Recently I upgraded the computer on which I do video editing with Vegas 5.0b and image processing with Photoshop CS to a dual Xeon 3.6 GHz machine with a Supermicro XDAE8-G2 motherboard with an 800 MHz front side bus. I wanted to upgrade my 4 year old NEC 19 in. CRT monitors to flat panel displays. I wanted to use the 23 in displays that I purchased as a high resolution computer monitor (in horizontal spanning mode), and I wanted to be able to accurately translate colors on the monitor screen to 13 X 19 in. color prints made with my Canon i9900 printer. I considered three brands of 23 in. displays: the Apple Cinema Series, the Sony 23 in. flat panel display, and the HP 2335.
I did extensive searching of the internet for user reports on these three brands of displays. The Apple Cinema Series displays have received largely favorable reviews from Mac owners but mixed reviews from PC owners. The Apple display was initially attractive because it offered firewire input (but not component). However, the firewire on the Apple display will not recognize the HDV stream from my Sony HDR-FX1. I eliminated the Apple monitors from consideration based on this, the lack of component input, and some reviews that talked of uneven color and other color artifacts appearing on their Apple Cinema display. I could find only 3-4 user reviews on the Sony 23 in. flat panel display, and all were quite negative in their comments on color quality of this display. I have not seen the Sony 23 in. display and it may well be that the user reviews that I read do not accurately reflect the quality of this display. Nonetheless, I eliminated the Sony 23 in. display based on those reviews. Reviews on the HP L2335 monitor appeared uniformly good to excellent. A local dealer offered to order a pair of HP L2335 displays and agreed that I could return them if I was not satisfied with them.
The HP L2335 displays arrived about 4 days ago, and the remainder of this is a summary of my comments after using the displays as both computer monitors (via the DVI-D output of the nVidia GeForce 6600GT card and as a video display for HDV from the Sony HDR-FX1 via component inputs on the monitor and the component output on the FX1.
I hooked the LP 2335’s up to my Nvidia card in my dual 3.6 GHz Xeon system using the DVI-D cable provided by HP. HP provides a three high quality analog and digital cables (a VGA to VGA, a DVD-I to DVD-I, and a DVD-D to DVD-D cable) in the package with the L2335, and it can be hooked up in either analog or digital mode depending on the video card. I set the displays up for horizontal spanning and to display at their native highest resolution (1920 X 1200 pixels) which HP recommends for optimum image quality. I was delighted at the image produced by the displays. Colors were rich and accurate with no hint of color casts on any part of either monitor screen. Whites were clean and showed no color cast. Text was razor sharp and crisp. (One internet reviewer reported that the HP L2335 produced “blurry” text. That is simply not the case at all – at least not on my two samples of the L2335.) In Photoshop, images were detailed, colors vivid and accurate, and I could not be more pleased in using these for accurate image editing in Photoshop CS. Color prints made on my Canon i9900 matched the colors showed on the monitor virtually perfectly. Note that HP supplies with the monitors a CD that has an icm file and I installed this in Photoshop and selected it prior to using the system for printing 13 X 19 in. borderless prints on my Canon i9900.
Even in fast motion scenes (from playing back DVD’s) there was no evidence of motion artifacts. The L2335’s refresh at 16 ms. Detail was simply superb, and after several hours of working with text and other documents on the monitors, I experienced no eyestrain at all, which I cannot say for my CRT monitors.
One of my concerns before purchasing the HP L2335 flat panel monitor was the possibility of burned out pixels which show up on the screen as blue, red, or green dots in a highly distracting and annoying manner. I am delighted to report that I have not yet found even one dead pixel on either display.
The HP L2335 monitors have component, S-Video, and composite video connections on their rear side. I hooked the component output of my Sony HDR-FX1 to the component input of the monitor. The monitor immediate recognized that a video signal was present on this input and switched to it it. Manual selection from the front panel of the monitor is also possible. It was a real joy to view the HDV output from the Sony HDR-FX1 on this flat panel display. After extended viewing I did use the monitor’s menu to slightly increase the color saturation and the sharpness, but even at the default settings of the monitor, the HD video was stunning with rich, vivid colors, excellent detail, and a sharp image from edge to edge of the monitors. The HP L2335 monitors displayed the HD video from the FX1 at the full pixel count of the monitor (1920 X 1200) with no black borders present. Color accuracy of the monitors on the component input was excellent with grays being totally neutral and whites showing no color cast.
