DVI - VGA (Is there any difference?)
 

Wondering if upgrading to DVI input will do anything for my displays...

I have 1 20inch and 1 24inch...

yes.....

Hell yeah it will, quite impressive difference as well. I used identical displays (two dell 19" LCD screens) to test this a while back and it was at least a 25-30% difference in quality from the VGA to DVI input.

how can you measure something subjective as quality in terms of percentages? :error

I am noticing on the 24 that it is kinda... I dunno.. Analogish? Not crisp... Not like my 20... So I am basically wondering if the crispness is the difference I will see.. Also brightness is not as good as the 20...

HUGE DIFFERENCE!
- Flat Panel (TFT) monitors are digital, eg. accepting digital signals natively. This way if you send them a 1280x1024 signal, each pixel from the graphic card goes to the appropriate pixel on the display, no loss. It fits the display perfectly

VGA out 1280x1024 > DVI panel (1280x1024)

If you use analog signal on a digital display the following happens:

VGA card out (ANALOG CONVERSION, ENCODING) --->> (DIGITAL PANEL, ANALOG DECODING) DISPLAY

You have a process or encoding and decoding the signal. Good TFT monitors do this automatically but still there is like 30% difference is quality of the signal.

Using digital you avoid EMI interference, conversion errors etc...

Huge differenc

My monitor (Sony SDM-HS74P LCD) has two input jacks, one DVI and the other VGA. My graphics card also has two output jacks, one DVI the other VGA. So I hooked them both up to this monitor and pressed the button to switch back and forth and saw no difference at all.

That is a 17inch monitor...

I am hearing from people with 20+ that there is a difference.

19 some think so..

17 or less, there is no difference...

It's not that hard really? it?s just a representation of what you will see visually. There are no ?hard numbers? you can really give. You can get into the tech as to WHY there is a visual difference but still it?s just easier to give my opinion on it and how you can test to see for yourself. When you've been dealing with video for as long as I have it's really not that hard to gauge what the difference is w/what your eyes can visually see. To test, the only thing you need to do is to get two identical monitors going on, same computer (same video card ideally w/two inputs, one VGA, other DVI). Hook up them side by side and setup your video card to play video streams simultaneously on both screens. Have a look. You'll clearly see a mass difference in quality. Sure, you can't really get a 100% accurate representation of what it's going to be in % or anything like that, but there is a clear difference (and quite a large one at that) between VGA and DVI. I would say at *least* a 25% change in quality. The larger the screens you test it with the easier you will tell there is a difference in quality.

For reference the DVD's I used were Hero and The Fifth Element :thumbsup Use just about any film with bright vibrant colors and you will instantly see a difference with a 19" LCD monitor and above. Also? the difference between DVI and VGA is huge, whereas the HDMI interface I can?t tell the difference at all with 19? LCD?s when using DVI. I?m guessing you?ll see a difference with monitors that are at least 21? and w/super high quality video, I?m just not up to that point yet so I can?t really test it accurately.