2407FPW 480p Aspect Absurdity

My new 2407FPW came yesterday and I've been playing around with it since. I bought the monitor for my computer of course but also as an HDTV for my xbox and eventually xbox 360. I've been shockingly disappointed by the way my A02 2407FPW handles 480p video, and I’m NOT talking about subjective image quality color/wave/line issues.

First, a few key facts about video streams in general that most of you probably already know, but which are essential to understanding the blunt thoughtlessness behind the monitor’s design...

480i/p video is always transmitted at 720x480 resolution, despite whether it is intended as a normal or widescreen aspect stream. When playing back on a TV, the video is always squished or stretched to make 720x480 look how it was intended: either as 640x480 (normal, 4:3) or as 864x480 (widescreen, 16:9). Another way of referring to these image translations is by the "shape" of their pixels: 720x480 >> 640x480 is achieved with 0.9 aspect pixels and 720x480 >> 864x480 is achieved with 1.2 aspect pixels. Anyone who works with DV video should be familiar with this. These numbers refer to how wide each pixel of a video must be in order for an image to look the way it should. Computers output “square” or 1.0 pixel images to their monitors.

When 720x480 video is displayed using square 1.0 pixels, its aspect ratio is 3:2. No video standard dictates a 3:2 image so a 480i/p signal is never correct without some kind of squish-stretch processing.

Now we come to the 2407FPW and its brilliant handling of this squish-stretch business. It simply doesn't do any of it. The monitor's three aspect or “wide mode” options are "1:1", “4:3” and “Fill.” These names are misleading. “1:1,” while sounding like an aspect ratio, apparently is meant to mean the displayed image will be true to its original source in terms of pixel-for-pixel representation. No scaling will be done and if you display a small 720x480 video on a large monitor like the 2407FPW, the video will remain very small in the center of the screen. Fine. While you would never want to actually watch 480i/p video in this mode due both to its small size and incorrect 3:2 aspect ratio, it could be useful for testing purposes.

Next up is “4:3” mode. The reasoning behind naming this mode as such continues to elude me, as it in no way produces a 4:3 aspect image. What this mode does is display all types of video (480p, 720p…) scaled up in square pixels, showing black space where the video’s shape doesn’t fill up the whole screen. This works perfectly for 720p video which is intended to be displayed in square 1.0 pixels. I have been using this mode with Amped 2, the only xbox game I own capable of a true HD resolution. When “4:3” mode displays a 480i/p source however, it blows up the video nice and big but fails to process the image into 0.9 or 1.2 pixels for proper viewing. The resulting video is 3:2 aspect ratio. No standardized video is 3:2 aspect ratio. Normal 480p becomes too wide and widescreen 480p becomes too narrow.

Finally, we come to “Fill.” “Fill” simply fills up the whole screen with whatever video you give it regardless of resolution, original aspect or intended pixel shape. Being a 16:10 monitor this produces 16:10 video in all cases. No standardized video is 16:10 aspect ratio. Normal 480p becomes too wide and widescreen 480p becomes too narrow.

Well, those are the three and only three modes. In summary, Dell’s 2407FPW forces you watch both 4:3 or 16:9 aspect 480i/p video in your choice 3:2 or 16:10 ratios. It is impossible to watch any kind of 480 size video on this monitor correctly. While the component inputs also support 720p and 1080i and therefore still have use, the composite and S-video inputs by their nature ONLY SUPPORT 480 SIZE VIDEO. WHAT IS DELL THINKING? Why bother even including these inputs AND HOW CAN THEY ADVERTISE THESE TO CUSTOMERS if they’re going to destroy their usability for kicks and giggles right out of the box?

While I may sound harsh calling the dell designers that put together this little fun house mirror package of glee incompetent idiots, the money I just paid for this monitor has earned me the right to do so. To customers, designs like this are infuriatingly frustrating as we can see no reason for things to be this unnecessarily un-functional.

How hard would it be to replace the wide mode option “4:3” a.k.a. “FalseHope:IWish” with three options along the lines of “Nice-and-Big 0.9,” “Nice-and-Big 1.0” and “Nice-and-Big 1.2”? If Dell wants to retain me and the people who rely to me for technology advice as customers, they can either give this monitor a once-and-for-all firmware update the day before yesterday along with exchanges and letters of apology to the community, or they can convince me how displaying analog TV signals properly on an electronic screen is the greatest technological brick wall the company has ever faced and how the thousands of man hours that have poured into a vein search for a solution have tragically distracted them away from warning me about this problem before I ordered, paid for, waited for and installed this monitor with the now-foolish looking expectation of logical functionality.

Message Edited by icjefferys on 08-11-200604:13 PM

Message Edited by icjefferys on 08-12-200612:42 AM