Color grading monitor for Macbook Pro

[Bob Zelin]

Brian –
maybe I am old, maybe I am ignorant, maybe I am out of touch. You are young, you are a student. Your responsibility is not to start your own business right now, and buy all this equipment. You are smart an ambitious. You should GET A JOB in our industry, learn about this equipment, and do your indy film FOR FREE at night on your employeers hi end equipment, on your own time. Want to spend some money -buy a disk drive so you can plug in your media onto his system, and color grade it at night while you learn this equipment, and learn what hi end color grading is about (and everything else). There is NO REASON for you to spend one penny on any equipment. You are not even a freelancer – you certainly don’t have your own business – you are getting started. You need a JOB. Learn on the job, learn what the right equipment is (not from Creative Cow), do indy features, and indy music videos, get good, get clients, and THEN start your own company. Now is not the right time. You can’t do everything with no money – nor should you. You were not rude – you are ambitious – as you should be. But don’t try to do the impossible, and don’t waste $2000 on a monitor that will do nothing to help you support yourself. Your Indy Feature will not make you millions – it will only help you learn – and you can learn for free while working (even for very low pay) at a video facility.

Bob Zelin

[Brian Lehrer]

Bob,

I completely understand where you are coming from, and I appreciate your advice. But worry not, I’m definitely not trying to create a little business of my own. I have worked jobs and paid internships in the industry for the last few years, two of these jobs in Post-Production areas. This semester at school is too overloaded for me to work as well, but next semester I will, and due to your advice, I will likely try to get a job where I can learn about this advanced equipment first hand. Thank you very much for the advice.

And yes, I agree, given the opportunity, I will jump to edit my work for free in a professional environment – My partner works at a post facility currently, perhaps he can work something out.

As to a disk drive, I already own a large G-RAID, which works fine for my purposes.

As for buying equipment for myself, the way I see, all I’m really shelling out for that I wouldn’t otherwise is the Matrox box, which is not cheap, by any means, but it is certainly in a more affordable range at $450 or so. So what I purchase remains to be seen, but per you and Shane’s advice, I will definitely not drop $2,000 on a monitor, but I may be willing to spend $450 on the matrox mini and hook it up to a compatible 1080p 1:1 pixel HDTV, and get something I can work with, at least until I become more advanced. I have definitely figured this much out now.

Although, as a side note, I’d love to know what kind of monitors you guys use to edit with (just for general editing space, not color correction). Do you use Apple monitors or another brand?
In fact, if you were willing, I’d love to hear what you guys work with as a whole system, just curious to see what the pros use.

Anyways, thank you for the advice and help,

Brian Lehrer

[Shane Ross]

I use the Dell 2400 series…I have the 2405s, but the 2408 and 2409 models are the ones that are out now. Better colors, CHEAPER by HALF!… and they are black, not distracting SILVER. MATTE, not GLOSSY. You can also get the 22″ models…even cheaper. I am finding that my 2×24″ are a bit large. 22″ is a good comfort zone.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Brian Lehrer]

Shane,

Sounds like Dell pragmatism beats out Apple’s pretty shell. Thanks for helping out!

Brian Lehrer

[Bob Zelin]

Although, as a side note, I’d love to know what kind of monitors you guys use to edit with (just for general editing space, not color correction). Do you use Apple monitors or another brand?
In fact, if you were willing, I’d love to hear what you guys work with as a whole system, just curious to see what the pros use.

Brian –
in fantasy land, you will hear all kinds of stupid answers – the best most expensive brands, like FSI, CineTal, TV Logic, and eCinema.

But this is REAL LIFE, and in real life, people that own companies have only one concern – “what is the least amount of money I can spend to do this job, and get away with it”. This is why I recommended the Dell 2408WFP. The Panasonic TH42 / TH50 series is insanely popular – because it is cheap, and it is good. For 17″ LCD’s, the Panasonic BT-LH1700, 1710 is the most popular. This does not mean that it’s the best purchase – I am just saying what is popular. And recently the JVC DTV24U is popular as well. And plenty of people continue to buy the horrible Sony LMD2030W – do you know why – BECAUSE ITS CHEAP (about $1100) and they can get away with it. Buying “the right stuff” is not what professional businesses do – they try to save money any way they can.

