in search of a best value big screen display (playback) monitor

[demoboy]

Hello everyone.

I have been doing semi-pro color correction on my Benq M2700HD 27 inch monitor for a couple years now, but lately I've been using it as a rental view monitor with my Blackmagic camera. So far my clients love it. It was originally mounted on my wall, and it's just to cumbersome to take it off and on, so I'm looking for a new replacement monitor. As you can see from the image below it was nice and flush in the middle. Anybody have recommendations from 27inch up to 40inch that gives decent results? I'm so tempted to go the consumer route and buy a huge screen to impress my clients that come into the studio to view projects or dailies. Any advice I'd truly appreciate it.

 

[Michael Carter]

I use 2 screens on my Mac Pro, and I have a Matrox MX02 (HDMI out that doesn't get quicktimed or monitor profiled). There are several affordable options from Blackmagic, etc for HDMI, pricier as you get into SDI.

I use whatever on-camera monitor I have on a magic arm via a splitter, and adjust it to color bars... that's my critical-color decisions monitor, but only 5" or 7".

I also have a 22" Samsung TV wall-mounted over my monitors, via HDMI. I use the controls in it to get it as close to the bar-corrected monitor as possible (I also send it bars and use a blue wratten filter over my eye - a trick the home theater users do for bars without blue-only, which works really well - you just don't have as much control with a TV). So I get a color-accurate screen and also a "how would this look broadcast" view.

My wall mount is a swing-arm, and the visa mount lifts off with a t-handle and I can put it on a light stand, so the 22" TV goes with me on set often, in an iMac case (which cost more than the damn TV).

A little ghetto, but clients prefer seeing the larger image (my clients don't make many color calls), it's great for checking critical things like masks in AE, and it's handy as hell on-set.

Matrox's built-in "TV calibration" didn't work for me. Supposedly you need a true 1:1 pixel mapping TV for it to work. It made the TV waaaaay too dark.