ProView PL576Ws 15.4″ Widescreen LCD Display
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Well, I picked up a ProView PL576Ws 15.4″ widescreen LCD display from Staples tonight. It is probably the cheapest HDTV monitors avaialable at the sub $300 USD level. I brought it home, plagged it in and noticed that while it supports 1280×800 and a few “standard” resolutions, it does not support native 720p (1280×720) HD resolution. I am somewhat dissapointed in this. For a monitor that can certainly display resolution-wise 1280×720, it has no native support for this resolution dispite it being billed as a “widescreen” monitor (it’s “Ws” in the model name denotes it’s widescreen capabilities).
My intent was (is?) to use this as a secondary monitor in my HTPC system which will run MythTV on SuSE. The real monitor is a home theater projector which supports native 720p resolution. This monitor would be used to configure and use the machine during average usage when using the projector would not be suitable or unwanted (mostly to save bulb life). The problem is that since this monitor does not do native 720p, I cannot simply switch between the two displays and have the same, unchanged settings on my MythTV HTPC system.
I think I’ll be taking this monitor back regardless since it had three dead pixels but weather or not I exchange or get a refund is still to be determined…
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If only it did 720p….
Anyone know of an LCD monitor in the $200 - $300 that is widescreen and does 720p? This is the only one that I have seen that comes close.
If I could solve the problem with both displays being different yet displaying the same thing, I’d have a better idea as to what I would do. One other thing that bugs me is that it only has RGB in, no DVI or HDMI. Again, a shortcoming for a monitor that boasts “widescreen” capabilities. Right now, I’m undecided but will have to decide soon as I only have a few days to return it. Besides the lack of 720p support, this is a great little monitor.
Hm… decisions, decisions….
You can use a software named ‘powerstrip’ to support any resolution you need. also some users find that using powerstrip make image better than native supported resolutions.
how do you like the screen otherwise? the color, contrast, etc.? I will use it to make a home-made LCD projector, believe or not.
good luck!
Comment by X.y. Liu — 4/11/2005 @ 10:09 am
Hi X.y. Liu,
Yes, I have Powerstrip and it works great. I have native 720p output from the card which works great for my projector. It’s the monitor that does not support 720p. I did end up taking it back for that very reason (return-pl576ws-new-wrt54g). I need an LCD monitor that supports 720p native. However, for your project, This should be a perfect monitor. It will display 1280×800 prefectly and other than having slightly larger top and bottom masking areas if you have a 1280×720 image area, it will provide a really good picture IMO. For he price, it’s an increadible monitor for a home theater. Let me know how your project goes - I’m interested.
Comment by marc — 4/11/2005 @ 10:29 am
okay so I’ve been eyeballing this monitor for a while now, (for as long as I’ve been thinking of buying a mac mini) he problem was that the 2 staples stores in town had it on display, but never had it connected to a PC to show the picture quality. so when i bougyt my mac mini, i just bought a CRT monitor, until i could either find out how well the ProView PL576Ws 15.4″ Widescreen LCD worked, or find another LCD that i liked. well today i went back to staples to chance it again, and it was finally turned on and pluged into a PC… well I noticed a hell of a ghosting in the image, almost an inch to the right of all the images on the screen. (was the XP login screen) but then looked at all the other monitors and saw ghosting on them to. so i was bascially wondering (after a long story) was wheather this monitor actually had a very good image (picture) and whether or not you’d recomend me buying it for use on my home computer, i do allot of art/design and need a fairly crisp image.
Comment by artoo — 4/11/2005 @ 10:00 pm
Hi artoo,
I really liked the monitor and thought it had a clean, sharp image. I would have like to have kept mine if only it had been able to do 720p. Other than that, I think it’s a fine monitor. The ghosting was due to their video display distribution system for sure. I saw no such behaviour in the monitor I had…
Comment by marc — 4/11/2005 @ 10:05 pm
sweet deal, thanks. this crt is bigger than my car, so needless to say i’d like to chuck it for more room. as well as i’m noticing the limited refresh on it. it’s a “e-machines” display, was only $99 so i guess i kinnda got what i paid for. so i believe I’ll go and buy me this monitor on payday. thanks again.
Comment by artoo — 4/11/2005 @ 10:27 pm
Proview 15″ Wide TFT is an amazingly good monitor.
I’m using it on my Legacy Mac OS 9.1 and it works on my Hitachi MX as well !
I am able to use it with the Mac/IBM adapter with switches 2,4,6,7 set to on when I choose 1024 X 768, 60 Hz with the ProView 15″ wide TFT monitor. The trouble is that I only get 256 colors ! When I choose other modes the thousands of colors appear but so does a window that says “Mode not supported” If only that window would go away images and background look good. Thanks Liu for the tip on powerstrip that should help out my Hitachi MX.
Is there an equivalent software for Mac OS 9.1 ?
