4K Color Critical Monitor

Hello Colorists, I am considering making a monitor change. I currently am using a Sony PVMA250 25 OLED HD ( Which has been great). I want to increase the size of viewing with 4K and some HDR capabilities. Without hanging a big LG on my wall.


Has anyone been considering or using any of these monitors for color grading
ASUS ProArt Display PA32UCX-PK 32"
NEC MultiSync PA311D 31.1
BenQ SW321C 32


Thanks

a lot of discussion about these on LGG, worth reading

Only Asus is really HDR capable. Others 2 are no near 1000 nits capabilities, even just for peak. Be careful with manufactures' crap. Read spec carefully. Steve from LightIllusion said:

The display looks as expected for a zoned backlight HDR display.
And is a lot better than the Apple display!
Steve

a lot of discussion about these on LGG, worth reading

LGG??

a lot of discussion about these on LGG, worth reading

LGG??

Liftgammagain.com

Thank you.

Hello,

I am using Asus VG248QE monitor and it is the probably best monitor that I ever used. Previously It has average colors, But later I Installed the custom color profiles that are available over the internet and now it gives super contrast and picture quality.

You can try to apply the same color ICC profile. Maybe it works also for you.

Thanks,
Jeffer James

This is not a correct approach.
You can’t pick any profile and load it for any monitor. End result is something totally random.
You should not even take custom profile from other monitor even if this is exactly the same model.
You need to calibrate your monitor in given conditions to get somehow correct preview.
Anything else is just some preview which has nothing to do with accuracy.
More contrast, saturation etc. are meaningless terms here.

Besides, ICC profiles don't change colors, just GPU gamma tables....extremely changing the gamma changes colors, though...

Besides, ICC profiles don't change colors, just GPU gamma tables....extremely changing the gamma changes colors, though...

if I recall correctly, ICC can have a lattice therefore change the color as well.. but I can be wrong.

Besides, ICC profiles don't change colors, just GPU gamma tables....extremely changing the gamma changes colors, though...

if I recall correctly, ICC can have a lattice therefore change the color as well.. but I can be wrong.

Uh, I meant ICC profiles don't change colours in non-managed applications like Resolve or OS desktop.

Sent from my Mi 9T using Tapatalk

Warren Eagles at the ICA did a good (and free) one-hour presentation on affordable monitors for colorists:

They dispel a lot of myths that people have about monitors, and they explain why calibration is necessary and why a "TV set" per se won't work for critical grading.

We're happy with the LG OLED's, but there are a few choices out there.

Calibrated, good TV will be easily enough for many projects.
Match your setup accordingly to rank of your project and you will be fine. Not everyone (actually not many) need A class grading monitor. Above video actually says the same if you watch it with correct understanding.
Those which try to prove that everyone needs 30k monitor or can’t do any work don’t know what they are talking about or trying to crate “illusion” to protect themselves.
It’s like saying that if you don’t drive Porsche you may forget about driving at all.

Calibrated, good TV will be easily enough for many projects. Match your setup accordingly to rank of your project and you will be fine. Not everyone (actually not many) need A class grading monitor. Above video actually says the same if you watch it with correct understanding.

That's true to a point, but true mastering-grade monitors are in a whole different category. Also, even Warren and the others point out you can't reliably correct HDR/Dolby Vision with affordable (below US$30,000) displays, for a lot of reasons. Steve Shaw of LightIllusion.com has a good article on why mastering displays are needed for really precise color-correction:

https://www.lightillusion.com/grading_displays.html

I should add “in case of Rec.709”.
HDR is way more problematic for sure as technology is still in early stages.

The video Marc posted is very informative. The emphasis on thorough calibration and neutral viewing environment is very reassuring for me. My understanding of the video is that as long as you know you monitor limitations and do your homework, all their setups will yield good results (except of course the uncalibratable monitors, the cheap Dell and the Imac). They were even positive about the BenQ PM270.
There is a huge amount of low profile videowork outside of TV/streaming/advertising/Hollywood with their high budgets. All those videos need color correction but will simply not pay for high end monitors.
Rick specifically excluded an LG OLED as an option, so here are two more 4K monitors with some HDR to check out:
- Dell UltraSharp UP3221Q, came out last November and is in the same range as the Asus ProArt PA32UCX-PK.
- Asus ProArt PA32UCG, the follow-up to the UCX-PK. Since the review of the UCX-PK in Marc's video was quite positive (again within it's limitations), this might also be an option. It's announced for Q1 2021.

I'm just in the middle of Steve Shaw's course on HDR grading from vfxphd. There is so much information in there about different HDR systems, which equate to how your monitor handles the picture you are putting out. I took some of that info, and went back to look at some of the "4k" and "HDR" monitors out there, and decided i had to start over in my purchase research. I had no idea how little I knew.

Just looking for a 4k monitor, without knowing what kind of (if any) hdr signals it can handle, could lead to a very disappointing purchase.