Posterization on LCD Monitor

[TCO]

I recently purchased a Asus VH242H LCD monitor. It has been working fine so far, except for one annoyance. On videos or games with gradients on a black background (words that pop out, fades, etc.) I notice clearly defined borders and blockiness around the gradient (I think that it's called posterization). It does not smoothly transition into the black background and is almost as though the monitor can not display enough colors to fully display the gradient (it looks kind of 16-bit colorish).

Are there any settings changes that I can make to fix this issue? Here is a screenshot of the type of image that makes my monitor mess up. On my monitor (when viewed at full resolution), the lighter parts of the gradient have a clearly defined and annoying border.

Examples:
This is a PrtScn of the image being displayed:


Here are four pictures of the monitor displaying the above screenshot:








I posted this on another forum and somebody said that it was an inherent flaw with TN panel technology. I don't remember this being an issue on my old TN panel until the very end of its life though. Could it be the video card? Are there any other reasonably priced screens ($200 or less) that don't exhibit this issue?

 

[Kage]

My Samsung monitor has the same problem with gradients.
It is basically the panel. Depending on the contrast, etc, you'll notice it a lot more or less.
But it's also the monitors quality in general when it comes to the electronics in up converting/down converting a signal, or even it's native res handling.

Is it plugged into DVI/VGA?

Is it configured? Try using your video card's drivers built in monitor tests to get everything set up so it may become less noticeable.

 

[TCO]

My Samsung monitor has the same problem with gradients.
It is basically the panel. Depending on the contrast, etc, you'll notice it a lot more or less.
But it's also the monitors quality in general when it comes to the electronics in up converting/down converting a signal, or even it's native res handling.

Is it plugged into DVI/VGA?

Is it configured? Try using your video card's drivers built in monitor tests to get everything set up so it may become less noticeable.

It is an Asus VH242H using DVI. This model is cheap, but rated well.

I haven't configured anything with the video card (nor the monitor itself). I have an ATI model; what settings should I look at in Catalyst? What should I do with the contrast?

 

[Kage]

You'll find strangely, some monitor's even digital can look better using VGA; not that you should switch, as DVI looks a lot sharper, but when using VGA, I don't notice the same smoothing issues on my monitor.

Hmm, it should do yes. There should be a configurer.

If not, there are always programs like this:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Video-Tweak/Monitor-Calibration-Wizard.shtml

If you have the contrast set to low for example; you may notice colour banding a lot more because blacks won't be black, so you'll see black to grey banding a lot easier.