Bought a new laptop with a fairly standard 1366x768 15.6" display but the image looks really pixellated, whites slightly blueish in tone and when playing even 1080p videos any darker areas such as backgrounds appear really noisy - (almost choppy looking like they are breaking into chunks). The laptop its replacing is a five year old super-budget model (bought for about £200-250 five years ago so dirt cheap) and with a similar 1366x768 15.6 display - yet it looks miles better though which is why I'm really dissapointed. Pixels cannot be seen from normal viewing distance on my old laptop but are very noticeable on the new one. I think part of the difference is going to be my old laptop having a quite glossy display (the new one is semi-glossy, neither matte or glossy but somewhere inbetween), but surely this can't account for all the choppiness and pixellation? Could driver or software faults be affecting the quality? I haven't installed the latest flash/shockwave on it yet. I can live with the blueish tone as I know this is common on laptop displays but can the pixellation/video quality be improved?
What is your OS ? Do you have the latest drivers for graphics card etc ? Have you checked the settings for grahics ?
Old laptop - Windows 7 Home premium 64 Bit - Mobile intel 4 series express chipset family graphics New laptop - Windows 8 (not yet upgraded to 8.1) Intel HD 4000 graphics Screen resolution is set correctly (set to High - 1366x768). I've not checked for all graphics card updates yet, I was a bit scared to start messing around with it in case I decide to return it see. Does this normally make a difference?
Yes, it might... its difficult to say. I would get the newest drivers for the laptop from the manufacturer... its possible there were updates recently...
For choppy video, check your codecs. For screen tinting, get the screen calibrated. For artifacts in the OS, check graphic drivers. For everything else... accept it as it is, it's a low budget notebook, what do you expect?!
I really just want it to match up with my old laptop's standard given how dated/much cheaper the old laptop was. This new laptop is one of the manufacturer's main budget product lines whereas my old one was some obscure line found in a single retailer that was a very, very cheap budget notebook (with far worse specs) so I really was hoping for an upgrade if anything, or at the very least for the quality to be equal. I actually love the picture quality and relative lack of pixelation on my old laptop so was just confused why the newer model wasn't similar. I'm not expecting it to be Macbook/retina/fullHD quality - I'd just like videos (youtube/online TV/netflix etc) to be smooth enough to not be distracting and to be able to see reasonable detail in darker videos.
Wait... are you unhappy with the video or the actual screen? I'm confused, because... there is a different solution, depending on which it is. I mean, you can't expect something from a cropped display (eg not full hd) but... it should still be smooth and have enough detail. Maybe put a screeny of the "thing" you see as being "broken"? As for the "detail in darker" videos, that falls in the "screen calibration" category. In fact... why not go and get it calibrated, just so they can test it out and see if it is in fact covering the basic minimum sRGB space. Also, drivers... obviously, something being "choppy" is drivers... always them drivers. Did the notebook come with a lot of bloatware? Did you install anything "strange"? Did you configure the OS correctly?!
I know you might not see it this way, but you might actually be seeing artifacts of a better display. If it appears there is noise in the black areas of a video, your display may actually be giving you more color depth than your old one. If you look in the control panel, display settings between the,two see if the color depth is the same. I wouldn't be surprised to learn the new laptop has more colors.
I would: - have a look at the task manager to see if there is a lot of permanent load on the system, and close unneccessary programs - update all drivers for this notebook from the manufacturer... there might be updates concerning mainboard etc... - adjust brightness... there should be special keys on the keyboard to have brightness adjusted - have a look at the display and graphics settings. Usually there is the possibility to make a profile for the monitor, adjusting colors a bit etc. I'd be careful here only to adjust colors... - try different video programs and different video sources: dvd... to test if its a problem of a video program. There are mobile versions of video programs which do not have to be installed. - another thing might be the speed settings for streaming videos... All at your own risk... don't deactivate virus programs, for example, and download only from trustworthy sources... Another possibility would be just to contact the seller if there are known issues...
Sorry, but it's not a driver or software issue. It's a crappy display issue. Default TN 1366x768 panels are terrible. True, some are better than others, but in general they are pretty bad and the larger the screen with that resolution, the worse it looks. Budget laptops have notoriously bad displays. I know exactly what you mean about the "chunks" and choppiness in the darker areas of the video, but that is normal for displays of that caliber. And it is also true that default displays have gotten worse over time. I had an old 2007 laptop with a 1440x900 TN panel and it looked miles better than any budget laptop with a 1366x768 panel nowadays.
