# Samsung 226BW LCD w/ Samsung MagicTune Softs



## s1rrah (May 22, 2007)

*Samsung MagicTune, anyone?*

First off, let me just say that I love the Samsung 226BW; this is a rather exceptional statement coming from a very recent CRT convert, not to mention one from the visual design field:

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*MagicTune: Released with 225BW but not 226BW?*

Prior to being the proud and quite pleased owner of a Samsung 226BW LCD, I had tried it's predecessor, the 225BW; even though I took the 225BW back after a couple days, mostly due to reading some reviews of the 226 model, I still was upset to find that the 226BW LCD did not ship with Samsung's MagicTune software, as the 225BW did.

Maybe I got a bum package or something and everyone else's 226BW shipped with MagicTune, but, for whatever reason, my particular monitor did not.

Anyway, ...

Since I was totally impressed with the MagicTune calibration routine and since I hate using the OSD buttons on the monitor to make changes to my display, and since Magic Tune is freely available for download from Samsung's site, I decided to install it and try it with my 226BW anyway.

What I've found, after two months or so with this Samsung 226BW LCD  is that the MagicTune software has become indispensable insofar as a daily tool, especially it's color calibration routine which allows you to save user profiles and load them automatically at startup; furthermore, if I ever need to fine tune the monitor's settings (brightness/contrast/gamma), I don't have to lean forward and actually use the monitors OSD buttons (I've in fact, *never* used the button interface on the monitor).

Anyway, on the chance that all 226BW's shipped without MagicTune, I thought I'd write a short post on my own experiences with it while also highly recommending it to anyone who hasn't installed it.


*MagicTune Download*

The main MagicTune download page, at Samsung's website is here: MagicTune Download 

There's quite a few different versions of MagicTune available on the main download page, and it seems some are indicated to only be for certain Samsung monitors; since I'm using XP Home and since, technically, the 226BW is not listed as a supported monitor, I simply decided to go with the 'Premium' version which has no specific model or models associated with it:

MagicTune Premium for XP _(direct download)_: XP Version 


*The Calibration Function*

What I've found most invaluable, and especially since coming from a decade of using high end 21"+ trinitrons (visual design professional) has been the color calibration routine built into Magic Tune's "Color" tab.

Here's the screen in Magic Tune from which you launch the calibration routine:

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This feature alone made it possible for me to get rid of most of the main problem I was having with the step up from CRT's to LCD's: the much discussed tendency of colors to look 'washed out,' or otherwise, just not as saturated as one would find in a decent Trinitron CRT, especially greys; this phenomenon is most evident when viewing large areas of continuous tone colors such as those found in windows interface objects, etc. 

The grays in Windows XP's default interface start bar, for instance, compared to a CRT and when using an LCD, just look a bit lighter and, well, 'washed out;' I think that's a good term for it.

I found that using the calibration routine that comes with Magic Tune greatly reduced this tendency in my own Samsung 226BW.

Unlike the interface suggests, and especially if your not familiar with other, very similar calibration routines, it's not really that simple of a process.

I did some notes on the main calibration page which might help explain how to go through the calibration process.

Click the smaller image below for details:


*Calibration Test Screen Explained*

The calibration test itself, unless you've used something like Adobe Photoshops color calibration routines, is not really that intuitive. Once you understand the concept, it's simple, but for any n00bs out there, I thought it might be good to have a visual breakdown:

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You'll have to view the linked test screen image at full resolution (1680x1050) for things to be rightly legible; but it should be clear enough.

Also, there's a help file accessible from that same test screen, in the upper right.

Repeat the indicated process for each of the 5 or so calibration test steps and be sure to save your profile when complete; later on, and as ambient light conditions change, you might try re calibrating and saving another profile as the LCD output can be perceived somewhat differently when going from a daylight lit room to one completely dark in the evening.

Anyway, as I've said before ... I found this feature to quite dramatically reduce the somewhat 'washed out' aspects of the typical consumer LCD versus the typical and decent CRT (Sony Trinitron etc.).

The fact that I even noticed this discrepancy between CRT's and LCD's is almost definitely due to the fact that I've worked with CRT's in a field that demands accurate color reproduction (screen-to-print, etc.) and so maybe the majority of you never noticed.

But for those of you, like me, who were initially bugged by the difference in saturation evident when using consumer LCD's ... the above explained calibration routine might just help you acclimate. 

I know it did me.


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Load MagicTune at Windows Start*

As a final note regarding calibration and if you want your last saved profile to load at windows start, make sure you've selected "Enable Task Tray Menu" from the "Option" section of MagicTune's main interface.

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MagicTune: Other features*

Otherwise, the other main benefit of using MagicTune is that I don't have to lean forward to make the expected and regular changes to my 226BW's brightness and contrast levels.

