NEC LCD20WGX2 review *** UPDATED 25/02/06 ***

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Raymond Lin said:
it isn't unfortunately

Confirmed ? I sent the e-mail to NEC UK today, but still no reply. I had the same feeling. Probably they think that UK will be HDTV + HDCP enabled in 2012, just in time for Olympics :D Why always such discrimination when considering the Europe market, never understood.
 
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So far so good guys. Monitor is running 24x7 for almost 7 days. I didn't turn it off at all. Even when the computer was idle and non attended, intensive screen saver was in place so that monitor was always busy. For now, still no single trace of either backlight or colour bleeding, dead pixels or any other deformation. It's still exactly the same as in the "lights off" pictures in my review. Picture improved slightly, but not for huge margin.

I tried last night "PixPerAn" application ... or LCD monitor torture tool as far as I'm concerned What this application is doing to the monitor, it' just nuts.

Baddass, is this tool safe for LCD monitors if run for prolonged period of time ? I don't want to burn my pretty crystals :) ?

Also, in "streaky pictures" test, there are loads of configuration options. Do you have any preference, or should I just leave it at the default ?
 
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HDCP is not supported, as suggested by Raymond Lin (thank you). Just received response from Melanie (NEC UK). It seems that HDCP is not supported on their desktop range. What seems to me is that they are trying to separate then men from the boys, in other words LCD TV from the LCD desktop monitor. Obviously, sales policy between US and Europe is different.

One thing that is puzzling me, and which is quite strange, is why on the earth monitor has to support this. Monitor is displaying device and not cryptic device. If we can have one simple "in-line" device, connected between the monitor and GPU card who will take care of the decoding process, it would be much more convinient :confused: Anyhow, I will not go into HDCP now :)
 
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yeah pixperan is fine to run, but no need to leave it running all the time really. Good for comparing multiple monitors, but just have a play with the different options. It's more for comparisons than for testing a monitor since there isnt really an easy way to make individual measurements.
 
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igors said:
HDCP is not supported, as suggested by Raymond Lin (thank you). Just received response from Melanie (NEC UK). It seems that HDCP is not supported on their desktop range. What seems to me is that they are trying to separate then men from the boys, in other words LCD TV from the LCD desktop monitor. Obviously, sales policy between US and Europe is different.

One thing that is puzzling me, and which is quite strange, is why on the earth monitor has to support this. Monitor is displaying device and not cryptic device. If we can have one simple "in-line" device, connected between the monitor and GPU card who will take care of the decoding process, it would be much more convinient :confused: Anyhow, I will not go into HDCP now :)
Unless they're really clever, and HDCP is more complicated than we can imagine, then it's probably only a matter of time before HDCP is beaten.

Wouldn't it just be a case of fooling the DVD drive into thinking it's connected to a HDCP compliant OS and Monitor, then decoding/ decrypting the output stream, and turning that into an MPEG or something?

And as always, there will be people on the inside willing to reveal the secrets to their cracking team of choice.
 
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Iam in love with this monitor specs!
First site review coming soon at: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_vista-ready_hdcp_lcd_roundup/
Somewhere in this first part review it is mentioned that the NEC is HDCP ready.
Now I searched a little more and I discovered that the US version of the monitor comes with detachable speakers, analog TV tuner,S-video and composite connections.So maybe we have two different versions of the monitor,one HDCP ready and one not?
The problem is that nowhere in the oficial site I could find something mentioning HDCP.
Now Iam very puzzled.
And I wonder how come NEC didn't include something like this? Even DELL is updating its monitor line to be HDCP ready ( see 3007, 2407,2007...).
 
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radpilot said:
And I wonder how come NEC didn't include something like this? Even DELL is updating its monitor line to be HDCP ready ( see 3007, 2407,2007...).

Same old story. It's just discrepancy in the market targeting. In US, HDTV is real and running already, HDCP is probably just around the corner ... so in some sense they wanted to include such video features as immediately available "extras". UK model is exactly the same, just without video features and much better looking (in my book). Also, Europe is preparing the new tax for the 20" LCD monitors and above. Not sure if such model diversion is related with this one or not. We just have speculations floating around.

At the end of the day, it's just personal preference. Do you care about the HDTV/HDCP features on your monitor LCD or not ?
 
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I believe HDCP is crap and will / is somehow be circumnavigated.
I am curious though if the DVI port is HDCP compliant and we have to wait for someone to test it to be sure.
What puzzled me is that even in the US site HDCP isn't mentioned.
 
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Essentially, it's confirming major points from my review:

- Rich, natural, vibrant colours representation and deep blacks
- Crazy brightness (by luminosity spec), but controllable
- Excellent contrast (also thankfully to the TFT film)
- Exceptional gaming performance
- Excellent viewing angles
- Advanced DVM is doing the job
- Great design
- 0 backlight & colour bleed (not mentioned, I think)

IPS is definitely back and it's back with the vengeance !

Now, not sure why he was disappointed with the video playback. I tried several titles and it was great (colour representation especially). Yes, you may notice the slight pixel pitch and glossy screen is problematic when there is intensive ambient light. But who is watching the films from such close distance and in very light room anyway ?!. I prefer my movies in the dark room and from the distance ;)

Also, yes, glossy screen is maybe problematic when you are using the bright ambient light ... but again it's the matter of personal taste as I don't find it very distractive. As this is the subjective matter, maybe this doesn't deserve the global minus. At the end, it's improving the smoothness of the screen and colour & contrast balance.

Minus point was also pricing ... not sure about that. Here @OCUK you can buy this monitor for £411. It's not so huge price difference from the other 20" monitors listed here.

Welcome back NEC! :) It was about time. They were among the best monitor manufactures in the past. Oh yes, 5 stars from me.

Last night, I started to work on another review update btw. I wanted to use the PixPerAn "streaky pictures" test and capture it with my camera at a fastest shutter speed, in order to identify the afterglow and ghosting effects. Guy from BeHardware done it already and it's definitely comparable with my pictures :D ... but one thing he didn't do: comparable screen pictures (from the dark games) with Advanced DVM On/Off. Stay tuned ;)
 
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Hi there

We've got lots arriving end of this week hopefully or at the latest Tuesday next week. Pre-orders are now building up as this does seem to be the cream of crop amongst the 20" screens, fair enough it is more expensive than the others but your paying for what you get with this model and I believe our price to be very good. :)
 
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that BH review is impressive! I've got a lot of time for their reviews and they are in a good position to offer direct comparisons which i think is important. Interestingly Vincent Alzieu told me only a week or so ago that there were no new "Fast IPS panels" coming soon :p gave him a nudge in the right direction i guess :)
 
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Gibbo said:
Hi there

We've got lots arriving end of this week hopefully or at the latest Tuesday next week. Pre-orders are now building up as this does seem to be the cream of crop amongst the 20" screens, fair enough it is more expensive than the others but your paying for what you get with this model and I believe our price to be very good. :)


That's good to hear, I was a little worried that there was no ETA on the product description on the website.

But now I'm definitely buying it. :D
 

pfk

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Oh balls, i've had my heart set on the Viewsonic VX2025 for months but the NEC is looking more and more attractive and the Dell 2007WFP is around the corner. I don't know which one to go for anymore :(
 
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