I've a look in there and spotted something odd. The new laptop is definitely set to 32 bit display (1366 by 768, True Colour (32 bit) 60 hertz) yet two online tests (see below) put it at being a 24bit display. My old laptop on the otherhand has the identical setting in the control panel, yet the two websites correctly recognise it as being 32bit? Any idea what could be causing this anomaly? Even if the tests aren't 100% accurate they are demonstrating some difference between the two displays right? Is their a fault in the new one for it not to be seen as 32bit? Tests used: Test Color Depth WebDoodles - Online Screen Tester
You might have a look at this: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/adjust-your-monitor-for-better-screen-resolution-in-windows-7 Under set the color for lcd... All at your own risk... if you set a too high refresh rate you could mess up the system...
The main issues bothering me are: -The new one looks a lot more pixellated, particularly with large blocks of colour - I think this is probably just due to the older one having a glossier screen? The new one is glossy but appears to have some form of antiglare which I guess must make the pixels more noticeable? -In videos, dark areas look more fragmented on the new one - theres a lack of detail and things look "blocky". Google tells me this is called colour banding. I've actually just played two vids side on the two PCs and interestingly there is the same lack of detail in both (both have identical shaped "blocks of colour"/colour banding), just in the older laptop the darks are darker so its a lot less noticeable. I'm wondering if this "colour banding" is caused by the display, graphics card or the video itself (they were 1080p vids so I'd have thought its not the latter)? PHP: I don't know if this will show but heres an example screenshotted from a HD trailer on the new laptop:
Being able to actually see and distinguish the different pixels points to a crappy screen. It has to do with pixel density and all that good stuff. Also, something else that i'll discuss further down. Seeing artifacts in videos (blocky black parts, banding) has to do with the "software" side of things and the actual settings of the display (color profile, brightness, contrast, etc...). Banding is often caused by poor compression (eg, you can't do anything about it). Compression due to a slow internet connection (YouTube, etc...) is always a thing to watch out for. Gloss coating usually makes pixels easier to spot while matte is somewhat masking them. The difference is negligible though. Now... that thing i promised to talk about. Get your screen calibrated by someone who knows what they are doing. It is a procedure done with a color calibrating device that will measure the different variables of the display and configure it so as to display colors as close to real as possible, also it will adjust brightness/contrast/saturation and will remove/minimize these effects that you are seeing. Also when you do go and get this "procedure" done, make sure to tell the guy to measure and set your brightness to between 90 to no more than 120 candelas, as that is the "default" screen brightness you should be using. Then, only after this, make the calibration. Should not cost more than $5 to $10 and take between 15 to 20 minutes. Also, after this you'll probably notice the screen will be darker and slightly yellowish, this is normal and how it is supposed to be. Usually uncalibrated screens give off this really irritating blue-ish tint. Also, you'll notice that it will not strain your eyes as much.
Thanks, I think I might take it into a PC shop to get it calibrated if its cheap. Any idea why it would show as 24bit on those tests when set at 32 bit? Is that hardware or software at fault?
What do you mean "showing as 24 bit"? It's supposed to be 24 bit (even if you can "set" it to 32 bit), 8 bit per RGB channel, for a total of ~16 million colors. It's, a graphics drivers thing... I'm guessing you are running XP. Also, after looking at the top photo you edited in, seems like a crappy video. Try watching something that is 1080p. Also, on my screen it's barely visible, unless i crank up the brightness and disable the custom color profile.
Online tests said the screen was 24bit, but it does say 32 bit in the control panel settings. I'm running Windows 8. Ah sorry, that screenshot was taken from a 720p trailer labelled as HD (Prometheus - Official Trailer [TRUE HD] - YouTube). I'd be interested to know if it shows the same distortion for you?
Yeah, same "distortion", no way this is 720p, more like a shitty upscale with a crappy compression. Have a look here: Planet Earth seen from space (Full HD 1080p) ORIGINAL - YouTube You can clearly see "banding" at the edge of the earth, near the dark area, even though it's a 1080p video. It's because of how the video was encoded, there are simply not enough shades of a particular color, to produce a smooth image.
