LCD Monitors at NAB

[GlennChan]

Some notes from what I briefly saw at NAB...

Ecinemasys has 1920x1080 monitors for <$5k. It's 1920x1080 so you get full resolution and no scaling artifacts.

They also have their DPX line, which supposedly has much improved black levels (better than CRT)... although I didn't get to see this (their monitor broke halfway through NAB).

2- Sony has an interesting comparison between their new BVM-L LCDs (about ~$25k list) and their ~20" BVM CRT. Their images look very similar.

On dark scenes, the CRT still has better black level. Otherwise, the black level looks the same.
On bright scene, it sort of looks like the CRT has slightly less saturated colors (due to flaring).
The LCD looks sharper on fine detail.

2b- it was weird that the surround for their comparison was pitch black. If they were trying to push their LCDs (which seemed to be the point of the comparison), then you'd think they'd have a proper lit surround which should slightly favor the LCD.

[Alexander Nikishin]

It's funny you mention that about the E Cinema DPX display because I headed over there on both Monday and Tuesday and was given the response, it was damaged in the lab prior to NAB.....hhmmmph.

On the other hand, Marshall had their 23" full 1080p 500 to 1 contrast ratio, dual hd-sdi 4:4:4 display out to show. Full manual controls, a nice and sturdy design, all for about $5,500.

http://www.lcdracks.com/monitors/vr231pafhd.html

[Volker Ehlers]

Hi folks,

Just traveled through West Africa with a 10inch Marshall for 2 month. Shot everyday in incredible dust or moisture and always heat. Very good product. Thinking of getting more of them. Also had very surprised reactions from a focus puller next test room when he looked at his SD video from a 35mm camera and my HD-SDI picture from a MINI35. (Only in terms of monitoring...) He never heard of them (Germany) Def. cool equipment for rental and co.

Cheers Volker

[GlennChan]

On an unrelated note, I can't believe Marshall has a picture of a native / aboriginal person in their ads along with copy proclaiming native resolution.

[Clayton Harper]

It's funny you mention that about the E Cinema DPX display because I headed over there on both Monday and Tuesday and was given the response, it was damaged in the lab prior to NAB.....hhmmmph.

I spent like 10 minutes talking to the girls at ecinema about cinetal until I remembered they were a competitor. Ooops.

They didn't mention the DPX was broken they said that the owner was bringing it over in the late afternoon on Tuesday. Mebbe he was trying to fix it...


On an unrelated note, I can't believe Marshall has a picture of a native / aboriginal person in their ads along with copy proclaiming native resolution.

Hehehe. :)

[GlennChan]

The demo team / girls at the ecinemasys booth were interesting to talk to... "talk to me nerdy". Haha.

Too bad the DPX was broken. I vaguely remember seeing it before it broke... or not (I remember that it definitely had lower black level than the other monitors). I'm tired, I'm not sure if I remember things clearly.

But if the DPX works as they claim, I can't see why you would get the BVM-L Sony LCD monitors. But perhaps I am cynical after having seen Sony's initial attempts at LCD. The early Luma displays had screen burn-in, along with wacky colors and poor black level.

[Clayton Harper]

Glenn,

I had a weird revelation looking at the ecinema stuff which was that if you are a small shop sending materials to another facility to master maybe you don't need the best monitoring solution.

I have an HD CRT and an HDLink feeding an LCD (1920x1080) on two workstations. I can judge color and sharpness pretty well between these two given the fact that I can actually read a vectorscope (unlike say 99% of people in our industry).

So given that, I was thinking why don't I just buy a Plasma with a good contrast ratio (or 10 given the DPX pricing). I figure it will give a great sense of what it will look like in somebody's living room. I have been in 50 facilities and seen 50 different calibrations. It's always just "close". I feel like I can get "close" for 5k not 50k.

Am I crazy?

[GlennChan]

1- At some level, the world is color inaccurate to begin with due to factors like metamerism and uneven lighting.

Metamerism is when objects are different color under different lighting situations. An extreme example would be certain objects when illuminated by "black" light (I call it laserquest light). *There's also fluorescence going on in that situation.

Uneven lighting causes problem for lightness (and color) constancy. Your visual system tries to figure out the reflective properties of an object.
Reflectance (% of light reflected) = Luminance (amount of light hitting your eye) / Illuminance (amount of light hitting the object)

Your math teacher might say that equation is impossible to solve since there are two unknown variables. You can however make a decent guess. Of course, this will still be a guess. Your sensory input is ambiguous to begin with. You can see this effect in illusions like simultaneous contrast.

