24" HD 1080p for under £200

[ThunderPeel2001]

I saw the recent re-mastered at the cinema... WOW

[miffy495]

Yeah, the night before the new cut hit stores my local art house theater had a midnight showing of it. So bloody cool.

First thing I bought (aside from Uncharted) when I picked up my PS3 in January.

[Cigol]

*thread resurrection*

So I actually ended up buying one of these and aside from the unadvertised 'power-saving' audio bug it worked great for both the PC and PS3. I could multi-task effortlessly between spreadsheets and inferior ports of XBOX 360 games with the touch of a button where I previously had to get up and move into another room.

...but now all I get using my PS3 is a blank screen with no error message or image. I've tried different cables to no avail, and the PS3 itself works straight away on two other televisions (one HD LCD, one standard CRT) using both HDMI and SCART so it's clearly nothing to do with the PS3 or its cabling but Dell are claiming it's actually okay it doesn't work on their monitor as the PS3 is a games console not a computer!? As far as I was aware it is technically classed as a computer, capable of running linux, and it did work flawlessly for quite some time previously.

Not too long ago I rang Viewsonic about a faulty LCD I bought around three years ago and they sorted a replacement for me within minutes, free of charge and British to boot. The guy at the end of this Dell support was pleasant enough and I could easily understand him, but when hes got the wrong manual for another television and telling me I don't even have a HDMI port, and then starts openly googling for solutions before essentially blaming me for buying a monitor that doesn't say it's incompatible with the PS3 - I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

*With all that said it was still a good monitor for my PC, so a rather belated thanks goes to Wrestle for the headsup. I just wish it still worked with the PS3...

[James]

Not a PC my arse. HDMI is a standard so anything using that standard should work fine. The PS3 doesn't even use any HDCP stuff like the 360 does (which makes it restart every time I swap the cable out for another device, annoyingly).

[Wrestlevania]

Odd. I've run this both over HDMI (for my PC) and VGA (for my 360) for months now with no problems.

There's not some nutty little switch on the PS3 video cable, is there..? There's one on the 360 and I'm aware that's caused people problems before now.

Also: having said it's worked flawlessly, I expect it to explode in my face tonight.

[Thrik]

Try keeping the power button on your PS3 held down for about 10 seconds when you turn it on.

[Cigol]

I've tried most if not all of those tricks to be honest and they didn't make a difference. I'd be surprised if they were really necessary anyway as I had no problems swapping connections (SCART/HDMI) between a standard television and another HD LCD without having to do anything with the PS3.

When it's connected to the Dell it's definitely aware of a connection otherwise the Dell would have the self-test screen flashing with 'no HDMI connection' or go into power saving mode. Instead all I get is a black screen - which is why I wondered whether it was a problem with HDCP.

The PS3 doesn't even use any HDCP stuff like the 360 does

Are you certain of this. I thought it was needed for bluray playback on the PS3?

Odd. I've run this both over HDMI (for my PC) and VGA (for my 360) for months now with no problems.

I've not heard of any problems with the 360, it does seem to be a PS3 only issue. As I say; monitor is great on the PC, switches resolution and all the rest of it with no issues... it just decided to stop working with the PS3 out of the blue, so I'm not sure what to make of it.

[James]

There isn't even a PS3 video cable for the switch to be on ... at least, not an HDMI one. It just takes standard a HDMI-to-HDMI lead.

When it's connected to the Dell it's definitely aware of a connection otherwise the Dell would have the self-test screen flashing with 'no HDMI connection' or go into power saving mode. Instead all I get is a black screen - which is why I wondered whether it was a problem with HDCP.

It certainly suggests something like that is up.

Are you certain of this. I thought it was needed for bluray playback on the PS3?

No, I'm sure you're right about the Blu-ray. Still, you can boot to the XMB without it even being plugged in. Do you get the startup sound when it's plugged into the Dell? If you boot it plugged into the Dell, then remove it and plug it into another monitor/TV, does it reboot? I doubt it, as, like I said, I haven't encountered any of that crap with my PS3, but it's worth a try.

