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Is the Panasonic TH-42PF11UK still the plasma monitor of choice?

Stephen Pruitt

Stephen Pruitt

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Hi all. . .

A few months ago, folks here were raving about the quality of this monitor. I have never seen it in person, but before I pull the trigger, I'd like to see if it's still the consensus selection as "the one." It will BARELY (and I mean barely) fit into my console space (with less than 1/3" to spare!), so I like the size. I just want to make sure this pup will give me those super rich blacks that I've been missing on my Samsung LCD.

Thanks!

Stephen
 
I have ordered this monitor at B&H in may... No notice! Today I will switch to the 50".

:-)
 
Are you guys using a smaller monitor for grading, and the 42inch for client playback, or is that your primary grading monitor? My space is smallish, and I'm worried I can't get back far enough from it. I'm right about to pull the trigger on a CC monitor too....so, just curious.
 
I purchased the TH-50PF11UK after NAB with the dual HD-SDI board; I am very happy with it's quality. My only concern is that there is no inexpensive way to accurately calibrate these plasma monitors. I have used settings provided by Michael Miillar. Michael is the top dog of professional monitors for Panasonic. He was quick to admit that monitors will vary depending on their environment. I work in a windowless area so settings I used, originally created by Pete Putman ,work well for me.

I love this monitor and would not change a thing but you should know that the correct calibrating tools could cost 5 figures. If you have questions about these issues I would suggest contacting Micheal Millar at Panasonic or Alan Rosenfeld at B&H.
 
Frank Weeks said:
I purchased the TH-50PF11UK after NAB with the dual HD-SDI board; I am very happy with it's quality. My only concern is that there is no inexpensive way to accurately calibrate these plasma monitors. I have used settings provided by Michael Miillar. Michael is the top dog of professional monitors for Panasonic. He was quick to admit that monitors will vary depending on their environment. I work in a windowless area so settings I used, originally created by Pete Putman ,work well for me.

I love this monitor and would not change a thing but you should know that the correct calibrating tools could cost 5 figures. If you have questions about these issues I would suggest contacting Micheal Millar at Panasonic or Alan Rosenfeld at B&H.
Click to expand...

Frank.
You can't just use generic settings for the CC monitor, even if these settings are from Panasonic. It has noting to do with the environment. CC monitor needs to be calibrated at regular intervals. Some technologies allows longer times between calibrations, some shorter. In order to use any monitor for color grading(other than the CRT), first you have to calibrate it to REC-709 standards, then you will need to profile it and based on this monitor's profile, create a proper LUT. Even after calibrating the monitor to REC-709 standard, you still need your monitor to be able to emulate the C-phosphor of the CRT monitor and it's additive properties. And that has to be done with custom built LUT. As for working in totally dark room, well, that's not going to work either. REC-709 specifies brightness of the screen as well as brightness and color temperature of backlighting. You must have proper backlighting for cc for video deliverables...
 
jake blackstone said:
Frank.
You can't just use generic settings for the CC monitor, even if these settings are from Panasonic. It has noting to do with the environment. CC monitor needs to be calibrated at regular intervals. Some technologies allows longer times between calibrations, some shorter. In order to use any monitor for color grading(other than the CRT), first you have to calibrate it to REC-709 standards, then you will need to profile it and based on this monitor's profile, create a proper LUT. Even after calibrating the monitor to REC-709 standard, you still need your monitor to be able to emulate the C-phosphor of the CRT monitor and it's additive properties. And that has to be done with custom built LUT. As for working in totally dark room, well, that's not going to work either. REC-709 specifies brightness of the screen as well as brightness and color temperature of backlighting. You must have proper backlighting for cc for video deliverables...
Click to expand...

Agreed Jake

The reason for my post was to point out that despite it's quality image, without expensive calibrating tools, I am not sure how accurate my results are. Alan Rosenfeld at B&H told me they were working on a more economical solution but it will still be a large chunk of change.
 
I'm just interested in this thing to watch our footie. . . not to color it. We currently just have an LCD, but I can't stand the milky-gray blacks. It's driving me crazy!

Stephen
 
jake blackstone said:
In order to use any monitor for color grading(other than the CRT), first you have to calibrate it to REC-709 standards, then you will need to profile it and based on this monitor's profile, create a proper LUT. Even after calibrating the monitor to REC-709 standard, you still need your monitor to be able to emulate the C-phosphor of the CRT monitor and it's additive properties. And that has to be done with custom built LUT.
Click to expand...

