Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

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François Zaïdi

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Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostSat Apr 18, 2015 6:02 pm

Hello

I I looking for a grading monitor and stumbled upon the LG 31MU97. 4K, 10 bit panel (or so it seems).
I of course thought about the new FSI AM line, but it is only 8 bit and 1080p...
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JPOwens

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostSun Apr 19, 2015 3:14 pm

François Zaïdi wrote:I I looking for a grading monitor

Out of curiosity, what do you think this means:

No Color Shift or Distortion
The 31MU97 IPS display supports Adobe RGB over 99.5% / DCI-P3 97%, reproducing an accurate color level that includes the sRGB and CMYK color code standard for ensuring the color consistent reproduction from your monitor to all print materials that professionals are looking for.

continuing...

you can get an idea of how the final printable copy will look with Adobe RGB mode and also can find out how the final output will appear on websites with the sRGB mode at once.

... and that nowhere in the technical description does it mention Rec 709?

jPo
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Chris Kenny

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostSun Apr 19, 2015 4:42 pm

Rec. 709 has the same primaries and white point as sRGB.
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Peter_r

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostMon Apr 20, 2015 12:09 am

I am in the midst of reviewing this monitor at the moment.

But the short answer is, yes it is usable if you calibrate it correctly. It gives excellent results in Rec.709 and is amazingly good in DCI-P3, uniformity is very good, but, just like the Dolby monitor, you need to sit directly in front of it as viewing angles can be an issue. Basically don't sit too close to it, you will want a deep desk.

If doing only 1080P work though, there is not a lot of point to getting this over a dedicated Rec 709 HD monitor, but if you have to do 4K DCI-P3, it is a bit of a godsend.

Of course, not being a broadcast monitor as such, performance will vary a bit from panel to panel, but again, calibrated it did better than the Eizo monitors we have here, and no cropping at 4K and really great colour performance, well, I would rather rely on it than on a 1080P monitor doing DCI-P3 'emulation' (which is usually just clipping off the data.)

All the usual caveats apply, you need to know how to calibrate properly, have a good probe, drive it with a proper IO card etc.
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Dermot Shane

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostMon Apr 20, 2015 3:34 am

interesting.. i have spent 1000's of hours infront of a Dolby4200, and thought the off-axis was acceptable, but i'm the one in the good seat anyway so i sit on axis, but the DoP's , post sups, director's all sit off axis in the suite and i've not heard a peep from any of them.... a far cry from working on say a Dreamcolor... pleany of moaning there....
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Peter_r

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostMon Apr 20, 2015 9:17 am

Hi Dermot,
I'm not saying the Dolby is terrible off axis, (it is certainly acceptable) but I do think that if you are doing the correcting, you need to be dead in front, and that LG is almost exactly the same in this respect as the Dolby, i.e. if the off-axis viewing doesn't affect one with the Dolby, it won't worry them on the LG, but if the monitor is close to the front of the desk, and you are off to the side, the uniformity change is quite noticeable in the corners on both, but nothing like as bad as many other monitors out there.

As it is a large monitor (almost 32") you notice it more if you are up close to it, moving it deeper back in the desk lessens the effect significantly.
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Dermot Shane

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostMon Apr 20, 2015 3:44 pm

Thanks Peter!

we are looking for something to replace the ageing first gen Dreamcolor's in our edit suites, and 4k is a reasonable future proofing step
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Peter_r

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostMon Apr 20, 2015 6:05 pm

I'd make sure you get it from a retailer that will let you swap it out if you get one that is a dud.
Being a consumer product, the quality is likely to vary a bit from screen to screen. The one we have is brilliant, but it doesn't mean that every one will be.

It has two calibration memories that you can program, I have Rec709 calibration set in one, and it nails it.

Apparently with the firmware at the moment, there is a problem with having both calibration slots filled, I will be testing that next week.
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Måns Winberg

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostTue Apr 21, 2015 12:11 pm

There seems to be a Thunderbolt 2 version on the way, 31MU97-Z. How would this influence performance? Would you still need an I/O device like Mini Monitor?

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/lg-monitor-qnap-nas-thunderbolt,28941.html
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Adam Simmons

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostTue Apr 21, 2015 1:48 pm

Ideally you would still need a dedicated output card, having TB2 on it still means it has to be connected to either a TB socket or a display-port socket, which means it will still be outputting through the graphics card and not a dedicated output card
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davidanderson

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostSat Mar 19, 2016 11:48 pm

Anyone else using these monitors?
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Andrew Kolakowski

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostSun Mar 20, 2016 3:40 pm

JPOwens wrote:
François Zaïdi wrote:I I looking for a grading monitor

Out of curiosity, what do you think this means:

No Color Shift or Distortion
The 31MU97 IPS display supports Adobe RGB over 99.5% / DCI-P3 97%, reproducing an accurate color level that includes the sRGB and CMYK color code standard for ensuring the color consistent reproduction from your monitor to all print materials that professionals are looking for.

continuing...

you can get an idea of how the final printable copy will look with Adobe RGB mode and also can find out how the final output will appear on websites with the sRGB mode at once.

