Sony Bravia as a color grading monitor

[Andy Lam]

Hi,

 

I use a rMBP and am in the market for a monitor to edit as well as grade in Resolve. I am shooting a narrative short next month and will be using Black Magic Pocket Cam RAW for the first time. My budget was 400-500 for a monitor and I was looking into the Seiki 39" but I was advised against it. I then considered a 24" Ultrasharp or 27" Catleap, but a friend of a friend is moving and looking to sell his 40" Bravia ( http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sony-Bravia-40-Class-LCD-1080p-60Hz-HDTV-KDL-40EX400/13422987 ) for $300.

 

I haven't been able to find any reviews that mentioned this particular set for monitoring, but do know Bravia is pretty well respected in the TV world although I understand using it for color correcting means something totally different.

 

I figure the extra money I save can go towards a calibration device for it.

 

Do you guys suggest this train of thought or should I look elsewhere?

 

Thanks!

[Robert Houllahan]

Might not be too bad :huh: it is probably a CFCL backlight and if it's a farily decent panel and you can turn all of the color enhancement off and calibrate it I am sure it will be allot better than the Seiki. Another set someone on the LGG Colorist forum found to be pretty good out of the box is this Sony:

 

http://referencehometheater.com/review/sony-kdl-32w650a-lcd-tv-review/2/

[Heri Rakotomalala]

The 24" Ultrasharp has definitively better colors. I would use it as a main monitor and then the Bravia just to "check" how it looks on a consumer TV

[Phil Rhodes]

I have two old Dell "Ultrasharp" monitors from about 2006, the type with S-PVA panels. They're among the best computer monitors I've ever seen, although they do suffer from the PVA problem of crushing blacks a little when you're on axis. Calibration, given the probe is probably looking on-axis, can take this out to an extent, although it will then look a bit milky from the side.

 

As with anything like this, exactly how good you really need it to be is a subject for debate. The only people I know who take the position that absolutely everything has to be calibrated OLEDs are usually those with a calibration system to sell.

[Lance Soltys]

I wish I could wrap my head around all this color stuff, so I'm not an expert on that stuff. I can tell you though that the EX line is Sony's entry level. That in it self is not great, but more importantly it may not have a lot of calibration controls, so saving money to buy a calibrator might not really help you there.

 

For around the same price you can get a mid-range 27" monitor with a wide-color gamut that you could set for different color spaces (NEC's, Eizo, and HP all make nice monitors in the $500 range). I remember looking at one that was supposed to be able to split the display in 2 different color spaces so you could compare.

 

Speaking of that, am I missing something or do you almost have to grade things in two different color spaces anyhow? Images in rec 709 (for DVD's & Blu-Rays) look way different than things in sRGB (computer monitors). So what I grade for a DVD needs to be changed for a web version. Is that normal, or am I being stupid?

[Phil Rhodes]

Strictly speaking yes, although some software that's used to prepare web video will take this into account.

 

Where this isn't done properly, you can end up with greyish blacks due to the limited-range encoding of most 709 material, and 709 stuff viewed uncorrected in sRGB will look a bit too bright overall because of the varying gamma. This was designed into sRGB on the basis that computer monitors are usually viewed in a brighter environment than TVs. It should be possible to go from 709 to sRGB without having to manually regrade, but I wouldn't entirely discount the possibility that there may be circumstances under which you just can't work it out.

 

It can be extremely difficult to really control colour and brightness in web presentation. Many common tools lack checkboxes for this stuff, a lot of file formats include flag fields to indicate the intended setup (and they're often wrong even when set), and even if you can get it out of your door looking right, there are about a million ways things can go wrong later.

 

P

[Mike Nagel]

Hi guys,

 

we've been using an Eizo for grading for a while and here's a full in-depth display calibration guide & workflow on how to get the most color accurate image out of the Eizo using Lightspace or Colornavogator...

 

http://displaycalibrationtools.com/display-calibration-guides-and-workflows/eizo-cg275w-lightspace-colornavigator-calibration/

 

 

if you're looking into Plasma for client display then here's a 3D LUT display calibration guide & workflow for the Panasonic 65VT60 using Lightspace and the eeColor LUT box - the Panny VT60 is the best Plasma ever:

 

http://displaycalibrationtools.com/display-calibration-guides-and-workflows/panasonic-65vt60-lightspace-eecolor-3d-lut-calibration/

 

- Mike