Well, that's one way. However, the most common way - and the way it's done in most current color correction rooms - is to use the color management controls of the monitor to come as close as is practical to the standard, as confirmed by photometric measurements from known sources. In other words, basic calibration techniques. By doing this you get the monitor very, very close to the values specified by Rec. 709, because that's what it's basically designed for. There is no need for a LUT unless you're trying to emulate another color space (P3 or film, for instance). This keeps the path simple, cleaner, and more foolproof. One of the reasons the Panasonic Series 11 (and the Pioneer Kuro series before that) attained popularity is that it has enough controls to accomplish this pretty well. Even if it's not perfect, neither is your eye, and neither is any display the material likely to be shown on. That's one of the primary reasons the rooms have scopes - to confirm that what is being displayed is, in fact, acceptably accurate.
 
Frank Weeks said:
Agreed Jake

The reason for my post was to point out that despite it's quality image, without expensive calibrating tools, I am not sure how accurate my results are. Alan Rosenfeld at B&H told me they were working on a more economical solution but it will still be a large chunk of change.
Click to expand...

There are number of very inexpensive hardware calibration tools, that are available today, which can be used to calibrate the display. The bigger and more important aspect of proper display is the emulation of the CRT technology. The standard for the video deliverables today is REC-709, which is based on C-phosphor curve response. I know, it's a bit strange, that todays hight tech displays still must emulate an almost obsolete CRT technology. Incidentally, as of today, CRT is still the best available display technology for video display. There is no way around that, until something better arrives (OLED?) So, when B&H talks about cheaper solutions, they probably taking about hardware, which, frankly, is pretty cheap already. The expensive part is the software, like Cinespace from Rising Sun Research (now CineTal). I do not see that to go down in price anytime soon.
Plasma technology does provide for richer blacks and higher contrast ratio, that LCD. If you just want to look at pictures with rich blacks, look into now discontinued KURO, which still can be found.
 
M Most said:
Well, that's one way. However, the most common way - and the way it's done in most current color correction rooms - is to use the color management controls of the monitor to come as close as is practical to the standard, as confirmed by photometric measurements from known sources. In other words, basic calibration techniques. By doing this you get the monitor very, very close to the values specified by Rec. 709, because that's what it's basically designed for. There is no need for a LUT unless you're trying to emulate another color space (P3 or film, for instance). This keeps the path simple, cleaner, and more foolproof. One of the reasons the Panasonic Series 11 (and the Pioneer Kuro series before that) attained popularity is that it has enough controls to accomplish this pretty well. Even if it's not perfect, neither is your eye, and neither is any display the material likely to be shown on. That's one of the primary reasons the rooms have scopes - to confirm that what is being displayed is, in fact, acceptably accurate.
Click to expand...
Sure Mike, in the perfect world it is a much better approach. But, unfortunately, in order to please the majority of home users, manufacturers have been known to employ "internal DSP which is futzing the lightvalve to get something perceptually pleasing out of a really spiky spectral distribution on the illuminant when combined with crappy rgb filters". Couldn't said better myself. So, if I want to be sure in my display being correct, I would rather profile it first and see, if I can measure decoupling error. This way I'm sure. But you're correct, that simpler is usually better:-)
 
M Most said:
Well, that's one way. However, the most common way - and the way it's done in most current color correction rooms - is to use the color management controls of the monitor to come as close as is practical to the standard, as confirmed by photometric measurements from known sources. In other words, basic calibration techniques. By doing this you get the monitor very, very close to the values specified by Rec. 709, because that's what it's basically designed for. There is no need for a LUT unless you're trying to emulate another color space (P3 or film, for instance). This keeps the path simple, cleaner, and more foolproof. One of the reasons the Panasonic Series 11 (and the Pioneer Kuro series before that) attained popularity is that it has enough controls to accomplish this pretty well. Even if it's not perfect, neither is your eye, and neither is any display the material likely to be shown on. That's one of the primary reasons the rooms have scopes - to confirm that what is being displayed is, in fact, acceptably accurate.
Click to expand...

What about feeding the Plasma from this:
http://www.cine-tal.com/products/eL1000.asp
 
when B&H talks about cheaper solutions, they probably taking about hardware, which, frankly, is pretty cheap already. The expensive part is the software, like Cinespace from Rising Sun Research (now CineTal). I do not see that to go down in price anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your comments. You and Mike are way above my pay scale when it come to the technology of high end monitors.