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*Brightness/Contrast*
_Depending on my room ambient light and whether I'm watching a DVD or working on a text application ... or otherwise, I've found I need to adjust general brightness and contrast quite often. 

When the MagicTune application is loaded in the system tray, I can simply open it and change the settings with sliders._






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Following are those features which are available but for which I've never found any use for (MagicBright, etc.).

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*Samsung MagicColor*
_I've never found any reason to use this; just seems a bit like fluff-ware to me:_






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Samsung MagicBright*
_Again, as with MagicColor, above, I've never touched this; again, seems like more fluff-ware:
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*Sharpness Control*
_I played with this initially, but have found little use for it, other than the default settings because text and otherwise has always been displayed very nice and sharp. The difference in DVD's and otherwise is nominal at best:_






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*Tone Control*
_As with most monitors, you can adjust the 'tone' of the overall output; I lean towards warm, myself:_






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*Gamma Control*
_This is another available and somewhat nit-picky item which I've never used much. Mostly, I think, due to the main color calibration routine handling this for me._






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*The Point?*

The main point is that for me personally, and even though (according to Samsung's site) MagicTune is not developed for the 226BW, it still has made a big difference in my personal appreciation of the 226BW LCD.

I mean specifically and most importantly the color calibration routine.

That said, I don't guarantee that you will have similar results using this software with your own 226BW, nor do I guarantee that it won't melt your screen or otherwise cause damage. So, use at your own risk.

But for me personally, and since I used the 225BW for a day or two and since that monitor shipped with a MagicTune CD ... I think it's safe to say that using MagicTune with the 226BW is most likely okay.

Otherwise ... and since I can't sleep ... I thought I'd pass on some of the love.


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## ADV4NCED (May 22, 2007)

Thanks for your post!

I'm hopefully receiving my 226BW today so I too will test MagicTune and hopefully get good results!

Just curios, I expect you've heard that the 226BW can come in different panel, i.e C, A or S panel.

AFAIK the S panel is the best with C and A being average. What panel did you get?


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## Chewy (May 22, 2007)

Thanks man, Im not al that great at calibrating my monitor myself... well I dont really know what Im doing besides brighness/contrast.

 I'll have a look at this after my day of work!


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## Ripper3 (May 22, 2007)

My calibration goes as far as pressing the AUTO button on my TFT panel, and adjusting brightness and contrast so my eyes don't hurt, but th panel isn't too dark.
I'll have to try out proper calibration at some point.

Samsng may say it doesn't support MagicTune on this panel or that (heck, mine isn't officially supported in some versions... I have to pretend it's the 910 or 912N models for it to work), but Samsung wouldn't drop support for any of their panels just like that.
Glad you like your TFT, and there's another CRT to TFT convert heh
See? They're not THAT bad!


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## s1rrah (May 22, 2007)

ADV4NCED said:


> Thanks for your post!
> 
> I'm hopefully receiving my 226BW today so I too will test MagicTune and hopefully get good results!
> 
> ...



I got one of the "S" panels ...

Just picked it up randomly from my local circuit city ... what are the reported and supposed benefits of the "S" panel?


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## Chewy (May 22, 2007)

S panel is made by samsung.. the A or whatever is made by the largest lcd manufacturer in the world... "supposedly" the S panel is a little better... miner is S panel and its perfect! no dead pixels no bad backlight bleeding... I just wished I could adjust it a little better and now I can


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## bruins004 (May 22, 2007)

Nice review.
There is only one downside to all 22" monitors and that is all of them are TN panels.


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## s1rrah (May 23, 2007)

Chewy said:


> S panel is made by samsung.. the A or whatever is made by the largest lcd manufacturer in the world... "supposedly" the S panel is a little better... miner is S panel and its perfect! no dead pixels no bad backlight bleeding... I just wished I could adjust it a little better and now I can



Well, technically, you can do anything with the monitor menu buttons that you can with MagicTune (except the calibration routine) ...

But alone and not even considering the calibration routine ... just being able to do it all with a mouse is so so much better.

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One thing: sometimes when starting your computer and as XP/system loads, you may get a message from MagicTune saying it's incompatible with your system; if this happens just reboot and it should be cleared up.

It's only happened to me two times ...

Glad to help, otherwise.


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## Chewy (May 23, 2007)

have you used the calibration routine? if so how did you find it. I never hit it yet just in case lol. 

I never really fully explored the menu button options, it seemed like to much (that I didnt unberstand/read about yet). I find magic tune lays everything out better.


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## s1rrah (May 23, 2007)

Chewy said:


> have you used the calibration routine? if so how did you find it. I never hit it yet just in case lol.
> 
> I never really fully explored the menu button options, it seemed like to much (that I didnt unberstand/read about yet). I find magic tune lays everything out better.



Read through my original post more carefully; there's a section dealing specifically with the Calibration routine.

