Question about viewing angle brightness loss of NEC and Eizo 27" monitors

[midix]

Hi everyone.

If you happen to have an Eizo CS2731, EV2795, EV2785, EV2780 or NEC PA271Q, EA271Q, would you please be so kind to create a short video that captures viewing angle brightness-loss characteristics of your monitor?
I'll buy you a beer or tea or a cake

Vertical angles are more important because they usually have more pronounced issues.
Please use some light background (white, yellow). It is OK to have some pattern on it, if it does not cover the background too much. https://www.lipsum.com/ this random text website is good for the purpose.

See these videos as a very rough example:
https://youtu.be/meA9N0jqnHA
https://youtu.be/C_kQpFOLhno

The first one is shaky and exposure is jumping a bit, but still, it demonstrates the difference between two monitors very well.

It's not necessary to upload to Youtube - feel free to use any storage you like - Google, Dropbox, Onedrive...

----------------------
This request might sound a bit unusual, so I have to explain the context; please bear with me.

I am a visually impaired (congenital issues, no regression) 40 years old programmer & web developer, and sometimes I do some simple amateur-ish photo & video editing.

Currently, I have a 23" Viewsonic VP2365WB monitor. Unfortunately, it is dying and I'm looking for an upgrade to 27". VP2365WB was my first IPS monitor and I (wrongly) assumed that every semi-professional IPS monitor will have the same image quality and characteristics. I was wrong. I have tried a few monitors (Dell UP, Asus ProArt), even more expensive than VP2365WB, and they all have either serious backlight quality issues (bleeding in dark scenes, patches in light scenes) or bad brightness fall-off at steep viewing angles. So, I had to return the monitors and look for something better.

I hope Eizo and NEC professional monitors should be at least as good as my 10-years old VP2365WB, right? Unfortunately, Eizo and NEC monitors are not immediately available in my country, and ordering them will take a long time (at least two weeks, plus delays because of Covid). So, I would want to get it right the first time to avoid the long wait and one more return.

You might ask, why am I so nitpicky about viewing angles? A normal person sitting at a normal distance in front of the screen rarely notices anything wrong with most IPS monitors (that's why most manufacturers ignore the issue, paying more attention to LUT, bits, features, etc.).

However, my situation is different. Because of my vision problems, I often have to use my monitor at a close distance (20-30cm, even with scaling increased). I do not notice individual pixels, so I don't need 4K and I don't care much about a few dead pixels. However, I notice many uniformity imperfections caused by backlight quality issues and I am especially annoyed by the steep brightness fall-off that is present on a few IPS I tested. Here is a simplified example of a good and a bad IPS monitor, as it looks to my eyes:
https://i.imgur.com/ChMnwPo.png

As you can see, for me it would be a waste of money to buy a new expensive IPS and to see an image that, for my use case, has no better brightness fall-off than a TN. This brightness fall-off is not a subjective thing, it can be measured. Rtings testing website has detailed brightness fall-off graphs. See here an example with two monitors on Rtings:
https://i.imgur.com/FxzgKr6.png

Unfortunately, they do not have such graphs for professional monitors.

On the other side, PRAD.de has tests for professional monitors but they do not have such viewing angle graphs. PRAD testers mention only subjective evaluations, which are difficult to interpret objectively. VP2365WB was praised by PRAD for viewing angles being "above average". Is 10 years old "above average" better or worse than today's "above average"? Nobody knows. PRAD also do not have good enough angle shots with solid colors to judge the brightness fall-off.

For the last month, I've been searching for owners of Eizo and NEC displays to ask them for help with a few simple tests, so that I could discard the monitors that have inferior brightness fall-off. Many messages sent on different forums, reddit, youtube, twitter. No luck. Eizo and NEC are rare devices. Even Eizo support could not help me much because their support staff seemingly does not have physical access to the monitors or just don't want to spend a few minutes to create a short video for viewing angle test.

I think you here at LuminousLandscape are my best chance. If you have any of the mentioned models or know of anybody who has them, please help me.

