EIZO CG318-4K Self-Calibrating DCI Display Announced

[jussi rovanpera]

Patrick, for video work you'd want the settings to be gamma 2.4 / 6500K / 100cd, and a fairly dark environment.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Patrick, for video work you'd want the settings to be gamma 2.4 / 6500K / 100cd, and a fairly dark environment.

Thanks Jussi, what do you think of just setting the monitor at DCI-P3 for feature film?

 

[jussi rovanpera]

I have no experience in grading P3, so I'll let the others chime in...

 

[Mike Nagel]

Thanks Jussi, what do you think of just setting the monitor at DCI-P3 for feature film?

Patrick,

P3 should be graded on PJ (if possible)... other than that, check the raw/native gamut of the CG318 first - make sure it covers... and/or please post a pic here of the raw gamut...

what's ur cal setup ? what meters and sw are u using ?

how does the 4K look on that screen ?

- M

 

[PatrickFaith]

Patrick,

P3 should be graded on PJ (if possible)... other than that, check the raw/native gamut of the CG318 first - make sure it covers... and/or please post a pic here of the raw gamut...

what's ur cal setup ? what meters and sw are u using ?

how does the 4K look on that screen ?

- M

I'm using the built in meter (it is very cool, drops down from the top like a small window shield wiper), and the software is called color navigator 6. Software is real easy to use and fully integrated with the screen (i have a display port connection between a k6000 and the screen, and a usb connection between the screen and the computer).

Your right on the p3, just doesn't feel right when I output from nuke to it on the screen(I wasn't planning on doing the dci grading anyway). The cg318 is 98% compliant on p3 though. On rec709 I think it's close to 100% compliant, but when I toggle back and forth between rec2020 and rec709 the greens look horrible on the rec709. Overall the picture looks great on the rec2020 ... feels like i'm looking into a theater. My favorite mode now is nuke with none set(instead of rec709) and the monitor set to rec2020. Atleast I think i'm getting the closest to how I shot it that way.

This is the first time i've been editing on a color correction 4k screen (the 4k tv's i've used just don't even touch this). It just feels SO REAL, like i'm working on the film rather then working on a computer. Since i'm going through a k6000 i'm getting super clean 10 bit, i love the shadows at this detail. This feels the closest to editing film like in the 70's, it just feels so much more "real" when editing. I can see why some people hated moving to 2k digital editing ... (2k I instantly "loose" the connection to the shot). I also get spoiled on having the extra green that the cg318 gives me on the color space at rec2020, when i drop to other color spaces they feel icky/digital/brown. I think if rec2020 ever gets out there big time consumers will love it.

I posted a calibration picture. It's impossible to get the feel for the screen with a shot from my iPad.

 

[Mike Nagel]

I'm using the built in meter (it is very cool, drops down from the top like a small window shield wiper), and the software is called color navigator 6. Software is real easy to use and fully integrated with the screen (i have a display port connection between a k6000 and the screen, and a usb connection between the screen and the computer).

Your right on the p3, just doesn't feel right when I output from nuke to it on the screen(I wasn't planning on doing the dci grading anyway). The cg318 is 98% compliant on p3 though. On rec709 I think it's close to 100% compliant, but when I toggle back and forth between rec2020 and rec709 the greens look horrible on the rec709. Overall the picture looks great on the rec2020 ... feels like i'm looking into a theater. My favorite mode now is nuke with none set(instead of rec709) and the monitor set to rec2020. Atleast I think i'm getting the closest to how I shot it that way.

This is the first time i've been editing on a color correction 4k screen (the 4k tv's i've used just don't even touch this). It just feels SO REAL, like i'm working on the film rather then working on a computer. Since i'm going through a k6000 i'm getting super clean 10 bit, i love the shadows at this detail. This feels the closest to editing film like in the 70's, it just feels so much more "real" when editing. I can see why some people hated moving to 2k digital editing ... (2k I instantly "loose" the connection to the shot). I also get spoiled on having the extra green that the cg318 gives me on the color space at rec2020, when i drop to other color spaces they feel icky/digital/brown. I think if rec2020 ever gets out there big time consumers will love it.

