Reference Monitor

Andy O'Neil · January 31, 2006

Shooting 720p24

Want 14" (not an on-board)

Durable/Non-cumbersome

16:9

Price sensitive ($1,000 - $3,000)

Any suggestions?

Thank you,

Phil Rhodes · January 31, 2006

Hi,

Look at JVC's stuff. They make a wide variety of monitors which probably won't break that budget by too much (though they will certainly break it). Many of them aren't full-pitch HD, as in you're not quite seeing 1280 pixels per line, but they're "okayish" at that price range.

Phil

Andy O'Neil · February 1, 2006

Thanks, Phil, you rock.

Worked on a shoot several weeks ago with the Varicam (I wasn't shooting of course), but we used a ~$600.00 flat screen television from Best Buy as our reference monitor. Is that just crazy? It seemed to work fine, but I guess I don't really know what to look for in a monitor ... I mean, I want it to be "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" for the most part. Focus, Color balance, Exposure, etc. I guess it also depends on what the final output is going to be. I mean, what do I really really need?

Thank you,

Phil Rhodes · February 1, 2006

Hi,

An LCD might show you framing and focus if you were lucky. They often do some really hideous up/down sampling which makes anything look soft, and obviously LCD colour and exposure information are completely unreliable.

I think you should look at something like a JVC DT-V100CG, which now I check is actually well under your budget. However, I'm not sure that it does 720p/24 (although I believe the Varicam output is 60i anyway). I know it does 1080/24Psf.

Phil

Bruce Greene · February 1, 2006

An LCD might show you framing and focus if you were lucky. They often do some really hideous up/down sampling which makes anything look soft, and obviously LCD colour and exposure information are completely unreliable.
Phil

Andy,

I'm using the Panasonic BT-LH1700W 17" LCD monitor with my Varicam. Price is a little under $3000. The monitor is very close to a calibrated (white balanced, not just color bars) CRT and is sharper than 20in CRT as well. Blacks are a little milky compared to a CRT though. It actually looks better in a room with some ambient light rather than in a black tent. I've even used it on the beach in bright sun and could still see an image (critical viewing did require a serious shade though)

Other pluses: It is light weight, runs on ac/dc, has HD-SDI and SD-SDI inputs, Analog HD and SD inputs, has a gamma corrector (approximate) for Film Rec mode on a Varicam, and a crude, but very useful waveform monitor.

I just used it today on a shoot with a Sony f-900 and it color matched a just calibrated Sony CRT very very well. And to my surprise, it did not look fuzzy when down-sampling the f-900 to 720 pixels and was even a little better than the 20in sony for judging focus, though not quite as sharp as 23in 1280 pixel LCD display.

Best of luck with your up-coming film.

-bruce

And to my surprise, it did not look fuzzy when down-sampling the f-900 to 720 pixels and was even a little better than the 20in sony for judging focus, though not quite as sharp as 23in 1280 pixel LCD display.

Oops, I meant "1080 pixel LCD" display.

david garcia · February 1, 2006

We're using that one too. It's really been nice. Street price is $2700.

Sean Azze · February 4, 2006

So can you use just a standard def monitor when shooting on the hvx? Is a High def monitor required to just get an image, or more to get what the image will truly look like in post?