A few more considerations about my current candidates, what I could get from tests and reports:

CS2731:
Seems to have indeed excellent viewing angles - PRAD and their reader tests have some good quality angle shots, and it is clearly visible how the image has the same brightness at 45 degrees.
Has flicker-free no-PWM backlight. I'm not very sensitive to PWM, but still, it's good to know.
Minimal brightness: 38 cd/m2. It's nice to have low values here because I am somewhat photosensitive and like to work and relax in a dimly lit room. Reducing backlight power reduces also IPS glow.
Does not have any IPS-glow reduction film (unlike CG2730)
Warranty: 5 years (reportedly, does not include wear-out defects if LCD panel has been used for more than 10000 hours)

PA271Q
From PRAD tests, the results are a bit contradictory. They say it has excellent angles without any noticeable brightness loss. However, their photo shows noticeably worse brightness-loss behavior than CS2731. Again, missing more objective tests here. Can you help me with this one, please?
Minimal brightness: 18 cd/m2 - so, even better for me than CS2731.
Has PWM backlight even at max brightness, albeit high frequency. But I guess my eyes would not complain much; my VP2365WB had PWM.
Warranty: 3 years (reportedly, also has wear-out exclusions)
Reportedly, has some IPS-glow reduction film? Can anyone here confirm that? Does IPS-glow look much less pronounced on PA271Q than on other IPS displays? This would be really good to have, I like watching movies, video, TV on my monitor, I don't have a dedicated TV set at all.

EV2795
Not sure about viewing angles regarding brightness loss. Is it noticeably worse than CS2731 and PA271Q? Could not find out yet.
Has flicker-free no-PWM backlight.
Minimal brightness: 1 cd/m2. It is specially designed to be usable for dimly lit environments.
Does not have any IPS-glow reduction film (unlike CG2730)
Warranty: 5 years

I don't want to overpay for unnecessary features (color calibration etc.), so EV2795 was my first choice. But I could not find any viewing angle reports for it. So, I might have to cash out for PA271Q or CS2731. They both cost almost the same in my country, but NECs are more difficult to find. I do not want to order such an expensive item from abroad.

Thank you for reading this long text. I really hope someone will be kind enough to help me with the angle tests and also share their experiences with their monitor.

[midix]

Well, I guess NEC and Eizo are rare here...  70 views and still no reply.

Meanwhile, I'm still using a crappy temporary 24" monitor because my old trusty VP2365WB totally broke. I replaced its capacitors that had bad ESR measured values, and still waiting for CCFL lamps from China, which got stuck somewhere because of Covid delays.

Currently, I'm leaning towards PA271Q but I really need to 100% know if its viewing angles are at least as good as on my old VP2365WB before I make an order.

So, especially waiting for help from PA271Q owners.

[MichaelKoerner]

Well - taking and posting such a video takes a little longer than 5 minutes (at least for me ;-)

But as I know the downsides of visual deficits: Please find a video of my NEC PA271Q with 80 cm and 20 cm viewing distance here:

https://youtu.be/y_tN4DdNPbs

There are discussions (i.e. on this forum) about some PA271Qs having issues with higher color deviations, leading to higher dE values when validating a calibration. Mine is ok, with highest dE in the shadows of about 1.4 dE2000.

As I heard from some experts, PA271Q has great internal calibration and so could be used without external calibration (to be honest, I doubt that - but lack of proper tools/knowledge to confirm/falsify).

For me, the PA271Q has great price/performance ratio. It can be hardware calibrated and offers 10 storage slots for different calibrations.

I recommend using it with BasICColor Display 6 in combination with an i1 Display Pro for external calibration/profiling, as this piece of software is able to address all 10 storage slots individually.

Hope that helps! Best regards, Michael

[geneo]

Well this is not simple since if you just record a video without some thought, it will automatically adjust exposure and not capture the falloff. I did this on my Eizo and the video at the widest angle looks great - no brightness loss, color fidelity maintained, no bleed. I posted this but took it down, because this didn't answer your question.

Now if you do this at fixed exposure the story is different as you go to wider angles. This has to occur because you just are not getting as much light intensity as head on just because of the viewing angle. So you will always get falloff because of that. Your eyes are like overexposure - they adjust to the differing light level.  To me what is more important is that off angle, the backlight doesn't  bleed in the blacks and that color fidelity is preserved. 

That video you posted may have even been with auto exposure, but since the monitors are side by side, you can see a tangible difference. That is the only way IMO that you can compare two different monitors (unless the same person using exactly the same technique does it for the different monitors). Posts of individual monitors by different people with different lighting and exposure control won't tell you anything useful as far as relative comparison of two different monitors IMO.

