I used to think that adjusting the video for the target device was a good idea, but Spot set me straight. You want your product to be correct. Period. You can never assume that a viewer's monitor is adjusted right, or what kind of monitor they are using.

Most consumer LCDs cannot show the same gamut of color of the NTSB spec. Production LCDs run $6,000 and up.

No LCD can properly display black. It is physically impossible because some of the backlight will bleed through the "off" pixels. (I know,the off state is transparent and the on is opaque). Only the most expensive monitors can display white because white is dependent on the color of the backlight. Your eyes adjust for the colors that you expect.

So, find a used CRT studio monitor (I've seen them as low as $300 on eBay) and learn how to adjust it properly. If someone complains about the colors, then you KNOW that their monitor is not adjusted correctly.

Not so with my 1080P Sony bravia 46"XBR2LCD. It tested right on the money with my test disc DVD. No hue correction, no color correction needed. The blacks were not as black as they should be but with everybody watching stretchovision (3000% linearity distortion) who cares.
JJK

Dell 2408 is a bit of a steal.
The X Series Bravias can display more than the NTSC gamut if you've got a bit more money. Beyond that there's the Eizo monitors with a basic 3D LUT and much higher up is the Cinetal.
The standard and correct way to feed a HD monitor is via HD SDI.
With an SDI feed to the monitor you're sending a known, standard, signal that can be scoped etc to the monitor.
Once you get into that the costs do escalate.

Bob.

If you are delivering mostly SD work, I'd get a broadcast CRT.
1- Most consumer monitors are not designed to be accurate and you probably can't calibrate it to be accurate.

2- For SD, CRTs deliver a very good image while you have to pay at least a few thousand for a LCD before you get similar performance (and the blacks aren't as good in a dark viewing environment).
LCDs have problems with deinterlacing signals, scaling the image without artifacts, black level, viewing angle, motion artifacts, uniformity, bit depth, etc.
CRTs have problems with geometry, calibration drift of their analog circuits, flaring, phosphor burn, can't do full HD resolution. Their defects are generally not as bad as LCDs. Cheap LCDs will likely have problems with accurate color and deinterlacing.

3- Future display devices will need to be designed to play legacy signals similar to a CRT. The manufacturers can't display images drastically different than a CRT, otherwise we would have problems looking at old material like old movies in our video collections, home movies shot a long time ago, etc. etc.


I used to think that adjusting the video for the target device was a good idea, but Spot set me straight. You want your product to be correct. Period. You can never assume that a viewer's monitor is adjusted right, or what kind of monitor they are using.

Most consumer LCDs cannot show the same gamut of color of the NTSB spec.
You want a monitor that has primaries (the exact shade of r, g, b) that is the same as the standard that you're interested in. The original NTSC primaries are obsolete and you should not be using them, even though NTSC is mentioned in marketing material.
The relevant primaries now are SMPTE C (for SD, for NTSC countries except Japan), EBU (for SD everywhere else), and Rec. 709 (for modern HD formats). And also p3 for dcinema.
Many consumer LCDs have wide gamut primaries, which is actually not helpful unless the primaries are calibrated to SMPTE, EBU, or Rec. 709 (which they probably aren't, and the monitor probably doesn't support it).

No LCD can properly display black.
The eCinema DPX at $38k can. It also doesn't flare like a CRT so its blacks are a little better I believe (though I haven't seen that monitor side by side a BVM).

But otherwise CRTs have an edge over LCDs on dark scenes as long as there's little light hitting the face of the CRT. On average scenes the black level is similar. In an office lighting situation, a LCD will have a better black level because the face of a LCD reflects less light.

- Used CRTs: I'd be careful about buying these. Demo a unit before you buy it, because old CRTs may have subtle image defects. Just go to any place (e.g. library) with lots of old CRTs... they might have crushed colors or the image might be out of focus.

It's a fool's errand to buy a used PVM/BVM CRT monitor if it hasn't been recapped (had all its capacitors replaced) and professionally checked and calibrated internally.

I bought my PVM from a local pro shop in San Fernando Valley that does nothing but sell used professional gear like this and does its own recapping and calibration. Great prices and a good warranty... They also sell a lot on eBay.