Could it be something to do with specific HDMI versions? I really don't know too much about this stuff. It does sound like some sort of HDCP thing, but like I said, I don't think any of the non-Blu-ray stuff is protected. Perhaps there's some sort of background HDCP process. Hopefully there's an expert out there to illustrate how ignorant I am on the subject.

[Coldkill]

I was thinking about purchasing one to replace my 19" HD Monitor but after reading all the stuff on it, and about the power saving audio "feature" that is neither advertised, nor has an ability to disable itself, I think I'm going to stick in my happy place.

[Wrestlevania]

I didn't even know it had built-in speakers until I flipped it over while installing it on my desk for a short while. Still never used, and besides: every time you use built-in audio for anything other than OS sounds, God strangles a badger.

[James]

Yeah, I'm really pleased with my 24" Iiyama monitor, but the in-built speakers are absolute shit. Anyway, the volume gradient of the speakers goes from 0, which is silent, to 1, which is too loud not to disturb people at night, to 100, which is too quiet for general use. And the quality is crap. So, weirdly enough, is that of the headphone pass-through port.

But I'd never planned on using the in-built speakers anyway, and only tried them because I couldn't work out a way to get the video for my consoles by HDMI but the audio by analogue (I've since managed this).

[Cigol]

I've been told I can get it exchanged on the basis of the audio bug incidentally, which is amusing.

I'd never planned on using the in-built speakers anyway, and only tried them because I couldn't work out a way to get the video for my consoles by HDMI but the audio by analogue (I've since managed this).

...I'm all ears

[James]

Is that a genuine request, or did I say something dumb? The emoticon confuses me.

[toblix]

HE'S MAKING FUN OF YOU JAMES!

[James]

OH CHRIST, IT'S JUST LIKE THAT DREAM I KEEP HAVING.

[Cigol]

It does look a little sinister on reflection, but no it was a genuine request. I emboldened the bit in the quote where I personally tripped up and I guess the emoticon was a manifestation of my inner excitement at finally understanding how.

[Wrestlevania]

OH CHRIST, IT'S JUST LIKE THAT DREAM I KEEP HAVING.

Is that the one you have to change your pyjamas after? I forget.

[James]

It does look a little sinister on reflection, but no it was a genuine request. I emboldened the bit in the quote where I personally tripped up and I guess the emoticon was a manifestation of my inner excitement at finally understanding how.

OH THANK FUCK. OK, here goes:

The PS3 actually has it all customizable in the menus, I'd just never checked, so all I had to do was have both the HDMI and the composite cable that was included with the system plugged in, then plug the red and white left and right channels into my hi-fi. I'm at work right now (beavering away diligently, as you can tell), so I can't check, but it should be pretty obvious in the audio settings. For the 360 it was a bit fiddlier, because the included multi-purpose cable has a fucking massive connector, possibly deliberately intended to cover up the surrounding ports. However, on looking it up online, it turns out all you really need to do is come at it with a knife and hack the grey casing off. After that you can wedge both it and an HDMI cable in at once, and although the 360 cable will be a little skew-whiff, it'll work fine. There isn't any setting on the system to determine where it outputs its sound, but it just worked, so I guess maybe it outputs through all ports at once. I should caution that after messing about with the cabling a bit to plug things into other things, it suddenly became determined that the sound should be output through the HDMI only, or not at all, and I had to muck about more-or-less at random for twenty minutes or so to get it back how it was (I couldn't tell you what it was that actually did it), but if you don't tinker about at all you should be fine. You just need an audio device that takes standard phono input, or even a phono-to-3.5 mm adaptor or something.

I believe there are also cables you can get that split audio off from HDMI or something, but I didn't want to be paying money or waiting or leaving the house in order to just play games with decent sound.

(Yeah, I typed that all out before paranoia fully struck.)

Is that the one you have to change your pyjamas after? I forget.

It's the one where I have to change the pyjamas but not the sheets.