Recommended monitor for editing

[Danny Hays]

I use a computer monitor that can be calibrated for exact color and an 32″ Samsung HDTV, since that’s what most people will be viewinwing my videos on, not necessarly Samsung but it had the best pic at the time.

[Nigel O’neill]

Thanks Danny

I have been looking at the Samsung HDTV’s as well. I am generally happy with the BenQ monitor that has my time line, and I have calibrated the monitors closely, but 24″ as an external is just not big enough in a quad screen for spotting those times when the camera operators manual focussing is off a touch.

I could always use the 46″ from the den and watch WW III break out with the kids when they find it missing!

Intel i7 920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (X64), Vista x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S 4.1

[Dave Haynie]

There’s some logic to using a good quality LCD TV for preview. I don’t use a television while editing, but I always watch a preview on my 71″ rear-projection DLP.

For accurate color, you really need to calibrate your monitors and your HDTV. For video/graphics editing, I always strongly recommend against the TN (Twisted Nematic) displays.. which are sadly, the kind nearly every “regular monitor” is. These are easily recognized by the fact that rapidly fade when viewed off-axis. There’s a list of problems: most only deliver 6-bits of color per pixel, the color is questionable in the first place, etc. The reason they’re popular: they’re cheap to make, and very fast — gamers pretty much drive the needs of the PC industry.

The “right” LCD monitor type is IPS (in-plane switching) or VA (vertical alignment) .. or one of the variations of these (MVA, PVA, AFFS, AVS, etc). Opinions vary… IPS probably has the best color stability, MVA tends to be better for moving video, etc.

As for HDTVs themselves, I actually like the look of DLP over that of LCD, but the consumer market demanded thin panels, so everyone gets LCD these days. The “LED TV” everyone advertises is really an LCD panel with dynamic zone LED lighting. Rather than one gigantic CCFL backlight, modern panels use a large array of LEDs as backlights. The LEDs are modulated based on source material.. this is good thing. A typical TN LCD display has a contrast ratio of about 1000:1 if you’re lucky, but using dynamic LEDs, they can extend this dramatically. The target is to as good or better than a phosphor display, which is typically 15,000:1 or so.

Of course, one could argue that if you really want to edit for the masses, you could get your video to look correct on an uncalibrated HDTV, since that’s the TV most people will own. TVs leave the factory set to deliver a crazy impact on the floor of a Big Box store, not even close to being set up properly for home viewing. Naturally, I wouldn’t actually recommend that — a decent HDTV properly set up is the proper preview device. I’ve seen excellent units from Panasonic (who also made the second-best Plasmas… Pioneer Kuro is the best, but Plasma too is kind of becoming a specialty item, if not leavinghe market entirely — they’re power hogs), the new ones from Sharp with yellow added is new to LCDs and may yield some better flesh tones… I have yet to see one properly set up in a realistic viewing room, however (most rear-projection DLPs have been 5 or 6 colors since, well, DLP was popular… Mitsibushi still makes these, and of course, most digital projectors, for home, office, or at the local IMAX, are DLP-based).

-Dave