Reference Monitors & LG’s OLEDs in The Color Suite

Day 22: 25 Insights in 25 Days New Year’s Marathon

Discussing Reference Monitors & LG OLEDs

Episode 36: From The Mailbag

Well, it’s the last weekend of our New Year’s Marathon.  We have a few days left, but we hope you’ve enjoyed the daily Insights!

2017 is going to be a big year for Mixing Light and we’re more dedicated than ever to bring you top notch color correction training.

Sunday’s are Mailbag days during the marathon and in this installment, we first revisit a subject that we’ve talked about before and is often talked about in colorist circles – reference monitors. We discuss in more depth OLED consumer displays from LG – these displays have been getting quite a bit of attention over the past year or so, and LG continues to improve them.

Remember, if you have questions that you’d like to get our opinion on please use the contact form. Your question may be included in a future episode of  From The Mailbag.

Your questions can be aesthetic, technical or even client related. We’d love to hear from you, and your question might make future episodes of From The MailBag.

Revisiting Reference Monitors

Yep, we’re talking about reference monitors again!

We got a question from a member named Luca, that was wide-ranging – but essentially he was asking for help picking a new reference monitor. He inquired about LED vs. OLED, HD vs. UHD, and if HDR monitoring was worth the investment at this point.

Although we’ve discussed reference monitors in various Mailbags, articles, videos and other podcasts here on the site, this is a question we get weekly (sometimes daily).

In part one, we take some time talking about reference monitors, what makes a good one, connectivity, HD vs. UHD, budget and other things to consider when looking for a new reference monitor.

Using LG OLEDs In The Color Suite

Over the past year, you’ve probably heard us (really Robbie!) talking about 2016 LG OLEDs and how good they are once properly setup.  But you’ve probably also heard us say several times they can be a bit of a pain to get setup properly.

Succumbing to peer pressure, Patrick recently purchased a 2016 LG 55″ B6 OLED, so because of that and because of Luca’s question, in part 2 we jump in and talk about these displays, how good they are, and essential setup steps.

This is a pretty dense Mailbag part so to help you out please check out these links:

• 2017 LG OLEDs announced
• 2016 LG B/E 6 Reviewed
• Mixing Light article on perceptual matching
• Mixing Light podcast on Getting to know the FSI BoxIO
• LG service remote app
• LG Andriod app
• Color Correction Gear Head discussing the LG OLED
• AVS Forum thread on accessing the service menu and turning off panel dimming

When we originally recorded this episode it was nearly 45min so we cut down things quite a bit.  In the edited version, a few bits of vital information were left out:

• Throughout the episode, Robbie refers to the LG as having a backlight.  Robbie was just having a brain fart! And late in the episode (the part we cut), he corrected himself.  Emissive displays like OLED, of course, don’t have backlights! In OLED speak, this is known as electrophosphorescence.
• The built-in CMS is acceptable for minor adjustments like saturation, brightness, etc. The issues lie more with the grayscale and individual color adjustment settings. We clarified this in a bit that got cut.
• The 2017 LG specs are better – better P3 performance, better HDR performance (peak white is near 1000nits).  The other interesting thing is LG announced a tick-tock schedule like Intel used to have.  Meaning 2017 is an improvement year, 2018 is a redesign year.
• 2017 LG OLEDs will support 4 flavors of HDR – HDR10, Dolby Vision, HLG and Technicolor’s Advanced HDR

LG OLEDs aren’t perfect, and there is a lot of new competition from Panasonic, Sony and others.  But when it comes to professional use, it’s good to know OLED is alive and well, and that new options that can be adapted from professional use are continuing to be developed. One can only dream about what NAB 2017 will mean for professional OLEDs!

You guys have been quiet! We want your questions! Of course, you can use the comments below if you have more to add to the conversation. 

-Team Mixing Light