Anyone familiar with the HP DreamColor LP2480zx

K

Ken1212

Well-known member
Someone locally is selling a a 2480zx for $200, is this a good buy or do you recommend something different for editing and rec 709. Would I be better off spending the extra and going with the newer model the z24x for $500? I read that the 2480zx only gives you the rec 709 option if you feed it an RGB 10 bit signal, I currently use the GTX 660TI in my pc, would I be able to take advantage of the 10 bit? I also own a Matrox MXO2 which can do 10 bit. Thanks
 
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that's a deal - if it's agood monitor, notes below;
- they are ageing and you will need to see if it can still be callibrated, and how good/bad the lineararity is
- i use a 2480zx, it callibrates within the bounds of lcd display tech, blacks are a bit higher than prefered, but that's pretty much the same with all lcd's.
- it's fed via displayport from an Aja lut box that holds the callibration lut, the Aja in turn is fed SDI from a router, SDI from the machines feed the router, you could bypass the router step if you have a only single machine and monitor in play
- it displays a 10 bit signal cleanly

if it's a good screen, it's likely better than the second gen Dreamcolor, but i have not tested hte newer one, only read the forums, and the new one gets little lurve on the interwebnet
 
unfortunatly it's not my area of expertise, don't know much of anything about the pro-sumer monitor market

the DreamColor was the least expensive mon i've bought, and it was i think $1,400 new.. I use Sony LMD25w mon's on my Avid systems, PanaPlasma & the 2480zx in the gradeing room

I'm looking at the new Sony55" OLED to replace the PanaPlasma in the next 6 months, a wee bit more than your budget has room for tho, but it's the first thing out there that ticks the box's for me.. large enough to see NR /Sharpening issues, and callibratable

Closest thing seems to be 2016 LG branded consumer OLED's, some folks are saying it's getting close to workable, and way more cost effecient than the Sony, but way less cost effecient than a QC rejection due to inaccurate monitoring
 
I have 2 LP2480zx's in front of me.
Only thing you'll need is the official calibration puck.
You can order it from B&H. That way you hardware calibrate it with HP's software and then there's no need for any LUT in the signal path.
Only way I know of to be 100% sure any banding you see comes from the grade and is not a display artifact. :)
 
I have 4 dreamcolors at my studio. I use three at my editing bay and have one when shooting on location as a production monitor. When calibrated correctly these monitors are excellent. The one thing is that they tend to warmup the room significantly because of the internal fans emitting a lot of heat. I recommend get some cheap usb fans to blow behind the monitors to help distribute the heat faster and so it won't be in front of your face. But highly recommend these monitors over my former Apple Cinema Display monitors because of the colors it shows is phenomenal. Try to use it for nature wildlife pictures or pixar animation movies and you can really see the difference.
 
The older model is better than the new models and it is well documented that hollywood studios used these monitors extensively after Sony quit making CRT monitors. Check out youtube.

https://youtu.be/yD4aa3AMG-s
 
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I bought the original model refurbed directly from HP; it died (seemingly power supply related, no lights) two months after warranty was up. HP said they don't service monitors after the warranty period. Couldn't find anyone else who would attempt to service. Pretty expensive brick.
 
Had a 2480 and it was superb until it would no longer calibrate.

Also the calibration software no longer supports macOS if that's important to you at some stage.

$200 is a really good price if it's working order and you don't mind paying through the nose for their calibrator and use a PC.

The internal calibration only works with true Progressive sources so feeding the monitor from your Matrox will result in the monitor running in its full gamut mode I.e. not rec709. The matrox outputs PsF which is interlace.
 
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Nirv said:
Had a 2480 and it was superb until it would no longer calibrate.

Also the calibration software no longer supports macOS if that's important to you at some stage.

$200 is a really good price if it's working order and you don't mind paying through the nose for their calibrator and use a PC.

The internal calibration only works with true Progressive sources so feeding the monitor from your Matrox will result in the monitor running in its full gamut mode I.e. not rec709. The matrox outputs PsF which is interlace.
Click to expand...

You can calibrate using the hp puck calibrating tool with mac yosemite. I haven't tried it with El Capitan because I don't like that OS. Also you must only use DVI connections to calibrate...HDMI and Displayport doesn't work when calibrating. After calibrating then you can use the other ports.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Deskto...ibration-not-working-on-Yosemite/td-p/4979389
 
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