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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

HP DreamColor LP2480zx for post?

Jean Déraps

Jean Déraps

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I saw this earlier today in the write up from WWDC. It's definitely for high-end applications. From what I understand, you also need a special card from ATI. So, that might knock out the MAC as a user because the card has to be able to handle 30-bit color.
 
I saw this as well..

I can't seem to figure out whether it has HD-SDI though. It doesn't anywhere on the specs, but then they say here - http://www.justechn.com/2008/06/10/hp-dreamcolor-lp2480zx-lcd-display - that they are using it as a HD-SDI broadcast monitor..

Also, it looks like it does have a proprietary port, but it also has DVI, analog etc.. although surely you'd want HD-SDI for color critical work ?
 
Actually, it's nor proprietary, it's just Displayport. No mention of a proprietary card ? Surely that would render it pretty useless if it replaces the video card.
 
Appears to max out at HDMI and Component, no HD-SDI.

Still, HDMI could make it useful for Macs with a Multibridge and RED output.
 
I've been watching this one with great anticipation.

Key points:

1. you can set its refresh rate to 48hz, 50hz or 60hz. That means you can display 24fps material with NO TEARING.

2. 10bit with appropriate video card and driver (I'm assuming ATI for now as their cards have had everything ready for 10bit for a while)

3. "good enough" color balance. The fact that you can set white point via LED balance sounds very nice - eg you can go warm without introducing a lot of banding.

Everyone who tells you that you *need* a super-expensive HD-SDI monitor for your Red footage is speaking from a very strange place IMHO.

If you do a big "pro" job, chances are you will have one final color correct where you can fix everything before output - so if your monitor is a tad red, or green, or whatever, you're okay.

At the company I work at, we primarily use old LaCie CRTs and consumer Dell and Apple monitors ALL WITHOUT ANY HARDWARE CALIBRATION WHATSOEVER to make graphics / title sequences for relatively large movies - from Crash to Hannah Montana to Borat... theatrical trailers for things like Harold & Kumar, Ocean's 13, Fracture, War and Zodiac, broadcast re-brands for BBC America, Food Network, title sequences and promos for Nip / Tuck, The Shield, LA Ink, etc.

All of those had a final color correct stage in the pipeline after us but quite frankly I don't think they changed much. Anyway, it doesn't cost to do a quick CC pass out-of-house - and at the end of the process it's probably a good idea, even if you are working on an expensive setup at home. It's like listening to your sound mix on a different set of speakers with a bunch of different detail-minded people before you master it. Just a good idea.

For things like music videos I often skip the final color correct. EG we used an Apple LCD an a consumer Plasma for Ringo (which got shown on the Today Show for a whole week and looked good).

The biggest pain with LCDs has been that tearing effect - makes it difficult to evaluate true 24fps motion in After Effects, etc.

So yes, I am very excited about the DreamColor. Wish it were cheaper but it seems very good.

Apparently there are more in the range coming, so I am tempted to wait and see if I can make do with something "lower-end" - and cheaper, of course. It all depends on that elusive 48hz refresh rate option - crucial, in my opinion!

Anyone else have any bets on whether that (or 120hz option) will become a more common feature on monitors (it's already in consumer HDTVs and it would make watching DVDs, Blu Ray etc better too)? Or if anyone knows another way I can cheaply monitor 24fps material in HD across After Effects, Avid, etc without tearing...?

For the moment the DreamColor seems like the winner. Wish they made a $1000 version without the fancy LED backlight though. Just the 10-bitness and the 48hz refresh rate would be good enough I think...

Anyone have a price on the Eizo HD2442W? Seems to have that 48hz feature too...

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Seth Larney said:
The spec for Dual link DVI also supports 30-bit.. Not sure which cards have it implemented though.
Click to expand...

Wow, does anyone know if the Geforce 8600M in the MBP does? :shifty: wishful thinking...

Also it'd be interesting to know if the Matrox MXO / MXO2 products can output 10bit into this thing.
 
One of the great things about displayport is you can run a 30" monitor from a single connection instead of dual dvi, and like hdmi 1.3 it supports up to 16bit per channel color.

this monitor also supports loading LUTs, so in theory you can use 3rd party monitor calibration systems if needed.
 