– Hank
Comment by Hank — 4/13/2005 @ 8:12 pm
I too have the ProView PL576Ws. And, like everyone else, I bought it at Staples. I’m using it with an older Mac and a Radeon 7000 video card, so it displays thousands of colors at the native 1280×800. It looks fantastic and is great for watching widescreen DVDs. Overall, I’m very happy with this monitor, but I did return the first one that I bought because of a bad pixel. My new one has no pixel problems.
One slight complaint… The vertical position setting seems to revert to 50 (out of 100) every time that I restart the computer. For some reason at this default setting, the very top of the screen image is cut off. It’s perfect when I adjust the V position down to 32 or 33. Again, though, it reverts to 50 when I restart. Anyone have any ideas on this?
Comment by Mike — 4/16/2005 @ 7:37 pm
I got a IX Twin Turbo 128 MB PCI, VGA Card for $29 from OHS resale.headgap.c.com - It gave me thousands of colors at 1024 X 768 resolution and it works at 800 X 600 with millions of colors.
Now the monitor plugs in to the VGA output directly.
I am really happy with this solution.
— Hank
Comment by Hank — 5/1/2005 @ 5:36 pm
help - i’ve got screen proview 15′ flet & when i put on an old game (dune 2000)i’ve got
a message saying mode not support H:31.4 KHZ V:75.5 HZ
help me
Comment by yon — 8/2/2005 @ 9:35 am
Well, you probably need to set up your game to display in a different resolution and/or refresh rate. I have no idea how to do that - I rarely, if ever, play computer games and I’m totaly unfamiliar with Doon 2000. Good luck!
Comment by marc — 8/2/2005 @ 9:45 am
I read the comments about the mac mini from artoo in April. I was wondering how this monitor works with the mac mini. I have an old G4 tower that I want to replace with a mac mini. But I don’t have a lot of money and would love to be able to get a monitor for this price. What do you think?
Comment by Caroline — 8/31/2005 @ 2:23 pm
Like most here I also purchased this monitor for my mac mini. I travel often, and I wanted something that had the native wide screen that my mini had. It does the job, though I find the standard mac fonts a bit soft on the display. DVD’s look good and games aren’t bad. I really wanted something about 17 inches and thought with the myriad of 17 inch widescreen notebooks out there, someone must be making a 17 widescreen display, but no. Why dell, toshiba, or sony don’t repurpose some of their 1680×1050 or 1920×1200 laptop displays is beyond me. Anyway, Westinghouse has just come out with a budget 17 inch widescreen, that as of today you can get for $199 at circuit city. This monitor is a little more appropriate for the gamers out there with a 15ms response time and one would assume less ghosting on dvd’s. I am going to take the plunge as I don’t need a tv tuner and use external speakers (and I have 15pin adapter for my xbox). For the quality minded, hands down the winner is the Sony MFM-HT75W. This combination TV/PC monitor takes all inputs, has PIP, supports HD, and has a stunning picture. It also is $570 mail order, so it is not a budget buy.
Here are the specs on the westinghouse:
Westinghouse - 17″ Widescreen Flat-Panel TFT-LCD Monitor LCM-17w7
1280 x 768 resolution; DVI-D inputs
10-15 ms response time
400 cd/m² brightness
600:1 contrast ratio
Comment by Tim — 11/6/2005 @ 1:29 pm
Here’s the deal, this monitor will never do 1280×720 AND fill the whole screen AND look good doing it. Your best bet is to tell the monitor to allow black bars on the top and bottom (30pixels wide each). I don’t know of any video drivers that will do this, look for an option in the display’s menu that says “Do not scale image” or “Image Zoom” and disable it. This will make it so that any resolutions below 1280×800 will take up only part of the screen. For example, 640×480 will show your desktop on the monitor with black empty space all around it.
Comment by Jay — 2/28/2006 @ 2:47 pm
Well, this monitor actually did not accept true 720p at all - just a message saying that it was an unsupported resolution. But did accept 1280×800.
Comment by marc — 2/28/2006 @ 4:47 pm
Proview is trash. I bought a 17 in at staples and they deny ever selling them. proview advised it is out of warranty even though I bought it only 5 months ago. The screen moves up and down periodically. The company is a thief and they make trash and staples is a thief as well. I will never buy proview or anything at staples again.
Comment by daniel hall — 3/21/2007 @ 10:14 am
Daniel, Did you keep your receipt? That would be the proof you need to say to Staples that they did sell the item… Hope you can get your money back somehow.
Comment by marc — 3/21/2007 @ 10:24 am
I am able to use it with the Mac/IBM adapter with switches 2,4,6,7 set to on when I choose 1024 X 768, 60 Hz with the ProView 15″ wide TFT monitor. The trouble is that I only get 256 colors ! When I choose other modes the thousands of colors appear but so does a window that says “Mode not supported” If only that window would go away images and background look good. Thanks Liu for the tip on powerstrip that should help out my Hitachi MX.
Comment by Juno888 — 6/5/2007 @ 9:38 pm