-
NTSC LCD Monitors Sony Luma Series ?
I am looking for an NTSC reference monitor for my edit system. What’s the poop on the Sony Luma Series LCD monitors. My supplier is offering the LMD1410 as a broadcast ntsc reference monitor and I am wondering about the “trueness” of these LCD monitors for reference color etc…. Have relied on Sony pro ntsc monitors for years but have not used the LCD generation. Advice? Your experience? Product testing and publication?
Thanks so much.
Jefff
This posting also previously posted on KenStone for about a week wo much response – it happens – so thought I would post here as well. Thnx.
G5 2.5 Dual
2.5 Ram
FCP 4.5 DVDSP Motion
DV Edit SystemPost Response
-
9 Replies
-
I have not heard one good thing about these. Can’t display black as black, it’s more of a dark grey. Sony claims they are SMPTE-C phosphor accurate, but it doesn’t sound like they are.
PVM14L5/1 is the monitor you want. It’s still out there and it’s a multiformat SD/HD monitor. We run the 20″ and the 14″ models here and they are broadcast accurate color.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
-
If you want an LCD, look at the 2 new Panasonics. They have the best blacks I’ve ever seen on an LCD. The 26″ is only $5k, and has SDI, component, S-video & a built in waveform monitor.
Arnie
https://www.arniepix.com -
The black level is definitely not great.
The colors look a little weird… Sony has some information on how (not) close the monitor is to Rec. 709 colorimetry… at least they had such a chart at NAB. The monitor is switchable between Rec. 709, SMPTE C, and some other colorimetries/primaries.
The CRTs are a much better buy IMO.
-
I second that, the Panasonic broadcast LCD is awesome, completely unbelievable, I used to run one in my DS Nitris HD suite – clients loved it but I didn’t love them when they fingerpainted the screen…. Goddamn clients never seem to wash their hands…
Dom.
-
[Arniepix] “If you want an LCD, look at the 2 new Panasonics. They have the best blacks I’ve ever seen on an LCD. The 26″ is only $5k, and has SDI, component, S-video & a built in waveform monitor.”
Yes, these are definitely the best LCD monitors out there right now in this price range. However, keep in mind that even Panasonic will tell you these are not color critical monitors for color correcting. There are people doing it because they do show wonderful color, but just be aware, they are still not as accurate as the Sony CRT series.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
-
Keep it in mind that as we move from CRT based TV sets to LCD and DLP projection sets, that is going to change as those sets will not display NTSC blacks either. Eventually color correction will need to move to the same medium as we watch with for a more accurate color interpretation
-
[MrVideo] “Keep it in mind that as we move from CRT based TV sets to LCD and DLP projection sets, that is going to change as those sets will not display NTSC blacks either.”
Unless you’re watching a high quality plasma like the Panasonic’s. The one we’re using is essentially the same model you can purchase in Best Buy, it just has professional inputs on it and the blacks are completely black. It looks so good next to our Sony PVM CRT monitor that we now do client reviews using that plasma.
[MrVideo] “Eventually color correction will need to move to the same medium as we watch with for a more accurate color interpretation”
Agreed.
I was very disappointed at NAB this year that we are not hearing what monitors will be considered “Broadcast Standard.” Right now it’s a CRT with SMPTE-C phosphors. Only Sony has made a claim that the Luma series emulates SMPTE-C. But neither SMPTE nor NAB has come out to say “This will be the new broadcast standard for LCD & Plasma displays.”
Once this standard is set, then we will all be able to purchase LCD’s, Plasma’s and even projectors that meet this standard. Really really frustrating right now with the CRT’s disappearing and the standards are not being re-set.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
-
The Panasonic Plasma with the SDI input are pretty damned good, but again, still not as good as a Sony CRT. I just had my monitors professionally calibrated not to long ago, and my plasma is prettty close to my Sony, but not quite perfect. But the clients sure love the plasma, since I have a big head and they would have a pretty hard time seeing without it.
moody glasgow
smoke artist / editor -
Only Sony has made a claim that the Luma series emulates SMPTE-C. But neither SMPTE nor NAB has come out to say “This will be the new broadcast standard for LCD & Plasma displays.”
I think you may be misinterpreting how the standards… my understanding is that their standards are defined with an ideal monitor in mind. Right now, even the most expensive Sony CRT available (the 32″ Sony BVM-A, $37k list at B&H) meets that criteria for Rec. 709 HD. It doesn’t use the Rec. 709 primaries (it uses SMPTE C; I haven’t checked if it lies within the tolerance) and it isn’t capable of hitting 35fL without problems.
In this case, ideal would mean the monitor that a manufacturer *should* build. The LCD and plasma displays that are produced should be designed to be as close to the ideal monitor as possible. In practice, this doesn’t happen and there are some areas where displays don’t fall around the standards. Among consumer CRTs, you have some systematic differences like higher color temperature, and image cheats (i.e. flesh tone correction, scanning velocity modulation, excessive sharpening, etc.).
If you wanted to, you could grade with the audience in mind. i.e. knowing that most HD viewers are watching on LCDs, you make the assumption of a raised black level. Knowing that most monitors have that flaw, you try to correct/adjust for it. This approach has a disadvantage in that monitor trends shift over time. Now that LCDs and plasmas are more common, the average color temperature is going to get much closer to D65 (the standard color temperature / white point for everywhere except for Japan).
The strategy (of grading for your audience) runs counter to engineering standards… since you are no longer grading towards the engineering standard (i.e. not following it). The problem with this strategy is that you aren’t grading for your audience.
2- In an ideal world, the monitor manufacturers would follow engineering standards.
Because technologies change/improve (i.e. emergence of LCD, and other display technologies) and because of economics/politics (brighter CRTs supposedly sell better), you have manufacturers moving away from engineering standards. Among consumer CRTs, the color temperature is higher because it makes the CRT brighter.
In some cases, things are wrong because the engineers screwed up (i.e. chroma bug in DVD players) and/or because it’s cheaper not to fix it (i.e. may be why most DV equipment doesn’t put analog black level at 7.5 IRE).3- For some information on consumer device characteristics, see
this article comparing display technologies
*There may be some technical inaccuracies, but I believe most of the information is good. The inaccuracies that I know of are: 6500K and D65 are different colors / white points; CRT gamma is not quite as simple as 2.2; suggestion of Lu’v’ processing is dubious
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up