Dream Color VS Eizo Color Edge

[Emery Wells]

We're replacing our color critical workstation monitors and are trying to decide between the Dream Color displays and the Eizo Color Edge series. Does anyone have real world experience using both of these display systems that can shed some light on the pro's/con's of each?

These will only be used as workstation monitors, they will not be used as ref monitors. Each of our color critical systems has an external reference monitor that is calibrated with 3D LUTs using cinespace. We just need more color accurate workstation monitors than our Dell's and Apple Cinema Displays can provide (even when carefully calibrated).

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I like the newer 27" displays better, IMO. If they're not a color-critical reference display, then workspace is king. That said, it's really a toss-up between a couple of the 23" & 24" Eizo displays and the Dreamcolor. And the 27" Dell U2711 gives them a good run for the money once dialed in.

How will you be driving these monitors? Which systems, interface, etc..?

 

[Jim Geduldick]

Eizo is the bank breaker but if your not worrying about color critical why throw down the 2k+ on the monitor?

I just ordered the new 27 in Apple Displays over a DreamColor not because of which was better but more for price and my color accurate is going through my FSI monitor

Dont count out NEC they have a killer 30in coming out geared toward the color centric field.

Most of the panels in Dell,Apple etc are just LG anyway .

 

[Chuck Z]

Dont count out NEC they have a killer 30in coming out geared toward the color centric field.

Do you have any specific news?

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

I've seen the Dreamcolor and am working myself with the Eizo Color Edge.

Both monitors look equally good and are in the same price range. What I find important is the possibility to work with 10 bit via displayport which is the case with both monitors.

Both monitors have an in-build and calibrated Adobe sRGB setup which meets with a gamma of 2.35 applied Rec709 very, very closely. So special calibration is not needed when not used in hard-core colour critical finishing work.

I would use both. It's a matter of taste and what your experiences are. My experiences with Eizo are very good so no reason to change, others are very happy with their Dreamcolor monitors.

You cannot go wrong with either one.

Hans

 

[Filip Vandoorne]

new coloredge CG245

new coloredge CG245

i tested one of the first first HP dreamcolors and while the colors were very good, the problem was that when using the hdmi port the dreamcolor was doing some strange sharpening or edge enhancements which made it unusable. The dvi port didnt have this problem, but did not support 50hz. But this was already some time -years- ago and i did not retest the recent dreamcolors with a newer firmware.
We looked at the Eizo's but until the very recent new CG245, the CG-range did also not natively support 50-48hz signals. The new CG245 has a 'secret' startup to enable those frequencies on the displayport connector !- activate range to wide with use speciale menu- see chapter 3.6 of the usersmanual. Also use the hdlink pro displayport with the latest firmware 3.5 and use a usb cable on the hdlink pro to enable in the HDLink Utility preferences the override EDID settings. This combination gives native 50hz and 48hz images on the CG245, which is a natively 10bit panel, and has build-in video color profiles for EBU, REC709, etc. There is even a DCP profile, but then the display expects an xyz signal, so the rgb of the hdlink pro give a 'green' image. You can solve this by making your own DCP profile that you can upload into the monitor with the free eizo software and the build-in calibration probe .
If you want to test if a display is really native 10bit, use a AJA kona product and use the ramp option of the testgenerator in the AJA control panel: absolutly no banding on this CG245 with the hdlink pro displayport...
Another new feature of the hdlink pro is simulation of fields, which works very well on this configuration.
The only problem with the hdlink pro is that our RED camera's make a sdi signal that the hdlink pro doesnt like too much. So far for use as fieldmonitor... Also the hdlinkpro has no vectorscopes , noaudiometers or other tricks that fieldmonitors have, but as reference-grading monitor for an editing station it is a very good and high-end solution at a very very competitive price.