TV for HD Monitor

G

ggrantly

Veteran
Hello Listers,

This topic has been kicked around a little bit, but could use more input.

I can't afford a high end HD monitor, but I need something to improve my edit-viewing system. I intend to buy a better quality 32-40" TV and drive it with a Matrox MX02-MAX product. This gizmo has some color correction features and other encoding benefits also. Matrox recommends a 1080 TV for this and there aren't too many choices in 32" and 1080, so I'll go a little bigger if need be.. I am Mac-FCP based and after talking to Matrox, they did not recommend using an Apple Cinema Display.

I am thinking about this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/670797-REG/Sony_KDL32EX400_KDL_32EX400_32_BRAVIA_1080p.html

Does anyone have a fav TV in this size range?

Any other comments about this in general would be appreciated.

TIA
Grant
 
When it comes to Consumer TVs, I think any higher end one will not be too bad. For a few years, I used a Vizio 37" 720p model and it worked great as a preview monitor. I think a high end monitor is nice, but if you think about it, how many people will be watching your video on a high end monitor? Personally, if I am doing a project for DVD or BR, I want it to look good on a regular monitor that many people have in their homes. I think if you're going consumer, Sony is good, Samsung is good and i would even say Vizio is pretty decent. Check Walmart's prices too because they usually have some of the lowest prices around. Your link to the Sony TV at B&H, it's $529, Walmart has it for $494. But.... They both have free shipping, with Walmart, you'll most likely have to pay the tax and recycle fee. But always good to check. There are a few other shops around online that have good reviews (and some I have personally purchased from) that you can get them substantially cheaper. I just ordered 3x 37" 1080p Samsungs last night for $579ea. out the door, and it gives you a bit more square footage on the screen.
 
ggrantly...wierd...i won that EXACT Sony Bravia in a raffle at my company summer party just last week...while i havent hooked it up to my PC (if i do, my wife will get angry, cuz she knows shell never get it back).....the picture quality is great, and you can tweek it quite heavily. the "Bravia engine" is very true to what you'd expect from reading what the manual says that it does. quite a nice tv at a great price...my price was $fr.ee, so i may be biased :-)
 
Kit Hannah said:
I want it to look good on a regular monitor that many people have in their homes.
Click to expand...

Yeah not quite. The issue you face is if your monitor is not calibrated correctly it will not look good on any tv, and thats why theres REC.709 as a reference for HDTV.

For the sake of argument and to put it absolutely on one end of the scale, lets say your gamma is set too high on the monitor your using as reference, and in this case the bravia - lets say its set to vivid. So you colour grade, and then any tv with this setting i.e. vivid on bravia or similar on any other hdtv, which is quite common. Everything will be way too hot. These TV's have very wide settings and because of the example I just gave are totally unreliable and unsuitable for grading.
 
That wasnt entirely the point I was making, just an example. Any other setting on the bravia is just about as bad. The best you could do would be to use a Calman to calibrate, but not sure how close you can get to calibrated with the limited options to adjust the image.
 
i get it Noel. the guy is shopping for a tv, and i happen to have the same one...i was just making conversation.
 
Noel Evans said:
That wasnt entirely the point I was making, just an example. Any other setting on the bravia is just about as bad. The best you could do would be to use a Calman to calibrate, but not sure how close you can get to calibrated with the limited options to adjust the image.
Click to expand...

Noel,

Are you familiar with the Matrox MX02 product line. Besides realtime hardware acceleration for viewing and rendering, they have a calibration feature that has a good reputation on standard TVs. I am not kidding myself that this is as good for grading as a true reference monitor, but at the price point, TV + Matrox, it will improve my edit suite significantly.

Grant
 
Noel Evans said:
Yeah not quite. The issue you face is if your monitor is not calibrated correctly it will not look good on any tv, and thats why theres REC.709 as a reference for HDTV.

For the sake of argument and to put it absolutely on one end of the scale, lets say your gamma is set too high on the monitor your using as reference, and in this case the bravia - lets say its set to vivid. So you colour grade, and then any tv with this setting i.e. vivid on bravia or similar on any other hdtv, which is quite common. Everything will be way too hot. These TV's have very wide settings and because of the example I just gave are totally unreliable and unsuitable for grading.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but not everyone has 2-3k to fork out for a color calibrated production monitor. You can still yeild decent results with a consumer grade model and there are ways to calibrate them to looks decent. I am all for pro gear, but many people simply don't have the budget to get top of the line, so getting the best for their money and working with what they've got will have to do. The better consumer models like sony, samsung and vizio are better color wise in the beginning. I think for this type of work, using anything other than standard on the TV and "calibrating" from there would be a no brainer.
 
Kit Hannah said:
You can still yeild decent results with a consumer grade model and there are ways to calibrate them to looks decent. I am all for pro gear, but many people simply don't have the budget to get top of the line, so getting the best for their money and working with what they've got will have to do.
Click to expand...

Agreed. And in the interests of that for OP I would recommend http://shopper.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/panasonic-viera-tc-42px14/4014-6482_9-33668281.html

This is only a 720P unit, though I think it is going to be much closer to a true representation than the Bravia. And please dont get me wrong either, the tv I choose to watch TV on is a Bravia, I like them a lot. But I wouldnt put it in my edit suite.
 
Thanks Noel,

Matrox recommends a 1080 monitor or TV. In the 1080 32" models, there is the Sony previously mentioned, Samsung, Panny, LG, and Vizio. All seem to have merit and are more or less readily available.

