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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 :)

Best LCD grading monitor on the planet

Emery Wells

Emery Wells

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If money is no object, what do you think is the best grading monitor available today? No CRTs.

Cinetal?
E-Cinema?

Let's hear it.
 
Right now... only the eCinema DPX does real black (>15,000:1). Everything else is usually a 1000:1 contrast ratio. Flaring is very low on LCDs (high on CRTs).

The DPX hands down. It's a dramatic difference in black reproduction. Other than that, they all have imperfect viewing angle, some motion issues (which black frame insertion and scanning backlights don't solve 100%), etc.

*I've only seen the DPX and not used it. I'm not sure if it's shipping right now.
 
but you still see only 8 bit colors ...
 
I had a client in LA (Keith Collea) that had a DPX and instead he used a FW900 second hand for 299$ and monitor calibration with my custom LUT's for film out and REC709 and he was amazed...

Keith's IMDB http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0007205/ we did the "The Gene Generation" film out grade...

Now he is a happy RED owner...
 
but you still see only 8 bit colors ...
Click to expand...
The DPX should be a 10-bit panel. But I don't think you can quite simplify bit depth into a single number as dithering makes a difference and dithering techniques differ in quality.

2- Some manufacturers claim that their panel is "12-bit" because the backlight is driven at 12 bits... this is NOT the figure you are looking for. You're mostly bottlenecked by the bit depth of the panel.
 
With a 3000Cd brightness and 0,015Cd black level, is useless for Film grading that we need 0,001Cd black level and 47Cd white level... I don't know if it will hold for REC709 that is 100Cd... I don't know how it can scale... Certainly for a direct sunlight display it would be perfect...

I suggest to buy the new JVC DLA-HD100 projector that has HDMI 1,3 which is 10bits and have the reflective experience of a screen... (monitors are transmitting the light...) calibrate it and you will be amazed... of coarse is for film grade and home theater REC709 grading its not recommended for TV work...
 
GlennChan said:
The DPX should be a 10-bit panel. ...
Click to expand...


I think that DPX LCD panel is manufactured probably by Samsung or other huge producer and it`s same product as in thousand other monitors so therefore it display only 8 bits. Yes dithering is science itself but it can only work with range of colors which is LCD physicaly capable, no more.
In this case all the magic is in backlight.
 
I think that DPX LCD panel is manufactured probably by Samsung or other huge producer and it`s same product as in thousand other monitors so therefore it display only 8 bits.
Click to expand...
I think that it's 10-bit because that's the spec on the eCinema website. And there are other companies out there making 10-bit panels... the HP Dreamcolor being one.

2- There is no magic in the backlight in terms of bit depth / banding artifacts.

3- Dither does matter. Suppose you have a 4k and a 2k display... if they both use the same dithering technique (that's not truncation or simple rounding), then the 4k display will have better performance in terms of whether or not you see banding artifacts.

Why?
One easy, lazy way to think about it is this. As you move further away, you're less likely to see banding artifacts. The 4K display is like 4 2K displays that are positioned further away.
 
Regarding IMLED displays...

What I've heard is something like this:
A potential problem with IMLED is that halos will appear if there is a white line on a black background. Suppose that a white line is over an area such that only one row of LEDs is lit. The LEDs will have to be at full intensity... the black level in that area will be the same as a normal LCD since the LED has not been modulated to be darker and therefore lower the black level. So you'll see a halo in that area.

What happens if the line is moved so that it's now exactly between two rows of LEDs? In this situation, TWO rows of LEDs will be lit. Because two rows of LEDs are now lit, then the halo will be larger in size. If this white line starts rotating, then these halos will start shifting all over as the line moves. (I would think of this as analogous to aliasing).


*I have never seen the Dolby display... but I've heard that this is why IMLED won't work for critical monitoring.
 
10-bit DreamColor just another 8-bit illusion

10-bit DreamColor just another 8-bit illusion

The HP DreamColor LCD monitor is, in fact, using an 8-bit LG panel that utilizes FRC (frame rate control) to dither out to 10-bits. What this means, of course, is that it is creating the illusion of all of the color shades outside its native 8-bit colorspace of 16.7 million colors by blending nearby shades to fool the eyes into perceiving other shades - in this case, over 1 billion other shades. It is indeed "dream" color. For reality color...well, that's where eCinema likes to play. If you'd like to know more, drop me a line.
 
I spoke to wes at e-cinema and they informed the DPX is in fact a true 10bit panel. The only other product to market using that panel is the BVML230. Of note, their Pro monitor will use the same 10bit panel, sans LED backlight.

Looking forward to seeing their DPX and Pro monitors when they come out.
 
