LCD TV color standards

[Radim Schreiber]

Hi,
There are significant color/contrast variations between LCD TV models out there. How do you calibrate your color processing so your final output is color correct? Do we need to purchase expensive broadcast monitor, or could we be satisfied with high quality LCD TV monitor with DVI input from computer, which we calibrate?

The good thing is that our target is large LCD TV, which tend to be fairly similar in terms of brightness, color reproduction etc. We are not concerned about CRT, projectors, computer or other displays. We have a product that uses 46" LCD TVs from various manufacturers such as Samsung, AU, Sharp etc.

My current thinking was to get a good quality 46" LCD TV (we like Samsung so far) and calibrate it using either Spyder or similar calorimeter or go for a hardware calibration such as CalMan:

http://www.curtpalme.com/VideoEq.shtm

It is quite important for us to have our secondary monitor as close to final unit, which is 40"-56" large LCD TV screen, so we can see all the artifacts, color banding, noise etc. right there.

Please let me know what you think.
Thanks
Radim

 

[GlennChan]

If I may ask, what does your product do?

 

[Radim Schreiber]

Check our company website:
http://www.theskyfactory.com/products/eScape/

also check video catalog in the menu to see some RED footage.

 

[Abtin]

It dose not matter if you do buy a broadcast monitor really, color, contrast on LCD monitors are different, each LCD has its own characteristic this said i would not go with Samsung if it was me i go with Aquas from Sharp, their LCD is little better, as for high end monitor they do have better processors but the Actual LCD Panel is from some one else(there are like 6 Factory out there that make LCD anyways).

Broadcast monitor i go with Astrodesign or Sony on the high end ($12,000-$25,000) then you can get something that is calibrated and it looks good.

As for Calibration i go hardware my self, Calman is a good company i do like their product.

on LCD if you like better black, look at LED back LCDs however they last about 3 times less.

 

[Radim Schreiber]

Abtin, this is good info. I take it that if you want to save money you do hardware calibration of a off the shelf hi-end LCD and should be fairly satisfactory for a small project. If you want to go pro and produce your next Avatar, you better have some broadcast monitor. Thanks.

 

[GlennChan]

Interesting product. (But I am old school and would just use a real window.)

For your purposes, you would know exactly what our output devices / displays are. So couldn't you just use one of those to monitor? / You should check your work on all those displays anyways? / Or, you have some way of making all your display devices look as you intended.

 

[Radim Schreiber]

Yes and no. We know what is our output monitor at the moment, but that keeps changing. Technology is evolving too fast and we are forced to change monitors for our final product, not to mention battle over better prices. For that reason we cannot stick to one monitor or manufacturer. We will do our best to tune final monitors to our calibrated standard, as long as we have RGB controls.

 

[Radim Schreiber]

Other possibility would be just using a Spyder or other spectrophotometer to create computer profile. It might be the cheapest solution and might work fine.