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Reference Monitors

Tom Chase

Tom Chase

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Greetings all,

I am looking to invest in a reference monitor for all of my workflow but mostly for Resolve. I know FSI is a great monitor but I don't have that type of money. I am looking at two monitors the Konvision 2260W or the Ikan MS21. Was wondering if anyone has any suggestion or experience. Right now I am using a 27" Apple Cinema Display as my GUI monitor and a Asus PA248q as a reference monitor through a decklink mini monitor via HDMI.

I am very interested in utilizing the SDI ports, and having the built in scopes. Both are in the $2000 range.

Thanks

Tom Chase
 
Tom Chase said:
I am looking to invest in a reference monitor for all of my workflow but mostly for Resolve. I know FSI is a great monitor but I don't have that type of money. I am looking at two monitors the Konvision 2260W or the Ikan MS21.
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To me, neither one is good enough to be called "reference." This is a hot topic on the LiftGammaGain forum, and I think the sad reality is that you get what you pay for.
 
I can't speak for the konovision but iKan is not up to snuff. I have some onboard iKan WFM monitors in the 7" and 5" variety and while fine for false color and waveforms, they are NOT even close to reference quality. I do prefer the FSI CM170 above many others and I consider that to be about the cheapest reasonable display available currently. I'd love to be proven wrong if someone knows of a better deal ;)

P.S. There is always the HP Dreamcolor LP2480zx, which can be a real ball of wax to set up but is a great 24" panel...
 
Tom, if your budget is the $2K range, I recommend saving up a bit more and getting something like the Flanders. Calibrated monitors are not something you want to skimp on but at the same time you may not need a $20K monitor either. I think Flanders offers a very capable entry level into good monitoring solution. I wouldn't go with anything less.
 
I understand that FSI is the go to device, but for what I am doing $4K on a monitor isn't part of my larger plan, but also computer monitors aren't either. The scopes & HD/SDI are 90% of the why I don't want to use a computer monitor.

@[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]Michael I have used the Dream Colors before and I really hate to say it my $500 ASUS is at least as good from my perspective. [/FONT]

[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]Thanks everyone for the advice.

Tom[/FONT]
 
If you look at the Konvision specs, it's an 8-bit panel. For $500 more the 17" FSI is the way to go on a budget at $2500.00 US. 10-Bit Panel, dual link SDI, Multiple Gamma modes and color spaces for the price and functions, i think its a steal for what it can do, no doubt.
 
Derek Morrison said:
If you look at the Konvision specs, it's an 8-bit panel. For $500 more the 17" FSI is the way to go on a budget at $2500.00 US. 10-Bit Panel, dual link SDI, Multiple Gamma modes and color spaces for the price and functions, i think its a steal for what it can do, no doubt.
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That would be my pick as well. Scopebox and Blackmagic's UltraScope are two alternate scopes using outboard computers that I think make much more sense than using them on an actual picture monitor. I would recommend Blackmagic's SmartView Duo 4K scope if the vectorscope had a 5X magnify mode, which it sadly does not.

I suspect there will be many, many new choices for high-quality mastering monitors unveiled next week at NAB.
 
Marc, I'm glad you posted about the smart view duo, I have been going back and forth about picking that up. The magnify mode was something I couldn't find any information on. I really need the magnify mode, I have a hard time seeing that 0 line. Scopebox sounds like a good way to go $100 for the software, throw in a mini recorder and for $250 you have your scopes running. Compare that to the ultrascope usb 3 and the smartscopes duo 4k, your saving a ton of money. $250 compared to $500-$1000. And Scopebox is a great piece of software.
 
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This is such a funny thing to me, because the Flander's stuff *is* the cheap alternative that is just as, or almost as, good. We've found the unicorn, and people want the horn to be longer.

Careful with the SmartView Duo. I haven't tried the 4K version, but on the older non-4K version, I find the parade and vectorscope to be almost unusable. It sort of draws a line "between pixels" that it's measuring. So you get all this extra chaff drawn-in between the measurements and it's just a confusing mess to look at. I resorted to relying on the histogram when I used it on set.
 
Derek not to beat an old horse to death but where did you find the 8-bit spec on the Konvision? I be scouring the 2260W page and I see it accepts 10 & 12bit but I didn't find anything about the panel itself being 8-bit. The distributor I was chatting with swears up and down its a 10-bit IPS panel.

I'm going to look into the scopes you all mentioned - One reason I haven't look to hard at the Ultra scopes is I'm out of PCI slots on my tower and I though the pocket scope was USB 3 which my Mac Pro doesn't support w/out a card. Just downloaded the trial of Ultra Scope.

Also great point about NAB.

Thanks again

Tommy
 
Tom Chase said:
Derek not to beat an old horse to death but where did you find the 8-bit spec on the Konvision? I be scouring the 2260W page and I see it accepts 10 & 12bit but I didn't find anything about the panel itself being 8-bit. The distributor I was chatting with swears up and down its a 10-bit IPS panel.

I'm going to look into the scopes you all mentioned - One reason I haven't look to hard at the Ultra scopes is I'm out of PCI slots on my tower and I though the pocket scope was USB 3 which my Mac Pro doesn't support w/out a card. Just downloaded the trial of Ultra Scope.