@Michael - was that taken with automatic exposure control?

So what are you looking for?

[MichaelKoerner]

@geneo: Fixed Exposure, fixed focal length.

I agree with you, but since the OP asked again and I had some spare minutes today...

Better than no response at all, I thought.

[midix]

Thank you a lot Michael. It indeed seems that PA271Q has no noticeable darkening, at least not horizontally.

But could you please also make a video for vertical viewing angle? Usually, the vertical angles are weaker than the horizontal ones.

Also, can you please confirm that PA271Q can be turned down to a very low minimum brightness when compared to other monitors? I've heard someone say it has 18 cd/m2, but not sure.

And also does PA271Q have a special coating to reduce IPS glow, so that blacks look much more uniform than on most IPS?

It's strange that there is no official information about this feature on NEC website. I know they had something they called A-TW polarizer many years ago but then they proudly boasted about it. It's strange why they do not mention this about PA271Q (while Eizo markets their CG with "True Black Display retardation film").

For your efforts, I can send you a small gift (through Paypal or an Amazon.de voucher) - feel free to send me a personal message here on forums to coordinate the details.


Geneo, you are right, it is difficult to objectively judge the situation without a solid reference point or at least another monitor to compare to. Still, there are some telltale signs about brightness fall-off issues, that can be captured.

That Rtings test graph https://i.imgur.com/FxzgKr6.png  demonstrates a strange dip at about 50 degrees. While browsing the Rtings tests, I found quite a few IPS monitors with a similar dip. When looking at their viewing angle test videos, something unusual can be noticed. At steep angles, the image gets darker but then suddenly at one point, it becomes lighter again! Unfortunately, Rtings angle videos do not show uniform white images, but this unusual behavior can be noticed also in their viewing angle video with colorful images. Also, I found a test of Asus PA328Q on prad.de, and even they noticed the problem and described it as "a wandering shadow".

This might be caused by some interaction between polarizer film and antiglare coating (not sure). It's strange why some displays are free from it and others have the issue, despite their price. I guess, manufacturers don't care about it. Still, I'm curious what causes it and why some displays do not have it.

Anyway, this strange "wandering shadow" is the one that causes discomfort for me, especially after having been working on a monitor without such an issue for 10 years.

Here's one more video:
https://youtu.be/C_kQpFOLhno
Again, the right side monitor has a strong shadow, especially for vertical angles, visible even at a far distance. The video compares IPS and PLS, but that's not indicative - I have seen both IPS and PLS with and without this "shadow".

And one more video, where exposure is jumping wildly, but still it is clearly visible that this monitor has this "wandering shadow" at changing vertical viewing angles:
https://youtu.be/iVY0i9heCfM

[MichaelKoerner]

Hi midix,

please find a video including vertical angles: https://youtu.be/CSuqWPBgtmY
Again: Fixed Exposure, fixed focal length.

In MultiProfiler, the software I use to control the NEC PA271Q, the lowest value of cd/m2 I can set is 20. Same is true for the On-Screen-Display. Be aware that at low brightness levels correct color is diffucult to achieve for all monitors, AFAIK.

I don't know and have never heard about IPS glow coating, sorry.

Don't worry about my efforts - just mentioned "time" as a possible explanation for litte response to your question

[midix]

Thank you again, Michael. It seems PA271Q has normal brightness reduction at steep angles, without any unpleasant sharp shadow. So, now I feel much more comfortable buying it.

[digitaldog]

In MultiProfiler, the software I use to control the NEC PA271Q, the lowest value of cd/m2 I can set is 20. Same is true for the On-Screen-Display. Be aware that at low brightness levels correct color is diffucult to achieve for all monitors, AFAIK.

Yes and one needs to be careful too with a SpectraView depending on model. You can go lower - however once you try and go below about 50cd/m2 on this unit it will start to use LUT scaling to achieve what you requested (kind of like a levels adjustment in PS). The downside of this is that:
a) You are throwing away some levels which may increase banding (however this is done at the internal high-bit-depth so not so significant as doing in 8 bit land)
b) The contrast ratio will decrease because the black level is fixed (the backlight is at it's lower limit - so it can't make blacks any blacker).

