Monitor Color Management
 

I gotta admit I'm a little weak in this area, so I'd love some help. I was reading an article about hardware-based color management (link below). They referenced GretagMacbeth, X-Rite, Monaco Systems, ColorVision Spyder. What do you guys use? I am on a 17 CRT monitor using XP and Vegas4. I know good color starts with good white balance, etc., but I'll save that for another post...

Thanks!
Tony

Link: http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/digitalphotography/gopro/organize/calibrate.asp

For video you should use a NTSC monitor and calibrate that using color bars + blue gun control on it. Lots of sites have information on how to do that. try www.kozco.com

Things like the Spyder are for graphic design/print/photography work, not video work. Ideally what you see is what you get on printed material. For video, your target format is television and not print so that's why pros use NTSC monitors.

I'll second Glenn's comments. I have a good LCD monitor which I calibrate regularly with the Colourvision Spyder. It's great for digital stills, lousy for video. Though it's better calibrated than uncalibrated, the gamma diferences are so great as to make it useless for video -- I always edit with a NTSC video monitor.

Monitor recommendations?
 

So maybe this should be, "What NTSC monitor would you recommend for a tight budget?". There's one in the classifieds right now: 13-inch Sony Trinitron PVM-14N6U. Any experience with this one? Can I use it as a second monitor using Vegas? I have not done two-monitor setups yet.

-Tony

The under $300 Panasonics and JVCs from their industrial monitor lines will probably do you a lot of good without spending the $1,000 for a pro broadcast monitor.

You need to get out of the consumer TV products where they attempt to correct the video. You want to see the video without correction so you can correct it.