[kde-linux] Hello again

[Duncan]

James Tyrer posted on Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:52:22 -0700 as excerpted:

> I was very disappointed that I was unable to find a used CRT monitor.  I
> guess that it is just a commentary on our throwaway society.  I can
> understand why  people throw away the cheap CRT monitors but the good
> ones appear to get tossed too.

> So, I bought a 22" 16:10 LCD monitor.  The expensive ones were out of my
> price range but I did spend a bit extra for an NEC even though it is
> still made in China.  It took considerable adjustment to tone it down.
> Still doesn't look like my Sony flat screen TV.
> 
> Also, I bought a florescent back-lit monitor (like my TV).  I am still
> wondering about the LED back-lit ones since it has been impossible to
> make true green high output LEDs.  I understand that ones with a
> synthetic band gap are supposed to become commercially available this
> year.  I wonder if this (True Green LEDs) will be the next thing to be
> hyped in TVs and monitors.

Kevin mentioned the size and weight, but there's the energy usage too.  
Here in Phoenix switching to (CFL-backed) LCDs and then LED (backed LCDs) 
saved me a LOT of money on my monthly electric bill.  Of course here in 
Phoenix, about 8 months out of the year you're paying for every watt of 
power the computer/monitor uses twice, once to actually do the computing 
work, again to dump the heat from that back outside.  It'd be a bit 
different in colder climates where people are heating instead of air 
conditioning for 8 months, but...

Meanwhile, IMO it's worth your while to get LED for the quality in any 
case.  The CFL-backlit are cheaper, and at least at my price-point, the 
rest of the unit is built cheaper to match, as well.  Plus CFL's only 
half-way-there in terms of all the previously mentioned points, size/
weight/energy-efficiency all three.

Put it this way.  When I first went LCD, I went CFL-backlit.  I run dual 
monitors so buy in pairs and they were OK as I knew no better at that 
point, but I cracked one so had to replace them, and I ended up buying 
slightly smaller LED-lit (actually side-lit, I think that set was).

When I saw the dramatic difference, both in visual quality and as I 
mentioned in energy efficiency given the "twice" factor I mentioned, 
THERE WAS NO GOING BACK!  Getting specific, with CFL-LCDs, I never could 
get kgamma to show all the color points no matter HOW I tried.  With LED-
LCDs, the improvement was immediately and dramatically visible as well as 
directly measurable via kgamma, which demonstrated FAR better dynamic 
range than with the CFL-LCDs.

Well, those were 22-inch "full-HD" 1920x1080 (16:9, dual monitor in 
stacked config for 1920x2160, 16:18 aka 8:9), and I'm in my mid 40s and 
over the last few years have developed a need for reading glasses... or 
larger screens!

So doing the math I settled on 42-inch, double the size, quad area, same 
resolution, as about the biggest I could comfortably fit in the space I 
had for them.  But back about three years ago when I first decided this 
is what I wanted, the 42-inch LED-backlit models (of course at that size, 
monitors cost several times what TVs cost, same resolution and technology 
now that they're both LCD, due to the vastly more massive demand scale 
for TVs at sizes above 27-30", so I ended up looking at TVs)  were 
running $700 each low-end, which meant with dual-monitor, I'd be forking 
out $1400 minimum, plus the mounting hardware and either shipping or 
sales taxes if not both, so more like $1600+, which was WELL out of 
budget range.  Standard (CFL-backlit) LCDs were $400+ at the time, but as 
I said, THERE WAS NO GOING BACK!

Then the recession hit and I wasn't in ANY shape to upgrade, but 
gradually, the price dropped.  Finally, just in February, I was again in 
a financial position to shop, and I managed to find a 42-inch LED-backlit 
full-HD LG model 42LM3400-UC TV (the 42LM3700 is the same but with a 
sound bar) on sale for $400 at Fry's Electronics.  Two of them and the 
mounting hardware, plus taxes, still came in under $1000, which was a 
target I was comfortable with.

So basically, I waited THREE YEARS, my eyesight getting gradually worse 
for computing the whole time (I sure used kwin's zoom-effect 
functionality, the only thing that made it tolerable!), for LED-backed 
technology to reach my price-point at the size I was looking for --
LED-backed *REALLY* *IS* THAT MUCH BETTER THAN CFL-LCD!

Of course had I bought the equivalently priced CFL-backed units, $700 
back then, $400 now, with the bottom-end 42" CFLs now running under $200, 
I'm sure the quality would have been /some/ better.  But it'd still have 
been bigger and heavier and less energy efficient, and I'd have saved no 
money over the LEDs, so what would have been the point?

IOW, I won't try to argue the green-LED point, but I know from first hand 
experience that the LED-backed units really ARE better quality, at least 
at the low to middle-grade, and if you've the money for high end, why go 
CFL-backed in any case?


Of course it's your money and your eyes, but I'd SERIOUSLY recommend that 
you either arrange to try a reasonable LED-backed monitor for a couple 
days with a possibility of return if you don't like it, or arrange to 
take your machine into a store and hook it up there to run kgamma, or 
something.  Because if you're anything like as impressed with the results 
as I was, THERE WILL BE NO GOING BACK! for you as well.  You really do 
owe yourself the experience of at least trying it.

And if you end up disagreeing with me, I'd very much appreciate a mail 
(probably personal not list) telling me why, and preferably mentioning 
the brand and model as well, so I perhaps could look at it too and see if 
it's just me, or if I agree with you on that brand and model.


Meanwhile, with the purchase of those 42LM3400s I rather accidentally ran 
into another nice bonus, as well.  As I was purchasing the units for use 
as computer monitors[1], I hadn't paid much attention to the TV-targeted 
features, including 3D.  But the TVs each shipped with four pair of 3D 
glasses, and unbeknownst to me when I bought them, it has a 2D-2-3D 
feature... which works quite well for things like plasma's picture-of-the-
day wallpaper modules when they show panoramic scenes, etc.  Of course it 
doesn't work well at all for text, but it's an interesting toy, for sure, 
and it has certainly brought out details I'd have never otherwise noticed 
in various pictures I've tried it with.  I've tried it with youtube, etc, 
as well.  It's OK there, but I think the compression used on many yt-vids 
probably lessens the effect, tho I do see it on some of the better 
quality ones.

---
[1] Computer-monitors/TVs:  I don't even have an antenna hooked up and 
don't know if I ever will, tho of course I can slip a DVD in the computer 
occasionally and watch that if I want.  I got tired of ad-supported fare 
years ago, as they really DO target the easily influenced who are thus 
more effectively programmed by the ads, and at some point I simply found 
that too insulting to my intelligence to continue with, preferring the 
far more interactive as well as ad-blocked computer to the experience of 
the attempted forced-passive-programming of ad-based TV, to the point 
that when I finally yanked the TV card out of my computer, it was on an 
upgrade where I realized I hadn't even turned the thing on since I had 
installed and tested it on the then-new mobo two years PREVIOUSLY, so 
there was no point in even bothering any longer!

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman