Amiga and BENQ BL912 / BL702A Monitors
 

I am pondering buy a new monitor to use with an Amiga @ 15khz mode - a Benq BL912 or BL702A which from what I understand, both are compatible with the Amiga using a cheap RGB to VGA adapter. I have a few questions maybe someone can clear a few things for me. Thanks!

- Do these monitors let you force the picture to display 4:3 with borders, rather than a 5:4 (which would be slightly stretched)
- How good is the picture quality/scrolling for normal games? (I am not interested in funky Workbench screenmodes)
- Which of these two is better for Amiga use (other than the obvious fact that one of them is larger)
- Do these monitors support 50hz using DVI @30khz to get perfect scrolling with an Indivision MK2?

Thanks =)

Good question. I would like to hear more about this too. I currently have a cheap lcd TV, but those square models are all quite old and have mostly bad picture quality.

The 2 monitors I mentioned are pretty recent though :)

I just ordered the BL912 the other day on a whim. Ordered an adapter as well. We'll see how it performs.

I'm currently using an old Dell monitor that I "nicked" from work (had been laying in a closet for three years..). Using it with my indivision mk2.

Excellent questions - I wonder how they compare to a real CRT?

Aspect ratio is pretty important for me, I just can't stand stretched out images! :D

I guess it's a tft display. Ips would be nice. But tft can be decent. Important to me are viewing angles and deep blacks. And minimal backlight bleeding.

Amiga and BENQ BL912 / BL702A Monitors
 

Lol in and old tn your unlikely to get any of that.

I've had the BL702A for a while. All you get is a single VGA input, no DVI or fancy HDMI...
For the money, it's a nice solution. But if you wanna be a bit picky, it's a little annoying how the image stretches differently in different screen modes so if you adjust the monitor to nicely fill your screen in WB, once you start a game the monitor switches to 15kHz and the screen scaling changes.
The monitor only remembers one setting though, so AFAIK there's no way to get a filled screen in every screen mode without manual adjustments every time...

Edit:
Also, what's wrong with 5:4. That IS Amigas (PAL) native aspect ratio.. not 4:3.. ;-)

I think OP mixed them around. At least I did when I read his post! :laughing

I don't remember having a 5:4 monitor when I had an Amiga back in the day :P

Well as long as the image stretches whilst keeping a correct aspect ratio I am fine - I don't mind if it doesn't fill the complete display.

I own BL702A.

- Do these monitors let you force the picture to display 4:3 with borders, rather than a 5:4 (which would be slightly stretched)
=> they stretch picture automatically (as most of LCDs these days), but I have no problem with it. Honestly if I someone would not tell me its 5:4 I did not notice it

- How good is the picture quality/scrolling for normal games? (I am not interested in funky Workbench screenmodes)
=> perfect for scrolling, nice colors, ... just lovely picture

- Which of these two is better for Amiga use (other than the obvious fact that one of them is larger)
=> you wont make mistake buying any of these, depends if you like smaller and lighter or bigger

- Do these monitors support 50hz using DVI @30khz to get perfect scrolling with an Indivision MK2?
=> both monitors of course support frequency over 30 kHz, so Indivision is 100% compatible with DVI (question is why to use Indivision when RGB is perfectly shown? ;o)

Personally I am thinking to buy one more BL702A and also BL912 to replace all my RGB monitors.

Fantastic reply =) thanks jack-3d

Just to be sure, is it possible to select "aspect" ratio so original 4:3 is retained ?

Also, did you have to play around with settings for optimum display? Like phase settings?

Recently I discovered a problem with my current LCD, which I didnt mentioned before: slow resolution switching. When it switches from 320x256 to 640x512, there is about 3 seconds lag when screen is black. In some games, especially latest 21st Century ones, it typically causes you to loose a life during the start of multiball session.

Please, perform a test with Slamtilt on BenQ. Run a table, switch it to Hires mode and then to Lores mode again (use keys Help and Del). How quick the change is?

A PAL Amiga outputs a 5:4 image. So, everthing's fine here. :)

Everybody keeps saying a Pal Amiga outputs 5:4. How does this work exactly? 1084s monitors were 4:3..

There were actually quite a few versions of the 1084 sold worldwide. The one Im familiar with (since I'm in Sweden / PAL territory) is the one that can display 640x512 interlaced (640x256 non laced)
(640×512 = 5:4 aspect ratio)
Those in NTSC land were actually 640x400 and that isn't 4:3 either. (640×480 is 4:3).
Also.. CRTs don't have fixed pixels in the sense an LCD has. They have a vertical mask and then you have a beam that draws the picture by sweeping horizontally over the screen (horizontal sweep frequency, remember? ).

You are correct. PAL Amigas have indeed a 4:3 image ratio.
It is only the resolution ratio which is 5:4 (320/256 = 5/4).

A monitor/TV's ratio has nothing to do with resolution and everything to do with physical dimensions.

So in the end, a 5:4 ratio screen will still look slightly stretched? Would a circle look like an ellipse on 5:4?

The difference should be perceptible on circles but probably not by much
In practice, these two ratios are close enough that this should be perfectly acceptable