 Just recently, I made the investment of a Samsung SyncMaster 2233RZ and the obligatory nVidia 3D Vision specs you just have to have with this monitor. Already the same thay it arrived my mail, more webshops had gotten it on-stock and the prices had fallen considerably. 2233RZ is considerably different from most LCD monitors. Not due to design, size or weight, but because it as one of the first LCDs is fast enough to offer 120Hz refresh rate. That means that the image you see can be fully updated up to 120 times a second.So what?Back in the "old days" with CRT monitors, it ment a lot having high refreshrates to get a flicker-free image and avoid headache. LCDs on the other hand emits light from all pixels at the same time, all the time, so the image stays flicker-free nonetheless. Most gamers are also happy with 60-80Hz. But talking stereo 3D we need more, actually the double. What 3D?Stereo is another word for "2", not only applicable to your home stereo with two speakers. Applied to vision instead of hearing, stereo 3D is used as an expression for experiencing a world (in 3D) with two eyes. One eye (or camera) sees the world from a slightly different angle than the other, and we get the feeling of the third dimension, depth. Since a PC/TV monitor is flat it cannot by default show different images for each eye. As a result, there are a lot of methods of "cheating" to make it happen, all with their strengths and weaknesses. Samsungs monitor, together with the specs from nVidia, exploits the fact that your brain does not remember a short blink of black. Can you remember the last time you gave a thaught to yourself blinking? The nVidia specs blinks for you, changing between the left and the right eye synchronized to the monitor showing the applicable image for the eye that is not blocked. One impression of an image then takes as long to be displayed as two images normally would. That is why we need a twice as fast monitor to achieve normal flow and avoid headaches. Did you know that a regular blink with your eyes normally takes about 0.3 seconds? That makes up to about 36 times longer than one blink of the nVidia glasses. In the packagesThe LCD came in a surprisingly small and light package which contained the following:
LCD Panel
1 DVI cable
1 power chord
1 Monitor mount in two parts
1 orange cable tie thing
1 micro fibre cloth
CD with drivers and user guides
User guides and warranty card in paper
 The monitor is above average good looking, with a pianoplast finish. The smile on my face lit till i put it on my desk, only to discover it also worked as a dust magnet. I personally prefer black matte, as it also does not reflect all sources of light in the room. The LCD itself is matte, which I like well. The monitor has no visible buttons in front, they are all hidden on the right hand side. Below is a transparent edge in plastic, with a 4cm wide blue on/off light which shines throught the edge and also mirror in the shiny mount. I usually find these lights disturbing and put a tape over them, but i see Samsung giving me a challenge with this one. Behind are inputs for DVI and power. That's it. Physical adjustments are limited to tilting back and forth. There are no possibilities for adjustments for height or rotation.
The nVidia Vision specs came in a separate package containing the following:
1 pair glasses (with pre-charged batteries  )
1 IR-transmitter for synchronization
2 USB2 -> mini-USB cables of different lengths
2 extra nose pieces
Eyewear protection and cloth in microfiber
CD med drivers, utilities and user guides
Multilingual user guides on paper
The eyewear is one of the more pretty I have seen. It is not unusual that 3D glasses make you look 10x more geeky than you already do. With nVidia, we're talking only about 4-5x. If you don't look closely, they might on a distance even be confused with sunglasses. If you look closely, the first you notice is the thick frame and the mini-usb connection underneath for charging the batteries . There is also a button to turn them on, even though not neccessary since they are turned on and off by the application. The nVidia logo is hidden on the inside. Just like the monitor, the finish is black pianoplast with a Shreck-green finish on the tips. The eyewear fits my above average sized head nicely. Light and comfortable like any sunglasses. The reason the glasses needs power is because they are what is called active shutter-glasses. Like mentioned in the intro, they do an active (therefore power consuming) piece of work shutting and enabling your line of sight. InnstallationThe installation was easy, although I committed some silly mistakes which made me spend far more time than neccessary. The monitor was easy to mount. Only one screw to connect the two parts that made the foot. This was then plugged into the LCD panel. I already had a dual screen setup, so I mounted the new monitor using my existing DVI cable. It took me a while to figure out that my old cable was not of the same quality as the new, and hence would not display refresh rates above 60Hz. The result was a black screen every time I tried to increase the refresh rate. The eyewear required no mounting, but the acommpagning IR-transmittor was easily connected with the supplied USB cable. Since I at this point had the faulty DVI cable, the drivers had not successfully detected the new monitor. This resulted in the connection wizard displaying a requirement of connecting a synchronization cable between the IR-transmittor and the monitor. I could not find this cable, neither anywhere to connect it in the monitor. After switching to the right DVI, the monitor was detected properly and all my headaches disappeared.  Graphic card and drivers
I already had a nVidia GeForce 8800 GT, and installed the latest stereo 3D drivers. (Yes, I am a stereo 3D enthusiast, and have been so for some years). Besides the previously mentioned challenges, I found no problems either installing or using the drivers. It might be worth noticing that the stereo 3D drivers are not updated as frequently as normal drivers, and it might be smart to download these first for so to find a compatible set of "normal" nVidia graphic drivers.
