Reducing TFT Backlight

Vigil · 12 Mar 2006 at 23:48

Other than reducing the brightness and gamma on a TFT, what other way could one reduce the backlight? Has anyone taken one apart and added a dimmer? Other than voiding the warranty, could that damage or shorten the lifetime of it?

Vigil · 13 Mar 2006 at 13:09

flying grouse said:
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.......

"Buy a different monitor" isn't really a good answer

Vigil · 13 Mar 2006 at 13:10

igors said:
Other way around is that you simply verify with the manufactures if backlight bleed is covered, as part of the monitor warranty agreement.

It's not bleeding, it's just too bright in general.

Vigil · 15 Mar 2006 at 00:31

ljt said:
reduce contrast/brightness/gamma in your graphics card settings, you can set it as dark as you like then

The backlight

Vigil · 15 Mar 2006 at 21:41

Steves_pc said:
...a smoked/tinted piece of perspex/acrylic to cover the entire screen and surround would i think be your best bet...

Cool, I didn't think of that, and I know just the place to get some. Thanks - your hope is true!

Vigil · 31 Mar 2006 at 23:36

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

Vigil · 1 Apr 2006 at 11:17

drupi said:
Seems a bit strange that you find the 2405FPW too bright. Have you tried reducing color levels to 20-30 ? It has a great impact on brightness. The colors still look great at those levels.

Sigh. Please read fish99's post.

Vigil · 2 Apr 2006 at 12:44

Unfortunately they won't decrease the black level, so if I decreased the colour levels, I'd end up with a lesser range from black to full colour on, if you see what I mean. I think monitors should come with a backlight level adjuster.