Reference Monitor vs. general monitor & color calibration...

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Racker99

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My aplogies if this comes across as a dumb question to some of you, but while trying to buy a new Sony EX1, Lighting kit, etc. I'm trying to see if there are any ways that I can save a little money for the time being and get by in some areas.

One of those areas that I was wondering about is the output / reference monitor that I'm using with my Mac & FCP. At the moment I have a very nice NEC 20.1" monitor that supports 1650x1080 resolution. What I'm wondering however is if I should instead get a new monitor, like an NEC 24" that supports a full 1920x1200 so that I can watch any footage I capture from my EX1 at full resolution?

I also realize that what I'm mentioning are consumer monitors which do not have professional color calibration. Therefore what I was thinking about was getting something like one of these color calibration tools: PantonehueyPro MEU113

The online reviews I read mentioned using something like this for photographers who are editing still photos, but I didn't see much mention of someone using them for calibration when editing video.

The other alternative to this is to put down the cash and get some form of field monitor. I found one on B&H for around $750, but it was only 15" and only had a resolution of 1280x800 or something like that. Bigger ones or more portable ones that I had looked at started around 3K or 4K, and it's still not certain to me if they actually have a full 1920x1080 resolution or not.

So, can I get buy with a nice monitor & a USB color calibration tool, or do I absolutely need to have a reference monitor?
 
Monitor Question

Monitor Question

I am in a similar situation with an HVX200, Final cut studio 2, mac pro 2.0, and intensity pro card. I do not have a reference monitor yet but I am planning on buying a consumer LCD HD TV, sharp may be coming out with a 1080p 22 and 26 inch display(which is already available in Japan). I'm interested in knowing what other people think.
 
One correction about the calibration tool I'll have to purchase. Apparently the Pantone I was looking at didn't support an NTSC profile. However something called the Spider 3 Pro does, but its price is up close to $275 or so.

Still a lot less than a high def reference monitor.
 
Shane - Thanks very much for your pointer to the article you wrote. A very interesting read.

I went and checked a few other reviews and the Matrox site and had a few follow up questions.

1. Apple Cinema Display - Looking on apple's site the 23" version of their monitor was getting kind of bad reviews from folks - Do you believe I could use something like a high end NEC monitor? (So long as it accepts DVI input?)

2. 1080/24p - I found a review of the MXO on dv.com, one of the negatives it mentioned was not being able to review / preview 1080/24p footage. Have you had any experience with this? I would guess that if nothing else I could turn off the MXO and just output to the monitor directly to see the 24P, then turn on the MXO for color grading that footage.

3. Spyder / Color Calibration - At the end of your article you mentioned still needing to employ a color calibrator for the monitor. I wasn't quite clear why this was still the case given the blue bars you had mentioned as being a new cool feature earlier. I had the impression that if you had blue bars then you didn't have to do additional color calibrations.

Thanks,

~Jonathan
 
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