2D useSome 3D monitors, first and foremost those that do not require eyewear, perform average or poorly for ordinary 2D office use. Samsung 2233RZ, on the other hand, is in that sense an ordinary LCD of high quality which delivers in both 2D and 3D. The image is clear, and has a dynamic contrast of 20.000/1 (That's alot for an LCD). In comparison to my Samsung synchMaster 245b, which is a 24 inch "bargain" monitor, it's no doubt which gives the highest score. The 2233RZ gives your eyes more rest, and colours and contrast is overall better. Get started with stereo 3DThe reason for me to buy this LCD is ofcourse to try out its 3D capabilities, but before we start talking about it there are some words you should be familiar with: "ghosting"
| Ghosting is an effect happening when one of your eyes sees traces (ghosts) of what the other eye should see. It is experienced like an object has a transparent double(ghost) of itself offset to the right or the left depending on its distance from you. This is the most common problem with a lot of different stereo 3D techniques. | | "eyestrain" | Talking about stereo 3D, eyestrain is often caused by two things: Ghosting and flickering. Since the Geforce Vision eyewear are "shutter glasses", we normally get eyestrain for low refresh rates below 100Hz. | | "depth" and "disparity" | The depth is given by how far away (horizontally) from each other two identical points are. With a distance/disparity of 0, the object or point looks as if on the surface of the screen. A negative offset makes the object look out of the screen, while a positive offset makes it disappear into the screen. Increasing the distance between the cameras gives more depth and objects looks smaller. Too much distance between the cameras makes it hard for your brain to cope with what it is seeing, and you end up seeing double. Did you know that a person has an average of 6,6cm between his/her eyes? | | "artifacts" | In conjuction with 3D graphics, artifacts are graphical errors in the image. With stereo 3D, these mistakes are often caused by techniques used to show a 3D scene from one angle does not work when seen from two angles at the same time. Pre-rendered 2D graphics put in the scene often look very flat, or they might even be rotated wrongly when seen in stereo 3D. | | "anaglyph" | Technique used for stereo 3D with passive eyewear using two colored glasses. |
 In nVidias driver package follows a test application which shows a small room with a spinning and moving logo. This is a good start to see the 3D effect. This could not have been easier. All I had to do was to put on the goggles, and hit the ride. The goggles turned on automagically, and the effect was some of, if not the best I have seen. Both ghosting and eyestrain was almost totally absent. I could locate some ghosting on very close or very distant objects, especially when the contrast between the object itself and the background was high. I have yet to try using the goggles over a longer period of time, so it will be exciting to see if it is possible to watch an entire 3D movie without getting a headache. If you have been to a typical iMax 3D cinema, you know that a 3D movie should not be much longer than half an hour before it starts getting tiring. The nVidia logo was so far out in the room that i could pet it.
