The Samsung 241MP Page

This is a page for owners of the beautiful Samsung 24 inch LCD, the SM241MP. It's a truly unique device, in both positive and negative ways. Despite its size, its resolution is 94 pixels per inch. That's the same as a conventional-shape 17" LCD with a resolution of 1280x1024! The best plasmas and large LCD's usually have up to 1024 pixels across, which is too blocky at this size to use as a full-time computer monitor. The Samsung's resolution is 1920x1200, or 2.3 megapixels.

Now for the bad news: despite this amazing specification, the screen has no digital input at all. This may partly be because 1920x1200 is beyond the specifications of DVI, the digital computer-to-monitor protocol. The consequence of the high resolution and analogue input is that, the moment you connect up this monitor, all kinds of previously near-irrelevant limitations become barriers to getting any kind of reasonable image on your screen.

Bought at 241MP? Feeling you've just wasted several thousand pounds on a fuzzy screen that just gives you a headache? Don't worry: I've done all the hard work to make this monitor sing, and all you have to do is read how.

How many reviews of graphics cards have you read? How many of them even mentioned the quality of the stationary, two-dimensional image the card produces? Probably very few. Many people think that all graphics cards produce a near-perfect image and the clarity of what appears on the screen is down to the monitor.

In truth, many expensive graphics cards produce lousy images at high resolutions, and when you try to drive the 241MP using one of these you'll get a horribly blurred picture. The worst culprits are generally those designed specifically for games users, and the very worst are probably the Geforce cards. You can read more than you ever wanted to know about this topic here, including how to short-circuit useless output filters.

The upshot is that to get a remotely-decent picture on the SM241MP, you need a card with good output filters. I bought a Matrox G450 to test this theory (I had a Creative GeForce 2 before that), and the difference was enormous. The G450 costs about 40 UK pounds (60 US dollars) on eBay, far cheaper than the Creative card. However, read on before you go out and buy one.

If you shell out for 2.3 million liquid-crystal pixels, you'll want to use them all. However, as far as I can find out, there isn't a single consumer graphics card on the market that "supports" video overlays at 1920x1200! The Matrox G450 is supported up to 1280x1024, and for the new Parhelia card the stated maximum is 1600x1200.

Fortuntately though, the Matrox Parhelia 128 card does provide video overlays without trouble at the 241MP's resolution of 1920x1200 and 60Hz. It's just that Matrox don't support it at that resolution. The G450 will not provide video overlays at that res. The clarity of the image from the Parhelia is as good, I think, as the G450.

I have the UK variant of the SM241MP. It has the normal S-video, composite, Scart RGB and PC-monitor (HD-15) inputs, and a connector for picking up analogue TV from the air. I couldn't try the analogue TV connector because I live in a city and the image from my aerial has ghostly images all over it, reflected from the tall buildings. However, I can say that watching TV on the 241MP via the RGB or composite inputs is no fun at all. It may be that my source devices (Samsung DVD player and Nokia Digital Terrestrial set top box) aren't up to scratch, but I think it's more likely to be the decoding circutry in the 241MP and the inherent limitations of the interfaces.

To get an impressive TV picture on the 241MP, at least with the UK variant, you have to use the PC-monitor input. I've noticed that the US version has HDTV inputs, so the situation may be different there and in other first-world countries. (We're used to second-rate stuff here in the UK, and we expect to pay full price, too. I do wonder whether the east Asia version has even more featues -- a digital input, perhaps? Do tell if you're lucky enough to live over there.)

So if you're planning to watch any TV or DVD on the 241MP, you'll need video overlays, and that means the Parhelia card. If you find another card that does sharp images and overlays at 1920x1200, please let me know. By the way, you probably can't use anything other than a PC to drive the HD-15 input on the monitor, because the 241MP is fussy about the input frequency.

Before I discovered the wonderful Matrox cards, I bought a monitor cable with individual co-ax cables inside for red, green and blue. It didn't make any difference at the time, as the output from my Geforce card was blurred before it even left the PC. At some point I might try changing back to a bog-standard cable, to see if it degrades the crisp image from the Parhelia. I doubt it, as the refresh rate for the 241MP is only 60hz so the overall bandwidth is not that high. Which brings me on to the monitor's next headache...

So you've got the Parhelia, and maybe you've bought a good cable too. Now for the next challenge.

With a conventional CRT monitor, you can of course choose the resolution yourself rather than slavishly selecting the maximum the monitor's capable of. With an LCD screen like the 241MP, you don't really have that option because unless you select the screen's native res, you're going to get a nasty mismatch between the card's frame buffer and the fixed pixels on the screen.

So now you have to persuade your operating system to produce the required signal: 1920x1200 at as close to 60hz as your card can manage. According to the manual, for optimum quality you need to supply it with 75.000kHz horizontal, 60.000Hz vertical and a pixel clock frequency of 193.156MHz.

