I was wondering which is the better monitor to use, the Dell 1702FP or the SGI SW1600. I want to watch dvd's and HDTV. After doing some research I think I am going with a HTPC running PowerDVD and FFDshow. The SGI has the better resolution but the dell has the better contrast. The Dell can be found for about half of the SGI's price with it'a adaptor. I just don't know which one to go with. Does the contrast on the dell make up for the resolution deficit? Any owners of either these two want to chime in?

Well there isn't a lot of content out there that can utilize the SGIs resolution, so for the most part it is overkill.

Brain, thanks for the quick reply. That 's kind of what I thought. I'd rather take the money from the price difference and us it to help pay for the HTPC. How is you new projector with the Dell coming?

Coming along well. There is one mirror we're having trouble getting fitted right. Panel is stripped and I'm on the search for the best lamp. Hoping to have some ideas finished by the end of the week.

If all you're talking about is video, then I agree with Brain.

However, if you also plan to do gaming on the machine, then the higher horizontal resolution will be *really* nice in games, as you have a wider field of view.

That's one of the reasons I picked the SGI panel.

In his first post he specified DVD and HDTV.

One thing that I found out about the SGI is that it has 40ms response times. That would incur huge ghosting in games and even movies. Go with the 1702FP.

Does that mean the SGI is plain better than the Dell in all regards - or does the Dell actually have better contrast, and/or any other advantages? (Or were you just referring to the resolution here?) How about ghosting, dithering issues etc? (The SGI is not using dithering, right?)

A few $100 more or less is no big deal, as long as I get what I pay for. I'm generally very picky about this kind of stuff, so I just want the best panel, period. I'd hate it to "save" $200 only to realize I'm not happy with the result...

Note that I really want the 1600x1024 resolution of the SGI, not to cripple my HTPC! (Not just DVD playback and being prepared for HDTV, that is.) But I also want very good contrast and fast enough response time for fast 3D gaming, of course...

The Dell has 892:1 contrast, SXGA res, 25ms response (tested, fast enough) and true 24bit color. They can be found for about $300 on Ebay. Cruser has tested the SGI extensively and says it's a great projector panel.

Sounds good... The SGI is supposed to have 40 ms response, but of course, figures and real life seem to be totally different things here. So, it still seems to me like one is not clearly superior to the other.

Disregarding the resolution (either is acceptable, but anything below 1280x1024 is out), is the Dell clearly better than the SGI (response, contrast, color), or is the difference small enough that I could just pick the one with the preferred resolution/format?

I don't have the SGI so I can't give you an objective opinion. 892:1 contrast is very good. The SGI has 300:1 but it is claimed that the picture is good.

Well, it sounds like it's the Dell, provided I can find one. I really want the best possible contrast, and the LCD has to be fast enough for gaming - but of course, figures aren't everything, and I still haven't found anyone who has tested both of these...

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This reminds too much of shopping CRTs. I have an Eizo F980, and I'd like another 21"/22" CRT that is at least as good, but the problem is that 99% of people (including most proffessional reviewers) don't have the hardware and/or knowledge to set up a proper 2048x1536 display. Thus, reviews are utterly useless to me. I couldn't care less about 1600x1200 and below, and talking about text quality, sharpness etc in such resolutions is plain ridiculous. A CRT doesn't function properly unless you use a resolution that is at least as high as the mask/grille resolution! (Just like LCDs don't perform their best without subpixel hinting. Same principle, basically.) And of course, it's totally impossible to see any of the high end CRTs IRL, so I have no chance of trying them, unless I go the buy-test-return-repeat-until-happy route...
</rant>

What's this ? The lamp I bought and soon to be delivered from the Lumenlab store isn't the best ?

The Ushio is the best I've used so far for the basic projector. I'm trying to shrink the entire enclosure by multiple folds and for that a double ended is required. The lumens will drop so more optics are needed.

Hey Brain, Does that mean the multiple folded designs wont be good with a ushio, you will need to switch to the smaller bulb?

Scott

For HDTV 720p viewing, 1280x1024 (DELL) is better since it would be 100% native resolution. The SGI won't be better cause it will have to scale it.

The realm of the 17" panels is still pretty new. Several people have already purchased the SGI's, including me, and we are just waiting for the new optics. Once everyone has had a chance to to build, and once more people try different 17" panels, then results can be widely established. AFAIK, Cruser and Tony Dean are the only people to have built using the SGI panels and they like the results. I went in on the group buy for the SGI just as I discoverd that DIY projectors could be built. Given what I know now, I don't as yet have any regret about the SGI purchase, but the Dell would have been a serious contender for the price and greater flexibility.

CBR_MAN: OTOH, I wouldn't be able to use the full LCD area on the Dell in 720p - and that's a trick I could pull with the SGI as well, of course, if avoiding the scaling actually does result in a significant improvement.