I posted a calibration picture. It's impossible to get the feel for the screen with a shot from my iPad.

yeah, I always set the ViewerProcess to NONE inside of NUKE... ;-)

the built-in Eizo probe is of less quality... be aware of that... if u're just getting the CG/VFX in the general ballpark and then hand it over to color it's less of a concern, but for accurate grading u need a dedicated probe (at least an i1D3) and then a spectro (to create color accurate offsets for the i1D3)...

ColorNavigator has the problem of not allowing ref meter offsets so u're profiling / calibrating the screen with inaccurate data... or maybe they changed it ? I've been asking Eizo for years...

see here, for a start: http://displaycalibrationtools.com/...cg275w-lightspace-colornavigator-calibration/

if u're spending that cash on this screen u should def buy at least an i1D3 and a cheap spectro (i1Pro) to accurately calibrate the screen...

IMO the Eizos are the best screens before one steps up to Pro stuff like FSI etc... as u know, the screen presets (although somewhat accurate initially from the factory), will drift (--> become inaccurate) as the screen ages... this process is faster in the beginning than later when the screen is already "broken in"...

the great thing about this Eizo is that one can finally accurately calibrate a 4K screen... there are no 4K LUT boxes yet, so no real options unless the screen has built-in LUTs...

what cable connection are u using from the K6000 to the Eizo ?

 

[PatrickFaith]

yeah, I always set the ViewerProcess to NONE inside of NUKE... ;-)

the built-in Eizo probe is of less quality... be aware of that... if u're just getting the CG/VFX in the general ballpark and then hand it over to color it's less of a concern, but for accurate grading u need a dedicated probe (at least an i1D3) and then a spectro (to create color accurate offsets for the i1D3)...

the great thing about this Eizo is that one can finally accurately calibrate a 4K screen... there are no 4K LUT boxes yet, so no real options unless the screen has built-in LUTs...

what cable connection are u using from the K6000 to the Eizo ?

thanks for the info, I will research that. I am using it for the initial ISO and kelvin r3d setting before going to vfx from nuke studio, also vfx to real footage alignment when it's back in nukex ... So I should be ok. The 318 actually comes with a bunch of cables, I am using the larger display port cable on both ends - where one side is squarish and the other side has a little notch.

 

[Mike Nagel]

once u got ur meters, look into Lightspace (best IMO), Argyll (free !) and Calman for 3D LUT generation... LS and Argyll allow u to fully control (and adjust) the 3D LUT u're creating for calibrating the Eizo... CM doesn't but has an Eizo auto-cal mode (not sure CG318 is already supported)...

post some dE reports once u got proper cals done, would love to see how the screen performs and if they managed to improve the shadows a bit...

 

[Marc Wielage]

I also get spoiled on having the extra green that the cg318 gives me on the color space at rec2020, when i drop to other color spaces they feel icky/digital/brown. I think if rec2020 ever gets out there big time consumers will love it.

Note that there isn't a single monitor on the planet that can reproduce all of Rec2020 yet, certainly not the Eizo:

I think it's a mistake to try to judge color in a monitor that can't actually reproduce the colorspace you need to see. Even in the case of P3, there's such a huge difference in seeing those images projected at 48 nits (vs. 100 nits in Rec709), plus the huge size difference of the screen, it drastically affects your judgement.

 

[Stacey Spears]

Note that there isn't a single monitor on the planet that can reproduce all of Rec2020 yet

Do we count projectors? Christie claims their laser projector can do 2020. Of course they don't say n%. At least Sony says something like 80% of 2020 for their BVM.

For HDR, the mastering display primaries, white point and nits are included with the content, or should be, so the playback display can remap the best it can. I know the Dolby stuff, in the home, has all been P3. I am not sure about Dolby Cinema.

 

[PatrickFaith]

once u got ur meters, look into Lightspace (best IMO), Argyll (free !) and Calman for 3D LUT generation... LS and Argyll allow u to fully control (and adjust) the 3D LUT u're creating for calibrating the Eizo... CM doesn't but has an Eizo auto-cal mode (not sure CG318 is already supported)...

post some dE reports once u got proper cals done, would love to see how the screen performs and if they managed to improve the shadows a bit...