[midix]

Yep, for color-critical work, it's best to keep to sane brightness values. I intend to use lower than 50 cd/m2 only after work to watch a movie or read an article in a dimly lit room.

go below about 50cd/m2 on this unit it will start to use LUT scaling

Hmm, does it mean that the backlight itself cannot be adjusted lower than 50cd/m2?

Won't the IPS glow start seeping out noticeably under 50cd/m2? On the other hand, I've heard PA271Q has much less IPS glow than other monitors (supposedly because of that special film), so maybe that's not an issue. However, it would be nicer if the backlight itself could be turned low. I wouldn't dare to request it to be that low as on Eizo EV series (1 cd/m2), but still it would be nice to be able to reduce the backlight bleed as much as possible in dark evenings.

[midix]

So, I just got my NEC PA271Q.

Impressions are... well, ambiguous.

If that was my very first IPS monitor I would be awed. But when I compare it to my 10 years old (and much cheaper) VP2365WB, I'm surprised to see that some aspects of my PA271Q are not as good as I expected. PA271Q has better overall uniformity at both blacks and whites than VP2365WB and can be turned brighter (VP2365WB was not that great to use on sunny days), and PA271Q has less IPS glow in the corners and also less bleeding.

Still, two moments were a bit of a disappointment.

1) VP2365WB has minimal brightness of ~43cd/m2. PA271Q has 20cd/m2. Both measured by prad.de.
So, I expected it to affect backlight brightness as well. However, subjectively it does not. A fully black image at minimal brightness has the same amount of IPS glow on both monitors. The only advantage for PA271Q is that its IPS glow is less angle-dependent than VP2365WB (maybe PA271Q has some A-TW kind of polarizer indeed). PA271Q has less glow in the corners when watching dark movies in a late evening. Good, but I expected more (actually, less - less backlight at minimal brightness).

You'll say - just buy yourself an OLED TV! Well, it would cost another 1000 EUR. I hoped to get a good all-in-one solution for both work and relaxing.

2) There's my pet-peeve issue with viewing angle dependent brightness fall-off. PA271Q does not feel that smooth to my eyes when compared to VP2365WB. At first I thought it might be purely subjective and I just have to get used to PA271Q.
But I did a side-by-side shot of both displays at a slight vertical angle. See the attached image. Then I opened the image in my photo editor and, using color picker tool for grayscale image, measured two values for both monitors - at the top and about the middle line of the smallest monitor (to make it fair - because PA271Q is larger and its distance to the middle would be larger than VP2365WB). Then I compared the deltas of the pairs for both monitors. For example:

PA271Q  VP2365WB 
175     156
137     140
------------
38      16

See? PA271Q has larger difference between top and above-middle. I took different shots at different angles and brightness values - the results were approximately the same. My new 1000 EUR PA271Q has worse brightness fall-off than my 10 years old VP2365WB for 500 EUR. Who would have thought?

I'm feeling a bit discouraged. What if out there is a monitor with at least as good viewing angles as VP2365WB and with good uniformity and low brightness settings and little IPS glow (and maybe even cheaper than PA271Q)? How would I find it? Especially, in Covid situation and living in a country where all monitors above 500 EUR have to be back-ordered with about a week of waiting time and no way to test it directly in the shop... Seems mission impossible.

Rtings.com brightness graphs could help, if only they could measure VP2365WB with the same settings as they use for all of their tests, so that I could have some reference. Alas, they don't have VP2365WB.

I guess, I'll have to get used to PA271Q. It's is actually good monitor and I doubt I can find any better.
Or I might continue using my old VP2365WB as long as it works. I managed to repair it myself by replacing its CCFL lamps with cheap Aliexpress replacements - no idea how long they'll work.

Still, as a technical geek, I'm very curious as to what is so special about that cheap LG panel in VP2365WB. Why does it have better brightness fall-off?

VP2365WB, because of its brightness fall-off behavior, feels smoother, more paper-like than many other monitors I've tried. With PA271Q I constantly notice some annoying "wawy shining" in my peripheral vision when I move my head. Not as bad as on some Asus Proart models, and definitely better than TN panels I had to use 10 years ago when I was a student. So, definitely not much to complain about.

Will have to wait for microLED displays or something like that. But even then I won't be sure about viewing angles, if I have no idea what's the root cause of it. If it's backlight - great, microLEDs won't have it. If it's some polarizer and/or coating, then, well, it might still be worse than VP2365WB