#17" Monitors
8 messages in this thread
Hello all,
I will plead ignorance in the matter, but I am looking
into buying a 17" monitor for my 4000 and I am find plenty
of them meeting the Vertical Scan Rate of the Amiga. I am
not certain but I have a strange feeling that the stickers
are actually advertising the opposite.
For example you go into somewhere like CompUSA and they have
all their models out and are advertising 70Hz. The salesmen
tells me "Oh no problem, thats 70Hz Vertical which falls
within your range. But I suspect its the Horizontal rate
that's on the monitor.
Who's right, and what's the difficulty in finding a monitor?
Any comments accepted.
Thanks
Shawn
You're right to be careful. You really need to assess what scan rates your
software needs, and this includes even the Amiga Workbench at boot up. For
example, the Video Toaster runs at NTSC rates, which means a V rate of 60 Hz
(easy to find) and an H rate of 15.7 kHz (almost impossible to find). I
understand CEI, the big Florida distributor, is getting a boatload (literally)
of Electrohome monitors capable of scanning almost anything.
___
/__) ,_ _ _
_/__) / /__/ /_ /_-'
So the answer is it must scan Vertically at 60 and Horizontally
at 15.7? Must both conditions be met?
Thanks
Shawn
Yes, every rasterized image has a Vertical rate and a Horizontal rate
associated with it. (Sometimes it helps to know whether an image is interlaced
or progressively scanned.)
Unfortunately, many computer store "sales associates" don't understand the
numbers or requirements. Many also assume that if it can do, say, 31kHz (H
rate) then _surely_ it can do 15.7kHz. Not true, especially these days. (As I
understand it, monitor manufacturers now sell more VGA/31kHz/proscan monitors
than NTSC/15.7kHz/interlaced monitors!)
___
/__) ,_ _ _
_/__) / /__/ /_ /_-'
Shawn,
you should consider going for 50Hz VScan and 15.7kHz HScan to be PAL
compatible. Remember, a number of programs (notably some of the best
demos) require PAL. Thought you might like to know that… ;^)
// Chris coming in from Germany
\X/ still on AutoPilot 1.061….
Ideally, you want a monitor that scans from 15.5 – 31.5 kHz horizontal
and 50 – 73 Hz vertical – this covers all the default screenmodes that
came with your A4000. The difficulty is in getting a monitor that scans
down to 15 kHz. The minimum used in the IBMish market is now 31.5 kHz/60
Hz (VGA), and very few monitors go below that.
There are three horizontal scan ranges to be aware of:
horizontal
———-
15-16 kHz PAL, NTSC, Euro36
23-25 Super72
27-31 DblPAL, DblNTSC, Multiscan, Euro72
PAL modes are 50 Hz, NTSC/Multiscan are 60 Hz, and Euro/Super are 70 Hz
vertical.
A monitor that scans only at 30+ kHz is usable, but you give up the
ability to use the bootup screen (when you hold down the mouse buttons
while booting), error screens when you crash (it's fairly easy to get the
error number after soft-rebooting), and any software that insists on a
PAL/NTSC screenmode and that resists any mode promotion (games will be the
biggest offenders).
Given a choice between a PAL/NTSC-only monitor and VGA+ only, I'd get
the VGA one, to get the hires flicker-free screens. But with my machine
(A1200) it's easy to plug my 1080 or TV if absolutely necessary.
=Edjs-
Edward_Swatschek@mindlink.bc.ca
Thank you for the advice,
I purchased a COMPAL (not COMPAQ) 15" Flat Screen Monitor
for my 4000. It was such a good price I couldn't turn it up.
Unfortunatly it suffers from not being able to go down to
15 hz but the rock solid display at 640×480 and above is more
than worth it after using a 1084 for so long.
I have taken my toaster 4000 from my old 2000 and I will be
placing it into the 4000 I just got once I get enough RAM.
I expect that this will cause a problem and I expect that the
Toaster will not want to operate at 31hz so if this happens I
am going to transfer the 15" screen to our 3000 which does our
other rendering jobs.
Thanks again,
Shawn
Silent Paw Productions
Shawn
If U R interested in specific monitors, then check out the IDEK 17inch
that sells in the US for under $1000 (I won't tell you that it cost more
than my A4000/030 in Australia :-$ ).
I have been using a 17 inch IDEK for several months with no problems. In
fact I prefer it to the 20 inch (Re badged Sony I think) that I use at
work. The IDEK scans down to 15.0 to allow display of pre-AGA graphics
and scans up to 40 something KHz to handle the DBLPAL non interlaced
screens.
IMHO. When you buy your monitor make sure a trained technician expands the
usable screen area (if necessary) so that a overscan mode screen fills the
entire screen. My IDEK has 0 mm (approx) at the sides and a couple of mm
at the top and bottom and is still straight and true across the whole
display (well at least as good as my eyes can tell!) BUT make sure that
the picture looks good when you look at it – you'll be the one using it
for hour after hour!!!
Graeme
Bought to you by //AMIGA
\X/ 4000 on AutoPilot.