What BillyBoy explained was that LCDs have a "native" resolution. The resolution that makes use of every pixel on the LCD viewing area is it's native res. If you try to go above or below it has to interpolate the loss or addition of pixels that physically aren't there.

I've gone through a half a dozen of monitors in the past few years- both CRT and LCD. Finally settling with an LCD. There are pros and cons to both.

CRT's display is based on refresh- the screen is actually "flashing" very quickly but very hard to interpret with the naked eye. The higher the refresh the more stable and less stroby the image looks. However with higher refresh you begin to stress videobandwidth and end up with a softer image. Try it for yourself on your own CRT. Turn your normal 85hz down to say 70hz. You'll most likely notice a bit of strobing but the image will show improvement in sharpness.

CRTs are great for color reproduction. Viewing a greyscale ramp it's rare you will see any banding . LCDs have come a long way as far as color reproduction but STILL aren't on par with a good CRT.
If your a gamer it's best to go with a CRT as you won't have slow pixel response time causing ghosting in games, etc.

LCDs on the other hand work with liquid crystal technology and in order to create a moving image pixels have to light up and go dark accordingly to show change in the image to create animation. The latency between the pixel lighting and darkening is measured in LCD's "pixel response time". The higher the number the slower the pixels respond to movement causing blurriness even while you scroll text documents and web pages. LCDs do, however, provide the sharpest image possible. Much sharper than a CRT with a lowered refresh. Some of the higher end panels are coming close to CRTs as far as color reproduction and screen uniformity is getting better as well. Sometimes on a completly black screen you'll notice the corners are brighter than the center- due to the LCD's backlight.

I am a gamer as well as an editor but my work takes precedence over play. Thus I ditched my old LaCie Electron Blue IV 22" (w/ Blue Eye hardware calibrator) for a 21.3" Viewable LCD (Samsung 213T). Great decision on my part! Vegas looks great- and with 21.3" of viewable space it's larger than the largest CRT available. At 1600x1200 native res you have GOBS of space to edit with. I can even have my preview window at FULL BEST and STILL have plenty of space for 4 tracks. The monitor can also swivel to portirait mode and make viewing scrolling forums such as this a joy.
I can't play games on it as it only boasts a 25ms pixel response. Usually around 16-20 is marginal for gaming- thus the reason I have an NEC LCD1765 17" LCD to do my gaming on...it has a 16ms pixel response.

Unfortunatly Samsung decides to release the 241T 24.1" widescreen lcd a few months after I pick up my 213T. So if you want to take the new 213T off my hands so I can dish out another 1k to get the 24" let me know! :)

Forgot to add- owning a Matrox over say an Nvidia or ATi isn't going to benefit you in regards to Vegas.

BillyBoy and GmElliott,

Thanks for taking the time and responding. I happy to see the prices on the LCDs come down a little bit throughout this year, which is going to help with my decision.

I appreciate the comments made also about the native resolution. Now the fun part is purchasing one.

That is what I had thought regarding the video cards.

Thanks again,

Chad

Another issue to discuss, are you using the LCD to judge NTSC quality, or just working with your NLE software?

You should be using a pro NTSC monitor as you edit to evaluate broadcast quality. So in this case, LCDs are more then fine.

Some, like to work directly on the screen and maybe reference later on a monitor, so in this case the quality of your PC monitor is more important.

I haven't looked at LCD monitor quality compared to CRT quality recently, in the past though, LCDs weren't great for video preview. Has this changed?


MB

I had the same question a few time ago... ; )

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=283752

That day when we can use monitors for both reference and actual editing work will be a grrrreat day... and it's not so far now. In fact I think it's just a question of price now. We won't have to wait long 'til it drops even more.

Question: what's the number of milliseconds we have to stay under to avoid "lagging" in picture? Was it 18 ms?

I think its either 16 or 18. Anyhow refresh rate on my View Sonic is at 85 which gives a very crisp picture, which may be in part due to LCD's supporting higher contract ratios then CRT's AFAIK. You can see the little nuances on serif type fonts at a lower size without the fuzzies especailly in an application that does vectors, not bitmaps like Flash.

As far as any lag in redrawing where you may get ghosting I've haven't seen it which was my concern when I got mine. Now I want a BIGGER one. The prices have come down a lot in the last couple years but still pretty high for larrger screens.

I read that LCD monitor prices are expected to drop 25% this year as new production facilities are brought online. If you remember there was a rise in LCD prices a little while ago. (I think this may have been due to an earthquake in Asia, if I am remembering that correctly.) They finally have caught up with the demand again and are now looking at surpluses.

Don't know if that's true, but here's some andecdotal evidence: Dell just ran a big sale on their monitors (up to 20% off, free shipping) and this week the Business unit, are offering free upgrades to an LCD.

I think its either 16 or 18. Anyhow refresh rate on my View Sonic is at 85 which gives a very crisp picture, which may be in part due to LCD's supporting higher contract ratios then CRT's AFAIK. You can see the little nuances on serif type fonts at a lower size without the fuzzies especailly in an application that does vectors, not bitmaps like Flash.
85 sounds a little high. Both LCDs that I currently own suggest the lowest refresh possible (ie 60hz). I don't know if turning the refresh up will "hurt" anything but it's unecessary. LCDs don't have to be "refreshed" so refresh rate settings on the video card have a negligable effect.

Contrast ratio is a trait that is benchmarked only on LCD displays. The higher the contrast ratio the more shades of grey the LCD can reproduce. Because of this fact- if anything CRTs have a higher "contrast ratio". LCDs are doing their best to catch up- and they've definitly been gaining on CRTs. The problem with LCDs are pure black and shades like 90-80% black. The closer in the scale they get to pure black the less accurate they become.

LCDs, however, may appear to have higher contrast than CRTs...most likely the reasoning behind thinking they have higher contrast ratio. Reason being is LCDs cannot reproduce all the subtle shades causing several colors to snap to the closest match in turn creating a more contrasty image. Ironicly enough that's why LCDs look so good to the untrained eye. They are more contrasty and vibrant. All the while less accurate. They have trouble reproducing the subtle color changes.

All this said and I still prefer a good LCD over a good CRT. Eye fatigue is gone- my room is cooler.......litterally, my 22" CRT actually raised my room as high as 2 degrees most times. They are smaller, lighter and more versitile. My 21" takes up probably 90% less deskspace than my 20" viewable (22") CRT. As the technology improves and the prices continue to drop people are going to run out of reasons to go wtih those giant bulky desktop space heaters they call CRTs.

As far as any lag in redrawing where you may get ghosting I've haven't seen it which was my concern when I got mine. Now I want a BIGGER one. The prices have come down a lot in the last couple years but still pretty high for larrger screens.
It's not always easy to spot if your not gaming. Try this- go to a black webpage that has a bright contrasting text. Like a black screen with bright lime colored text- now scroll the page up and down. Does the green text blur and change color?