My wife, who tolerates my love of electronics, came in as I was watching HDV video from the FX1 on the L2335, and she was mesmerized by the picture quality and commented a number of times on how much she liked it.
I have a Runco 980 Ultra CRT front projector displaying a HD picture on a 76 in. wide 16:9 screen downstairs in my home theater. I have used this system a number of times to display the image from the component output of the FX1. It was interesting to compare the HD image from the FX1 displayed by the L2335 to the HD image from the FX1 displayed on the Runco. Colors are perhaps slightly more saturated, blacks are definitely slightly deeper, and the image is slightly sharper on the Runco, but I was astonished at just how close the LP2335 image looked in terms of quality to the same material displayed by the Runco.
There were two issues with the HP L2335 monitors that I do not like. The video inputs are accessed on the rear side of the monitor beneath a plastic plate held in place by a latch which, when depressed with the thumb should pop the plate out and expose the video connectors. I spent an hour trying to get this plastic plate off to get at the video connectors. Finally, at the risk of damaging the flat panel monitor, I got a small flat bladed screw driver, wedge it beneath the plate and popped it off with no damage to the monitor. This is an inexcusable design flaw in an otherwise well-built monitor.
HP supplies a CD with drivers, icm files, and Pivot software. The HP L2335 can be easily rotated on its stand from landscape to portrait mode. The Pivot software is designed to work with this feature. I installed the Pivot software with Windows XP Pro running as the OS on my computer. The installation went fine, and I was asked to reboot the computer when the installation was finished. However, the computer would not reboot. On attempting to reboot, it went through the bios screen and the Adaptec SCSI screen and recycled back to the bios screen – over and over! I tried cold booting with the same result. Finally, I booted up in Safe Mode, used the Control Panel to remove the Pivot software, and the computer booted perfectly. However, one of the pieces of software that I had previously installed on the computer would no longer run and that software had to be reinstalled again. HP supplied no warnings or info about the Pivot software at all, and I am surprised that they would supply software with the monitor that renders your computer incapable of booting.
In summary, I really like the HP L2336 23 in. flat panel display. It provides sufficient screen real estate to make editing in either Vegas 5.0b or my Video Toaster T[4] editing system a pleasant and productive process sing the dual monitors in horizontal spanning mode. The monitors provide an outstanding image that is sharp, free of artifacts, and easy on the eyes. I highly recommend the HP L2335 to anyone who is considering the purchase of a flat panel monitor.
I did extensive searching of the internet for user reports on these three brands of displays. The Apple Cinema Series displays have received largely favorable reviews from Mac owners but mixed reviews from PC owners. The Apple display was initially attractive because it offered firewire input (but not component). However, the firewire on the Apple display will not recognize the HDV stream from my Sony HDR-FX1. I eliminated the Apple monitors from consideration based on this, the lack of component input, and some reviews that talked of uneven color and other color artifacts appearing on their Apple Cinema display. I could find only 3-4 user reviews on the Sony 23 in. flat panel display, and all were quite negative in their comments on color quality of this display. I have not seen the Sony 23 in. display and it may well be that the user reviews that I read do not accurately reflect the quality of this display. Nonetheless, I eliminated the Sony 23 in. display based on those reviews. Reviews on the HP L2335 monitor appeared uniformly good to excellent. A local dealer offered to order a pair of HP L2335 displays and agreed that I could return them if I was not satisfied with them.
The HP L2335 displays arrived about 4 days ago, and the remainder of this is a summary of my comments after using the displays as both computer monitors (via the DVI-D output of the nVidia GeForce 6600GT card and as a video display for HDV from the Sony HDR-FX1 via component inputs on the monitor and the component output on the FX1.
