2407FPW 480p Aspect Absurdity

Question

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

KevinR100 · Answer

Wow this reads like a review.

Xbox is supposed to have a special 'optional' cable that fixs some things;)

You could do what I did & buy a sammy 244t (it actually works properly on a dvi input - gee wiz).

Everything on it works as it should incl. all buttons & modes;) no dead/stuck pixels, absolutely no backlight bleed, no banding/flickers, not bad utilities supplied for adjustment - only thing missing is a card reader of which I have plenty.

Hope this helps - maybe not.

icjefferys · Answer

@KevinR100 wrote: Wow this reads like a review. Haha yeah... for me, ranting is an all-or-nothing affair. Thanks for the suggestion I'll checkout the 244t.

KevinR100 · Answer

You won't be sorry - just look at the problems on this forum...

gpro · Answer

I have the same aspect ratio issues on my 2007WFP :( At least the banding is fixed on this one.

l0f33t · Answer

Wow. Thanks for this post icjefferys and the alteranitive suggestions given.

To All,

I'm in the research phase of buying a really nice LCD monitor among other things. My friend has one of these LCD's he uses for gaming. I'm starting up a really small business where I will be making desktop videos using a piece of software that captures everything that I'm doing on the desktop. Great for showing people that I work with how to setup, for example, Outlook Express and such.

Most importantly I will also be using a fairly expensive semi-pro camcorder to make videos as well that I will edit and then burn to cd or redistribute via the internet. After looking at my friends 2407FPW I noticed that it had all the necessary plugs to hook my video camera upto. I play pc games as well and will use this monitor to plug my Xbox360 into.

The thing is I have an investor that is willing to front me the cash to build a really nice computer and accessories but wants me to research every little piece that I buy. That's when I cam acrossed this post. I recommend Dell all the time because I have found that they make quality products and stand behind those products and provide more than adeqaute tech support for your average pc user.

Knowing what I will be using this monitor for am I going to be disappointed in regards to video editing? I read up on the Samsung 244T and this is slightly more expensive but has all the necessary plugin's that I need minus a div slot and the card readers. Do you think the Samsung will display the varrying Aspect ratios correctly?

And If I'm understanding your post correctly it looks as you pretty much have to use Desktop mode for everything because the Aspect ratios don't display as they should according the standard norm of how Apect ratios should display?

I really want a 24'' monitor but at these prices I want to make sure that my gaming and working all perform without issue. I will be doing alot of video editing/viewing with my monitor.

Is there a good quality 20'' monitor out there that has all the same hookups/plugins, is HDVTV compliant or what ever that signal is that will allow me to watch protected/encoded types of movie streams that performs very well at gaming and will allow me to use it for my video editing work?

Thanks so much. I'm glad I've done some research. The video card that I was going to get got great reviews but had some manufacturing glitch and left many of its users totally frustrated. But I could only find this info on the companies user forum site. Evga 7900/GT OC SKO. Supposedly thats fixed now but I'm leary of getting a $300-$500 vid card that works for two days and then dies out completely or stops displaying like it should.

Any recommendations for a midrange 256meg price/perfomance vid card for gaming and video editing? I was thinking of going with the XT1900XT since the price came down.

bytor65 · Answer

No LCD computer monitor exists does what you wish this to do. Most don't even have the 3 functioning modes that dell has 1:1, Aspect and fill. If I get those three modes working at all resolutions, I am a happy camper.

KevinR100 · Answer

10f33t

Mine is a 244t. I am quite happy with the monitor - no dead pixels, absolutely no backlight bleed!, made in korea JUL 2006 (wow, can't get much newer than that), build quality & usability is very high, ghosting is virtually nonexistent, the Lag people have mentioned on forums is not a problem even on fast fps games. After calibration (did not require much), the image quality is great even when using adobe cs2 suite. All aspect ratios work fine + all modes;) good controls & software makes things easy = quality. ps I can use adobe gamma!!

Message Edited by KevinR100 on 08-15-200609:29 PM

icjefferys · Answer

l0f33t...

If you are editing video on a computer this monitor will work great for that. The work area will be wonderfull and if you're getting a video card like what you mentioned, your computer's performace while filling up 1920x1200 should be no problem at all.

As for your xbox 360, if you don't mind being limited to 720p in the rare games that also offter 1080i, this monitor will also work "ok." 720p is the standard xbox 360 resolution and it is the one component/s/composite resolution that I have found to work ok as far as aspect ratio goes. Some people have complained about the general (poor) quality of the 2407's 720p presentation, but in my fiddling with the monitor's settings I've gotten images that I am satisfied with. The default settings for anolog video contrast, sharpness, brightness and color are pretty awefull so I plan to start a thread soon on getting the best out of your 2407fpw in that redard soon.

My gut tells me I'm going to end up keeping this monitor despite being unhappy with it myself. That makes me very sad.

carlaron · Answer

has dell made any official suggestions to this problem? are any firmware updates planed?

ericshufro · Answer

Move this image around on your screen by either scrolling this thread up and down or grabbing the window frame and sliding it around.   If you have a 2407FPW, the fringes of the light grey/purple lines will turn pink when in motion.   I am not sure of the exact cause but it feels like the pixels are simply changing too slowly and that something is out of whack. I have tried it on 5 2407FPW monitors and various PC's.   Do  you have the same result? Dont forget to try it on a different monitor too!  You will see the difference. (The problem does not occur on the 2405FPW).   This is so frustrating because the monitor fails badly in areas of graphic design for this reason. It also makes it unfomfortable to browse web sites with alot of alternating grey and white (such as datagrid controls on your banks website, or the color scheme of cnn.com)   If you dont have this problem on your 2407FPW, please email me and let me know what revision you have and any other relavant information, video card, DVI cable length etc. (The test must be done using a DVI input).    (See the PIC below)   Thanks,   --Eric eric@shufro.com   http://eric.shufro.com/2407-fail.jpg

moultano · Answer

I have exactly the same problem connecting my wii to this thing and it is driving me insane. I actually did replace my tv with this, hoping to use the component input. Does anyone have a workaround to get it to display correctly?

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