In Windows XP with the Parhelia, you can do this by installing the monitor drivers (they come on CD with the monitor, but can also be downloaded from www.sec.co.kr), and then using the Monitor Manager utility from www.matrox.com. For other cards, including the G450, the PowerStrip utility does as good a job.

The net result of all this is superb PC and DVD quality. If you live in a country where unencrypted MPEG2 streams are being broadcast at radio frequencies, you can get fantastic quality broadcast TV as well (I recommend the DigiTV card for this.) It's not really Samsung's fault that this is so difficult, it's just that the rest of the world hasn't quite caught up yet.

If you found this useful, please leave a comment.

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Very resorceful and interesting article. It's even more valuable, considering few number of such materials on the Net. Going to buy either 241M or LG 2320A i will now mind these high-res problems as well. Thanks :)
Mike Kolbasnikov, - 2 Oct 2003

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Since 1994, Matrox has done a great job in losing my business every time I let them. I'd use caution before using Matrox. They are somewhat legendary for little to big mistakes, in just about in everything they make.
Bob Ferris, - 1 Nov 2003

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Erm, I think it might be helpful if you said how...
Max, - 1 Nov 2003

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Since DVI is not specified at 1900x1200. I wonder how do Apple's Powerbook notebooks drive the 23" cinema display with DVI? I know Apple's display uses ADC instead of DVI. Does that make the difference? How about ATI cards? How do they fair compared to Matrox and Nvidia when using it with the 241? The link doesnt work.
Sirius, - 2 Nov 2003

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Don't know about Apple's ADC protocol, but it is possible to drive a 1920x1200 monitor using a DVI cable by breaking the DVI protocol. It works by using the blanking part of the signal for picture data, and only some cards support it. The other, saner, method is Dual DVI which gives double the bandwidth. But the only display I know uses this is an IBM one.
Max, - 2 Nov 2003

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Great article!!!! Very few people are aware that there is more to image quality than the monitor. I heard say that there are graphic cards that support large screens resolutions, but they start at $1000... Can any one else provide more information on these cards?
Hugo, - 4 Nov 2003

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The article is ok, but leaves questions. I want to buy this monitor, but i am put down about it being only analogue interface. the graphics card that i have is the Ati Radeon 9800XT 256MB. Would it run ok? also what is the lcd that has DVI which is better then this monitor?
Mike Sheetz, - 8 Nov 2003

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The monitor looks great, the only problem with it is the native resoultion, way to big for games. If you were to watch movies, it would be nice, but for gamers youd have to scale down and that would result in de-pixelisation/blockiness resulting in a poor picture. What id really love to see is a 24" Widescreen DVI LCD, with a native resolution of 1280x1024.
Greg Prokanrou, - 11 Nov 2003

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I think the future of gaming is HDTV, just as TV's future is. The only game I've bought recently is Colin McRae, and I was pleased to find that it does support 1920x1200. I don't think you'll ever see a widescreen LCD at 1280x1024 because that isn't a widescreen resolution: 1280 divided by 1024 is 1.25, which is almost standard 4:3.
Max, - 12 Nov 2003

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well, i boiught the sony P232 .. abolutely awesome, utterlly stunning 23" lcd with dvi input at 1920x1200. And whoever said high resolutions dont work for games ??? The unreal engined games will run at 1920x1200 and look simply incredible. All other 3d games run at 1600x1200 and it just stretched the picture length ways a bit with no loss of qiality or blurriness. One problem though ,.... the Sony has an awful annoying fan inside of it. Considering that ive spent hundreds of pounds and invested a lot of time into making an almost silent all watercooled PC, im not in a position to ruin this by keeping the Sony P232 so its going back. Guess i'll have to carry on searching for the perfect lcd .... one things for sure, the Samsung is not it given that it has no dvi input.
jackal, - 21 Nov 2003

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i was torn between the sony premierpro 23", the samsung 241mp and the lg 2320a (23"). after reading your article, i'm leaning towards the lg 2320a. it has dvi-d and just about every other type of input going. it seems to encompass the sony and the samsung in one unit. i'm just hoping it drops in price a little after xmas.
zero, - 9 Dec 2003

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Even for PC, I recommend an Apple Cinema display. on my Parhelia the display is absolutely perfect, running at the native resolution of 1920x1200. you need a DVI-ADC adaptor, which adds to the price, but even then the combination is cheaper than the competition, silent, looks great, and has USB ports on it! One downside may be if it's your only display. For some reason the parhelia/cinemaHD combination won't display the BIOS screen on boot. Not a problem for me as I have a 15" trinitron as a secondary monitor.
peter, - 29 Dec 2003

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Wow! That does sound like a better option: the only downsides are the 1" smaller screen and lack of speakers & wall mount for TV use (or not?). But it's cheaper and has DVI... that's quite something.
Max, - 29 Dec 2003

