NTSC vs. Regular T.V. Preview Monitor?

[Daniel Rheaume]

Hello,
I am setting up an editing rig in my home. I want to do things as professionally as possible, but on a budget.

I've come to realize that a preview monitor of some sort would be extremely helpful in color correction, but I have a few questions about them:

*What is the difference between an NTSC preview monitor and a regular tv monitor?

(People don't view videos on an NTSC preview monitor, so what advantages do I have by using a real NTSC monitor?)

*Is it possible to get by using a regular tv monitor? (I have a really small sony trinitron.)

*Is there anything I should know about preview monitors, or a website with information on how to use them properly?

Thank you in advance,
-Daniel

[Glenn Chan]

1- There are many differences between a NTSC / broadcast monitor and consumer TVs.

Consumer TVs:
-- are designed to be as bright as possible. This leads to some design compromises. The electron beam might be overdriven, or the TV may lose focus. This is probably the biggest difference between the two. If your footage is underexposed, it will generally look fine on the majority of CRTs out there... but look wrong on a minority of displays.

--Consumer TVs generally have a higher color temperature (appears blue-ish/cyan). When your eyes adjust to the higher color temperature, reds will appear de-saturated. To compensate for this, the TV will oversaturate the reds ("red push").

--Non-standard phosphors means that the color of red/green/blue is different from the reference standard (SMPTE C phosphors; eventually devices are supposed to migrate to 709 phosphors). SMPTE C is still the standard most follow. The lower-end monitors will use P22 phosphors, which can be ok for your needs.

Broadcast monitors will give a more accurate idea of what your image looks like. They also won't have weird image cheats that distort the image or colors (i.e. the higher color temperature, mystery phosphors, etc.).

My color correction DVD has a little more information on this topic.

2- CRT versus other display technologies (i.e. LCD, plasma):
Really in-depth information at http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...8,00.asp<br />
But basically:
-CRTs are the engineering standard, so other displays are supposed to mimic them.
-For many non-ideal/real-world projection systems, black level is very high. Or, there's lots of glare on the projection screen.
-CRTs will display interlace flicker, whereas the other display types will not. So grading on a CRT will work for the lowest common denominator.
-CRTs arguably still give the best image quality, if price or full HD resolution is not the #1 concern.

3- For professional monitors, videouniversity has an article on how to calibrate them.
http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm

Consumer monitors are much trickier to calibrate. Calibration DVDs like AVIA and Joe Kane's will work for home entertainment systems, but have to be modified for video editing if your equipment doesn't put black level at 7.5IRE. I find that they don't necessarily work that well... you may sometimes be better off eyeballing the image.

I hope that helps.

[Rand Blair]

Thanks for the info Glenn, it is not always easy to get this in Africa. I want to pass it along to some of the guys and girls here hungry to learn the whys and hows.

Rand