2- Extrapolating from that...
Your brain has a huge amount of information input to it. It can't possibly store all of it in your memory, so it picks apart the useful information and you only remember that. You tend not to remember color in great precision since there's no point (recall that the world is color inaccurate, ambiguous). So that might explain why a lot of monitors look similar... and it also suggests that you don't need to be super accurate in your monitoring.

3- If you look at traditional photochemical color timing, the results are pretty good. And this was a process where it was all trial and error... that was their "monitoring" tool. It has worked for decades.

4- In certain color management situations (i.e. print, film), I believe you really do need a wide gamut monitor to be able to see particular output colors. TV has fairly consistent gamuts (709, SMPTE C, EBU) so it's much easier to deal with; in practice people use the colorimetry interchangeably (i.e. monitor HD/709 material on a SMPTE C monitor like a Sony BVM CRT).

5- A lot of consumer TVs do wacky image processing so you might miss certain things. I believe you would avoid this with something like a HDLink + LCD computer monitor. A broadcast monitor would still have advantages in:
- color response, calibration consistency
- black level (though raised black level might be a good thing)
- bit depth (after calibration, an 8-bit panel will have lower than 8-bit performance)
- de-interlacer (though a crappy deinterlacer might be ok)
- response time
- ?I can't remember how you solve for audio delay/sync. I believe broadcast LCDs will delay embedded SDI audio appropriately.
- scaling (if your computer monitor does at least 1920x1080 and you do 1:1 pixels you should be ok; though some LCDs like the apple cinema display look a little weird in their pixels... you see this weird screen door effect)

Of all these things, a consumer LCD + HDlink might be ok??? As long as you use LUTs to calibrate the monitor. I haven't really looked deeply into this myself.

6- The raised black level might be ok since:
A- That's what most viewers will see.
B- A lot of consumer LCDs have problems with noise in the blacks. The raised black level will make this easier to spot.

Though if you want the best looking picture (i.e. clients), the lower the black level the better. And the bigger the screen the better too.

[Nick Shaw]

Anybody get a detailed look at BMD's new HDLink Pro? I own an original HDLink, and find it very useful. I still use my CRT Monitor for judging colour though. The HDLink Pro has 3D LUTs so it should be possible to calibrate an LCD more accurately than with the current model.

[Clayton Harper]

Anybody get a detailed look at BMD's new HDLink Pro? I own an original HDLink, and find it very useful. I still use my CRT Monitor for judging colour though. The HDLink Pro has 3D LUTs so it should be possible to calibrate an LCD more accurately than with the current model.

I'm thinking of upgrading to the HDLink Pro and buying myself one of those Panasonic Plasmas they had running above the Final Cut stations at NAB although I may get the 50" instead of the 40".

[Finner]

From what I have experienced a good LCD is better then a plasma any day. Panasonic had a lot of really good LCD close to color correct monitors that I think are the best value choice out right now. I walked briefly through the sony booth and was not impressed with a single thing they had to offer. I would not want stocks in that company right now.

[Simon Blackledge]

I got a panny lxd70 lcd for home and a new 70 series plasma for work, very impressed with both so far, but the plasma needs running in. The plasma has way better blacks. Full HD 50" would have been nice but viewing distance was to close for one.

Was just about to get the same lcd at home as a stop gap for expensive monitors for workstations but am now looking at the new -e-cinema soloutions.

What is handy, is dropping all the tests into itunes at 720p and viewing them with an AppleTV. Really handy. Although it seems to only want to play clips that have audio.. :-/ not great for mute vfx work..

s

[Clayton Harper]

From what I have experienced a good LCD is better then a plasma any day.

I think this depends on what you're trying to see. For sharpness, LCD kills it but the black levels are pure crap. Plus, I already have a color inaccurate LCD sitting on my desktop from Apple. :biggrin:

I am most worried about getting something large with good blacks tha I can watch from across the room. The first time I cut something on a projector, I realized that cutting from a small monitor makes you subconciously select more singles and tight shots because its easier to see things.

I just pulled the trigger on one of those 42" panny pro plasmas, so mebbe I'll write a little report for everybody after I get a chance to play with it.