This is probably the one and only time that I have to disagree with Jeff and Noah. When we were looking for client presentation monitors (plasma being the obvious choice) I did a ton of research including talking to a good friend who is an R&D engineer at Panny as well as a few highly respected calibrators that I know.
Turns out that Panny consumer panels are actually better panels! What you miss on the consumer models is pro I/O HD-SDI, Component and some level of built in calibration control. Both of which aren't really necessary.
First with I/O there are lots of options out there for going HD-SDI to HDMI. I'm using an AJA HI5-3D to send the plasma a MUXED 3D signal over HDMI for clients as well as 2D (3D being in resolve only at this point for the tools we use). If you don't need 3D the regular HI 5 works fantastic for taking HD-SDI to HDMI.
Next on the calibration work with a high end calibrator. A good calibrator should be able to get the panel almost exactly to REC 709 spec for grayscale and primary and secondaries. For me the little bit of variance was worry some. So what we did was put a Cinetal Davio inline with the plasmas so that my calibrator could use the LUT tools of the DAVIO to get primaries and secondaries and grayscale to be spot on to REC 709.
Now the only thing that you should be aware of is that with consumer sets (but really any plasma) getting the panel to output exactly 35 foot lamberts is hard. The panels need to be driven pretty hard to do that and really only the newer panels (we have the VT-25s) are able to get close. My Panel is outputting 34.3 foot lamberts which to be honest is pretty good. Under most conditions you'd be hard pressed to see that .7 difference to spec.
Even though the plasmas with calibration etc are pretty spot on I will say that they (even the pro versions) are not reference monitors and we NOT designed as such. I trust the plasma but of course I have a reference display that I use (FSI 2460). In my setup I have never once had a client ask "which one do a look at?" because they match perfectly.
If you're thinking you're going to be doing a lot of 3D work in the future I would caution you from using a display (like the VT-25) for 3D work. Its not that its not good but Active Shutter is a pain in the ass. For 3D stuff the VT-25 was a stop gap measure as we wait and see if our 3D workload will pick up. When it does I will absoutly be getting another JVC passive 3D reference monitor (I have one in the suite as well as my FSI when doing 3D work)
My 2 cents
Robbie Carman
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