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Colorgrading - Monitor Recommendation

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julius_karli

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Hello.
Till now i am using my Samsung Sync Master 200 dollar monitor for grading ( .. i know, i know)
Now i would like to buy myself a good price / performance ratio monitor for color grading.
I heard that Flanders make good monitors? I heard about this one: FSI LM-2461W. But this is a litte to expensive for me.

Can you recommend a monitor for about 2 - 3000dollar?

thank you
 
I just bought a NEC "PA241W" for about 700-800 USD. I've not set it up yet, but it can display 10 bits of colour and it probably has the same panels as the HD-SDI grading monitors that cost 5-10 times as much; I would guess. But then again, most SDI-converters seems to have some colour accuracy problems, at least based on observations from forum talks...
 
Jon MIchael Puntervold said:
I just bought a NEC "PA241W" for about 700-800 USD. I've not set it up yet, but it can display 10 bits of colour and it probably has the same panels as the HD-SDI grading monitors that cost 5-10 times as much; I would guess. But then again, most SDI-converters seems to have some colour accuracy problems, at least based on observations from forum talks...
Click to expand...


I have the NEC. For the price it is very hard to beat. Not perfect but very, very good. Better than most $3000 monitors and it can be internally calibrated with an external probe. Definitely worth checking out.
 
I have a Dreamcolor, also displays 10 bits, but you'll have to also get the Dreamcolor advanced profiling solution which is an extra $350, and they are getting tough to find, but this is a must have to get your monitor calibrated. I saw a couple used Dreamcolors selling on eBay.

I've also heard good things about certain plasma televisions. If all you are doing is Rec. 709, you might be able to find a good ISF calibration tech to get the TV within spec. I would call the Tech to find out which TV they recommend. They may charge anywhere from $400-$800 for the calibration.

You're also going to need a proper output card like a Decklink from your computer.
 
Noel R. said:
I've also heard good things about certain plasma televisions. If all you are doing is Rec. 709, you might be able to find a good ISF calibration tech to get the TV within spec. I would call the Tech to find out which TV they recommend. They may charge anywhere from $400-$800 for the calibration.
Click to expand...

The professional line of the larger Panasonic Plasmas are used quite extensively by professional post houses across the states. They can be very, very good but they need an advanced 3D LUT box (like a Cine-tal Davio) in-line for proper calibration and color work. That setup will push you into the $10,000 range.
 
I have a Dreamcolor and not so long ago I bought a Flanders Scientific CM170, which I bought after the Dreamcolors calibration went clearly wrong, probably because the probe was broken.

The Dreamcolor is okay if you can get it properly calibrated and have it connected in the right way to your computer, which is not that easy. It only takes a true progressive RGB signal which means you most likely need to feed the signal through a converter. It is also not made anymore by HP so support is a problem. After the probe broke I bought a i1 display pro probe and it works with the Dreamcolor's software, that means it is recognized and the software performs a calibration - whether it is as good or better then the original probe I can't tell. Colors are now good again but not perfect. If I take the Flanders as a standard then skin colors are a little less pink on the Dreamcolor but you really have to look for right images to see the difference, in many situations the monitors look very much alike. Skin tone is very important though and I am not sure if I could now do without the Flanders.

The Flanders is nice and they are very serious about calibration. You can even send the monitor back at any time for a free calibration. It has everything you would expect from a professional monitor, HDSDI connections, proper buttons on the front, small but useful waveform display and so on. If anything I would say 17" might be a bit small (it's sharp though) but that means it is also light and easy to take somewhere. But the size really makes it not suitable for more then one person viewing, also because viewing angles are a bit limited. Black levels are a bit high so blacks look a bit grey in dark scenes, in that respect the Dreamcolor is actually better. But all in all I am happy I bought it and it gives great peace of mind.

Regarding the NEC or another computer monitor you have to keep in mind that it probably doesn't have proper video inputs and doesn't adjust the refresh rate according to the video. That means that if you are playing back a 24 fps movie motion will not be smooth as it will be displayed with a 60 Hz refresh rate. Also black levels will not be at rec709 level but at sRGB level which means they are too high for video. It's probably a good monitor to display the Resolve UI on though. I have never worked with this monitor though so I am just speculating.

A big LCD or plasma would be great too if you can get it calibrated and you need it if you have more then one person looking with you. But calibrating it yourself is with the current tools on the market very difficult so you need someone to do it for you.