Dream a little dream

Dream a little dream

I happen to own an eCinema DCM-23 which is a nice monitor but the blacks are nothing like the newer panels, particularly the DPX series unit I saw at NAB. I have a DreamColor sitting at my vendors shop awaiting a 10 bit HD-SDI to HDMI solution as I was under the impression that the DreamColor really was a 10 bit unit all the way to the panel. Assuming Wes is correct, then the 10 bit pipeline will simply improve the accuracy of the mathematical illusion he describes - that's probably valuable though not "true" 10 bit color.

The thread starter stipulated that money was no object, in which case the eCinema DPX unit would get my vote based on what I have seen. For those of us with more modest budgets I am hopeful that with the right interface and proper calibration the DreamColor will offer a viable LCD based grading option. YMMV.
 
mmm ... yep 10 bits is not easy to get.
Just wonder how many bits deliver Sony 4K and digital cinema projectors?

Definitely thanx for clearing things up
 
You also have to take into account the transfer function of the display. So if the transfer function of the display and the ideal transfer function doesn't match, you'll have bit depth crowded into some tonal ranges and not in other tonal ranges.

Displays like DLP and plasma have a transfer function of 1. They will have some trouble for code values 1 above black level (unless the bit depth is really really high). So supposedly for plasmas, this will cause grainy looking blacks.

I haven't played with these display devices myself so I can't tell you how it works out. Some plasmas are driven at 12-bits with a transfer function of 1 (I believe).

2- Something you can try:
For many real world images, you can truncate it to 7 bits with no visual loss (e.g. Photoshop... levels down, levels up). Banding does become an issue when there are large flat areas of colors (or gradients), the monitor is larger / visual angle is larger, and when the source is noisefree.

Dither does cause implementations to vary in how well they do. The direction of a gradient may make a difference for the cheaper dither circuits out there.
 
LCD's have gone through so many marketing twists that it is hard to keep track of reality any more. Let's just say that consumer-land will never cease to amaze me.

The next two fads in consumer-land are "10 bit" and "120Hz", both in quotes because the level of veracity of the marketing claims is rarely very high.

In the case of the Dreamcolor display, as Wes has already clarified, it is, in fact, an 8 bit display with FRC-based dithering. We always jump on new technology, and this was no different. We contacted LG --who manufacture the panel for HP-- and quickly learned that it wasn't a real 10 bit panel but rather an 8 bit with built-in FRC. At that point we lost interest, as dithering and FRC can introduce innacuracies and artifacts that have no place in professional critical evaluation of images. To put it in camera terms, it is as though someone was taking a camera with an HD sensor and calling it a 4K camera because it has a built-in up-scaler. It might look OK, but it isn't the real deal.

What determines that a panel is 8 bits? LCDs are, at the pixel level, analog. Each and every column is, effectively, driven by the output of a digital to analog converter. If the DAC is an 8 bit DAC, the panel can only produce 256 shades per channel. If the DAC, in turn, is a 10 bit DAC, it is good for 1024 shades per channel (or over 1 billion colors) per pixel.

The distinction between the terms "dithering" and "FRC" can be confusing. Dithering involves moving the color of a pixel up and down near the desired perceived value in order to attempt to make the viewer see a different color. If you've ever seen a kid's top with black and white stripes spin fast enough that the black and white blend into gray, you are seeing a form of dithering. FRC takes this concept to a different level by taking clusters of pixels and manipulating them across multiple frames to acheive the same effect.

The primary issue with these methods is that they introduce color and temporal artifacts that were not in the source data in the first place. As motion, interlacing, pulldown and other video/motion-picture elements come into play, FRC and dithering interact with the image processing that came before the pixel and can produce unpredictable results. The bottom line is that if accuracy and repeatability are important, FRC and dithering are not desirable.

Where they might be useful is in a "preview" function. This is the case of wanting to have an idea of what something might look like in ten bits without the need for real 10 bit color. Not reference-grade, but perhaps acceptable.

The route we have taken is to use real 10 bits-at-the-pixel technology which can truly reproduce --without dithering or any other trickery-- any one of over one billion colors at every pixel. If it is about critical image evaluation, that's the only approach that works. What's involved at the panel level is the substitution of 8 bit column DACs with 10 bit chips. This isn't as easy as it may sound.

Of course, a true 10 bit panel can be dithered to 12 or even 14 bits for preview applications. So, if you start with real 10 bits you can fake higher bit depths for preview purposes.

-Martin Euredjian
eCinema Systems, Inc.
 
Martin, thank you for all this info. The topic of contrast ratio has always been slightly confusing and Im wondering if you could shed some light on the subject. Consumer land constantly touts wildly ridiculous contrast ratios but you'll often find terms like 'effective contrast ratio' in the fine print. What are the methods for effectively increasing contrast ratios and how do they differ from true contrast ratios?

How is the DPX able to achieve 15,000 to 1? Is it using local dimming?
 
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