Lorne Miess Colourist and Instructor: November 2007

I attended the FTX West tradeshow in Vancouver last weekend. Trade shows are a great place to see the new technology as well as a great place to do some networking. You won’t find books that cover all aspects of the jobs we do in the industry. So if you run into some issues that you’ve never experienced before a reference book isn’t going to help you. There are lots of spots on the Internet that provide information but the best way I’ve found is to go networking. Belonging to user groups, formed of people who are experiencing issues the same as yourself is just an amazing resource. Tradeshows are the same thing, going around and meeting the exhibitors and the technicians as well as other people who are interested in these products. You have the opportunity to build a large data base of people to talk to so when you have a problem with a certain program or a certain piece of hardware you have a pool of resources to ask those questions and to get you around that issue. Whatever the problem someone will be able to help directly or be able to connect you up with someone else in the know. Manufactures also take note of these networks and design or modify products to better serve their clients. At the tradeshows there is a good chance you’ll meet up with people you communicate with on the Internet, which is usually an interesting experience. I’ve realized that our industry is a small world with the same names popping up in various places. Also on a social issue, the beer and wings that follow these events are well worth attending.

HD Monitoring Cost and Quality

If you asked a group of industry professionals what their choice in HD monitoring is you would find a line drawn in the sand. High-end post production facilities have always gone with the best CRT they can find, mostly the Sony BVMs. These monitors are found in the grading suites as they are able to display what the image really looks like and they are expensive. On-line bays have a mixture of CRT and LCD as a more cost effective solution. The images have been graded or quality checked in the Telecine suites before they arrive in On-line.

The cost of edit suites have been coming down steadily and these suites are being used more and more replacing the on-line edit bays. They need high quality monitoring as well. The Kyoto Accord, whether you support it or not,wants the use of lead reduced. Lead is an important part of the monitor.

As your CRTs wear out and you can’t find parts you’ll be looking for the smaller, lighter flat panel monitors. The price spread between these monitors is big so you have to start asking yourself some questions. What’s my application for them going to be? Am I grading, editing or monitoring? Image creation in Telecines and visual effects get the best monitors as they are creating imagery. Quality control and media ingest stations and On-line need good monitors. VTR as usual gets the leftovers.

Manufactures are rushing to bring the newest technology to the market. The first few generations of LCD displays answered the need for a cost effective wide screen monitor. The colour resolution was 8-bits with high blacks and not directly comparable to CRTs as yet but you knew it would be a matter of time.

At NAB this spring I was running from booth to booth seeing what was new.

In the past year I've had a look at the Sony, Cine-tal, e-Cinema, Panasonic, TV Logic and JVC offerings.

Over at the Sony booth they had a darkened room with 3 monitors playing the same media. The idea was to guess which monitor was Sony’s new back lit, 10bit LCD display. The images were very close and well worth a look.

Sony recently announced an OLED monitor was on the way and this wide gamut will be the new standard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_light-emitting_diode

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/sony-demos-9mm+thick-high+def-oled-displays-251613.php

The e-Cinema offer wasn’t working when I dropped by but I would have liked to have had a look at the DPX monitor.

All looked good but my preference, for an all around LCD, was the Cine-tal mainly due to the cost and available features. Firstly, the staff at the NAB booth were very helpful in answering my questions first. The monitors have a good-looking image and many handy features such as the waveform and vector-scope option. The blacks had the slight LCD blues you get with that version of technology but it was minimized through the software and is well thought out. I had heard many good things about these monitors from people who are shooting in the field as well.

Remember the service and support aspect of the monitors as well. Hope this helps. Now don’t get me wrong here, you can’t beat the resolution or solid blacks of a CRT monitor. Their cost is another issue. CRTs day in the sun is at an end. If you want a new monitor you’d better start educating yourself and moving forward with the new technology.

It would be very interesting to see all these monitors in a sidei by side shoot-out against the a Sony 32 inch CRT reference monitor. http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/DisplayModel?m=0&p=8&sp=20073&id=80823

This would make it easy to divide monitors into 2 groups, good and affordable. Buy the best for what you can afford and know the technology will be changing as fast as your last computer.

Sony (Backlit LCD technology)

http://pro.sony.com.hk/nab2007/products_bvml230.html

E-Cinema (Backlit LED technology)

http://www.ecinemasystems.com/products/dcm/intro.html

Sony; (LCD technology)

http://pro.sony.com.hk/nab2007/products_lmd2050w.html

Cine-tal (LCD technology)

http://www.cine-tal.com/

Panasonic (LCD technology)

http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp...roupId =14625

JVC.com (LCD technology)

http://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/features.jsp?model_id=MDL101631