Why do the capacitors need to be replaced? I know that there were a huge number of bad electrolytic capacitors from one plant back in the 1990s that propagated through a huge number of consumer electronic products. I have in fact replaced dozens of these on about ten different products I own (but only after a failure). However, I was under the impression that in the last eight years this has not been a problem.

I've been told by a long-time TV tech that capacitors dry out over time. I recently had to have one replaced in a consumer Toshiba monitor.

Capacitors generally don't last much past 20 years. My crossover networks in my Klipsch speakers (43 years old) were replaced with new networks and new $50.00 caps and improved transformers and inductors, also with a new design. Huge difference. I can't give the old ones away for the cost of shipping and don't dare drop them on my feet as they are so heavy.
One of the first things that tube people do with their old amps & preamps (not me) is replace all the caps and some replace all the resisters with low noise values.
JJK

Someone I know has quite a collection of 2" quad VCRs which would be at least 30 years old and not too many caps need replacing. Still, regardless, the one component that matters most in a CRT monitor is the CRT. I've had the odd CRT regunned over the years but not many places left that do it and it isn't cheap.

However it's not as though any of us are likely to be affording a HD CRT so it's kind of irrelevant. We seem no closer to a comparitive evaluation of which LCD to use for CC with HD. From what I've seen of the LCDs such as the one from eCinema that Glenn mentions even at that pricepoint they seem to solve one problem and introduce another one in the process. The one I saw last year produced a dramatic image but it had a fake 3D look to it. From speaking with the guys from Cinetal the problem every vendor faces is they're at the mercy of whatever panels are available. They can use compensating LUTs and/or use fancy LED backlighting but they're still only tweaking what the panel is capable of.
For example dynamic LED backlighting improves the contrast ratio but not at the pixel level, it's either for the whole scene or for zones in the scene, You still cannot get a 15,000:1 contrast ratio between adjoining pixels.

Bob.

Electrolytic capacitors have the shortest life, and there have been several famously bad models, even in the last few years.

But even non-electrolytic caps deteriorate.

The ultimate cure exists, but is too expensive for anything but the most serious applications.

I bought my Sony PVM monitor (and studio lighting and other production gear) from David Riddle Co..

He calibrates to better than factory, and has a return privilege on monitors if you don't like what you bought for any reason.

He also does calibration of brought-in Sony BVM and PVM CRT monitors for less than $150.

Hmmm...did they answer your question Will?

I still say;
1. If you don't want a CRT
2. You do want an appropriate use LCD
3. You don't want to spend $30K on a monitor.

The NEC 2490WUXi is worth looking at and video editing is one of it's specific purpose built applications along with many color managed workflows.

Thanks for the heads up on the NEC. There's so much noise about the Dell 2408 down here that the NEC gets lost. It's only around 50% more than the Dell and could be money well spent.

Bob.

based on a recent anandtech article on 24" lcd's, the Dell 2408 deserves much of its praise. With his cost parameters, this isn't too much of a stretch.

A couple salient quotes: you might not believe that we were able to achieve a Delta E of only 1.7 without calibration! Yes, that's right: without hardware calibration, the Dell 2408WFP can surpass many other LCDs with hardware calibration.

Color gamut is also exceptional, and this is the only display we've tested so far that achieves better than 100% of the Adobe RGB 1998 standard.

You can read the whole thing here:
anandtech article 24" lcd's

http://www.anandtech.com/displays/showdoc.aspx?i=3302&p=1

Sean
broadcast voiceovers

For video work you don't actually want wide gamut. Wide gamut means that the colors displayed will be more saturated than they should be. For print work it can be useful but it's not really helpful for video.

Glenn, you put your finger on it perfectly as usual.

But that can be fixed with LUTs (Look Up Tables) in the monitor (rare), or in a tiny outside box between video card and monitor, like the $400 BMD HDLink or the $1,000 Matrox MXO.

For those who want to "mix for both car radios and high end home stereos," LUTs make the most sense, assuming cost be damned.

Viewers are going through a rapid transition right now from interlaced CRTs to progressive small gamut LCDs (and associated technologies) to gradually larger gamut screens and higher resolution.

Hard to keep up and serve everybody...

The NEC 2490 WUXi is not in the ANANDTECH acticle since it is a pro monitor at a different price point. It's a standard NTSC sRGB 91% gamut monitor, not wide gamut.

