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The all recurring monitoring subject
Just read this post by David Mullen:
https://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2495&page=3
By now the dust has sorta settled. LCD won for the time being.
Most of these displays are pretty crappy, and crappy and inconsistent in another fashion than the good ole’ CRT’s used to be.
Have any new conventional wisdom come out of this?
Certainly many sit on high-end monitoring solutions, but it is sorta quite necessary to relate to that “most” viewers don’t even have high-end Pioneer or Panasonic Plasmas, but run off the mill cheapo LCD panels for their viewing pleasure.
And by now, quite a few view a lot through mpeg4 settop boxes through the net.
How are people adjusting to this “new” (well not really) non-conform way of using video for finishing of your projects.
I’ve been doing the “well, don’t trust anything but a broadcast” game, for a while – but sometimes (secretly -;) from my audio background, I guess… ) I’m leaning more towards:
“Don’t trust anything but the cheapest, crappiest monitor you can ever find”.And ‘ the same time, I|m waiting for my first “Color” install…
Boy, are these weird times.
Cheers!
Gunleik
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7 Replies
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I personally think that good quality monitoring has never been less expensive than right now. And I’m looking forward to new technologies & competition driving down prices a little bit more over the next couple of years.
Think about it. 2 years ago, any true HD monitor of passible quality would have run you something like $12K or more. Now it’s more like $2K for plasma and $3-4K for LCD. I’m hoping that pro-quality projectors will get down into the $5K or under range, so that it will be practical for a film editor to project onto a 10′ screen in their own suite.
Pass the popcorn!
Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog -
Agreed, but…
I am very happy with my (not supposed to color grade on) panasonic LCD broadcast.
I am even very happy with how material plays out on my Pioneer plasma after working on the Panny, but… Even my Apple cinema display and the Dell 24″ looks pretty decent -;)
The major problem is that most do not have anything that is remotely close to these viewing facilities.
A well graded video looks ok in almost all circumstances…
I’m just starting to familiarize myself with the fact (?) that the waveform monitor is the only thing to trust, I guess…
Gunleik
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Waveforms and Vectorscopes don’t tell the whole story though I’m afraid…. I agree that as of right now, a Cinema Display with a Matrox MXO, or the Pannasonic monitors are probably the best value. The problem is, the step up from there is pretty costly… HD CRT’s just aren’t too inexpensive… Any Colorist will say you have to have a CRT, but when they are the only ones that ever see the images with a 35,000 buck display, the point sort of gets moot.
And until the whole world is watching the same sort of set, it’s impractical to worry too much about it and have many a display to correct with (what? you’re gonna AVERAGE them all or something?) It does depend on what the viewer is going to be watching, and there’s way too many different TV sets out there, let alone projection systems etc…
We get a little crazy with this IMHO… content is King, and if you’ve spent some time grading a picture, the project is likely to succeed in any event if it has compelling content, right?
Jerry
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Well said Jerry.
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All true, but you should still strive to purchase the best monitor you can and have it calibrated as close to broadcast standards as possible. You wouldn’t want to master a studio album on the Aiwa stereo you bought at Best Buy – they’re great reference for the worst possible sound, but always master a professional level.
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So far as I know, HD CRTs are no longer in production. What few new ones are still in inventory here & there won’t be available much longer. Even consumer CRTs are becoming less common as people buy HD sets. I’d prefer to move forward, to embrace the new standards that are emerging.
Professional monitors have always been far better and more consistent than consumer sets. Plus, most consumer sets leave the factory with their brightness & contrast pushed all the way up, & nobody ever bothers to adjust them down to where they should be. But that’s not the point.
My point is that you can’t control the conditions at the end of the delivery chain, you can only control them in your own edit suite. We can (and should) make color decisions based on a good quality, calibrated broadcast monitor, along with our scopes. And the cost of those monitors, and even those scopes, have been coming down.
Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog -
Hopefully everyone already has a monitor. This is probably the WORST time ever to shop for a broadcast monitor. They’ve stopped making CRTs prematurely. LCDs are not up to the task yet.
There are new technologies being demoed every month. LED-lit LCDs, OLED, SED, etc. These are the new tech that can match and even exceed the quality of CRTs. But they’re not here yet.
I saw the new Panny broadcast LCDs at NAB. Not only are they a ridiuclous ripoff as far as price goes, they didn’t look all that great. I hope people realize that if they buy one of these things now, a consumer monitor/TV set costing 1/10th the price will outperform it in as little as 2 years from now.
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