Top 3 Monitors for Color Grading
So let's pick our first option, which is going to be the LG OLEDC1.
This monitor right now with all the holiday offerings, you can pick one up for 1,199.
This second option on the list is going to be EIZO CG279X.
So CG, short for color grading series,279X is a 27-inch model, and then the model is 9x.
Then the third option here that I,m gonna be talking about is by Flanders Scientific, and the model number is DM241.
It used to be DM240.
They just updated it, but they haven't changed the price. So the price is $4,095.
Now let's do a quick overview of each monitor, so let's go through it, all right?
So here's our EIZO.
Now the first thing that I have to say that absolutely baffles my mind
and kind of infuriates me is this whole BS right here,
Where it says contact EIZO.
Are you kidding me?
We're in 2021.
And you're gonna cause these frictions for me to buy your product?
Do you not understand that we have so many options nowadays,
EIZO is not the only company? The reason why I get kind of fired up about this is
that this is an ongoing thing in our industry.
You know, this upper echelon, whatever that thing is, where they're trying to build this presence.
Like we're the Benz, we're the Porsche of this thing, right?
You have to contact us.
We don't wanna sell it to you.
you have to work for it.
I didn't understand. if it's up to me, I get the money that I need to spend somewhere, it's not going to EIZO.
I didn't care.
If you gonna give me a run-around, I'm gonna go buy something else. So it genuinely just blows my mind.
that these are the cheap tactics that we're using in 2021, where even a five-year-old is just too smart,
this is like a freaking 27-year- old.
So I don't know what world they're living in.
It's pure garbage. I hope that somebody from their marketing department is watching this video.
It's an epic fail.
I give you a negative 100 out of 10 on this move.
It's garbage. That said, now let's look at all the pros that go into when we talk about a prosumer-level monitor,
I wouldn't put EIZO sa like especially this category that we're looking at as like a professional, professional monitor, but this is the ultimate jack of all trades, so I'm gonna put it right there in a prosumer category.
So what makes it special?
Let's quickly go over some of those things. One of the great things about this monitor, it comes with a built-in sensor.
So it actually has a hardware calibrator built-in that will pop in.
It will basically learn when you're using it, your time, or whatever.
I don't know how it does it.
It's kind of magic. Like this is the EIZO 279x.
So that little flap, like that little hardware calibrator just pops down,
When I,m not using the monitor it takes about a minute to just calibrate it.
And then everything is good to go and it just makes sure that the color accuracy is there and it's consistent.
And then it comes with this freeware software that you can download and that's how it syncs with your actual OS.
And moving down, there are tones of different presents. So you can actually throw a PQ curve, A gamma curve,
and kind of see what your HDR content looks like.
But then you have that wall, you have that threshold of 350 nits.
So then in that case, it's not necessarily an HDR output, but it kind giving you a flavor.
Like if you were to watch HDR content on SDR, what it would look like.
So it does do that.
Which is kind of cool. Cover reproduction, so you can basically work on Adobe RGB,
sRGB,Rec.709,
and DCI-P3 only 98% accurate,
am I right?
Let me see, so we'll look at the space as well, but I think it said somewhere 98% accuracy,
which is not terrible. it's not the best, but you can get by if you're working on a DCI-P3 project.
Right here, it says true black display. I mean, I didn't really think so.
it's an LCD display with a really low contrast ratio.
So pure is not necessarily pure black. From this, a pure black would be this, which is the Apple XDR display.
And then this monitor right here puts everything else to shame because, like even the Apple XD display
because it only has like 500 local dimming Zones,
I feel like, or maybe less than that. And then you go to here, which I think 2000 local dimming Zones.
So like, it is crazy, crazy, accurate. it's unreal. And then OLED is a whole different animal, right?
It can literally just shut off the pixel that is pure black. And that's where the pure black comes from in the OLED technology. Another good advantage that you have when it comes to EIZO is that you got 3D LUT, so you can actually interest your won LUTs in there.
And then you have, it's a 10- bit display and here you can see the difference, right?
shooting something in 8-bit, right? you see this banding in the sky.
Anytime there's a subtle gradation, you will see the tone of banding there. and it's no different when it comes
to actually look at the screen as well. If it's an 8-bit screen, it's gonna have banding. if it's a 10- bit screen,
it's gonna give you a very accurate representation of what you're looking at.
And see, just by looking at this example right here, gets to tell you how important it is to invest money in a proper monitor because you could be grading ALEXA footage thinking that there is banding, but there's not necessarily banding on the screen just because your panel is cheap and it's an 8-bit panel it's giving you banding, but there's no banding on the actual camera sensor, right?
How it was captured, right?
Because it was a 12-bit image if you shot it in RAW or ProRes 444.
So something to think about, all right?
Another advantage of having a prosumer-level monitor, is it's gonna give you a tone of these options, right?
Like where you can have a safe area marker on the actual monitor. you can turn it on so you can have safe
and area safe and things like that. you have an option for different aspect ratios, so that's something that you can't do on consumer-level products like an OLED TV.
Adjusted at a factory for a smooth color gradation. So that's an amazing one.
When you get these monitors, Flanders and EIZO, they come with the sheet that you can look at,
which is basically signed by the color scientist or calibrator and approved by them that,
hey, this is kosher.
This is ready to go and here are the numbers. you know, these are the readings from your specific display.
So I; love that.
This is a very important one, guys.
And also remember, don't ever turn on your monitor and start grading right away, okay?
The monitor usually has a specific time until they warm up.
So here, they're telling you a stable color in just three minutes.
So that's pretty quick.
Even on a monitor like that, it's not instant. I've even heard that you got to let it sit for like 30 minutes before you start grading.
So even when they're saying three minutes, they might be pushing the truth a little bit.
