A few quick questions on the Dell 2405FPW

AFK_Matrix · 8 Mar 2006 at 22:50

Hi,

Ok thanks to all u peeps raving on about the dell screens u have I am starting to want one grrrr lol.

Anyway it won't be till april till i can get one and hopefully the new screens from dell will be out and i can get a deal on a 2405 or see how much the new screens are going to be.

Just had a few quick questions about it though:

1. Was wondering if you could connect this monitor to a ntl/telewest cable box? If not is there a device i could buy if i wanted to do this?

2. I am worried about all this HDCP stuff, if i get this screen does it mean i won't be able to watch future DVD's with HDCP on them? If so I might see how much the newer dell 24" is.

3. Is my X1800XT graphics card going to be able to run games like BF2, COD2 and Civ 4 ok at that res?

4. This is to Gibbo really, it says 4-7 days on the website for stock, does that mean u will be getting stock in that time or is it that it takes that amount of time for the screen to get to me.

5. How many people have had dead pixels and backlight bleed from these monitors, if you have had this how is Dells policy on this, can u get them to replace it easily?

Thanks, sorry for all the questions.

Baddass · 8 Mar 2006 at 23:22

AFK_Matrix said:
1. Was wondering if you could connect this monitor to a ntl/telewest cable box? If not is there a device i could buy if i wanted to do this?

yep, you can connect it via composite / s video to the screen direct and run it as Picture in picture or picture by picture, or just straight from the digi box on it's own

2. I am worried about all this HDCP stuff, if i get this screen does it mean i won't be able to watch future DVD's with HDCP on them? If so I might see how much the newer dell 24" is.

i think that's the implication, yes. However, therer may be ways round it i guess, always seems to be clever ways to sort things like this, but we wil see

3. Is my X1800XT graphics card going to be able to run games like BF2, COD2 and Civ 4 ok at that res?

probably but you may need to either turn down the eye candy, or play at a lower res and let the screen scale it / play it letter boxed

4. This is to Gibbo really, it says 4-7 days on the website for stock, does that mean u will be getting stock in that time or is it that it takes that amount of time for the screen to get to me.

until stock comes in. expected dates only though

5. How many people have had dead pixels and backlight bleed from these monitors, if you have had this how is Dells policy on this, can u get them to replace it easily?

backlight bleed is not a common issue with the 2405FPW. If you had a bad case of it, RMA shouldn't be a problem with Dell. Dead pixels, hard to say. Tend to be rare i guess on the 2405FPW, or maybe we just don't hear much about them as people love the screen so much!

not much chance of a return to Dell for pixel issues, but you have the distance selling act to fall back on

Bomag · 8 Mar 2006 at 23:33

1. You can connect a cable box via composite but it will look terrible. I have conect a freeview box via s-video to mine and the upsacling needed to get from 720*576 to 1920*1200 is to much to give a viewable picture closer than 1m. If upscaling via a capture card and graphics card it is much better but still not something you would want to spend all night looking at.

2. First gen Sky HD (and probably NTL/Telewest) will have componet output so they can be connected direct. There is still debate about output for 1st gen HD-DVD/Blueray boxes. Most US HD TVs don't have HDCP so enforcing it will harm sales.

3. A x1800XT will run at 1920*1200 but not with all the options on, then again at this res it looks as good without AA etc as 1280*1024 does with everything on.

4. dunno

5. Mine does not have any dead pixels.

Yaka · 9 Mar 2006 at 00:51

if you gonna connect a tv box to it. use a pci video card and Dscaler. it should give better picture quality than just connect via compsite or svhs ports.

Vigil · 9 Mar 2006 at 12:28

No bad pixels or backlight problems here. Phew!

AFK_Matrix · 9 Mar 2006 at 12:46

Thanks for the responses guys, but think i may go for the new 20 inch dell widescreen, hopefully it won't have the backlight bleed issues of the 2005.

Main reason for not going for the 24" is that i can't use all the eye candy with my graphics card, which won't be ugraded for a while. The fact that i can't really use it as a tv. And I will be saving 200-300 quid which might go on a nice new xfi sound card and some speakers.