Monitor?

What specs are good for a color grading monitor? Like I was looking at HP Dreamcolor specs and they are as follows:

Brightness: 50cd/m minimum to 250 cd/m maximum
Contrast Ratio: 1000:1
Viewing Angle: 178H, 178V
Resolution: 1920*1080

Now most of us can't afford a $2000 monitor. At least I cannot. I am running my system with a Samsung SynchMaster SA300 23' LED. Now its features specs are as follows:

Brightness: 250 cd/m
Contrast Ratio:1000:1
Viewing Angle: 170H, 160H
Resolution 1920*1080

What else is required? Is my monitor up to the task? Has anybody seen it or used it?

While those specs look good enough, it's more to it than this.

Color space, bit depth and calibration being the first things I'd ask about. How well does the SyncMaster do REC.709? And is it 8-bit/10-bit? What inputs does it have?

My guess is it's just as good as any other computer monitor. Which means; it does less than average but not accurate, compared to a video monitor, which is designed to show colors at a higher level than what a computer monitor can.

However, I've heard good things about the Dreamcolor. And I'd say that's the very least you should be aiming for, if you can't go for a full blown dedicated video monitor.


There's plenty of discussions and questions regarding monitors at Creative Cow. And I'm sure there's smarter people in here that can give you a better answer than mine.

Thanks Ola. Dreamcolor is nice but way out of my budget.

EDIT: Ola I really like your website. I like how you have formed a worfklow. What would you say is better and why: DPX or TIFF?

What is your budget? You should go for a monitor with ips panel instead of the tn panel you have right now. Ips is able to show more colors. Doesn't have to be expensive, starts around $200 for 22/23 inch 1080p.

I don't know. I just read a couple of posts on creativecow and I think I should start saving heck a lot of money and get something with different color spaces.

Thanks Ola. Dreamcolor is nice but way out of my budget.
EDIT: Ola I really like your website. I like how you have formed a worfklow. What would you say is better and why: DPX or TIFF?

Thank you. I have limited experience with image sequences. I usually grade with ProRes 422/4444 and R3D. The few times I've used image sequences it's been TIFF. But mostly because that's what I've either been provided or asked for. Almost none of my contacts use DPX. The VFX guys in town haven't heard of it.. They're pretty new in the game.

Is there any way I can calibrate my monitor to look 99.999% to Rec709. I am using Windows 7. My monitor is, as I specified, Samsung SynchMaster 23 LED SA300. I regularly do a calibration which comes with windows but is there any other way, please tell me.

Can anyone tell me how to know if a monitor is 10bit or not. Is the HP ZR2240w a 10bit monitor? Anyone uses it?

Dells U2711 is a decent display for the cheap route.
We use it against the Flanders at work and it seems to hold up pretty good.

Ok so these monitors fall in my budget:
- Dell U2312HM
- Asus PA238Q
- HP ZR2240W

The Asus is actually recommended on nofilmschool.com in the article regarding setting up a color grading suite in your home. Eric mentioned the Dell U2711. 27' is too big for my need so I mentioned the same one in 23'. And the Hp is the only performance, professional monitor that comes in my range. They are all in the range of $260 give and take with Hp being the cheapest. Does anyone here use any of the stated monitors or any advice that you can give, is welcome. Thanks for helping me out so far. I want to buy a decent monitor and then when I can afford something better I'll look at Dreamcolor, FSI, NEC or ColorEdge.

Guys, very nice thread.

I use Dell's displays (U2711 as the main and U2410 as for the Resolve's preview). I'm quite new in Resolve, but will be growing in learning of this great SW.

As far as I understood, both displays can be calibrated properly to be similar to Rec 709 profile (both of them have sRGB profile also). What steps do you recommend for the purpoce to calibrate both displays correctly, or at least the "preview" one (U2410). I may call for the professional who can bring some hardware calibrator, so what the guy should be asked for and what should bring for me after calibration done, meaning some LUTs, profiles, etc. to use under Resolve?

I used i1 Display2 to calibrate my monitor. With a calibrator you can create a color profile to apply to your display through your operation system. But im not too sure how this works when using davinci...
Hope someone can help with that.
If you create a profile file to calibrate your monitor. do you need to installed in davinci ? or Does davinci use this profile installed in win or mac by default? Can you used two profiles for two diferent monitors?
Hope someone can help with that.

I recently bought an HP ZR2240w and I'm frankly disappointed by the viewing angles and the LED backlight. It's still a very nice monitor and the backlight is pretty good for LED, but the viewing angles really kill it for me and it's just not as good as CCFL. (Mind you, I'm really picky.)

I still have an HP LP2475w and that screen's GREAT. I've been comparing it to a 13 inch Sony OLED, and while it should have been a very unfair fight... the HP managed to hold its own. It's discontinued, you can still pick it up a few places.

My two cents.

Alex, I have the same HP LP2475w. What probe did you use to calibrate it with ?

I used a Spyder 2 with Color Eyes Display Pro.

I'm sure my setup could be better as far as calibration goes, but it seemed to work well enough for my needs.

That's an interesting point, BTW. I just bought i1Display Pro, non-expencive "toy" for a proper calibration to Rec.709, and waiting for one delivery. Same to the recent post of Alexis, anyone used it w/ Resolve?