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hehe.. another point in favour of the Apple screen is that Apple UK prices are very fair conversions from their US Dollar counterparts. no 'rip off Britain' here. PS.. friends of mine have no problem with the boot screen, perhaps it's my DVI-ADC converter. Mine isn't Apple brand.
Peter, - 30 Dec 2003

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There exists an earlier version of the samsung known as 240T which supports DVI as well as analogue inputs including 15pin, RCA and s-video. From what I understand it is the same panel as the 241MP so you should be able to tweak it as per the guide on this page. It also has the PIP and PBP features. But it has no built in tuner. =/
zac, - 12 Feb 2004

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I'm looking for a monitor that has HDTV inputs and I was planning on getting one of these but the lack of DVI inputs is troublesome. Is there any other monitor in this size range > 21" that has HDTV inputs and DVI?
Shane, - 28 Feb 2004

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You certianly can run DVI at 1920x1200. I have the Samsung 240T (which is the model before the 241). The 240T does have a DVI port. I have used both a Geforce4 and and ATI card to run the display at 1920x1200 over DVI. It was only supported on a couple of versions of the Nvidia drivers, but since Jan 2004, it has been in all of the drivers. These are super displays for both computers and HDTV.
MC, - 31 Mar 2004

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I have had my 241 for about a month now and am enjoying it. The TV and HDTV images are excellent. It didn't look very good at 1920x1200 with my outdated Vodoo 3000 video card so I bought a randeon 9000. I had to find a card that would work with win98 and AGP 2x. After installing the new drivers from the ATI website everything is working great.
Shane, - 31 Mar 2004

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I have a new computer with an Ati Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB, I believe it outputs at 20xx x something else huge. And in Display Properties --> Settings, the option is there for 1920x1200 as a second monitor, but it only goes up to 1280x1024 for the first monitor. If I was to buy this monitor, would it run through the VGA cable at this resolution? Please could somebody help me with this by e-mail burtontimj@btinternet.com. Help is greatly appreciated! Thanks, Tim
Tim Burton, - 10 Nov 2004

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It might only go up to 1280x1024 on the 1st monitor because Windows thinks the current monitor on that port can only up to that resolution. You can try changing the monitor type to see if that changes the maximum (could even install the 241MP driver in fact).
Max, - 10 Nov 2004

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Hi, I have recently bought a second hand Samsung SyncMaster 240T (the one before the 241). I just wondered if there was anyone out there who actually got it to work in 1920x1200 using a laptop or with a SKY Digital box? I've got a Dell Precision M60 which uses an NVIDIA Quadro FX Go700 graphics adapter. When the laptop is disconnected from the monitor it works at max resolution but when connected to the monitor it only works at 1600x1200. If you can help please mail me at ken.dourado(RemoveThisBit)@btinternet.com. Thank you!
Ken Dourado, - 10 Jan 2005

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Its probably not the best place to ask, but does anyone know if the LG 2320 23" LCD can accept non standard 1920x1200 DVI timings? The specification states that the maximum for DVI is 1600x1200.
steve, - 8 Mar 2005

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Ken, The monitor output of your Dell paltop is only 1600X1200 max, you won't get it any higher. it's the technical limit of the notebook.
Wim, - 26 Apr 2005

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I've just bought a SyncMaster 242MP and it has DVI input. I can't get it to work with my Matrox G550 using DVI. I do get a picture but there is so much noise it is unusable (and the screen flickers as it tries to recalibrate). VGA works. Considering buying this http://www.aopen.nl/Products/mb/i915gmm-hfs.htm motherboard. Anybody knows if the Intel graphics in the 915GM chipset will support 1920x1200 in DVI?
Peter, - 30 Jun 2005

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I've got a 242MP too and i'm using it with a GEForce 6600GT in DVI mode with 32Bit XP Prof. without problems(with the supplied Samsung Video Driver) - quality is subperb with HDTV Videos. Now I#m looking for a driver solution for 64Bit XP Prof. - driver from Samsung is currently not available.
JEMedia@t-online.de, - 10 Sep 2005

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*Jealous*
Max, - 10 Sep 2005

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I am trying to locate drivers for my SyncMaster 241MP. Do you know where to get them? bmcken@artcraftgages.com
Blair McKendrick, - 29 Sep 2005

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Hi need help please. Just bought: 242mp (canada) runing on asus v9520/TD (geforce fx 5200) on DVI cable The cards instructions say that it can run much larger resolutions than 1920 x 1200 but the only relolution that it will let me select is 1600 x 1200 or smaller. Ive tried everything from latest nvidea and samsung drivers uninstalling previous drivers and installing new. It still only allows me to runn 1600 x 1200. My hair is turning grey and i dont sleep anymore. (jk) I may upgrade my hole computer, graffix card etc, if i cant get it to run. I like to play the odd video game as well but mostly do photoshop editing. What should i do? Any help would be appreciated. Matthew
Matt, - 22 Jul 2006

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