All the NEC pro series monitors calibrations are to the12 bit LUT in the monitor, not your machine. The NEC Spectraview II software communicates to the monitor hardware during calibration, which takes about 10 mins.

I only need two calibrations for this monitor, one for day and one for night use since I have a window in the home office and the luminance settings are different.

I believe the Dell 2408 is also capable of storing a hardware calibration LUT. From memory though it's only using a 10bit LUT.
Not to say that if one had the money then the NEC wouldn't be a better choice.

The problem I see at the monent is the whole issue is a bit of a mess. Sony and others are pushing "wide gamut" HDTVs into the upper consummer space and then there's their x.v.colour thing. Worse still the words "wide gamut" are pretty meaningless unless qualified. "Wider" than what would seem a sensible question to ask.

Bob.

NTSC and sRGB are different gamuts.
The original NTSC (obsolete) and Adobe RGB use the same primaries (which means they're the same gamut).
sRGB and Rec. 709 share the same primaries.

Wide gamut in the context of television generally means wider than EBU, Rec. 709, and SMPTE C (all three primaries are pretty similar).

2- The whole xvColor thing is still in its infancy. Most broadcast monitors don't support it right now.

xvColor being sent over broadcast probably won't happen. It could happen for other distribution formats and for signals being sent over HDMI 1.3 (or higher).

Personally I don't think it will take off (but my prediction of the future could be wrong).

Anyways, to get back on track, here's what I would do if looking for a broadcast monitor.

Monitoring SD:
Just get a CRT. For roughly $600 you can get a very decent monitor.
To get a LCD with the same picture quality for SD you'd have to get a LCD for at least four times the price. And the LCD will still have some shortcomings like not showing interlacing perfectly (which you need to see), black level not necessarily that great, etc.

Monitoring HD:
The cheapest decent HD broadcast monitor IMO would be the JVC 24" (I can't remember the model # but it ends in L1D). It's at least $3,500.

If that's not in your budget, then I'd look at cheaper options like the HDLink, or using a computer display (Windows secondary display) as the preview device.

Consumer gear versus gear designed for broadcast use:
In my experience, consumer gear is designed for consumer use which means the colors aren't designed to be accurate, there may be image ""enhancement"" going on, and there may be little cheats that the manufacturers do because they can get away with it.

I've never seen a consumer LCD with colors close to that of a reference monitor. (This might exist but I've never seen it.)

Computer displays versus video displays:
Displays designed for computer use tend to be good for that, but not for video.

GlennChan:
You must have fantastic color vision. And that's great. But with the present state of consumer viewing 300 million (USA) people can't tell the difference on the tv's they are watching. All they care about is filling in those black bars on the sides and getting rid of the commercials. Every commercial entity that I have visited sets up their waiting room tv's into stretchovision. Of course there may be exceptions. Every local TV station (live HD broadcasts) sets up their colors differently and the only one that is close to the Kodak ektachrome target sample is NBC (1080i) at the present time. ABC (720p) has too much gamma and is a little soft with less contrast, Fox (720p) is slightly on the hard (cool) side, CBS (1080i) slightly cooler than NBC, and PBS (1080i) real close to NBC. The other two networks (I forgot who they are) are on the flat side of color and contrast. But the most horrific thing the networks do is to show a 2.35 x 1 format as 16 x 9 missing half the picture. Your worried about .1% color shifts and the networks show half the picture. What am I missing here?
JJK

If you see a bunch of consumer displays side by side, you will usually see that the differences in color between them are a lot more than "0.1%". The colors on consumer displays tend to be whacked, among other problems.

Basically, since you're the pro, you're supposed to get you colors as right as possible and then everyone else can screw them up later.

"Right" is a subjective thing but you need to know that what you're doing subjectively is really what you think you're doing.

Glenn is bringing up an important distinction between actual HDTV monitors and computer displays. Not the same thing. That HD studio monitor is specifically designed to do the job you need it to do, the computer display isn't.

In terms of money spent, a quick look at a big box store's website shows consumer LCD TVs up to around $4300.00 US (and then a jump up to 7k and then over 20k). It seems to me that if a consumer could spend that much on an HD TV then an editor could spend that much on something especially designed for editing. But most of us will get by with much less.

Rob Mack