Also great point about NAB.

Thanks again

Tommy
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Just to note, in case there's confusion about this: both scopebox and BMD's ultrascope need hardware separate from your editing hardware - so you'll need a separate tower or mac mini to run those. I can be a cheap box though, no need for anything fancy. I've also heard that it's extremely tricky to find hardware that supports the usb3 version of the ultrascope (which is also PC only). Come to think of it, BMD's PCIe cards are quick finicky about hardware.

Back to the monitors - I just bought a Flanders after going through exactly your thought process Tom. At the moment I'm only feeding it a 4:2:2 1080p signal. But I like the fact that when the times comes to feed it a 4:4:4 2K signal, with a DCI-P3 colour managed workflow, it'll be up to scratch. Right now the 100% REC709 coverage and spot on factory calibration (and free manufacturer calibrations any time!) are keep me very happy.

I think flanders might be doing an NAB B-stock sale right now too where the CM171 in $2K! Wish I'd been able to wait for that. :/

Anyway, I know a lot of us here might sound like FSI salespeople, but I bought the the CM171 because it's THE entry level grading monitor. That's my two pennies anyway!
 
BTW I'm using the software scopes for Resolve at the moment - I've just thrown them up on a second monitor next to my GUI monitor, obviously not as responsive as discreet hardware scopes but very good nonetheless! When I'm really concerned I just throw up the parade/vectorscope on the flanders.
 
Will, yeah the lag is killing me on my Resolve system. I have a 2010 Mac Pro 2.4ghz 8 w/26 GB of RAM, system Drive SSD, media drives an internal RAID 0, with a Quadro 4000 (which I've been told I should replace for a GTX 680).

I look at Flanders B-stock for sure.

Thanks

Tommy
 
Tom Chase said:
I understand that FSI is the go to device, but for what I am doing $4K on a monitor isn't part of my larger plan, but also computer monitors aren't either. The scopes & HD/SDI are 90% of the why I don't want to use a computer monitor.

@Michael I have used the Dream Colors before and I really hate to say it my $500 ASUS is at least as good from my perspective.

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Tom
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Dreamcolor is far superior to many monitors because color of backlight can be precisely adjusted, precision of tonality is extremely good, off-axis viewing barely shifts colors at all, it's a true 10 bit panel, edge-to-edge uniformity is almost perfect, and with a $350 calibration kit you can hit Rec 709 pretty much perfectly (perfect within the tolerances of human acuity) . If you think your Asus is as good you need to learn a lot more about color and monitoring. It's not just about deep blacks or bright backlights.

Flanders are also very good - but again they will not give you deeper blacks than your Asus, nor should you care.
 
Robert,

your right I come from a DSLR & XL1(back in the day) world where 90% of what was shot hit YouTube or corporate DVD players. Over the last few years I've moved to narrative world. But as with most small ventures I'm the director, DP, editor, and colorist. So I know where my strengths are. But like I've said I've sat in a room with the dream color as the reference and the Asus as the GUI and I couldn't tell a difference. Sadly you can find tuts on just about anything on YouTube & Vimeo but as I'm seeing from this string displays are ultimately going to be a very subjective subject.

I really want want to have the confidence when I give a film fest or an investor something on DVD/Blue Ray/Upload it's going to be 85-90% of what I saw. I know 100% all the time isn't realistic because of the devices are out of my control.

so for the long winded message

tommy
 
Tom Chase said:
Sadly you can find tuts on just about anything on YouTube & Vimeo but as I'm seeing from this string displays are ultimately going to be a very subjective subject.
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Alexis Van Hurkman's book Color Correction Handbook has a good section on monitor calibration, as well as a brief write-up on several calibration tools like the ones from Calman and LightIllusion. Steve Shaw has some explanations and tutorials on his LightIllusion website.

The Dreamcolor is "ballparkish" but suffers from viewing angle issues. It's OK if there's just one guy in front of a monitor... not so good if you have a client sitting three feet to your left.
 
Marc Wielage said:
Alexis Van Hurkman's book Color Correction Handbook has a good section on monitor calibration, as well as a brief write-up on several calibration tools like the ones from Calman and LightIllusion. Steve Shaw has some explanations and tutorials on his LightIllusion website.

The Dreamcolor is "ballparkish" but suffers from viewing angle issues. It's OK if there's just one guy in front of a monitor... not so good if you have a client sitting three feet to your left.
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ALL LCDs suffer off-angle distortion, and Dreamcolor is not worse than Flanders or any other brand. Oleds are very, very bad for this.

Plasmas have other problems, like massive stepping in dark gradients, non-linear color and white pumping.

My Dreamcolor is not "ballpark" it has been calibrated to 99.2% of exactly perfect Rec 709 according to a Klein probe. It's all about calibration. If the studio where you went did not calibrate their monitor that's their problem. Only Flanders come pre-calibarted out of the box. Everything else is shipped way, way off and you have to calibrate it yourself and most often use a 3D LUT.

Tom, displays are not really subjective in terms of their accuracy. Some are accurate and some are not, some can be calibrated easily and some cannot. These are hard, objective facts.
 
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