I'll do that when I get the meter.

...

I think it's a mistake to try to judge color in a monitor that can't actually reproduce the colorspace you need to see. Even in the case of P3, there's such a huge difference in seeing those images projected at 48 nits (vs. 100 nits in Rec709), plus the huge size difference of the screen, it drastically affects your judgement.

hmmm ... I guess the "safe" thing for me to do is just use rec709 for the display, especially since I'm just learning. I btw also do the rough grades for reviews, which are almost always watched on peoples computers. Btw the format the final grading colorist gets my dpx is 2048x1716 anamorphic in 10 bit redlog (a option on output in nuke), so I'm not bounding the composite dpx to rec709 for the colorist.

 

[Will Keir]

Correct.

HDMI 1.4 adds an ethernet data channel and does 4K@ 24/30 Hz.
HDMI 2.0 does 4K @ 50/60 Hz

It's HDMI 1.4 if they are calling 30 Hz the max.

It mentioned HDMI but did not specify 1.4 or 2.0, just a 30Hz max, which likely means 1.4.

 

[Billy Jim]

Came across another review:

https://luminous-landscape.com/eizo-cg318-4k-review-the-cutting-edge-of-high-end-graphic-displays/

 

[AndreasOberg]

Hi everyone
We are looking at getting a better 4k monitor. Do you guys still recommend the Eizo? The broadcast monitors for £10-40k are out of our budget. It's both for photo and video work.
Cheers!
/Andreas

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Not the Eizo, they have not offered any real updates and their pricing is out of sync with the rest of the market. Depending on your intended use for the monitor, I would recommend the LG OLED or Samsung QLED for client/ playback/ color room displays. LG OLED 55” is < $1500 here in the States right now with holiday pricing.

If you specifically need a display with DisplayPort inputs, there are a few desktop class displays, some with very good color gamut and calibration abilities at reasonable pricing. You don’t need to spend a lot of money. LG and Dell are your best bet at the moment for mainstream options. If you can drive a Thunderbolt 3 display then the 5K LG is phenomenal and pretty well has full P3 gamut and calibrated very well right out of the box. They intend to release a DP 1.4 capable version of the display in the first half of 2018, or so I’m told.

There are some more 5K, 6K and 8K displays coming the first half of 2018. Most of which require Thunderbolt 3 or dual DisplayPort to drive them.

What would your budget be for this and what screen size?

 

[AndreasOberg]

Not the Eizo, they have not offered any real updates and their pricing is out of sync with the rest of the market. Depending on your intended use for the monitor, I would recommend the LG OLED or Samsung QLED for client/ playback/ color room displays. LG OLED 55” is < $1500 here in the States right now with holiday pricing.

If you specifically need a display with DisplayPort inputs, there are a few desktop class displays, some with very good color gamut and calibration abilities at reasonable pricing. You don’t need to spend a lot of money. LG and Dell are your best bet at the moment for mainstream options. If you can drive a Thunderbolt 3 display then the 5K LG is phenomenal and pretty well has full P3 gamut and calibrated very well right out of the box. They intend to release a DP 1.4 capable version of the display in the first half of 2018, or so I’m told.

There are some more 5K, 6K and 8K displays coming the first half of 2018. Most of which require Thunderbolt 3 or dual DisplayPort to drive them.

What would your budget be for this and what screen size?

Hi Jeff, thanks for the input.

I think our most demaning use is wildlife photos meant for print or assignments. We also color grade our Red videos, but its a bit less demanding (slowmo Red just looks so good!). I would also use it for normal computer use like programming and writing text so I think the OLED TVs would work less good for those tasks. We have a Cintiq 27" as our best monitor and an older HP 24". Currently I struggle with grading the photos so I can trust what the colors will actually look like. No matter how I calibrate with our Spyder there is always some tint in the image. I graded some black and white images from 8x10 large format cameras and they either had a pink tint or a green tint. Not fun!

Requirements
- At least UHD
- P3 or Adobe RGB
- colors and luminance that you can trust
- pleasant to read
- at least 31" but probably not as big as 40+ I currently have a 27" and I think the text would probably be too small in 4k resolution.

