Reducing TFT Backlight
- Thread starter Vigil
- Start date
If you are seriously tempted to void the warranty, you may consider to give the monitor to any "licensed" LCD monitors servicing/repair shop. To do something on your own is "no no" 
Other way around is that you simply verify with the manufactures if backlight bleed is covered, as part of the monitor warranty agreement.
Other way around is that you simply verify with the manufactures if backlight bleed is covered, as part of the monitor warranty agreement.
Associate
check out the monitor from Philips, the new 190X6FB has a "Lightframe digital" which I am led to believe, means you can set the background light, with the press of a button, for different applications.....dvd, games, etc.......
Soldato
Vigil said:
reduce contrast/brightness/gamma in your graphics card settings, you can set it as dark as you like then
Associate
apart from the above comments i would have thought changing the gamma settings would have dropped the brightness enough but obviously not to your liking.
As for a dimmer i'm not so sure that would work, i'm guessing they use similar to cold cathodes ie. A high voltage inverter to pump out the juice needed to strike up the flourescent chemicals in the backlight tubes, finding the inverter shouldnt be too hard and theres a chance that dropping the input voltage to the inverter will make a difference but not necessarily one that still gives a good overall brightness, and of course the warranty would be out of the window not to mention the risk involved if it has the mains supply inside as a lot do these days.
Unless it's an old screen or you have money to burn i'd give the idea a miss
and maybe consider another option? i saw a mod project somewhere recently involving perspex/acrylic sheeting which actually looked quite cool, he embedded some LED's into the rear of the sheet so it illuminated the edges with a nice glow, anyway a smoked/tinted piece of perspex/acrylic to cover the entire screen and surround would i think be your best bet as then if the monitor isnt an old one then you could still turn up the brightness or remove the acrylic as the brightness of the screen drops with age.
Phew, bit of a long one for this time of day but hope it helps.
As for a dimmer i'm not so sure that would work, i'm guessing they use similar to cold cathodes ie. A high voltage inverter to pump out the juice needed to strike up the flourescent chemicals in the backlight tubes, finding the inverter shouldnt be too hard and theres a chance that dropping the input voltage to the inverter will make a difference but not necessarily one that still gives a good overall brightness, and of course the warranty would be out of the window not to mention the risk involved if it has the mains supply inside as a lot do these days.
Unless it's an old screen or you have money to burn i'd give the idea a miss
and maybe consider another option? i saw a mod project somewhere recently involving perspex/acrylic sheeting which actually looked quite cool, he embedded some LED's into the rear of the sheet so it illuminated the edges with a nice glow, anyway a smoked/tinted piece of perspex/acrylic to cover the entire screen and surround would i think be your best bet as then if the monitor isnt an old one then you could still turn up the brightness or remove the acrylic as the brightness of the screen drops with age.
Phew, bit of a long one for this time of day but hope it helps.
Steves_pc said:
No it doesn't. On default gamma settings, when your video card outputs 0,0,0 black that's exactly what gets output - the darkest black possible. Turning gamma/brightness on the video card down below default settings doesn't give you a deeper black at all, it just compresses the lower colour range and you lose a whole raft of dark grey shades.
The monitor settings can affect black depth though, to some extent anyway, but you'll still find there's an absolute point you can't get below. Depending on the LCD panel type (TN Film panels are particularly bad in this area), that absolute point can be way too bright. The new NEC 20" widescreen is clever in this regard because it can dim it's backlight automatically on the fly depending on screen contents.
Associate
Glad the suggestion helped and dont forget some pics when your done 
Here are my results. Note that all images are with the colour settings optimised for the monitor when wearing the tint. I think the brightness settings were the same, ie. increase the brightness until just before the black pixels start to get brighter.
Tint off:
Tint on:
Tint on half the screen for comparison:
Lights on:
I used a light smoke tint. Of course, the whole screen goes darker, including any bright bits, but this monitor is already too bright. However, a higher tint and the white bits got too dark. The black areas are better. It's impossible to use the tint with the lights on because it reflects too much, but if I want the tint on, it's because I'm playing a dark game, and the lights are going to be off anyway.
The tint costs around £10-15 a roll and is probably about 2 or 3 metres in length.
It was worth it
Tint off:
Tint on:
Tint on half the screen for comparison:
Lights on:
I used a light smoke tint. Of course, the whole screen goes darker, including any bright bits, but this monitor is already too bright. However, a higher tint and the white bits got too dark. The black areas are better. It's impossible to use the tint with the lights on because it reflects too much, but if I want the tint on, it's because I'm playing a dark game, and the lights are going to be off anyway.
The tint costs around £10-15 a roll and is probably about 2 or 3 metres in length.
It was worth it
Associate
That comparison shot does the trick, seems to improve the contrast quite well.
pity about the reflections but at least now black looks like black as opposed to blackish, you certainly seem happier about it now
thats the main thing.
pity about the reflections but at least now black looks like black as opposed to blackish, you certainly seem happier about it now
thats the main thing.