Anyone know if it's possible to use this Monitor to its full potential using Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse? Are there any other options on the Mac?
 
The biggest pain with LCDs has been that tearing effect - makes it difficult to evaluate true 24fps motion in After Effects, etc.
Click to expand...
That sounds like a software bug/shortcoming to me. If you don't program the software carefully the graphics can have tearing effects (proper buffering would avoid that).

2- What about driving an external monitor via HD-SDI?

(Sorry, I haven't tried this with AE.)

3- Then again, LCDs don't show motion "perfectly".

First you'd want to drive it at 48hz and not 60hz. (Otherwise some frames last for 3/60s and others 2/60s.)

And after that the LCD panel will have some blurriness on motion. To my eyes, black frame insertion does kind of fix that but then it introduces flicker on bright areas of highlights. So that doesn't look right either. BFI also makes the blacks slightly worse. Though IMO those effects are subtle.


Wish they made a $1000 version without the fancy LED backlight though.
Click to expand...
If they had done that, then the monitor wouldn't be capable of producing a fairly wide gamut.

Everyone who tells you that you *need* a super-expensive HD-SDI monitor for your Red footage is speaking from a very strange place IMHO.
Click to expand...
1- If you need to master onto a VTR, then I'd highly lean towards monitoring HD-SDI right off the deck. You want to monitor right off the deck, not off your NLE because there might be errors you can only see off the HD-SDI output on the deck. e.g. if you have the confidence heads turned on and the master is being recorded with dropouts, you'll see that on the HD-SDI output off the deck but not your NLE's output. (And this does happen.)

If you're not mastering onto a VTR then I don't think you need this.

Monitoring HD-SDI output via a HD-SDI-> DVI/HDMI converter seems sketchy to me, though I've not really examined any of those converters. (Except for the Decklink, which AFAIK won't deinterlace.)

2- Of the HD-SDI monitors out there: Why not look at the 24" JVC, the eCinema FX and Pro lines. *I haven't really used them myself, but it seems like what some people are looking for. The more expensive monitors aren't all that much better (e.g. same or worse contrast ratio) until you get all the way up to the eCinema DPX.

And for SD just get a good broadcast CRT. (At the same price point, LCDs are terrible at SD.)

3- You could make the argument that based on your needs, your monitor doesn't need to be that critical. Clearly the tearing you're seeing is wrong... but perhaps your needs just aren't that critical?
 
On the other hand, if your material goes out to film or digital projection (with p3 gamut) then the wide gamut of the HP dreamcolor can be useful if your whole pipeline supports it.
*I've not done such work myself so I wouldn't know how it might play out in practice.
 
I wish it had HD-SDI but for the price I don't think you can complain at it's specs. It's way cheaper than a Cinemage or it's bretheren and I think for many of us something like this might do the trick.
 
Is this the same kind of LED back lighting found in the Samsung 81 LCD series TVs that boast 500000:1 CR? I've always wondered when we'll see that kind of contrast ratio in monitors..its truly amazing what those Samsung's looks like playing Pirates of the Caribbean at 120hz...
 
Thanks for the detailed response, GlennChan!

GlennChan said:
> The biggest pain with LCDs has been that tearing effect - makes it difficult
> to evaluate true 24fps motion in After Effects, etc.

That sounds like a software bug/shortcoming to me. If you don't program the software carefully the graphics can have tearing effects (proper buffering would avoid that).
Click to expand...

Tearing gappens in Quicktime, After Effects, etc, on Mac and PC, with Dell and Apple LCDs. Vsync forced to ON wherever possible.

Does not happen with CRTs, of course. Set to 72hz and it works well for me...

I am familiar with the usual double / triple-buffering / vsync software issue (I used to write computer games when I was a kid) - and know that it usually shows up on CRTs - no such luck here.

GlennChan said:
2- What about driving an external monitor via HD-SDI?

(Sorry, I haven't tried this with AE.)
Click to expand...

I think that would work, and it's probably what I'm going to use. But HD-SDI card plus HD-SDI monitor, are a tad expensive, and you can't go beyond 1080p without spending a lot of money.

