The Samsung 245B: the 1st TN 24'' TN vs 24'' PVA, MVA... (page 6: Viewing angles and movies)

Viewing angles

We take pictures of the monitors from a 50° angle from all sides. The claimed viewing angles in a product’s characteristics are often exaggerated.

There are three types of technology to choose from: TN, MVA and PVA, the last two being closely related. For comparison, we added an IPS, the Dell 3007WFP HC. If you are a regular reader of our LCD surveys, you won’t be surprised by results, which are entirely normal.

First of all, for lateral viewing anglesthe IPS is by far the best. If this is the most important criteria for you, this is the type of technology you need. In second place comes the 245B, a TN panel. In the past (2 years ago), TNs were rather catastrophic from the side angles. Now, it is possible for several people to share a screen even if they aren’t perfectly in front of it. Finally, we have the PVAs and MVAs, which are equal. Beyond 40° from both sides, there is a loss of contrast, which however isn’t too extreme. In fact, there are only really problems in the vertical plane.

Vertical viewing angles: The IPS screen always offers an image that is almost perfect at 50° and even beyond. In this area, other technologies are largely inferior. The PVAs are behind with a rather abrupt loss of contrast with an image that is still visible though not as flattering (black is more gray, white is pale, loss of depth). It’s the same but even more sudden with MVA panels. Finally, we have the TN screen. From above, the image loses all of its contrast. From below, it turns black. This complicates things when you want to use this screen as a TV and depending on the size of viewers, the monitor may have to be inclined.

TN 5 ms : Samsung SyncMaster 245B

PVA 6 ms : Acer AL2416W

PVA 6 ms : Dell 2407WFP rev.4

MVA 8 ms : LG L245WP-BN

MVA 8 ms : ViewSonic VX2435wm

IPS 6 ms : Dell 3007WFP HC
Also, something we had to control in tests to not penalize the LG L245-BN was its slightly glossy panel. The result is not as extreme as on glossy laptops, however, you may want to block out some of the room’s ambient lighting in order to not reduce visibility.

Rendering in movies

All of these 24 inch displays can be called Full HD, or in other words, can show films in 1920 x 1080 pixels. Ideally, this assures perfect quality, but unfortunately this isn’t the case here. These screens are very precise and therefore display movies as they are: full of compression defects whatever the format. And these defects are even accentuated. To this we can add the fact that the number of colors in movies is greater than the screens capabilities, resulting in additional degradation of images in the form of uniform color zones where there should be gradations. There are some solutions, however. The first is that manufacturers add a circuit to correct compression defaults as they do with TVs. The second is that they replace the standard backlighting with new wide gamut, which we are starting to see on rare screens like the Dell 3007WFP HC and Samsung SyncMaster 226CW. With these screens, the improvement is obvious and color gradations are much nicer and better respected.

In the absence of correction circuits, there is another solution if you have a recent ATI or NVIDIA graphic card. The drivers emulate this correction with more or less success as we described in our article ATI and NVIDIA correct LCD screen flickering in movies.

And now back to our screens. So which one is the best? None of them, they are strictly identical, so much so that you may want to base your choice on viewing angles. All displays flicker, accentuate compression defects (especially on SD sequences), and all show single color blocks where there should be gradations. Or at least this was the case with our test PC as the source. With an HD player, the result is better, because it has an image correction component.
In conclusion, to really enjoy films you will have to step back from the monitor.