GamesA spin in the always classic Unreal Tournament 3 gave the same positive result. The game gives an excellent depth effect, and the feeling of being in the game absolutely increases. A tiny drawback is ofcourse the fact that all the action happens from the screen surface and back into the display. I would really like some rockets hitting my nose, and it should be possible :D Another tiny negative is that you have to turn down the level of details to 3 or lower to minimize artifacts. It is good, but there are still some details that looks funny even though you can't put your finger on what it is. Race Driver Grid was looking just marvellous, and when the opponents car came flying towards you after a crash, my heart nearly stopped for a fraction of a second. I got a serious fright of crashing, and ... well... even that is bad for your driving performance it just something you have to try! Again, like with UT, there was not much coming particularily far out the screen. Flicks and picsIf you think you had a hard time with formats and codecs earlier, it does not get easier taking the plunge into stereo 3D. Like mentioned earlier, there are a number of techniques to show stereo 3D, and each of these have at least one tailored format before we even start thinking codek. This means (usually) not that you can't convert between these, but this is not trivial business and you usually end up loosing color or getting artifacts. For the maximum effect with the nVidia goggles and the LCD from Samsung, we are looking for a video with a seperat image for each eye. The video is stored as a normal video with the two images arranged side-by-side, over-under or vertically/horizontally interlaced. Interlacing usually means less quality as lossy video compression causes the images to slightly overlap eachother. On the nVidia site you can find some small high-res 3D videos, and you can also download a video player for stereo 3D. There is no way you can play 3D videos using the 3D vision goggles without having a special player. This goes for video as well for images. I strongly suspect nVidia having bought the rights to their player from Peter Wimmer, an expert in the area. You can find his homepage and stereo 3D player at http://www.3dtv.at . One drawback is that I have yet not discovered any application being able to play stereo 3D windowed mode although this should technically not be a big deal as far as I see it.
It is generally hard to get hold of stereo 3D movies, and there are today waay to few titles to make it worth the investment if your only use is watching movies. If you buy a "3D" movie in the store, e.g. Shrek 3D, you might get disappointed when it turns out the movie is in anaglyph and can without modification not be used with your new investment. In the accompagning driver package, there is a stereoscopic 3D image viewer. This is rather bad, but at least you can watch the pictures you might find on the internet with it. ConclusionAll in all, the package from Samsung/nVidia is one of the absolutely best you get for home stereo 3D entertainment. The monitor is of high quality, and is recommended even though you don't end up using the 3D eyewear. Connectivity is very limited, but that is not why you buy this monitor anyway. You should own, or buy a good videocard from nVidia to get the most (or anything?) out of this investment. The package is not tested with video cards from other vendors. The shutter-glasses feels solid and comfortable. The 3D effect is 95% good with little or no ghosting depending on the graphics, application and settings. Ambiend light can be annoying as the frame is black pianoplast which reflects light into your field of view.
Most 3D games convert easily to stereo 3D with minor adjustments to the graphical effects. The two tested games gave good perception of depth, but rarely gave the impression of coming out of the screen.
Images and movies works excellent, but the availability of movies in the right format is still very low. ResourcesnVidia 3D Driver, demo and Videoplayer http://www.nvidia.com/object/GeForce_3D_Drivers_Downloads.html
Information, forum and more on 3D stereo http://stereo3d.com
Recommended 3D stereo tools http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/ |
Comments
Altså at man får 2x 1680x1050 bilder når man ser igjennom brillene.
Med annenhver linje til hvert øye (for å minimere ghosting med trege skjermer) så blir
det jo som å se det hele gjennom en slags finmasket persienne.
Har ikke funnet noe om det på noen omtaler av denne pakken så håper de har funnet på
noe lurt med LED bakgrunnsbelysn ingen og kjappere LCD panel.
Nei det er ikke en skjerm med "parallax barrier" ala skjermene fra Sharp. Slike skjermer krever vanligvis ikke briller, men har en mer begrenset innsynsvinkel.
Oppløsningen på Samsung + nVidia sin løsning er 100%.
det er ikke den gamle rød/grønn brille effekten håper jeg.... for den er ganske pinglete...
er bare litt usikker, litt grønn på dette...
...men lurer, måler den seg opp mot imax? det er selvfølgelig litt vanskelig å svare på men... skulle gjerne visst om den var tilnærmet like god, eller hva dere synes...
: )
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3576
Do you know the part number of the LCD TFT module in the Samsung 2233RZ ? Maybe it is printed on the back label.
Thank you