Best Low-End LCD TV for Monitoring Output?

[Gregg Sullivan]

I already have my system set up with dual monitors for editing, but I am looking to add a 26"-32" LCD TV to my system for monitoring output and color-correction.

Is there a LCD-TV that has acceptable consistency of quality to use for this purpose? If so, what brands/models would you recommend?

I have heard a lot of positive response from Syntax-Olevia Products; any opinions there?

Thanks for the feedback!

[Michael Palmer]

Gregg
I use a 27" AKAI LCD via YUV from my Kona LHe card, I set the AKAI color controls to a mid point and work from there for my color correction. It looks great, however I need to know more about this topic myself. I also have a Vizio 32" LCD with an HDMI connection that I tried with the Blackmagic Intensity card to stay digital but the card isn't supported with my PPC 2.3 Dual Core Mac and I had issues using it to monitor. BM says they are trying to fix the problem but no guarantees. It is supported with Intel Macs and PCs. I just shot a comedy short with my V1U and used the Vizio as a monitor and I really should have taken the time to set the color to a mid point and trusted it as much as the viewfinder and onboard monitor. I make choices with cinegamma
and skin tone settings that looked good on the onboard but I wish I could have seen on the flat screen. I didn't test like I should have but it is the best piece I have ever shot to date. I recorded to tape with HDV and used the same camera to as the playback deck out via the HDMI port in the Intensity card into FCS as DVCPRO HD and in the edit bay it looks incredible. One good thing about using the same camera is the tracking is the same transport and the chip decodes the image back to 1920x1080 as uncompressed fto to HDMI port. This is by far the best way to get the highest quality from this format. A little over saturated but this is better than not enough color to start with. As I said I am thirsty to learn about proper monitoring on the cheap. These monitors are well under $1000 now and I'm sure you can pick one up and make it work for your system. One thing I want to now more about is if I did shot 24p and removed the automatic 3/2 pull down how would I see it? And what monitors support 23.98 signals. These LCDs don't as I have played around with that setting with my Kona card.
Good Luck
Michael Palmer

[Gregg Sullivan]

Thanks much Mike.

The feedback helps mostly because where I work they use these industry standard 4x3 big box CRT color correction monitors that run upwards of 2 grand. I am sure they are great quality, but A) Who the hell has 2 G's just lying around? and B) Who has space for a 2'x2'x2' rack mounted box in the standard home edit bay?

The other thing is that we use a few NEC MultiSync 1850e LCD monitors, but nobody was really satisfied with the detail in the picture. We stepped up to the MultiSync 2070NX for our new edit stations, but even for QC, they are really just expensive computer monitors that still need a full fledged Sony multiformat HR Trinitron CRT to really "see" the signal.

I even have a home projector (DLP) to see what my work is going to look like on the "Big Screen", but I really think that is more for my positive thinking than anything else.