Bonus would be HDR.

From what I read about monitors the benefits with the Eizo are that it has :
- very good blacks
- very uniform luminance and color while some of the Dell or for example and one candidate BenQ SW320 can be really bad when it comes to uniformity.
- high contrast
I plan on visiting a huge store this weekend to check out monitors for myself.
Budget is not any more than the Eizo so around $5500.

/Andreas

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Now I totally spaced it out when responding earlier, but Eizo announced their new ColoreEdge CG3145 4K HDR monitor back in April. As of now it looks like it still has not entered the market. It looks very promising and was supposed to start shipping around Siggraph in September, but I have yet to see one or know of where one can be purchased.

I know I was steering you away from the currently available Eizo models due to price, no recent updates, etc.. And I still feel that way. Based on your needs, I think your best bet would be this new Eizo model or the LG 5K with TB3 / DP 1.4 interface. The only one that can be bought at the moment is the TB3 version of the LG monitor.

I would also recommend getting rid of the Spyder for calibration, they are notoriously bad. Never had good luck with them. If you go with the Eizo, you’ll want to pair it with their colorimeter and color software. For other monitors I would recommend the Eye1 probes, although they’re hit or miss as well and I’m not so sure how well they play with some of these new HDR / wide gamut monitors. I have one of the 27” 5K LG’s that I use for a second screen for my MacBook Pro and iMac and it was well calibrated right from the factory, as are all the screens from Apple right now. Dell is trying to do the same thing with their nicer monitors, but the consistency just isn’t there. For every 2 or 3 good ones there seems to be a bad one with an off color cast or unevenly illuminated screen.

My one big gripe about 4K resolution is that it feels wrong to me at the 30” and larger size for workspace monitor use, text, etc.. At that size it becomes to big to do the “retina” style scaling and everything starts to work better at native resolution, so then a lot of text and other elements become too small. And yet the screen becomes too awkwardly large to sit in front of at normal viewing distances for that sort of monitor use. Personally I like 4K at 24” and less, 5K and 27” or close to that and my new favorite is the 32” 6K monitor I’ve been able to preview. I can’t talk specifically about that one other than it will be available in 2018 and priced competitively. My 8K Dell monitor is also an interesting beast, but has issues that would keep me from recommending it for serious photo or color work. Love all the pixels, but quality wise it’s a typical crappy desktop monitor. And has all the issues you can imagine it might have from sharing dual DP inputs to drive it.

For 4K monitors to be used for color grading and playback where you don’t need to sit in front of them to code or stare at your edit timeline or other controls, the larger UHD TVs are great. I have a Sony X900E 49” in my office and it’s great. The LG OLED is even better and Samsung now has a QLED quantum dot in the same size. Lots of decisions, would come down to personal preference after seeing them.

 

[AndreasOberg]

Hiya Jeff!
Yes, one of those secret 6k monitors sounds nice!

As I understand the ColoreEdge CG3145 4K HDR could be very expensive around $10-20.000 which is too much. Have you heard anything about pricing?

Great input about resolution and monitor screen. Interesting to hear about the Spyder. It seems as if its just calibrating incorrectly. I would think that if it makes an incorrect calibration or cannot calibrate then it would be able to say "oh wait, its 30% wrong color cast in the screen".
I have en OLED HDR at my office doing VFX and its really nice, not sure about the colors but the blacks are lovely. Tried calibrating it and the Spyder completely failed!

I will go and check out a lot of monitors this weekend at Wex in UK. Apparently a huge store with most monitors on display. But its always hard to check monitor quality in a store I think.

Thanks again for all the advice!
/Andreas

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Yeah, can’t say any more about that 6K screen... I think it will be great, but it could be 6~9 months before we see it.