I would still give it about 10 minutes before you start grading until everything is kind of stable.
Uniformity across the screen. That is the huge, huge plus when it comes to high-end screens.
And anytime you're talking about prosumer or professional monitors, that is one thing that you can almost always guarantee, that it's gonna be uniform from edge-to-edge.
And that's not the case when it comes to cheaper monitors,
like you buy a$,2000 monitor if it's an LCD panel and it's not supposed to be a high-end panel,
it's gonna be all over the place. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Like a little white spot here and a white spot there, and it's not uniform at all.
And that's going to affect your final grade because you could be putting a vignette and then there's an extra light bleed on the bottom left.
And then you might think that, oh, I'm gonna keep darkening it. you're darkening it, but that's not the reality.
It's your actual panel that is leaking that light in that area and you're overcompensating for it, if that makes any sense.
So It's very important to understand that as well. So now let's look at specifications.
And don't be intimidated by this section because this is what's giving you hard facts,
like hard data that you're looking for. so look at it, right?
It's an IPS display, right?
Technology, 27 inches. it's a QHD instead of HD. So you have more resolution.
So it's good for, again, multipurpose.
And then look at the display color right there. then you got your brightness, 350nits, right?
And a 1300 to one contrast ratio. Eh, it's okay
When I use this, it's okay.
It's not the best, but it,s not the worst. It's pretty good. it's positioned it's supposed to be for the price point, okay?
And then it tells you the color gamut. Remember we talked about how that's important.
So it's telling you right here, it covers Adobe RGB and DCI-P3.
The only reason why it's not mentioning sRGB or Rec.709
because pretty it's assumed that it's gonna cover that 100% so you should be okay there.
Video puts.
so you got the display port, so you're set.
like if I'm using this monitor, I'm almost always connected through display port,
because that's gonna give me the 10-bit, right?
it's gonna click in like 10- bits.
If you're using HDMI, I'm not 100% positive, but it might not be 10-bits.
so usually display port will give you the highest resolution unless you're using something like Flanders
or this guy where you got SDI,
which is gonna be the best of the best.
All right, so now let's move on to our LG C1.
and first, we're gonna look at their overview and then we're gonna look at the specs.
So I wanna just show you this for a second to see the difference, like how they're marketed, right?
So like, when you look at, right up until your world, self-lit pixels have evolved.
What does that even mean, right? I mean, ti us,
to nerds that are looking for actual hard data, looking at this as sort of like what are you talking about?
Obviously, this is like all the marketing team, like people that don't even know about the technology,
but they're just good with words. So they just go beef it up, beef it up, like throw all that cool stuff to just lure people in and for grandma to just go, oh my god,
what makes OLED unlike anything else?
This answer is self-lit pixels. Great, let's just buy it.
I like this copywritten here, OLED is unbeatable when it comes to picture quality.
That's because OLED has millions of self-lit pixels capable of producing perfect black
and accurate color. So I like that. I like that because it's true.
The result viewing experience like no other. I buy that too. So anyway, it's kind of a generic copy, whatever, right?
Then you click on specs. And the thing that kind of surprised I is how much BS was in the specs here as well.
I mean, wide viewing angle, thumbs up, like, yes.
What does that even mean?
Perfect black, yes.
These are not really objective things, okay?
You can actually put in actual numbers that back this up and it is true that it is pure and it has all those things.
Billion ri8ch colors, yes. So whatever. it,s a head-scratcher but the things that are good and that we would be looking for as professionals here in a panel like this is OLED display, good.
I need to see that.
4k, so it has UHD, good. I need to see that. 120Hertz of native refresh rate. That's great. why.
Because usually when you hook up your computer or your laptop to a big screen, there's a certain lag when you're moving your cursor.
That is gone when you set your TV in game mode, all right?
As soon as you set it in-game mode, that thing is gone.
The 120Hertz kick in and it's amazing.
It's like the best experience you'll have, all right, interacting with the screen.
So that's all the good information that we need. Obviously, it supports Dolby Vision and HDR,
so that's good. So now wanna go down to connectivity and then underconnectivity, once again, I'm looking at HDMI, it just tells me about HDMI ports.
It does not tell me is it HDCP 2.2. I'm expecting it to be.
It may or may not be. But either, why when it says 4k 120 Hertz, I'm assuming that it is HDCP, at least 2.0 or 2.1,
if not, 2.2. SO we are okay there, but that's pretty all the information that I'm gonna need from here.
And again this gets to tell you right there that it's a consumer-level product. So just be aware of that.
I need you to build that IQ when you're looking at certain monitors. Now, next time, when you're doing your own research, you can use this data and be like, oh dude, all right. I mean, if they're kind of hiding these numbers and making these big claims and it's all wordy, maybe it's not the thing for me.
Now I'm not saying this particular OLED that I'm showing is not a good choice.
I'm just saying if somebody's trying to sell you, this is going to be, this is a specific grading monitor and then you do your own research and you go, will, thin show me the data, show me the numbers, and they're not doing that. then run away from that. that's all I'm trying to say.
LG is not trying to make pretend. LG is like, we make consumer products that are the best in the game, and their screens back it up.
So that's a different story, but I just wanna give you that background so you know what you're doing
When you're doing your own research.
Now let's look at Flanders Scientific DM241.
I mean you know you're looking at something professional because of this.
Let's just go down, have a look at this.
It's like they don't even spend any effort or time on the website, which is totally fine because I don't care.
Thwy's giving me really solid data.
They're starting it off with like feature, full 12-bit video processing, 10-bit LCD panel.
They're not hiding anything from you, man. They're just giving you all the information that you need.
Look at this, as the throughput, through the SDI, you can plug in a 12-bit 444 connection straight into your panel.