Plasmas as pseudo-reference monitors (round 2)

I found a great thread on this topic that was active about this time last year but I'm now in the market for a professional plasma for part reference, part client monitor and would love some advice.

The thread centered on the Panasonic TH-50PF10UK which was last year's model. (http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/223/6194#6243) This year's line is the PF11UK and comes in a few sizes. I have a few question about these displays: Do they offer true color management or is it just white balance? Can I calibrate it using the user menu or do the primary (RGB) and secondary (CMY) color-adjustments need to be done in a service menu? The user manual mentions them not.

Also, do these monitors offer a real advantage over other good plasma TVs that aren't branded professional? I have a Samsung 42" at home that allows excellent color controls right in the user menus (full blown CMS). I calibrated it easily with a Spyder Pro colorimeter. The gamma had issues I couldn't resolve but it was a lower end model. Has anyone used a Pioneer Kuro Elite or heard of them? They're supposed to be the bee's knees for plasmas. What about the Samsung PN50A760? It also has full CMS.

To take a few steps back, as I said I'm looking for a part reference, part client monitor. I feel that with proper calibration a plasma is acceptable as a reference monitor for work that is not going to theater or is absolute color-critical. I also use a Panasonic BT-LH1700W for color grading but as mentioned elsewhere the black levels are very poor and for my tastes is much too small to get the "feel" of the work. Also it doesn't show details very well such as grain or compression artifacts that can creep in during workflows-gone-wrong. I had this happen to me recently where I was working on some Red 2K footage I had rendered from RedCine and accidentally introduced too much grain. The 1700W didn't show it much but when I made the DVD is was crawling with noise. We went back and re-exported from RedCine and all was well on the next DVD and HD master.

So in effect I'll be using the monitors in tandem and cross-checking them to get the best results. Any experience you can share with grading on plasmas and what screens work best would be great. Thanks!

The earlier thread seemed more geared towards client monitors where I'm thinking more of using it for reference as well.

Do you use the "monitor" picture setting? The manual describes this as the option to use for creating broadcast content as the Average Picture Level (APL) doesn't affect luminance of individual parts of the image. Also there are a few more advance controls (such as white balance and gamma) but it's still missing CMS to my knowledge. This is how you you'd get all the colors perfectly lined up in case a primary stays off in a different direction. Maybe it's just really good to begin with....

Are you saying you calibrate your plasmas by eye according to your pro monitors? I thought I read in another post that you had an professional calibrate them. Maybe I'm confusing you with someone else....

[Chad Terpstra] "I thought I read in another post that you had an professional calibrate them. Maybe I'm confusing you with someone else...."

That might be me - mine was ISF calibrated by the previous owner. The PH series have excellent control for most all of the image settings (some from user menu, some from service menu) and if you get a good calibrator (one who understands broadcast rather than just home cinema setups) you should be able to get within a gnat's crochet of REC 709 for HD and 601 for SD (AFAIK you can have different settings assigned to different inputs - you need to then limit SD to component, for instance, and HD to HDMI or whatever flavour IO board you have). So, in theory, $950 for the panel plus $500 for calibration should get you a very close 'reference-able' monitor. Before people junp up and down - no, this won't replace a dedicated broadcast reference monitor, but it's pretty damn good. I've compared it with grade 1 & 2 CRTs and been pleasantly surprised.

Jason

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