Bram Desmet
Forum Replies Created
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Most range from 30,000 hours to 60,000 hours. It depends largely on the backlight. In reality the technology will evolve to a point where you won’t want to use it as your primary display well before just about any modern LCD monitor will actually ‘die.’ Probably better to ask how long any particular display will meet your needs rather than how long it will technically last, because it will almost certainly outlast your needs.
Oh, and the JVC model you reference is an 8 bit panel, 10 bit processing. If we are going to call that 10 bit then the BM230 is 12 bit, because it has 12 bit processing and an 8 bit panel.
Bram Desmet
FSI (Flanders Scientific, Inc.)
http://www.FlandersScientific.com -
Hey Peter, the first of these don’t start shipping for another week or two so no one is going to have had much first hand experience with them just yet. We will be at SMPTE Sydney in a few weeks if you want to take another look. FYI, the CM320TD comes from the factory with LightSpace created LUTs and LightIllusion has a more affordable Flanders specific version available for anyone interested in using LightSpace for advanced color management of FSI monitors.
Bram Desmet
FSI (Flanders Scientific, Inc.)
http://www.FlandersScientific.com -
The LM-2461W and CM-170 now feature 3D LUTs for color space management created within LightSpace. You can instantly switch between these (e.g. Rec709, EBU, etc.) and you can also load additional USER created color spaces from LightSpace so you can retain both our LightSpace generated LUTs (based on our reference instruments and LightSpace settings) and your own LightSpace generated LUTs (based on your own reference instruments and LightSpace settings).
At FSI our Direct Connect Automatic Alignment system is still used in conjunction with this process for automated white balance, peak white luminance, and gamma setup before the 3D LUTs are applied. This just simplifies the process during production as it provides an optimal ‘neutral’ starting point before the application of the 3D LUT. Of course if you want to use your own reference probes for calibration or account for monitor drift over time or even environmental variables then the monitor still features manual gain/bias and backlight (luminance) adjustment so you can also manually set this per the standard LightSpace instructions before profiling to get optimal results according to your own probe’s readings.
So yes, the default color space selection LUTs (Rec 709, EBU, etc.) were generated in LightSpace, but this does not necessarily mean that you have to use the default LUTs we created as you can load your own from (USER1, USER2, USER3) LUTs. Basically we tried to make this as advantageous and flexible for all customers. Hope that makes sense, but email our support team if you have more questions: Support@FlandersScientific.com
Bram Desmet
FSI (Flanders Scientific, Inc.)
http://www.FlandersScientific.com -
Folks, take a deep breath. FSI always has been and will be open to feedback, criticism, and an unyielding drive to further refine and improve upon our products. This is no exception.
I think perhaps some of you imagine a conflict and animosity between Light Illusion and FSI that simply does not exist. I have personally begun a very friendly and informative dialogue with Steve Shaw and we’ve even purchased a Light Space license to learn more and have a better common ground for understanding and future discussion with Light Illusion and customers using their software. However, it would be extremely premature for me to start discussing specifics because we are not sure yet where this is taking us. The one thing I learned long ago from a variety of software and hardware developers even well before I helped start FSI is not to utter the phrase “well this should be easy.” Truth is if it was easy everyone would do it and the simplest looking things can often be the most difficult to tackle. Best example of this was our recent addition of 12 bit signal support, it was previously only 10 bit, via a simple and free firmware upgrade. This seemingly simple update actually required a 9 month ground up rewrite of our firmware, but we saw a growing customer demand for it and wanted to address that demand.
What I think FSI has managed to do over the years is provide an affordable range of monitors (remember, they start at $2K with the most expensive currently being $5K) that for the vast majority of our clients get the job done at a fair price day in and day out. We’ve never aimed to be the company that makes the $30K pushing-the-limits-of-what-is-possible monitors and with that come limits as to what the displays can do. That being said there is ALWAYS room for improvement and we’ve never suggested otherwise. Our first wide gamut monitors had internal LUTs that were 128 times smaller than what we use now. We then stepped it up with the LM-2460W with a much larger internal LUT. Then we stepped it up with the LM-2461W by investing in truly high-grade probes ($15,000 to $35,000 a piece) that by all indications available to us provided much more precise results. And you know what? At every step of the way we offered inexpensive or free upgrade paths so you could get the latest and greatest technology on these older units.
So again, let me stress that we are always keen on improving what we can where we can and again without discussing specifics, which I just won’t do here, this is no exception. That being said we can’t ignore the fact that day after day thousands of FSI customers around the world feel they have a tool that already gets the job done. Many of these customers have evaluated our solutions closely compared to other competitively priced options and come to the conclusion that for the money we offered the best tool for the job at hand.