All in all I would say it is nice to have more then one monitor that is more or less okay as it will make it easier to tell if a monitor's colors go wrong.
 
I'll be more specific, in order to get the Dreamcolor to work you will need a Decklink card ($280), An HDLink box ($470), and the Dreamcolor calibrator ($270). The decklinks HDMI out will not do a 10 bit output. So you will need to go from the HD-SDI out on the Decklink to the HDlink box, and output via Display Port. If you were to get this Dreamcolor on eBay ($1,149, great deal by the way), you are looking at $2,169 to get a working calibrated monitor.
 
The dream color is great but don't take that on as a beginner - Its a real project. I seriously recommend the Flanders Scientific CM170 as previously mentioned.
 
also have a look at the Eizo CG245 and the newer CG246 monitors. They are 10bit panels with 3D lut's for Rec709 and EBU or user defined profiles. they also support DCI, but then you need to give them a xyz signal. For real 10bit connection, you will need a hd-sdi adapter, for example a hdlink pro with displayport interface, which is 10bit on the hdlink pro. price including the hdlink pro would be around 3000$.
 
I've been a DreamColor user for about 3 years. When it came out it was easily the best bang for the buck in the marketplace with terrific black levels and thanks to IPS, excellent off axis linearity for an LCD. Due to issues noted above I would no longer recommend it.

I also use a 42" Panny Pro Plasma that has become my reference monitor - as noted by others it is ubiquitous in LA post facilities. Good blacks, good off axis linearity, calibrates well to rec 709 with little inherent warm or cool bias. Flaws are: local dimming circuitry that can skew luminance values from nominal which can be an issue with some material, fortunately 98% of narrative content presents imagery that does not suffer any meaningful degradation from this technological "cheat". Secondly, and more critically in my book, the hotter highlights have a yellow cast that no LUT box I've ever seen can fully compensate for.

Nick Shaw touts the Penta monitors which are terrific but pricey. The Flanders have improved with every iteration and are designed for professional production environments. Might be the current leader in terms of performance per dollar. The hot ticket is the OLED based Sony monitors which look fantastic - unfortunately 99.9% of the audience won't see what you see so most colorists consider them a fail since part of the core utility of color grading is to accurately gauge what the final output will look like.

Monitors designed for computers have typically been terrible for video, the DreamColor was the first legitimate crossover product and others took notes. Eizo and NEC have both upped their game in recent offerings as others have noted, definitely worth a look. Be aware that in some professional circles these monitors will not be taken seriously, might not matter in your world but something to consider.

Cheers - #19
 
The newer Panasonic BT-300 series solved some of these problems, and I think they're a little better for broadcast use. You can get a little closer in terms of meeting the official SMPTE RP166 monitor spec by using the Cinetal Davio box, but I know of quite a few small-to-medium-sized post houses who cheat and just go with the monitor alone.
 
The monitor is of course important but whats more important is the ability to line it up and the environment in which its used. Get some means of calibration deice, perhaps an HD link if they have sorted the firmware out.
 
Adrian Jebef said:
I have the NEC. For the price it is very hard to beat. Not perfect but very, very good. Better than most $3000 monitors and it can be internally calibrated with an external probe. Definitely worth checking out.
Click to expand...

That NEC monitor looks great. How are you feeding it the signal?
 
Hey.
Thank you all for this great postings...
This NEC monitor looks very nice.
How about color fidelity?
The 10bit - are they "real" 10bit?
 
I don't know about the internal calibration in the NEC, but although the Dreamcolor is an excellent panel, the calibration seems not quite right. I'm now running a projector and the Dreamcolor with a calibration LUT generated by Cinespace in a Davio box and the result is better. So somehow the calibration in the Dreamcolor isn't quite spot on. And there's now way of knowing what's going on. So I'd really want to hear from people that have actually measured the results of the NEC calibration, before thinking in that direction.

There are really a lot of decent panels out there, it's the calibration that makes the difference.
 
julius_karli said:
Hey.
Thank you all for this great postings...
This NEC monitor looks very nice.
How about color fidelity?
The 10bit - are they "real" 10bit?
Click to expand...

According to NEC's own marketing material, the panel itself is 8-bit.

Would love to hear more about it from existing owners... Especially how to hook it up since it has neither SDI nor HDMI in.
 
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