Grant
 
Not sure why Matrox would try and talk you out of the Apple monitor as they are ALMOST as good as it gets... I love mine.
 
hi all,

This is a hot topic for me.. and I have a few questions burning in my mind..

I've been sticking to CRT as they don't change their contrast when you move your head up or down.. that was a major issue for me..
I was working on documentry film that I had to do some grading for still-bursts on my computer which I used a samsund 17" CRT set to sRGB
mode.. and the other grading for whole video footage on Apple color using a small sony broadcast lcd monitor (it doesn't change contrast
when you move your head)..
of course the sony broadcast monitor's colors where very accurate.. the surprise was that when I combined with the footage I graded on my
samsung CRT the colors looked the same on the sony broadcast monitor.. there was a very minor differences in contrast which I had to
adjust..
now.. my CRT is old and not presenting all the pixels from the hd footage.. plus its very small.. and last its not presenting enough
contrast range to match with other monitors.. as its very narrow.. no deep blacks.. highlights loose details when luma reaching 95% etc..
so, there is much guess work and much looking at scopes..

OK.. I'm thinking cheap..and I don't want contrast changes when I move my head.. coz this is frustrating when are adjusting your colors..
so, I'm thinking of LED backlit LCD display.. as the contrast changes will be minimal (is this true or I'm just dreaming?)
this was my candidate:
http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/...l/LS22CLUSFY/ZA/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail

questions:
1. about the LED backlight as I asked before.. will be it worth what I expect?
2. I have watched the Matrox video about calibrating the monitor.. this Color Bars based monitor calibration can be done anyway without the matrox mxo2.. using nvidia panel etc? what about tools for black magic? for my candidate aren't the monitor controls sufficient for the task? you can have the blue only option from your editing app.. just putting an effect to the color bars to eliminate the two other channels..
3. is this color bars based calibration enough? why there is probes on the wild?
4. how can you match your monitor to a specific gamut? say if the target is REC 709 or film?
5. will the covering gamut and bit depth of the monitor affect how do see the colors for the output? how far?
6. what does the contrast ratio of the monitor (ie 1000:1) means or affect how I see the colors for grading?
7. by using the best calibration tools like probes+software.. do I really get my monitor matching broadcast monitors? or this is just a metaphor..? if, then how far I'm?

thanks to all in advance..
 
I'm looking for a 32-37" TV as monitor too. I came up in broadcast where scopes and expensive Ikegami monitors ruled. Twelve years ago for my first system I bought a very good Sony CRT and calibration gear. Now I don't think I'll sweat it, though if I was still doing more in the way of broadcast programming I'd probably feel different. As someone pointed out, who watches your work on a reference monitor? How many people did you know over the years who had their TVs set up right anyway? I also think many of the newer sets are miles ahead of where they used to be and are more than capable for monitoring use. So as long as I can get a blue-only output from my system in order to set the screen, I'll be satisfied.
 
ggrantly said:
Noel,

Are you familiar with the Matrox MX02 product line. Besides realtime hardware acceleration for viewing and rendering, they have a calibration feature that has a good reputation on standard TVs. I am not kidding myself that this is as good for grading as a true reference monitor, but at the price point, TV + Matrox, it will improve my edit suite significantly.

Grant
Click to expand...

Grant, how are you enjoying the MX02? I have had one for a while and using it with a consumer monitor. Are you capturing with the Matrox or just monitoring HDV with it?
 
Hello Listers,

My new MX02 Mini w/Max was a little late arriving. I plan to do an install in the next day or so. The Mini doesn't have HD-SDI so I think it will be pretty much for editing. The Max option is supposed to really accelerate render. I'll report in ASAP.

Grant
 
Hello Listers,

Sorry to be tardy on the update. As mentioned previously, I purchased a Vizio edge lit 32" LCD TV for a monitor and am driving it with a Matrox Mini.

I installed the Mini expansion card, hooked up the box, installed the software, fired it up with no issues on a Mac Pro. The Matrox documentation makes this out to be a little harder than it really is on the software setup. Most of the software setup ends up being defaults, but you end up wondering what all the settings are for. The important thing is to match your footage frame rates in your editor and everything else was a snap. The monitor calibration feature seemed to work pretty well, though I don't have a huge frame of reference on this. To my eye, it looks great. I did test the monitor by connecting a cam direct and playing clips with different scene file saturations. I then looked at the same clips in FCP with the Matrox driving the monitor. The clips looked identical and outstanding either way. In FCP, the Mini HDMI output mirrors whatever you have playing in the viewer or canvas window. Very cool to see this in realtime on large screen output. No problem breaking the audio out to external interface and monitors.

I did call Matrox twice with typical noob dumb questions and their tech support was readily available, not rushed, and good quality. They even offered to setup an appointment for a followup......I was shocked. And they spoke English! Matrox gets my vote on customer service alone!!!

So overall, this was a success for me. I can't say this is as good as a true pro monitor, but for a reasonable expense, it seems to work pretty well. The monitor could be upgraded as needed. My opinion is that if I need better monitoring for color correction, I'll probably send it to a specialist.

And if I want, the Mini will capture cam output direct to any number of codecs via HDMI or component input. And the Max version has accelerated rendering out to H264. Haven't done that yet.

Matrox does recommend a 1080 monitor, so 32" is about the minimum TV size. If you don't do the max option, you could do the whole package for about $1100 including cables.

Grant
 
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