Viewing angles
Manufacturers communicate very impressive values for viewing angles. But as said in the previous article, these measurement have to be taken carefully.
Here is in reality the result with photos taken from 50° angle.
TN monitors
ViewSonic VX922 
Hyundaï Q90U
Lec MultiSync 90GX²The three fast monitors have at least one characteristic in common: the inferior vertical viewing angle is very low. It is the weak spot of the TN and the image immediately alters when seen from below. It can be problematic if you watch movies with your children, it is possible that they won´t see a thing!
These monitors deserve a few eulogies for their viewing angles. From the side they are very good, even better than the VA tested here:
VA monitors
Samsung SyncMaster 970P
Belinea 10 19 20 
ViewSonic VP930 B 
Eizo Flexscan S1910The VA, PVA and MVA all have bigger viewing angles. Nevertheless it isn´t perfect. Colors are lighter past 40° on the side and they lose their brightness from above or bellow.
In the
Samsung against AU Optronics panels, there are no real winners if we stick to the 6 and 8ms. The Eizo 12ms however provides better results. Reducing response time seems to have reduced viewing angles a bit for Samsung.
IPS monitors
LaCie 319Once more IPS technology is the big winner of this category. From any position, the LaCie 319 monitor provides nicer colors. This interest is limited as this graphic designer monitor comes with light protection. It is a mono user monitor and the owner won´t look at the image quality form the side. In this context, the IPS isn´t better than other technologies in terms of color quality.
Films
Out of the 13 LCD tested for this survey, only one doesn´t have a twinkling effect, the Acer AL 1913S. It includes an old MVA panel from the previous generation and its response time is 25ms. It has been released before the
overdrive and it doesn´t have any
dithering either. We can´t recommend this monitor however. Afterglow is very noticeable even in movies. It is so visible that we can´t even watch a movie like Matrix, which has many fast sequences. Images are multiplied on the screen and objects are followed by a white trail of light.
The best compromise is found in the generation that followed this 25ms MVA panel, the Premium-MVA 8 ms. The Belinea 10 19 20 and ViewSonic VP930 B have low reaction time and wide enough viewing angles to allow spectators of any size to see nice images. The twinkling effect is also quite moderate. It is visible from a distance of 1 meter, but is negligible during the movie.
6ms PVA and TN monitors have strong twinkling effects. We see this mainly in areas showing close color scales like in a wall. Images of TN monitors will be better from the side and the PVA has nicer vertical viewing angles. The only ones left, PVA 12 ms and IPS, have strong twinkling effects and afterglow. We prefer avoiding them for video. It is also important to point out that none of these monitors are HDCP certified. This new norm will be indispensable when the first sales HD movies with DRM type protection will be released.
Without this certification, at best you will see the movie in standard resolution and at worst you will have a black screen saying that the security requirements aren´t met. It meant hat the DVD or HD-DVD or Blu-Ray support will decide that because of the absence of HDCP and coding of information transmitted, the piracy risk is too high to authorize the diffusion of an HD movie.
