DoubleSight DS-277W: Back to the Drawing Board
by Chris Heinonen on June 13, 2012 1:30 AM ESTSince all LCD displays have to be compared to a CRT display to calculate the lag, all of the testing is done at 1920x1080 resolution to keep the aspect ratio constant on the DS-277W. This might introduce a bit of an input delay, but because we use SMTT now to test displays we can separate input lag from pixel response to be more accurate.
Using SMTT, the DS-277W exhibited right around 21.3ms of input lag, and it took a full 29.3ms for a pixel to switch colors and come back, and combined this gives us an average response time of 36ms. This is over two frames of delay, so for many people this will not be an acceptable number for heavy gaming. Since the HP ZR2740w offers far faster pixel response time, and costs less to boot, that would be the 27” display I would still recommend with gaming in mind.
The DS-277W ships with an external power brick, and it seems to draw full current, all the time. At minimum brightness it was using 122 watts and at maximum it was drawing 125. Running at lower brightness to save on your energy bill isn’t a concern here, as the DS-277W is going to use a lot of power no matter how you have it setup.
I also tried to test out the DS-277W as a video display, since it has many inputs to use for this. Using an Oppo BDP-93 Blu-ray player, my first discovery was that in 1:1 mapping mode, it crops pixels from an HDMI signal. Losing 11 pixels on each side and 5 on the top and bottom, this is around 1% of overscan in effect, and there is really no reason for this at all. I did test using a PLUGE pattern from the Blu-ray player and found that the brightness control behaved the same over the HDMI input, controlling the black level as you’d expect on a TV.
Testing component didn’t even get that far. Once again using the Oppo player, which has a near perfect component video output, I couldn’t get an image on the screen at all. Using the Oppo BDP-83SE player instead also resulted in no image, so either the component video on my test LCD didn’t work correctly, or it didn’t like the timing of the Oppo players, or something else is just incorrect with the component video. Needless to say I wasn’t happy with the video testing results.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
55 Comments
View All Comments
Gunbuster - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
Why would anyone buy an off brand monitor with a meager 1 year warranty for $950?When are they going to figure out there is a group of people that want once step above the catleap. US warranty and a 50% less fugly bezel and stand. for around $450
p05esto - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
How come no large, IPS monitors use LED backlighting? I've been waiting and waiting for this feature. My office gets HOT and I'm trying to convert all lighting to LED and things that don't get so hot. My monitor is the last hot-box that needs to be replaced. For my work I require a large and high quality display, IPS.cheinonen - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
The HP ZR2740w uses LED backlighting and is a 27", 2560x1440 monitor. Lots of the 27" and 30", higher resolution monitors are aimed towards graphics designers and other that are after the AdobeRGB color gamut, and I believe that in the configurations that LG offers the panels in you have your choice of LEDs with sRGB coverage or CCFLs with AdobeRGB coverage. Since people needing AdobeRGB are their target, that is much of the reason for using CCFL over LED I imagine.There might be other 27" or 30" models that use LEDs (Apple Cinema Display is one as well I believe), but I don't know them off hand.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, June 14, 2012 - link
That HP also has a constant control backlight instead of a PWM backlight so there is no flicker.I've been waiting for Anandtech to mention this in reviews. Some monitors have especially bad flicker, especially at lower brightness levels, because of the way they implement PWM.
vol7ron - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
"there was nowhere to put an internal power supply"Do you really do that?
It seems to me that these nice SmartTVs have all the hookups that computers need and the resolution is *starting* to match. With how thin they've gotten, it's questionable how monitor companies are going to continue their lines.
Origin64 - Thursday, June 14, 2012 - link
Why do we need Displayat all? There's nothing it can do that Dual-link DVI can't, as far as I know. It can steer my 1920*1080 120Hz monitor just fine.I don't get why everyone needs a new connector every five years. I know why VGA isn't up to todays standards, and I can see why one could want Thunderbolt (daisychaining isn't possible with DVI) even though I prefer to hook everything up directly. But DP is just another useless standard I don't want or need, just like HDMI. Don't want it, don't need it.
cheinonen - Thursday, June 14, 2012 - link
DisplayPort can drive multiple displays using a hub/repeater (if these are even available yet), use a much smaller cable over longer distances than DVI, carry audio as well as USB signals, has no royalty for VESA members (unlike HDMI which has a royalty still I believe), and is better suited for notebooks.DVI still works fine for most people, but as fewer people need analog support (one main advantage of DVI over DP) I'd expect to see DVI be replaced by DP for the reasons mentioned above. It's pretty hard to stick a DVI adapter onto a laptop at this point compared to MiniDP.
Zoomer - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
It gets rid of the TMDS, which is getting problematic in silicon. Further, DL-DVI pretty much maxes out at 25601600 @ 60 Hz. There needs to be something that supports a higher res and/or higher refresh.AdamK47 - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
The conclusion states: "there was no way to adjust the backlight that I could find"Did you go into the MISC menu and set ECO to 100? That gives full backlight brightness.
jigglywiggly - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
review that catleap monitor ;x