LCD and Plasma monitor calibration
by Jerome Thelia
on
Dec 21, 2007 at 8:19:48 pm
'm starting a new thread to address a very old and contentious subject that in my opinion has not been answered satisfactorily elsewhere on Creative Cow, and believe me, I must have read every post on monitor calibration.
What is the best way to calibrate an LCD (not production grade LCD) and/or a plasma monitor being fed by an Aja or BMD card?
Now before the 'purists' jump all over this with "you shouldn't be using either for critical color work", let me say this. In the last 2-3 years, LCDs and plasmas have penetrated post-production more quickly even than CRTs have disappeared. We all know that a production grade CRT is the best reference for color work, and some of us (including me) are lucky enough to have a great pro SD CRT for reference. But as a client monitor, for HD work, to save money, for any number of reasons, LCDs and plasmas are everywhere from super-high end to your cousin's living room.
I was at one of the larger post houses in NYC a few weeks ago where the only HD monitors in two of their Inferno suites was a 23" HP LCD. That's what they were using as reference for very expensive spots that were going straight to broadcast. So lets move this discussion beyond what should be, to a practical solution for consumer level LCD and Plasma monitor calibration.
Has anyone found calibration tools to be particularly helpful? Spyder? The only way I can get my Panasonic TH-42PZ700U even close to my CRT is by using HD Link to raise the black level. The internal panny settings just won't lift the blacks enough to be able to see pluge! But then HDMI has an 8-bit limitation causing banding on the monitor. Someone out there must have a better system than just eyeballing the monitor and tweaking it's settings. Can we use LUTs? Please help. Thanks.
Re: LCD and Plasma monitor calibration by Aaron Neitz on Dec 21, 2007 at 8:37:15 pm
I too am interested in what others might be doing. Spyder probe or the Eyeon? We eyeball our Panny Plasmas and LCD's to a handful of calibrated Sony CRT's. It's not my favorite way to go about it.... I find they all tend to have a greenish cast that needs to be dialed down.
I have to say, though, feeding SDI straight into the Panny Plasma (component analog as well) - the blacks are pretty decent. I used to use a HDlink with the Apple Cinema, I had to fiddle to get good blacks detail too.... Wonder if it's a HDlink problem?
I now feed an Eizo Coloredge LCD with the AJA HDP conveter (much like the HDLink) - it was within 5% of my CRT right out of the box.
Re: LCD and Plasma monitor calibration by Chris Borjis on Dec 21, 2007 at 11:53:30 pm
[Aaron Neitz]" eyeball our Panny Plasmas and LCD's to a handful of calibrated Sony CRT's."
Same here, thats what I do.
Its funny you mention you can't get a pluge on your panasonic plasma. I have the 9UK plasma and the pluge is very easily too bright with the controls feeding it hdmi or component.
I have a sony HD CRT that I color correct HD shows on, but something to bear in mind is that even the large hollywood studios are starting to test their SD DVD and HD-DVD / BluRay encodes with flat panel lcd's and plasma monitors as well as their pro crt equipment, because thats what most folks are watching now.
Re: LCD and Plasma monitor calibration by Jason P on Dec 23, 2007 at 12:12:19 pm
I've been looking in to this too. Some monitors (notably the Sony X3500 series in the UK) can, when calibrated, get extremely close to the REC 709 HD colour standard. Likewise 601 for SD. So, with that in mind, I'd look to your local ISF Calibrator who will (or should) know a) what monitors get closest to REC709 and b) how much it will cost to calibrate one in-house.
