Please advice: Production Monitor

[Paolo Ciccone]

Hi.

I want to buy a monitor (studio work) to do mainly color corrrection. My budget is no more than $700.00 and I'm having a very hard time finding any kind of information about any monitor at any budget. Does anybody have any suggestion about models and a good source for this product? (B&H not likely)

Also, I need to connect it to a 17" Powerbook. Do I need an adapter? The machine has S-Video (I know, it's low quality) and DVI. What about a FireWire->BNC adapter, does something like that exist? Thanks in advance for helping a clueless newbie :)

--
Paolo

[Rob Lohman]

Please do a search on this board for "production monitor" (without the quotes),
you should get many threads with people looking for the same thing (you can
even restrict the search to just this forum [Open DV Discussion], since the
most interesting ones should be here).

If that doesn't give you an answer then hopefully some other people will
respond to this thread since I have no knowledge of broadcast monitors.

[Glenn Chan]

1- As far as color correction goes, color accuracy is dependent on:
A- calibration/proper setup
B- room/environment- neutral colors around monitor area, consistent color temperature (may help to buy bulbs that match the color temp of your monitor; avoid low-CRI stuff) ideally there should be no glare or reflections on your monitor (turn it off and look at it to check)
C- color accuracy of the monitor- depends on quality and power-on time; high-end monitors have calibration probes that kind of compensate for power-on time.
D- you? (if you figure out where your monitor is wrong, you may be able to mentally compensate for it)

If you do a search you should be able to find information on A B and C.
With your budget, I'd look at:
Scoring a new-in-box or demo monitor off eBay/classifieds (i.e. there's a forum here for 'classifieds'). Don't buy used. Disclaimer: eBay can be sketchy (fraud, hidden brokerage costs in shipping, you getting in a bidding war and bidding too much)
JVC and Panasonic have some interesting discontinued models with SMPTE C phosphors.

Otherwise you can buy a new monitor. Try to look for a monitor with blue gun/blue only. B&H lists such monitors on their website. The smaller monitors should be within your budget.


lastly... to connect the monitor, go:
computer
firewire
camcorder or deck or digital-analog converter
Sivdeo/Y-C and/or RCA/BNC/composite cabling (most people see chroma crawl, which appears on composite connections; S-video provides slightly better resolution)
Monitor

[Paolo Ciccone]

Originally Posted by Glenn Chan

1- As far as color correction goes, color accuracy is dependent on:
A- calibration/proper setup
B- room/environment- neutral colors around monitor area, consistent color temperature (may help to buy bulbs that match the color temp of your monitor; avoid low-CRI stuff) ideally there should be no glare or reflections on your monitor (turn it off and look at it to check)
C- color accuracy of the monitor- depends on quality and power-on time; high-end monitors have calibration probes that kind of compensate for power-on time.
D- you? (if you figure out where your monitor is wrong, you may be able to mentally compensate for it)

Hi Glenn.

I'm currently editing on a laptop and I found that the colors are, of course, off when compared to watching the same scene on a TV screen. That's why I want a monitor. The problem is, nobody can point me exactly to the model and place of purchase. B&H has very limited selection, and their website either runs on molasses or doesn't work at all. I found a possible candidate in a 15" JVC model (~$610.00) but i have no idea if it's good and how I go to physically connect it to my laptop to work with FCP.

Anyway, thanks for the advice.

--
Paolo

[Federico Prieto]

Give a look to the Sony PVM-14L1 This is a 13-Inch Monitor with 600 Lines. I believe you can do what you want with this one. By the way yo can find this monitor for less than 500 bucks. You can try in used section too....Sometimes you can get a demo for a very good price.

[Glenn Chan]

B&H website:
Go to Home < Professional Video < Post Production < Monitors & Accessories < Monitors < Production Color Monitors

Possible URL:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...rch&Q=&ci=1981

Filter by Ikegami, JVC, and Sony. Sizes = select both up to 9" and 10"-19".

Features to look for:
Resolution - Higher is better if you want to check focus. In studio environment this may be mildly useful unless you can get Final Cut to show pixels without correcting for pixel aspect ratio.
All the manufacturers are probably fudging the resolution spec. It's a meaningless figure anyways because they don't specify how they measure.
Trintron/aperture-grille based tubes will be slightly higher resolution. These monitors have screens that are somewhat cylindrical instead of spherical. They also have 2-4 thin wires that run horizontal to stabilize the shadow mask. Sonys are typically Trinitron.
Larger is higher resolution. I'd probably look at the 8"-15" range.
B&W is higher resolution, but they aren't what you want.

Phosphors:
SMPTE C phosphors are supposed to be the standard. They would likely be ideal.
P-22 is the ?old standard? They are likely better than unspecified/mystery phosphors.

Blue Gun - makes calibration easier. Higher end monitors will autocalibrate themselves (beautiful...).
16:9 and underscan if you need it.

Beam feedback circuitry- it will maintain the monitor's white balance as it ages and its colors drift. I don't think it completely compensates for the color drift, which is why high-end monitors have calibration probes.
I think the B&H is pretty good about mentioning this feature if it has it. The expensive monitors list this feature under the "features" tab.

Inputs: Check for composite (uses either RCA or BNC connector) and Y-C/Svideo inputs (Svideo/ 4-pin DIN connector typically)