Sony 25" PVM or 24" Flanders Scientific for Workflow and More?

[Desmond Ford]

This is more of a workflow question so I put it here instead of the hardware section...

I'm in the market to purchase a proper color reference monitor (within my budget of 6-7K). I want something versatile and mobile, because I still work on set, but also something to grade on at home, with clients present. Are there any issues regarding workflow at which either of these monitors excel or fall short?

The 25"PVM ($5,500) is very barebones, there isn't much to it, it's heavy, but it's OLED. I really like the image it produces. The 24" Flanders ($5,000) is very light weight, feature rich with loads of buttons, bells and whistles, but it's LCD. Still, I like the image it produces as well. I also hear great things about their support.

In regard to color grading, I've heard the OLED is not quite there yet, even though it promises to be the future. Then again, I've heard a lot of complaints against LCD by some veteran DITs I know...

Lastly, I've heard a lot of good things about the Plasma 50" Panasonic BTU 30/300 series used for color grading, which only cost $3,500. And I happen to love the Flanders Scientific 21" Monitor, for $2,500 and it only weights 8lbs. So for the price of a 25" PVM or 24" FSi, I could get a 50" Panasonic for color grading at home and a 21" FSi for on set color mgmt...

Which option would you chose and why?

dezzy

 

[Dane Brehm]

PVM 2541 but you'll need to get it probed or calibrated since the black levels will be lower then a LCD.

goodluck,

 

[Johnny Friday]

I have the Flanders 2461W and a Panasonic 50" Plasma....I'm completely FRUSTRATED with Panasonic and the problematic plasmas that they have produced...known problems that once your warranty is up, they leave you high and dry with their defective product....So, as you have written, customer service ways heavy on our hardware decisions these days...I'm DONE with panasonic from here on out. Flanders customer service is excellent and all you have to do is check these boards. I really like the OLED monitors, but i also believe that you can not go wrong with many of the professional LCD's. Either way, i'd recommend a few screens when grading...I use my 50" Plasma, Dreamcolor, Dell & Flanders all when grading so i can see how the image differs on each one and i shoot for the middle....That said, i'm NO COLORIST....but a color hobyist and likely my advise is way off target.

 

[Paul Harding]

I am also looking for a new grading monitor, and have been searching forums for a couple weeks of and on I was going to get the PVM.

But I did read that the blacks are actually too black. At the moment it's the Flanders 2461W, but still looking around.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

I am also looking for a new grading monitor, and have been searching forums for a couple weeks of and on I was going to get the PVM.

But I did read that the blacks are actually too black.

"Blacks too black..." ?

Do you have a link to that read?

 

[Martin Landsburg]

I would like to hear some input on the Flanders vs. the Sony OLED. Also heard of a flicker problem and green cast with the PVM. Green cast: Something to do with the 'general observer standard' set in the early 1900's as to how the average person perceives color. Basically, it bothers 50% of the people to adjust to watching an OLED over CRT or LCD.
Still, I have heard numerous post-professionals tell me that sub 30K there is nothing that can touch the Sony OLED's for image quality.

 

[Tom.Wong]

flicker problem has been solved, for a good while now. newest firmware for the panel gets rid of it completely. it's funny too, the reason there was flicker was because Sony took the feedback on what their next panel should be way too literally. everybody and their mothers said that they wanted a latest gen panel that was just like their dying crt's if not better. and people have long forgotten that those crt displays for color HAD flicker. and sony made is so to try to appease all the the people that were asking for a crt quality standard again. but now nobody is used to it anymore and find it a problem.

OLED still has it's issues, mainly in life cycle, viewing angle, price, and quality control. basically as I've been told, the smaller the oled panel, the less hours it has before it isn't accurate anymore or dies. the larger the panel the longer it lasts. the 25 inch sony oled should give you about 40 thousand hours or so. not so bad if you're not using it everyday all day. by the end of those couple years you'll probably be moving onto something better.

viewing angle is an issue, that's where you get the color casts. you gotta be looking dead on into it. plus inherent nature of oled right now is that it has to be glossy. really bad in any daylight situation. gotta have control of your ambient lighting.

oled is produced in too small amounts, and only a certain amount of it is up to par. the main difference between the pvm series and the bvm series is mainly the quality control. that extra money you are paying for the bvm series isn't just for the extra boards. they take extra time and care to make sure that the panel is near perfect out of the box and all it needs is a standard calibration. i've seen some pvm monitors with some issues that can't be fixed. some of them being really soft is one of them.

however if you get a good one it's really good. I'm not putting down the pvm, in fact I own one and love it. I'm fortunate enough to have gotten a good one and it brings the wow factor every time.


flanders makes a great panel and is a major contender against any lcd reference monitor. right up there with the older sony lcd bvm series, and every other lcd panel out there used for critical grading. only thing i feel that's truly leaps and bounds better lcd wise is the dolby panel. which i think is the best lcd monitor you can get for color.

but i'm probably not going away from oled as long as they keep improving it. the pvm is a nice stop gap due to its price point. it's priced competively vs any other 24-25 inch lcd monitor used for color. around 5 thousand dollars, which is what a flanders costs and any monitor in that class. hell even 24 inch panasonic monitors cost that much. and they are rugged and great for set but nowhere near accurate enough for color work.

but being able to see true blacks is a huge thing for me. there's no more second guessing on how true your contrast is no matter how you try to convince your client that your black levels are really intense looking at your waveform. and the note about blacks being "too black" the black level can be very intense on it so you actually have to calibrate it back up to get some of your shadow detail back or it can mud up.

the other argument is that, very little will ever show off how good your footage looks other than what you are seeing on the oled. once it hits any other kind of monitor, computer or otherwise, it feels so much more lackluster and different from what you've seen in the suite. but as always i like to stand by, start at the best possible and let it trickle down from there. TV's and monitors are only getting better. retina displays, high res computer monitors, led, plasma, and oled tvs, and really great new projectors are just scratching the surface of how good they can be. so i think a lot can and will carry over.

so i'm a huge supporter for oled, despite its flaws. i always want to see images the best they can possibly look. it's a image quality people just aren't used to. we've spent so many years looking at shit black levels and lost nuances in color and saturation with inferior panels, we've forgetten how good it can look so it looks like it's too much for some people. it's just a new technology to embrace to bring the standard higher again imho. and it really also shows how bad a image can look as well, so i really don't think it gives a impression of it artifically makes the image look better than it should either.

 

[Harcharan Singh]

Grading monitor

Grading monitor

You can look at TVLOGIC XVM series reference series monitor...currently I am using Flanders 2461W and quite happy with the results..
Harcharan