Lastly, please be kind to our employees. If you are frustrated at a lack of public posts here please blame me directly, not them. I have asked that they refrain from further commenting here because I think we have said our peace and I really don’t want us to come off as sounding like a company that refuses to believe there is any room for improvement in our products or calibration. In my mind there is always room for improvement and refinement in these respects and we will, as we always have, continue to pursue these avenues of improvement.
Bram Desmet
FSI (Flanders Scientific, Inc.)
http://www.FlandersScientific.com -
Sorry, i see those earlier images may be hard to see. Hope this is better:
OLD CAL
NEW CAL
Bram Desmet
FSI (Flanders Scientific, Inc.)
http://www.FlandersScientific.com -
Again, let me say that if we could use an inexpensive probe and get accurate results we would. There is a reason we use higher end probes and as the CS-2000 measurements results I posted show the results with that probe are entirely different. Same thing when we measure with a 5nm PR-655.
Bram Desmet
FSI (Flanders Scientific, Inc.)
http://www.FlandersScientific.com -
As I mentioned much earlier, but perhaps did not clarify enough there was a change when we released the 2461W as a replacement for the 2460W. We upgraded to several much higher-end and precise spectroradiometers than what we had been using before that time. Anyone with a 2460W could (still can) have their units updated with the new LUTs and have their unit aligned with these higher end tools to obtain an even more precise result. To put this into perspective below is are graphs of the old calibration result as measured by a Minolta CS-2000 and the new calibration result as measured by that same Minolta CS-2000. By the way, these measurements were taken by a third party using there own probes (TV Station evaluating display).
However, I don’t want to confuse the issue here. Even with the newer calibration there will be a perceptual difference between a CCFL backlight unit and a white LED backlight unit, even if they objectively measure 100% the same. Again, I think the video we posted early in this thread explains this as well as we can explain what is ultimately a rather esoteric issue. Long story short we offer different display technology options to meet different needs (and even preferences), but the reality is that we live in a world where there are an ever growing number of spectral distributions that even given identical calibrations as can be measured will lead to perceptual differences.
What is even more troubling is that different people can perceive the same spectral distributions differently. Best case I ever saw of this was walking into a room where two guys were looking at an OLED monitor with a flat white field on it. The one guy kept saying it looks green to me, the other keep saying it looked magenta. Same screen, taking turns sitting perfectly on axis, two very different perceptions. FWIW it looked green to me, but to my colleague (4th person to walk in, it looked magenta as well).
Bram Desmet
FSI (Flanders Scientific, Inc.)
http://www.FlandersScientific.com -
Robert,
Attached is a screen shot of a simple Cal-Man report of the LM-2461W in Rec 709 mode vs Rec 709 color gamut reference as measured by a 5nm spectral bandwidth spectroradiometer. As you can see the Red primary is not inside or short of Rec 709 at all. However, if you put this next to an LM-2140W (our 8 bit White LED monitor with Red primary at exactly the same chromaticity coordinates) and compare 100% Red vs 100% Red on both displays most, though not all, observers see the White LED backlight unit’s red primary as perceptually redder (and see the white balance as redder for that matter as well). The issue is different spectral distributions and the limits of standardized color science models to truly predict/provide perfect metamers when dealing with such disparate spectral distributions. Search around and you will hear the same type of feedback with respect to OLED monitors and other new display technologies in that perfectly matching (according to very high quality probes) displays still look different when comparing different display technologies. In the days of CRTs all Grade1 CRTs had essentially the same spectral distribution so things were indeed simpler.
When FSI customers discuss perceptually matching to their high-end projectors we are talking about matching when operating in the same color space (for example Rec 709 to Rec 709 not Rec 709 vs DCI P3). The LM-2461W matches these projectors very well, the LM-2340W and 2140W less so perceptually. However, these less expensive White LED units do look like reasonably well calibrated consumer devices also using white LED backlights. If you are unhappy with our selection of backlight technology in the LM-2461W accounting for its spectral distribution and ability to perceptually match such projectors that is something I can live with, but what we won’t do is intentionally make the Red primary objectively wrong by pushing it out even further in Rec 709 mode.