Bob Zelin

[Franco Bogino]

Hi Guys

Interesting thread. I’ve been looking into setting up a decent monitoring solution for grading at home.

Unfortunately I don’t have much money to fork out, but I AM looking for a solution that will allow me to output some commercial work.
I want to produce music videos. Because I am aiming at the low budget market I need to be able to do most of the work myself & at home in order to make any money out of it.
The trouble is that until I get the ball rolling and build up a decent enough showreel to get reel in bigger budgets I can’t afford to invest in the high end pro equipment.

I am on a mac using FCP and Color. I was interested to know how passable the Dell 2408 really is, and what kind of difference it would make even to this kind of monitor if I used component inputs instead of the DVI. I realise this is probably the cheapest solution. I do have more money available than this but I only want to fork it out if the difference is notable. What I don’t have is the money for a Panasonis Production monitor (though this is probably the kind of thing I’d go for once the ball is rolling).
I’m prepared to spend around 1000 UK pounds at this stage, so it’s really about getting the best monitoring solution for this money. I currently only have DVI out from my Mac, so if it really makes a difference this money will have to cover a new graphics card or a decent adapter/ converter so I can use component.

I am a freelancer, so if a job warrants it I can probably get into a facility and tweak my grade on a decent system, as long as I’ve done the leg work at home.

Bob, don’t be annoyed – we all have to start somewhere. You all seem to know your stuff, so your imput would be well received.

London based Avid/ FCP offline editor.
FCP Online.

[Shane Ross]

Going COMPONENT to a DELL monitor isn’t REMOTELY close to a true image. I do this at home just to have a big client monitor to see, but I consider it an “offline” image…like editing with low res offline footage. Good to see big, but not color accurate.

Spend 1000 pounds? Get a Matrox MXO2 mini then 500 pound HDTV. The MXO2 mini allows you to calibrate the monitor to bars, so you can at least get close. Not the best, but a pretty good option that I’d use in a pinch.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Franco Bogino]

Hi Shane

Thanks for the reply. I see the benefit of going through a box like the MOX2, but what I don’t understand is the choice of monitor. A Dell is quite a bit more expensive that a lot of the Flat Panet TVs of similar size, so wouldn’t this indicate a better image quality?
I’m iterested to know if there is something intrinsic in the colour space and blacks that is different, or if it is a quality issue.

Also, in terms of calibration, computer monitors can be calibrated using special measuring devices, so the MOX2 isn’t necessarily an advantage on this front, or is it? I’m just going by the equipment that a photo retoucher would use, which would be a high end computer monitor connected via DVI. I have a friend whose company use Eizo monitors, but they are out of my price range (about £3000). Again, I dont’s know if this is because of some fundamental difference between video images and stills…I’ve always looked at video as a series of stills when it comes to grading (though I’d like to know if this is fundamentally flawed).

One problem is that if I go the componet option on a client monitor, color might require me to have a third monitor as it’s interface requires 2 computer monitors. This is more a space issue than a price issue as there a are plenty of cheap computer monitors out there.

Thanks

Franco

London based Avid/ FCP offline editor.
FCP Online.

[Shane Ross]

[Franco Bogino] “A Dell is quite a bit more expensive that a lot of the Flat Panet TVs of similar size, so wouldn’t this indicate a better image quality?”

No. Computer monitor…TV monitors. Different technologies involved there.

[Franco Bogino] “I’m iterested to know if there is something intrinsic in the colour space and blacks that is different, or if it is a quality issue. “

Differences in color space.

[Franco Bogino] “computer monitors can be calibrated using special measuring devices, so the MOX2 isn’t necessarily an advantage on this front, or is it?”

Calibrating a computer monitor is different than calibrating a TV monitor. Different color spaces. Calibrating a computer monitor with a calibration tool works for photos, not video.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Paul Kerby]

Wow, long read there… You guys have some patients, that is for sure.

Looking at the panny pro plasma since that seems to be the best client color “accurate” monitor… I would be running it through an mxo2. Wondering why that is the monitor of choice? Over say the Sony LCD xbr9 series with sony adding 10bit color depth?

Thank you.

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