As it is, pretty much everything will have to be scaled anyway, so this is pretty much moot now, and possibly will be throughout the life of my pj. I strongly doubt there will be 720p HDTV broadcasts (or any significant volume of HDTV broadcasts at all) in Sweden any time soon, especially considering that the PAL based digital TV standard is pretty good already. (720x576.)

Either way, when size is not an issue (ie you're not restricted by a tiny CRT or panel), I think it makes sense if the 4:3 picture is smaller than the 16:9 picture, rather than the other way around. After all, most 4:3 material is not meant to be viewed on big screens, whereas a lot of 16:9 material is.

KingOfSwords: So, I can just go with the SGI and most probably get pretty good results, save some $ and maybe get some more contrast and slightly quicker response with the Dell - or wait "forever" before I start building anything...!

There will most probably be a few interesting but untested alternatives at any given time, so waiting doesn't really change anything. (Never did before, with CPUs, video cards etc...) The longer you wait, the more time you waste, basically.

So... I guess the Dell is probably not worse in any way - except for the lower resolution, when considering non TV/DVD stuff. The SGI has the better resolution and aspect ratio (IMHO), and the SGI/Cruser deal looks great to me - especially the pixel policy. I don't care much about the $200 or so I could save by going with the Dell, so that's not really part of the equation.

As to "greater flexibility", what do you mean, exactly?

The only real annoyance with the SGI is the fact that you need an adapter and a pc to provide the input. Whereas with any other panel, you have many options. That's all I meant by flexibility. There is a special external adapter for the panel that will allow connecting analog inputs like from the N6, but it runs around $400-500 by itself which is insane.

And recently Cruser posted somewhere "If i had a nickel for every time someone asked me if the sgi lcd blurs in fast motion scenes a or games i would be rich. Look... heres the real deal THE SGI DOES NOT EXIBIT ANY GHOSTING !!!" just in case anyone was concerned about the low response time.

No big deal for me then, as I intend to use my HTPC for DVD playback, video-in + s/w processing for digital TV viewing etc. Hacking custom software to do some weird stuff is no problem either, in the unlikely case that the software I need isn't already out there, somewhere.

As to (the lack of) ghosting, that sounds great. The 40 ms spec doesn't sound very impressive - but if it's actually 40 ms (as opposed to the typical bogus measurements), it's very good; probably better than most new TFTs.

The reviews on the SGI I've read all said no ghosting. 'course the monitor is pretty old so what it was being compared to at the time isn't the same as the monitors today. i like the widescreen aspect, particuarly for video. In a typical 17 inch monitor, a DVD in widescreen will only use maybe up to 2/3 of the actual screen. That means fewer pixels are being used to make the image. In other words, lower quality image. In that sense, a widescreen 15 inch monitor would probably be better than a normal 17 inch because almost all of the pixels would be used to create the image. The native resolution (if I'm using the term right) of the SGI might be overkill since DVDs are encoded at a lower resolution, but the SGI will use closer to 100% of its actual pixel space so the image will definately be clearer. Still, the 40ms is a little worrisome.

Would be, if that figure wasn't next to irrelevant. If you look at some reviews of a mix of 12..25 ms TFTs, you'll notice that the actual performance is more or less independent of the response time. Many 16 ms TFTs have more ghosting issues than 25 ms TFTs.

Most so called "response times" are actually measured from black to white to black, and only the fast ramps between the 10% and 90% levels are measured. Overshoot, stabilization time, smaller steps (like 40% gray to 60% gray) etc - that is, the things that actually matter - are not considered.

I suspect that the 40 ms of the 1600SW are based on a much more relevant testing method. (Maybe an actual stable-stable measurement?) Think about it; 40 ms would be something like 15 ms black to white + 25 ms white to black. That's 25 cycles/s, so 25 fps video *should* be totally free of ghosting. That's if the input is all in two colors; black and white. Any normal input will result in much smaller pixel changes, which should be at least as quick, unless the black-white-black measurement is totally bogus.

(The black-white-black measurement is bogus when you just look at the best part of the transition, ignoring the 0-10% and 90-100% parts, which are usually several times longer than the measured 10-90% part. This is apparently how it's done these days. No wonder a 16 ms TFT can have ghosting issues. It could actually be anywhere above 30 ms if you measure the actual response - and it's most certainly not less than 30 ms.)


That said, I don't have a 1600SW yet, so I can't confirm nor deny that the claims are true; that it has no ghosting issues whatsoever. I'm just about to order two of them from Cruser though; one for me and one for a guy at work who just caught the DIY pj virus the other day.

Mind you, I'm one of those who see ghosting on a CRT if a game goes below fps = refresh rate, and percieves a CRT (PC monitor) at 60 Hz as a wildly flashing stroboscope, so if there are any issues, I'll most probably see them.


It would be interesting to do some measuremens on various panels, using a photodiode and a digital (or analog memory) oscilloscope... Se what the real response times are.