Banding on the S27A950D

ironmysox · 11 Nov 2011 at 14:30

Hey guys n gals,

I started noticing colour banding on my S27A950D, it may of been there from the start but I have had a lot more time to play with my monitor so it has come to my attention. I rang Samsung and they picked it up the same day, got a phone call the following eve from the repair centre saying the banding was completely normal for this type of panel and no fault was found and I got it back this morning. 3 day turnaround. I have tested it on several machines etc with Display port, HDMI and DVI, it's the same no matter what. I have just bought SKYRIM and for instance, the main menu page, the white smoke rising from the bottom looks awful. The menu page on MW3 has terrible banding (I have tried to take a pic, you can see the banding at the bottom of the pic. Taken on my phone so excuse quality). I do not have another monitor available for me to test so was just wondering if anyone else out there has noticed this? I have the brightness at 45, contrast 75, sharpness at 60. Fastest Response Time and the Magic Angle Group for Gamma. It looks the same though no matter what settings I play with.

http://imageshack.us/f/37/img0024pf.jpg/

I especially notice it on Sky wallpapers, gradients of blue don't seem to blend to well. Is this something just to accept as it's a 27" screen with a 1080p res?

PCM2 · 11 Nov 2011 at 15:35

Hi ironmysox,

The S27A950D is an odd one I must say. The native gamma of our review sample was around 1.7 which is much lower than you would desire. Under these settings there was quite noticeable gradation (banding) in some instances such as those you highlighted here. This is made much more palpable by a number of things, including the fact that the gamma is terribly low and you see detail where you shouldn't (this highlights such issues), the fact that the screen is large and the fact that the screen is glossy. I examined a number of images on the S27A950D where this gradation occured and found that it was certainly exaggerated by these factors but actually seems to be present on other monitors I tested - including CRTs (in limited cases) and matte screen monitors of various sizes. The matte screen surface and relatively small size of some of the monitors was particularly good at masking this. I didn't have the same kind of gradation issues on the S27A750D and it seems that the default gamma was better.

The potentially good news is that we were able to significantly reduce this on the SA950D by tweaking the settings a certain way. Follow through the calibration setup for the SA750D (this provided decent results on our SA950D too although the colour balance was a little different) and maybe have a little bit of a fiddle beyond this to see if you can reduce this. This as good as eliminated such gradation on the SA750D and significantly reduced it on the SA950D. Samsung are unfortunately quite correct that it is a normal issue on 6-bit+ FRC monitors especially when you're trying to reduce dithering. And you really do need to reduce dithering on a glossy 6-bit screen as it isn't masked by any screen grain. With the kind of clarity and relatively loose pixel pitch there is no hiding things like this.

Edit: I see you have already used those settings and it didn't seem to fix the issues. Not sure what else to suggest I'm afraid. I will be able to take a look at MW3 when I get it later this month and see if anything can be done there but I seem to recall having issues like that on previous CoD games even on much higher end monitors. In the meantime if you want to contact me by Trust or via the website so we can discuss possible causes/solutions and draw comparisons in more detail feel free. I will be a bit busy this weekend but will reply when I can.

ironmysox · 11 Nov 2011 at 18:04

Thanks for your help :-)

. I have a colleague desperate for me to sell this monitor to him if I just can't get on with it. Maybe the new Benq XL2420T will turn out ok and I'll try one of those. I must say though this is a fantastic looking monitor and when in game you do not see any banding at all. The problem is though I know it's there if I look for it :-)

PCM2 · 11 Nov 2011 at 18:38

Well yeah I was going to say. Once you notice something like that I understand how it can plague the mind and you keep on looking out for it. How do you find the colours when in game? As noted in the review we had the SA750 running next to an Apple Cinema Display and the overall image was just as glorious really - and that's something few monitors achieve and the XL2420T will not match that. At times when banding was noticed (including some desktop backgrounds and specific greyscale gradients) we actually noticed similar artifacts on the ACD. Certain issues are inherent to the source material (particularly on console titles such as CoD) and are simply highlighted very well on large and smooth screens. Also - a monitor that can display 6-bits per subpixel (any modern TN panel monitor and many modern 20-24" IPS displays) can't natively display the full range of colours you would desire so it has to resort to dithering and/or banding to compensate. I actually discussed this with Dell and LG in relation to the screen surface - hence my comments above regarding not 'getting away with' extensive dithering on a glossy display, particularly a large one. Given the circumstances of the conversation it seemed like they were attempting to justify not using such a surface but it makes sense to me (even if a bit weird).

If it makes you feel any better these issues are usually amplified and can be introduced on any display (regardless of bits per subpixel) by modifying settings from the often imperfect native settings and especially when applying an ICC profile. Interestingly the gradation was massively reduced AFTER tweaking the settings. It is often quite restrictive and only apparent during fairly limited circumstances such as those you mentioned. So really it's quite a minor and common issue across the spectrum - knowing this and weighting the advantages of the monitor should hopefully ease your mind a little. There is also a slim possibility that those settings aren't optimal for your SA950. One thing I would be interested in as a point of comparison would be for you to visually compare the blacks and greys of our website header using native and adjusted settings. You should notice a significant improvement using te adjusted settings - if not something is up.

ironmysox · 11 Nov 2011 at 23:14

You are so helpful PCM2 :-)

In game everything looks great. I'm going to have a dabble with the settings when I get home. I'm away for the weekend so will let you know what my results are :-)

Just to add, I would never of thought of using the Magic Touch settings for Gamma, I had settled for Gamma 3 until I read your review of the 750D. The magic touch option is definitely better.

PCM2 · 12 Nov 2011 at 16:15

Any time. And don't try to get the smoke on Skyrim's menus to look good, it's banded and layered on the game - it's not the monitor's fault. Confirmed on various monitors including 8-bit VA panels and a CRT. I suspect from previous experience with CoD games that it's the same on MW3 too - the menu graphics are shared by consoles which can't really render things like that properly without massive slowdown.