops selling vx1932wm here. and the stores here don't exactly have a liberal return policy. i've been scouring the local forums to exchange notes but i'm unable to find people who've bought it.

@vivek
calibrate your lcd. two useful manual calibration guides:
*www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/calibrating.htm
*forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=2049206&enterthread=y

go to 'Using your LCD' section in the anandtech link.

but even with calibration, the colors on your vx2235wm will not come close to your old CRT. thats one major drawback of common LCD monitors with TN panels. there are the more expensive LCD monitors using S-IPS panels that can reproduce colors nearly as well as any CRT.

------------------------------------------------
i just learned how to access viewsonic service menu. first, turn off monitor by pressing power button. then press and hold '2' button down while pressing power button again. press '1' button to display osd menu. this time 'F' will appear at the top leftmost portion. select F and the service menu will appear.

now for the bad news, looks like there's no way to turn RTC off from the service menu. only option for us is viewsonic replacing our units.

here's a translated vx1932wm review from a chinese website whcih shows the vx1932wm service menu:
*translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=*www.pconline.com.cn/diy/display/reviews/0705/1020558_3.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dinnolux%2Bmt190aw%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-USfficial%26hs%3DQ4Q%26sa%3DG

unit reviewed has the same panel and firmware version as mine. my vx1932wm uses an Innolux MT190AW TN panel. Firmware is version 2 dated march 31, 2007.

 

[vinaych]

How do you find out the firmware version?
I couldn't understand it mentioned in that translated site!

I called ViewSonic just now, regarding the RTC problem.
But all I could get is that, "Our technical person is unavailable at the moment, We shall get back to you once he is available"!

I also asked if the VX1932wm-3 series are available here. The person said that they are available and said they will make sure that I get a wm-3 series replaced with my defective wm-1 version.

The person took my contact number saying that she would arrange a call from the Technical person..

 

[orc]

How do you find out the firmware version?
I couldn't understand it mentioned in that translated site!

I called ViewSonic just now, regarding the RTC problem.
But all I could get is that, "Our technical person is unavailable at the moment, We shall get back to you once he is available"!

I also asked if the VX1932wm-3 series are available here. The person said that they are available and said they will make sure that I get a wm-3 series replaced with my defective wm-1 version.

The person took my contact number saying that she would arrange a call from the Technical person..

Hey vinay, what number did you call. I have been trying that 1800xxx and I am not able to get it.

 

[vinaych]

I called the same number, man.. 1800 11 9999.

 

[janitha]

Hey vinay, what number did you call. I have been trying that 1800xxx and I am not able to get it.

Try, try and try for several days. Finally you will get. Once you get, don't forget to get your RMA no.

 

[drafter]

vinay, you can find it in the service menu. first line of the service menu--VER. VX1932 V2 07/03/31. panel type is second line. the site shows it in the second pic.

to be sure, ask for a unit with the most recent manufacturing date, most definitely later than june.

i called one major local shop selling vx1932 and asked about manufacturing date of stock they had. they only had june 11 2007. looks like its the same batch as yours.

guys, if you get to talk again with VS people, maybe you can ask them about the difference between wm-1 and wm-3.