Hercules Video - Prophetview 920 Pro DVI
A Gamer's Flat Panel And More

Jason R. Gibson
January 15th, 2004

Hot Hardware's Test System Mid-Range Pentium 4 Performance

Performance Blurry, or Crisp and Clean?

At the Prophetview's native resolution of 1280x1024, 2D desktop applications looked gorgeous, displaying crisp and clean text, and lines and colors with very little to no geometric distortion.  To put the display to the test, we loaded up Display Mate, from Display Mate Corp., to aid us in spotting what our eyes could not differentiate due to the general background "noise" of web pages, desktop wallpaper, etc.

After progressing through Display Mate's test patterns in varying screen resolutions, are eyes were happiest when the Prophetview was sized to its native resolution of 1280x1024 with a screen Brightness of 40 and the Contrast Ratio set to 30.  At these settings, the displayed image was incredibly sharp with no washing of colors or bleeding around the outer edges of the display, due to excessive backlight luminosity. As to be expected with an LCD, the lower resolutions were still usable, but as the numbers dropped, the amount of distortion and blurring became much more apparent. 

With the Prophetview now configured for optimal performance, we moved onto some multimedia applications to see how it could handle non-static images.  This area is what interested us the most, because this is typically where the vast majority LCDs run into problems, usually displaying annoying streaks, blurring or ghosting.  Some mid to low-end LCDs simply cannot handle the frame rates of DVDs or fast paced action games because their pixel response times are way too slow.

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Subsequently, after running through a few hours of our favourite DVD and Game titles, we can honestly say the Prophetview had little problem with any of the content we tossed at it.  All of the DVDs that we watched where crisp and clean with strong vibrant colors, while games displayed smooth fluid action with very few instances of blurring.  In this writer's opinion, this display is an excellent choice for movie enthusiasts or gamers alike.  The only down side that we see is the Prophetview's maximum resolution of 1280x1024.  While this is more then adequate for the average user, there are some who may find this a limiting factor due to their needs of higher resolutions (i.e.. 1600x1200) for some multimedia applications. 

Overall, we are impressed with the Hercules Prophetview 920 Pro DVI.  Coming in at just under $550 USD, this display falls somewhere in the middle of the LCD market price range.  Mechanically, the Prophetview does its job, but offers just the basics.  Although we would have liked to have seen a few extra adjustable features (horizontal swivel, adjustable height, etc.) tacked into the final retail package, it fares well when compared to the rest of the market.  Nevertheless, performance is where the display truly shines.  The addition of the new 20ms response time panel has given the revamped 920 Pro a newly found competitive edge, versus the 25ms response times of most LCDs at this price point.  There are some new LCDs available from Dell and Viewsonic that offer 16ms response times, but at the moment, only larger, much more expensive models are available.  Offering frames rates up to 100 frames per second, with minimal ghosting effects, the Prophetview is a very good solution for those who are in search of the clean, crisp details of a DVI driven LCD. 

Based in its build quality, excellent performance, good looks and a competitive price point, we are awarding the Hercules Prophetview 920 Pro DVI a rating of 8.5 on the Heat Meter.

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