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Reference Monitors & LG’s OLEDs in The Color Suite

January 22, 2017

Team Mixing Light discusses choosing colorist reference monitors. Plus, using LG's consumer OLED televisions in our color suites.


Series
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:

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

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Comments

Homepage Forums Reference Monitors & LG’s OLEDs in The Color Suite

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  • I did do the 2 point calibration in the service menu first, and only made slight adjustments to the 20 point white balance that really consisted mostly of luminance adjustments

  • Makes sense, I had the 4k pro as well but I sold it because I didn’t want to pay all that money for a teranex mini to convert the sdi to hdmi and a hd furry. I don’t think the boxio supports the high frame rates in 4k though.

  • Makes sense, I had the 4k pro as well but I sold it because I didn’t want to pay all that money for a teranex mini to convert the sdi to hdmi and a hd furry. I don’t think the boxio supports the high frame rates in 4k though.


  • Robbie Carman
    Guest

    correct as it has 2x3G inputs so 2160p30


  • Robbie Carman
    Guest

    correct as it has 2x3G inputs so 2160p30


  • Robbie Carman
    Guest

    my E7 had some updates available at home, will check out the B’s when I’m in the office. It’d be great if they got that sorted with a software update!


  • Robbie Carman
    Guest

    my E7 had some updates available at home, will check out the B’s when I’m in the office. It’d be great if they got that sorted with a software update!


  • Robbie Carman
    Guest

    yes…that’s correct Dan can chime in with more detailed info. The X300 at 30in is about the minimum size to make that work.. and of course a lot of suites feature a single monitor (dolby etc). I’ve just never been comfortable with the client sitting up with me.

    What have your issues with a perceptual match been?


  • Robbie Carman
    Guest

    yes…that’s correct Dan can chime in with more detailed info. The X300 at 30in is about the minimum size to make that work.. and of course a lot of suites feature a single monitor (dolby etc). I’ve just never been comfortable with the client sitting up with me.

    What have your issues with a perceptual match been?

  • Hey Robbie, just not having good calibration done by the guy I hired last to get the perceptual match at the end between FSI and Panny plasma after using probe and software of course. I have otherwise had good results using a LUT box to match between those displays in the past. Would love to see a Flanders 4K, HDR, OLED answer to Sony 🙂 as I make the switch to a new workstation and desk this year I have been taking screengrabs of setups I come across on instagram and facebook.

    I hear you about having clients next to you, it can be a pain when the vibe is not great. I get a decent amount of dp’s and director’s wanting to get up and look at the ‘confidence monitor / hero display’ especially for commercial fashion or beauty. Using a single display in the room has been on my radar more recently in the last year or so because I have freelanced at a couple of places which have the Dolby 4200 and I really like looking at the same display as the client, but also ergonomically with newer adjustable desks for example, bias lighting and the rigging of that behind your display changes a bit. It would be great to see how you guys have your bias lighting rigged behind your SDI display and client monitors. Anyways, thank you for the wealth of information, super helpful!

  • Hey Robbie, just not having good calibration done by the guy I hired last to get the perceptual match at the end between FSI and Panny plasma after using probe and software of course. I have otherwise had good results using a LUT box to match between those displays in the past. Would love to see a Flanders 4K, HDR, OLED answer to Sony 🙂 as I make the switch to a new workstation and desk this year I have been taking screengrabs of setups I come across on instagram and facebook.

    I hear you about having clients next to you, it can be a pain when the vibe is not great. I get a decent amount of dp’s and director’s wanting to get up and look at the ‘confidence monitor / hero display’ especially for commercial fashion or beauty. Using a single display in the room has been on my radar more recently in the last year or so because I have freelanced at a couple of places which have the Dolby 4200 and I really like looking at the same display as the client, but also ergonomically with newer adjustable desks for example, bias lighting and the rigging of that behind your display changes a bit. It would be great to see how you guys have your bias lighting rigged behind your SDI display and client monitors. Anyways, thank you for the wealth of information, super helpful!


  • Robbie Carman
    Guest

    an eye match at the end is not the way to roll – it should be built into the actual calibration. Really all it is is a white point adjustment. Freeze the hero monitor on a white field, then grade the other monitor to visually match – if you want you can also try this with a 50% gray field to check. Once that’s done take a reading of the white field and write those xy coordinates down. When you go to calibrate those new coordinates are your new white point – other chromaticity points should be left alone for what ever color space you’re calibrating too

    one thing you might consider about setup is a perpendicular setup in my room clients backs are to me but on my right. So I can see the client display but they can’t (without effort) see mine. However I’m also really happy with my matching so it’s less of an issue.


  • Robbie Carman
    Guest

    an eye match at the end is not the way to roll – it should be built into the actual calibration. Really all it is is a white point adjustment. Freeze the hero monitor on a white field, then grade the other monitor to visually match – if you want you can also try this with a 50% gray field to check. Once that’s done take a reading of the white field and write those xy coordinates down. When you go to calibrate those new coordinates are your new white point – other chromaticity points should be left alone for what ever color space you’re calibrating too

    one thing you might consider about setup is a perpendicular setup in my room clients backs are to me but on my right. So I can see the client display but they can’t (without effort) see mine. However I’m also really happy with my matching so it’s less of an issue.


  • Robbie Carman
    Guest

    wow! so recent firmware updates have cleaned this up tremendously! That’s good news. I was still able to get some banding pushing things but those high values probably wouldn’t be used normally if using the CMS for calibration.


  • Robbie Carman
    Guest

    wow! so recent firmware updates have cleaned this up tremendously! That’s good news. I was still able to get some banding pushing things but those high values probably wouldn’t be used normally if using the CMS for calibration.

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