Have not heard anything about the CG3145 pricing. Price was never officially announced and it seems that most of the numbers circulating are all speculative. At $10K+ they will be pricing themselves out of the market. Yet Eizo has enough loyal customers to keep things turning. You can’t go wrong buying one of their monitors, they’re just not always the most sensible choice for the money. I can get the CG318 with color probe and their basic calibration software here in the States for right at $6K or just under. About $5300 for the monitor alone... IMO it’s not a very great deal, I’ve used this monitor extensively and while nice it’s no better than my 31” LG 4K late 2016 model that has both DP 1.2 and TB2 inputs once calibrated. I can buy 3 of the LG’s for the same money and still have enough left over to take the wife for a nice dinner. Now 2 years prior to that when Eizo released the CG318, it was the 4K monitor to have. They just have not updated that monitor in 3+ years. And it shows when comparing to the newer (cheaper) offerings from others.

As for color probes, DataColor’s stuff is notoriously unreliable. The funny thing is that you can actually send the Spyder probes to places like CalMan and they will tweak and calibrate the probe and make it work properly. Have done that with a couple Spyder3 and Spyder4 probes as I was using the CalMan software for a time. IMO, the problem with the Spyder is the low cost and terrible inconsistencies in their manufacturing and supply chain. Sometimes you get a Spyder that works really well out of the box. And sometimes you don’t. I went through 3 or 4 Spyder3 probes before I found one that wouldn’t calibrate most of my displays with a yellow or magenta tint. And then it still struggled on the wide gamut displays until CalMan adjusted it.

I really liked where HP was going with the DreamColor monitors but they let that product line fizzle out. I actually met with them on a few occasions for a variety of things a few years back. Question number one from me was always “where’s that 4K DreamColor display?” At first they were resistant and didn’t understand why people were asking for one. Then that shifted to more frustration that they didn’t have one and didn’t have an answer. Finally they released an updated DreamColor that accepted 4K input, but still only had a 2.5K screen. Totally weird and it really pissed off all their customers. They supposedly, finally have a true 4K one coming... Next year sometime. What a joke.

 

[Tanner Wilson]

Yeah, can’t say any more about that 6K screen... I think it will be great, but it could be 6~9 months before we see it.

Have not heard anything about the CG3145 pricing. Price was never officially announced and it seems that most of the numbers circulating are all speculative. At $10K+ they will be pricing themselves out of the market. Yet Eizo has enough loyal customers to keep things turning. You can’t go wrong buying one of their monitors, they’re just not always the most sensible choice for the money. I can get the CG318 with color probe and their basic calibration software here in the States for right at $6K or just under. About $5300 for the monitor alone... IMO it’s not a very great deal, I’ve used this monitor extensively and while nice it’s no better than my 31” LG 4K late 2016 model that has both DP 1.2 and TB2 inputs once calibrated. I can buy 3 of the LG’s for the same money and still have enough left over to take the wife for a nice dinner. Now 2 years prior to that when Eizo released the CG318, it was the 4K monitor to have. They just have not updated that monitor in 3+ years. And it shows when comparing to the newer (cheaper) offerings from others.

As for color probes, DataColor’s stuff is notoriously unreliable. The funny thing is that you can actually send the Spyder probes to places like CalMan and they will tweak and calibrate the probe and make it work properly. Have done that with a couple Spyder3 and Spyder4 probes as I was using the CalMan software for a time. IMO, the problem with the Spyder is the low cost and terrible inconsistencies in their manufacturing and supply chain. Sometimes you get a Spyder that works really well out of the box. And sometimes you don’t. I went through 3 or 4 Spyder3 probes before I found one that wouldn’t calibrate most of my displays with a yellow or magenta tint. And then it still struggled on the wide gamut displays until CalMan adjusted it.

I really liked where HP was going with the DreamColor monitors but they let that product line fizzle out. I actually met with them on a few occasions for a variety of things a few years back. Question number one from me was always “where’s that 4K DreamColor display?” At first they were resistant and didn’t understand why people were asking for one. Then that shifted to more frustration that they didn’t have one and didn’t have an answer. Finally they released an updated DreamColor that accepted 4K input, but still only had a 2.5K screen. Totally weird and it really pissed off all their customers. They supposedly, finally have a true 4K one coming... Next year sometime. What a joke.

Quietly watching this thread also needing another decent monitor for grading sometime within the next year. Thought that HP did do a 4k Dreamcolor with the z32x?