I hooked the LP 2335’s up to my Nvidia card in my dual 3.6 GHz Xeon system using the DVI-D cable provided by HP. HP provides a three high quality analog and digital cables (a VGA to VGA, a DVD-I to DVD-I, and a DVD-D to DVD-D cable) in the package with the L2335, and it can be hooked up in either analog or digital mode depending on the video card. I set the displays up for horizontal spanning and to display at their native highest resolution (1920 X 1200 pixels) which HP recommends for optimum image quality. I was delighted at the image produced by the displays. Colors were rich and accurate with no hint of color casts on any part of either monitor screen. Whites were clean and showed no color cast. Text was razor sharp and crisp. (One internet reviewer reported that the HP L2335 produced “blurry” text. That is simply not the case at all – at least not on my two samples of the L2335.) In Photoshop, images were detailed, colors vivid and accurate, and I could not be more pleased in using these for accurate image editing in Photoshop CS. Color prints made on my Canon i9900 matched the colors showed on the monitor virtually perfectly. Note that HP supplies with the monitors a CD that has an icm file and I installed this in Photoshop and selected it prior to using the system for printing 13 X 19 in. borderless prints on my Canon i9900.
Even in fast motion scenes (from playing back DVD’s) there was no evidence of motion artifacts. The L2335’s refresh at 16 ms. Detail was simply superb, and after several hours of working with text and other documents on the monitors, I experienced no eyestrain at all, which I cannot say for my CRT monitors.
One of my concerns before purchasing the HP L2335 flat panel monitor was the possibility of burned out pixels which show up on the screen as blue, red, or green dots in a highly distracting and annoying manner. I am delighted to report that I have not yet found even one dead pixel on either display.
The HP L2335 monitors have component, S-Video, and composite video connections on their rear side. I hooked the component output of my Sony HDR-FX1 to the component input of the monitor. The monitor immediate recognized that a video signal was present on this input and switched to it it. Manual selection from the front panel of the monitor is also possible. It was a real joy to view the HDV output from the Sony HDR-FX1 on this flat panel display. After extended viewing I did use the monitor’s menu to slightly increase the color saturation and the sharpness, but even at the default settings of the monitor, the HD video was stunning with rich, vivid colors, excellent detail, and a sharp image from edge to edge of the monitors. The HP L2335 monitors displayed the HD video from the FX1 at the full pixel count of the monitor (1920 X 1200) with no black borders present. Color accuracy of the monitors on the component input was excellent with grays being totally neutral and whites showing no color cast.
My wife, who tolerates my love of electronics, came in as I was watching HDV video from the FX1 on the L2335, and she was mesmerized by the picture quality and commented a number of times on how much she liked it.
I have a Runco 980 Ultra CRT front projector displaying a HD picture on a 76 in. wide 16:9 screen downstairs in my home theater. I have used this system a number of times to display the image from the component output of the FX1. It was interesting to compare the HD image from the FX1 displayed by the L2335 to the HD image from the FX1 displayed on the Runco. Colors are perhaps slightly more saturated, blacks are definitely slightly deeper, and the image is slightly sharper on the Runco, but I was astonished at just how close the LP2335 image looked in terms of quality to the same material displayed by the Runco.
There were two issues with the HP L2335 monitors that I do not like. The video inputs are accessed on the rear side of the monitor beneath a plastic plate held in place by a latch which, when depressed with the thumb should pop the plate out and expose the video connectors. I spent an hour trying to get this plastic plate off to get at the video connectors. Finally, at the risk of damaging the flat panel monitor, I got a small flat bladed screw driver, wedge it beneath the plate and popped it off with no damage to the monitor. This is an inexcusable design flaw in an otherwise well-built monitor.
HP supplies a CD with drivers, icm files, and Pivot software. The HP L2335 can be easily rotated on its stand from landscape to portrait mode. The Pivot software is designed to work with this feature. I installed the Pivot software with Windows XP Pro running as the OS on my computer. The installation went fine, and I was asked to reboot the computer when the installation was finished. However, the computer would not reboot. On attempting to reboot, it went through the bios screen and the Adaptec SCSI screen and recycled back to the bios screen – over and over! I tried cold booting with the same result. Finally, I booted up in Safe Mode, used the Control Panel to remove the Pivot software, and the computer booted perfectly. However, one of the pieces of software that I had previously installed on the computer would no longer run and that software had to be reinstalled again. HP supplied no warnings or info about the Pivot software at all, and I am surprised that they would supply software with the monitor that renders your computer incapable of booting.
In summary, I really like the HP L2336 23 in. flat panel display. It provides sufficient screen real estate to make editing in either Vegas 5.0b or my Video Toaster T[4] editing system a pleasant and productive process sing the dual monitors in horizontal spanning mode. The monitors provide an outstanding image that is sharp, free of artifacts, and easy on the eyes. I highly recommend the HP L2335 to anyone who is considering the purchase of a flat panel monitor.