Another alternative would be consumer HDTVs which look to be supporting 24p in a better way, with 120hz options and all... if you can defeat all of the stupid motion smoothing stuff - I hear you can on some.

But finally I'd rather that my computer monitors just didn't have the tearing problem. Hence interest in Dreamcolor (and the one Eizo monitor that supports 48hz too).

GlennChan said:
3- Then again, LCDs don't show motion "perfectly".

First you'd want to drive it at 48hz and not 60hz. (Otherwise some frames last for 3/60s and others 2/60s.)
Click to expand...

That's exactly what the Dreamcolor does. It can be driven at 48hz, 50hz or 59.94 / 60hz.

GlennChan said:
And after that the LCD panel will have some blurriness on motion. To my eyes, black frame insertion does kind of fix that but then it introduces flicker on bright areas of highlights. So that doesn't look right either. BFI also makes the blacks slightly worse. Though IMO those effects are subtle.
Click to expand...

Yes. Another problem on cheap panels is overdrive (where for quick changes of from, say, white to med grey, the pixels actually dip to black for a second). The Dell 2407 does that, for example. This was a real pain when I was art directing the Hannah Montana 3D movie main titles = when you're tweaking motion blur you don't want to be worrying about a weird black trail...

GlennChan said:
>>Wish they made a $1000 version without the fancy LED backlight though.

If they had done that, then the monitor wouldn't be capable of producing a fairly wide gamut.
Click to expand...

Yes. I know. That's okay if they make it cost under $1000 instead of over $3000. If they could give me normal gamut but decent color tracking, no tearing and less banding for under $1000, I'd buy it right now.

GlennChan said:
1- If you need to master onto a VTR, then I'd highly lean towards monitoring HD-SDI right off the deck. You want to monitor right off the deck, not off your NLE because there might be errors you can only see off the HD-SDI output on the deck. e.g. if you have the confidence heads turned on and the master is being recorded with dropouts, you'll see that on the HD-SDI output off the deck but not your NLE's output. (And this does happen.)

If you're not mastering onto a VTR then I don't think you need this.
Click to expand...

Agree with both statements... when I am renting a HDCAM or D-5 deck then yes, I do monitor HD-SDI off the deck.

GlennChan said:
Monitoring HD-SDI output via a HD-SDI-> DVI/HDMI converter seems sketchy to me, though I've not really examined any of those converters. (Except for the Decklink, which AFAIK won't deinterlace.)
Click to expand...

Hmm, might fix the tearing, actually. Need to try that... interesting!

GlennChan said:
2- Of the HD-SDI monitors out there: Why not look at the 24" JVC, the eCinema FX and Pro lines.
Click to expand...

'Cause they're already damn expensive.

GlennChan said:
*I haven't really used them myself, but it seems like what some people are looking for. The more expensive monitors aren't all that much better (e.g. same or worse contrast ratio) until you get all the way up to the eCinema DPX.
Click to expand...

Agree again!

GlennChan said:
And for SD just get a good broadcast CRT. (At the same price point, LCDs are terrible at SD.)
Click to expand...

Yes, I used to use that often at work. Got by without it for home projects and things like Ringo music video etc. But then I know how to calibrate a consumer TV to be in the same ballpark.

I'm looking at buying something for my home use though and at this point I'd rather not put $500 into a bulky CRT - rather put that money and space towards a good HD monitor. Also, I really don't like CRT flicker when working late into the night...

GlennChan said:
3- You could make the argument that based on your needs, your monitor doesn't need to be that critical. Clearly the tearing you're seeing is wrong... but perhaps your needs just aren't that critical?
Click to expand...

Yes, they are not that critical. Just fix the tearing problem and color is probably good enough...

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
'Cause they're already damn expensive.
Click to expand...
B&H shows the JVC for $3.5k... that's about the same price as the Dreamcolor display? (You'll need a HD-SDI card, and the Dreamcolor display might need a HDSDI adapter if you need to deal with HDSDI.)

I have no idea if the JVC panel can be driven at 24/48hz.

Tearing gappens in Quicktime, After Effects, etc, on Mac and PC, with Dell and Apple LCDs.
Click to expand...
Interesting...
 
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