... and that nowhere in the technical description does it mention Rec 709?

jPo


It has Rec.709 preset (if I remember well) or better- you can calibrate it and save your own preset.
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Andrew Kolakowski

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostSun Mar 20, 2016 3:44 pm

davidanderson wrote:Anyone else using these monitors?


I had it for testing and it was quite decent, specially for this price (and it's 4096x2160 not UHD!). Some people complain about IPS glow, others about serious issues, which I think was due to some bad batch. Because I needed just decent GUI monitor for Resolve I end up with mid range Eizo UHD, which seams to have better black. For its price monitor is quite good, but if you can afford get Eizo CG318-4K, which seams to be very good, although price is high (it may be based on the same panel!, but Eizo put more effort to electronics etc).

http://prad.de/new/monitore/test/2015/t ... u97-b.html

use google for translation- Prad is very good website.
There were some quirks with resetting preset after power cycle etc, but maybe this has been addressed with firmware upgrade. There also seams to be 2nd gen coming (as mentioned above) but I never saw if for sale. In the same time some shops have this model discontinued.
I think LG won't offer same reliability/panel repeatability as Eizo or NEC, but in the same time price is very good.

Samsung has also some higher-end models (bit more expensive than LG, but still way less than Eizo/NEC), so maybe check these ones also.

Other than this Dell is about to release OLED monitor
https://pcmonitors.info/dell/dell-up301 ... d-monitor/
which may be also an option, depending how good it's.
Sony 4K BVM OLED blows everything else by miles atm, so maybe Dell will be decent also (although Sony uses their own and unique panel).
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Ben Neufeld

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostWed Nov 29, 2017 8:47 pm

Can anyone who's successfully calibrated this LG using the monitor's True Color Pro software (as far as I know the only way to calibrate using the monitor's internal LUTs) for Rec 709 elaborate on how they were able to do it? I've got True Color Pro working (finally...Had been trying to connect via HDMI which apparently the monitor doesn't like as much as Display Port).

Now, I'm trying to figure out how to properly calibrate the monitor for rec 709 that will be coming out of a blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K and/or mini monitor. First of all, it doesn't seem like the monitor has a Rec 709 gamut as a default calibration option, so I'm wondering if I'd need to make this myself and feed it to the monitor as an .icc profile? And second of all, i'm also trying to figure out if there's a way to tell the monitor that it will be receiving video levels (16-235) from the blackmagic interface after it's calibrated, since True Color Pro doesn't run through the blackmagic interface. I know on some monitors (i.e. HP Dreamcolor) there's an menu option to tell the monitor it's accepting video levels rather than data levels, however it doesn't seem that the LG has this option.

Help/tips/suggestions from anyone with this, especially anyone who's used the TCP software, would be much appreciated!
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Marc Wielage

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostSat Dec 02, 2017 12:38 pm

I think in answer to the original question, no -- it's not a good choice as a grading monitor. A lot of computer displays have similar problems.

You would be better off getting one of the LG OLEDs (like a B6 or B7) and then calibrate that with a reliable 3rd party probe and software. Light Illusion and Calman are both very good.
marc wielage, csi • VP/color & workflow • chroma | hollywood
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Andrew Kolakowski

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostSat Dec 02, 2017 3:53 pm

Show me an OLED 4K TV at 1K$ which will calibrate and give better results than this monitor. You rather need 2x the money and good OLED (for calibration) like Panasonic EZ1002 is different price range.
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Marc Wielage

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostSun Dec 24, 2017 5:35 am

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:Show me an OLED 4K TV at 1K$ which will calibrate and give better results than this monitor. You rather need 2x the money and good OLED (for calibration) like Panasonic EZ1002 is different price range.

Well, look at it this way: Technicolor, CO3, Chainsaw, and quite a few other LA firms have bought several dozen LG OLED C7's as "client displays." The advantage is you can get them for well under $2K. I think if you can spend about $600-$700 more than $1000 and get a significantly better display that can be calibrated more readily and is 55", that's a better choice. Buy what makes the most sense to you -- you ask for opinions on the internet, sometimes you're going to get opinions you don't agree with.
marc wielage, csi • VP/color & workflow • chroma | hollywood
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Andrew Kolakowski

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Re: Grading monitor : is LG 31MU97 a good choice ?

PostSun Dec 24, 2017 10:11 am

These are all serious companies which have money for this.
Some places also never put 2 different screens (specially high-end+ low end) into 1 room. There is a very good reason for this :D

Sorry, but you seems to always apply Hollywood "logic" into every case.
I don't have a problem with "different" opinion- I think I juts better understand people who ask for <1K$ ( I worked for top VFX London house as well as for tiny companies).
For some people who do hobby work or low paid 1000$ and 2000$ screen makes huge difference.
The same difference as if Technicolor would put Sony X300 into every room. We all know why they don't do it.

Besides- LG OLEDs don't calibrate that well (when we talk about deltas) and no one asked specifically for "client screen". Panasonic EZ1002 does, but this is not 2000$.

This LG monitor is not perfect at all (some units had problems, sometimes it fails after year or bit more), but it's probably best budget screen you can get. It's also 4096x2160 panel, not UHD. If you have money you can get on OLED TV (I would probably do the same if I could afford it), but this will be about 2x more.

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