What B&H was referring to was not inexpensive to a small shop like ours. The quote was "entire system will be available for under 20K." That's 20K over the 5K we payed for the monitor and HD-SDI board. That's not something we can consider at this time.

I'm just trying to point out to the guys who are contemplating the purchases of 11-series monitors that proper calibration (for color grading) is not part of the purchase price. But I still love the monitor.
 
digitalfx said:
What about feeding the Plasma from this:
http://www.cine-tal.com/products/eL1000.asp
Click to expand...

That device is used more for color space mapping (i.e., masquerading a monitor to look like something else) than simple monitor calibration for HD use. It's essentially a real time LUT box, much like Thomson's LUTher or the software programmable Cine-tal Davio. It also does 3D preprocessing for monitors that support various methods of stereoscopic display, as well as provide 4:4:4 to 4:2:2 conversion and, I would guess, SMPTE scaling. All of which can be very useful. However, for standard viewing of HD images on an HD video monitor, you're really better off setting up the monitor correctly and avoiding any LUTs unless you're using that monitor for film print preview or similar uses - provided you know how to do that correctly.
 
I was thinking of getting the same monitor but I also was hoping to do some grading with it. I'm talking primarily short films that will play at festivals, most likely via video out. Down the line, if we start doing film out, I figure I can afford to upgrade the monitor. For now, I want something that that's going to look great plus serve me for some home-based grading, and at a budget. Do think the Panasonic Pro Plasma is the way to go for what I'm looking for (or Pioneer Kuro if I can find one)?
 
Frank Weeks said:
I'm just trying to point out to the guys who are contemplating the purchases of 11-series monitors that proper calibration (for color grading) is not part of the purchase price.
Click to expand...

I think I've tried to make that clear throughout this thread. But I've also said that because the Series 11 is basically an HD video monitor - and designed as such - that as long as you disable all of the automatic stuff, a basic setup using something as simple as the Blu Ray discs that are sold for home theater setup purposes can get you far more than close enough for most eyes that don't happen to belong to a professional colorist. And even professional colorists often won't be able to see a significant difference. If you have scopes connected to the same feed the monitor is getting (in order to confirm that what you're looking at makes sense), and the room lighting is reasonable for color work, my feeling is that it will likely provide a very acceptable image 95% of the time - and certainly something that will look reasonably similar on any other monitor it's likely to be seen on. That may not make it technically perfect, but it happens to be true.
 
itotah said:
I was thinking of getting the same monitor but I also was hoping to do some grading with it. I'm talking primarily short films that will play at festivals, most likely via video out. Down the line, if we start doing film out, I figure I can afford to upgrade the monitor. For now, I want something that that's going to look great plus serve me for some home-based grading, and at a budget. Do think the Panasonic Pro Plasma is the way to go for what I'm looking for (or Pioneer Kuro if I can find one)?
Click to expand...

I apologize for wondering off original topic of Panasonic series 11 monitor. Yes, both monitors are a good choice for video work, provided they are properly and regularly calibrated.
 
jake blackstone said:
Do you have the price on that? Hubble probe alone is over $6000. This set up is pretty much like Truelight, which is not cheap also. Mentioned $20,000 B&H price starts looking better in comparison:-)
Click to expand...

Jake, I hear you and I understand what you're saying. But here's the thing. I've often found here and elsewhere that when most people on forums like this ask these kind of questions, what they're really saying - without saying it - is "I've never had to set up a monitor professionally, I don't know the first thing about standards, and I don't know what charts or displays to use to do this - and I don't want to pay someone else to do it for me. So what's the easiest way I can cheat the monitor into showing me what I'm supposed to see?" When someone starts talking about using LUT's on an HD monitor to make it look like, well, an HD monitor, what that says is that the LUT would be implemented as a bad cheat. Unless you set up the monitor properly in the first place, no LUT is going to show you proper contrast, brightness, or anything else. It will all be an approximation based on your basically incorrect monitor setup. That's not good, it's exaggerating the original problem. Viewing LUTs are very good for color space transformations, and for allowing something like a video monitor to show you a reasonable approximation of a film print, or even a digital cinema projector. They cannot and should not be used to make an improperly set up HD monitor somehow look like a properly set up HD monitor, which seems to be what a lot of people here (NOT you) expect them to do.
 
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