What monitor would you get for ~$1200

Michael Solomon

Michael Solomon

Well-known member
If you had a $1200 budget, what monitor would you guys get? I'm looking for something relatively color accurate that I could get away with color grading on.
 
Do you already have an output device from someone like AJA or Blackmagic Design to drive the monitor, or will that be part of your $1200 budget?
 
The Dreamcolor expects RGB progressive source in order for its REC 709 color engine to kick in. Question for Michael S. is what is the primary deliverable for the content being color corrected and delivered? Broadcast? DVD via a distributor? Web, mobile, tablet?

Michael
 
Web & theaters (not national distribution, mostly festivals)

Most of the stuff I do are indie projects looking at the festival circuit. I'll occasionally do TV sizzles/pilots
 
I'm using my old Panasonic BT-LH2600W driven by a Matrox MXO2 LE via SDI, and a Panasonic Plasma for client preview. Nothing new or high tech, but it works.

Being able to read a waveform monitor and vector scope is half the battle.

All the Best!

Dave
 
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Michael Solomon said:
If you had a $1200 budget, what monitor would you guys get? I'm looking for something relatively color accurate that I could get away with color grading on.
Click to expand...

If you are going to color grade with it and view the final product on a TV (DVD or Blu-ray release), your monitor has to support the presentation standards (Rec 709 for HD video, Rec 601 for SD) for TV. Else, you don't get WYSIWYG and you risk your grade being wrong on an actual TV. OTOH, if you are doing this for web only, then you just need to support the computer working spaces.

This is important because there are few computer monitors that also support Rec 709 and 601. Eizo has a few, like the Eizo CG243W. [edit: the Eizo brochure describes which models suport Rec 709 (see "preset modes" near the bottom of the chart). Doesn't look like any of them support Rec 601 anymore.] The HP Dreamcolor monitor does (did?) too, but I don't know if it's still made [edit: looks like it's still in production; if it supports Rec 601 it may be the only computer monitor available that supports both Rec 709 and Rec 601]. There are perhaps others, but I don't know them.

For a web only monitor, the NEC SpectraView monitors such as the NEC P241W get excellent reviews.

A fair number of people grade on dumb old HD TVs over HDMI. The problem with this is that HD TVs vary all over the place -- they don't hit Rec 709 down the middle unless they are professionally calibrated. But this method can work too. Just sayin' that there are many paths to the waterfall...
 
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Well... I was considering getting a new TV so if it's possible to kill two birds with one stone that would be nice. I'm assuming it would need to be LED/LCD as you risk burn in doing anything computer on a plasma.

Are there particular TV models I should look at? Getting it professionally calibrated won't be an issue.

Is that eizo the cheapest I'm looking at computer monitor wise?
 
I realize getting it professionally calibrated won't be an issue, it's whether or not the monitor allows you enough control to be calibrated to the REC70 spec. I attended a SpectraCal workshop a few months back where there were "consumer" grade monitors as part of the hands-on portion of the class and we used video processors to get those even closer to REC709 as they had the controls within them to tweak: http://store.spectracal.com/consumer/video-processors/spectracal-eecolor-processor.html

And these devices speak directly to the calibration software and can use a variety of source test patterns from Joe Kane DVD to their own signal generators. Years ago, I recreated the test patterns of the Spyder TV calibration disc (DVD) and imported those into my NLE so that I could calibrate the whole video out chain.

Michael
 
Another thought is to pull a field monitor (if you use one) and use that for color grading. Even the small ones can be quite color accurate and have sufficient controls to allow full calibration. It might be difficult to see, and your clients won't be able to use it easily, but it works, and it avoids the expense of buying a separate solution. But you do have the hassle of moving that montitor from your NLE out to the field and back as you use it. It's all a trade off.

If using an HDTV, you do have to find one that has enough controls to allow a professional calibration to get close. Cheap TVs won't have this. I'd ask the person who's going to do the calibration for advice on which TVs will serve best. If you go that route, tell us what you find and how it works out for you. Others will be interested, no doubt.
 
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