It's under the "Color" tab ...


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## Chewy (May 23, 2007)

was that there b4? lol I totally missed it!


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## s1rrah (May 23, 2007)

Just got off the phone with Samsung monitor tech and he says MagicTune is perfectly compatible with the 226BW and that it was withheld by Samsung for marketing reasons only.

His words: "Hell, we use it here with our 226BW's every day!"

Anyway ... just thought I'd add that.

Also interesting, the software was originally designed for a Samsung monitor which had *no* external menu buttons on the monitor at all ...


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## Ripper3 (May 23, 2007)

s1rrah said:


> Also interesting, the software was originally designed for a Samsung monitor which had *no* external menu buttons on the monitor at all ...



Makes sense. How else would you be able to adjust it?
Still, without an OSD and buttons, I'd get annoyed...
I'm glad they simply made it for all of their monitors.


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## Chewy (May 23, 2007)

when I go to turn off my comp I get an error saying cant save easytune data to memory.. Im using vista humm it dont matter much to me though but has anyone experienced this/fixed it?


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## s1rrah (May 24, 2007)

Chewy said:


> when I go to turn off my comp I get an error saying cant save easytune data to memory.. Im using vista humm it dont matter much to me though but has anyone experienced this/fixed it?



Were you sure to download the version of MagicTune they have available specifically for *Vista*?

EDIT: The main download page is here http://www.samsung.com/Products/Monitors/magictune/magictune_05s.htm.

They have two versions for Vista ...


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## s1rrah (May 24, 2007)

Ripper3 said:


> Makes sense. How else would you be able to adjust it?
> Still, without an OSD and buttons, I'd get annoyed...
> I'm glad they simply made it for all of their monitors.



I'm the exact opposite ... I'd be annoyed if I ever had to lean forward and actually *use* the OSD and buttons ...

If I can do everything via software, that means I can stay leaned back, fat and happy in my seat.


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## Wile E (May 24, 2007)

Damn, it doesn't support my 941bw. I'm dying to find a good calibration proggy for windows. I run both a Mac G5 and my pc on this monitor. OS X has a calibrator built in, an the screen looks beautiful, but I can't seem to get it just right in windows.


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## s1rrah (May 24, 2007)

Wile E said:


> Damn, it doesn't support my 941bw. I'm dying to find a good calibration proggy for windows. I run both a Mac G5 and my pc on this monitor. OS X has a calibrator built in, an the screen looks beautiful, but I can't seem to get it just right in windows.



Have you downloaded and tried it with your 941bw?


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## s1rrah (May 24, 2007)

Wile E said:


> Damn, it doesn't support my 941bw. I'm dying to find a good calibration proggy for windows. I run both a Mac G5 and my pc on this monitor. OS X has a calibrator built in, an the screen looks beautiful, but I can't seem to get it just right in windows.



Many of Samsung's monitors are not listed in the compatibility list ... but according to the Samsung guy ... it should work with all of them anyway.

Just a thought ...


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## Wile E (May 24, 2007)

s1rrah said:


> Have you downloaded and tried it with your 941bw?


Yeah, I actually tried it. I got the not compatible error, rebooted a few times, and it still didn't work.


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## s1rrah (May 24, 2007)

Wile E said:


> Yeah, I actually tried it. I got the not compatible error, rebooted a few times, and it still didn't work.



Maybe you could try and get Samsung tech guys on the phone; I only get that same error when I run MSCONFIG and change something in my startup files ... once I'm through using MSCONFIG things go back to normal.

According to the Samsung tech guy, even though it's not listed as compatible, it should still work ... which leads me to believe that the "Not compatible" message has something to do with some other system variable other than a particular monitor model.

I'll do some searching around to see if there's a fix online ...


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## s1rrah (May 24, 2007)

Wile E said:


> Yeah, I actually tried it. I got the not compatible error, rebooted a few times, and it still didn't work.



Here's a page I found at Samsung's website regarding this problem:

http://www.samsung.com/Products/Monitors/magictune/Help01_ts01.htm

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## Wile E (May 24, 2007)

s1rrah said:


> Here's a page I found at Samsung's website regarding this problem:
> 
> http://www.samsung.com/Products/Monitors/magictune/Help01_ts01.htm
> 
> ...


Ahhhhh, that explains it. I have the 2900XT. Too new for it. Thanx for your help, btw.


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## Chewy (May 24, 2007)

yeah my minor prob, I did dl the vista 32bit drivers and the premium version of magic tune.. ohwell I'll get it sorted out (even if its not lol), I'll see if the calibrate thing works for me but doubt I have time to actually do it.

 yeah it works but I dont really have time to calibrate :/ afk

 Edit- heres a quick SS of what it says when I go to shut down, telll me if you think you have a solution plz  thanks.


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