Bram Desmet
FSI (Flanders Scientific, Inc.)
http://www.FlandersScientific.com -
Hi Gustavo, if you switch to monitor wide gamut mode you will see that the unit is very capable of making a very saturated Red. It is not that the monitor cannot make these types of Red, it is that In our experience when properly calibrated with a CS2000, PR-735, PR-680, or 5nm spectral bandwidth PR-655 the Rec 709 primary is indeed orangey compared to many consumer / prosumer displays operating in somewhat wider than Rec 709 color gamuts. Also, note that when we released the LM-2461W we transitioned to 2nm, 4nm, and 5nm spectral bandwidth reference spectroradiometers. We had previously been using only 8m spectral bandwidth spectroradiometers. This is the reason there was a change between 2460W default setup and 2461W default setup. The 2461W is more accurate and as you correctly note and most 2461W owners can attest to this provides a very good perceptual and objective match to high-end digital projectors working in the same color space. We made this all very public at the release of the 2461W and any 2460W can be updated and re-calibrated with the higher end reference instruments to match the 2461W.
Please note that all FSI monitors offer a wide variety of manual toggles for customers that want to make small adjustments (for example if they have their own preferred reference instrument) and we even offer the ability to essentially put the monitor in a ‘blank slate’ mode with essentially all of our color management turned off. This allows customers that don’t want to use our own calibration the ability to use external color management solutions/boxes without having to ‘compete’ with our built in systems. A very tiny percentage of customers go this route and those that do seem to find that sufficient as far as playing well with third party color management solutions. I would only caution that we regularly test just about every probe we can get our hands on and if you elect to use calibration other than what is built in we strongly recommend using at least 5nm spectral bandwidth spectroradiometers. We find significant deviations when going to 8nm and especially 10nm spectral bandwidth spectroradiometers. If we felt we could use a $1,000 probe to calibrate our units we certainly would, we don’t invest in the significantly more expensive probes because it is fun, it is just what we find is necessary to get good results.
Bram Desmet
FSI (Flanders Scientific, Inc.)
http://www.FlandersScientific.com -
Robert, Delta E, with respect to greyscale, is typically less than about 1 as measured at 10 IRE increments throughout greyscale range when we do our QC before a unit ships, if it goes over 2 at any level we realign the unit. Keep in mind this is Delta E as measured by a secondary probe (other than the one that did the calibration as we use different calibration and QC probes). If we were to do the QC report with the same probe that did the calibration then delta E would be as close to 0 as makes no difference, but by using separate probes we have a fail safe to make sure the probes haven’t suddenly got out of calibration for some reason. Of course the probes don’t agree perfectly so a delta E tolerance of 2 is actually quite strict as that is as attributable to the probe variation as calibration accuracy.
The video that Kris linked to explains precisely why you can have two units with equal measurements that still look perceptually different, and different to different observers for that matter as well. This is NOT unique to FSI monitors and is true of any monitor brand that utilizes different types display technology (different spectral distributions). I think sometimes we are a bit honest to a fault here as we make it a point to divulge this information instead of sugar coating it. This is actually an important issue we try to stress with people in talking to them about their specific needs for a monitor and here are some important things you can take away from this:
1. A HUGE number of consumer TVs on the market, especially newer ones, are using a basic white LED backlight. These, even when calibrated to objectively (according to spectroradiometer) match a xenon bulb projector, CCFL backlight LCD monitor, CRT, or Plasma display tend to look warmer/redder to the majority, though not all, observers.
2. White LED backlight monitors tend to be particularly problematic when trying to get something that perceptually matches a high-end projector. Again, the numbers can be identical according to the measuring device, but most people perceive the white LED units as looking significantly warmer.
3. Wide Gamut CCFL, EEFL, and RGB LED backlight monitors tend to perceptually match high-end digital projectors for most observers. This is why, IMHO, you see so many manufacturers opt for solutions other than white LED backlight for their ‘premier’ color grading monitors.
4. The big conundrum in all of this is finding one monitor to rule them all. If you are doing high-end DI work then perhaps white LED backlight is not ideal. If you are doing mostly work destined for broadcast TV maybe you could argue that with the proliferation of white LED backlight LCD TVs that having a professional White LED backlight monitor is ideal, even for color correction. Though there are certainly a lot of other consumer technologies with significant market share. What we find in real world use is that when it comes to white LED people are starting to know and expect white LED LCD TVs to look perceptually redder.
5. Most importantly keep in mind that the differences are most dramatic when you make the decision to place displays of different spectral distributions next to one another. If you just color grade on one and then go from display to display individually, instead of side by side, content tends to overwhelmingly look normal as your eye quickly adapts to these perceptual white point differences.
6. If you are going to mix LCD with Plasma, CRT, or Projection my suggestion would be to use LCD with RGB LED, CCFL, or EEFL backlights. White LED is less ideal in such mixed use environments in my experience.
Again, I think the video Kris links to explains this well despite my southern drawl way of pronouncing Metamerism. At the end we even specifically tell you what to expect with respect to how our various models may match various types of other technologies.
Hope that helps.
Bram Desmet
FSI (Flanders Scientific, Inc.)
http://www.FlandersScientific.com
