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Ben_McPhee
Participating Frequently
September 15, 2013
Question

Best Monitors for Video editing?

  • September 15, 2013
  • 2 replies
  • 47501 views

Hey guys. I'm looking at an NEC monitor for editing my stills, and am wondering if this will be suitable for video editing?

Models I'm considering are:

http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa241w-bk

http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa242w-bk

http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa271w-bk

These monitors are great for stills, as they cam emulate paper types well, but do I need a more "vibrant" monitor for video? Just worried that my video will look a bit off on these monitors, as it's such a different medium?

If they aren't suitable, what brand/models are considered good? (Professional level).

Cheers,

             Ben

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

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    excited_Genie16B8
    Legend
    September 15, 2013

    [Moved to Hardware forum.]

    A
    Anonymous
    September 15, 2013

    Video is not stills. Video takes place in the REC.709 (google it) workingspace these days. Your NEC monitors can't show you that space. Very few computer monitors can.

    What you need for video is a production monitor, or even just a simple HDTV. This will show you what your video will look like when seen on HDTV, or from DVD or BD through an HDTV. The joy of a production monitor though is the tools most of them come with. I'm talking about waveform monitors, vector scopes, and other tools such as RGB parade. If you're planing to do any color correction or color grading work, you'll need these tools.

    If you insist on using a computer monitor for video, you can still get resonable results if you're willing to put in the time. You can do this through itteration. Get your black and white points, contrast, and colors where you want them on your computer monitor, then burn a DVD, take it to a player / HDTV, and play it. Note the problems, come back to the computer, make the appropriate changes, burn another DVD.... rinse and repeat until done. Takes forever, is very frustrating, but will teach you the value of a production monitor.

    D
    Dave Merchant
    Legend
    September 15, 2013

    cfg_2451 wrote:

    The joy of a production monitor though is the tools most of them come with. I'm talking about waveform monitors, vector scopes, and other tools such as RGB parade. If you're planing to do any color correction or color grading work, you'll need these tools.

    All of which are in Premiere Pro. No need to pay for hardware versions.

    A calibrated 'reference monitor' is important for commercial and boroadcast production work but let's be realistic - 99.999% of the TV screens in the world are a long way from 'true' so what the footage looks like on your off-the-shelf TV is immaterial - just walk into any electronics store and look at the wall of different colors. What matters is if the exported footage is within spec for the intended client - are the black and white points "legal" and is the skintone in the right direction. You can see all that from within Premiere's UI.

    Yes it can be easier to grade by eye on a reference monitor compared to a computer screen, but most people aren't that sure of their visual abilities and prefer to trust the scopes.

    B
    Ben_McPheeAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    September 16, 2013

    So basically, if I trust the scopes (and know what I'm doing), I could get good results on basically any monitor? It just may not look right until I view it on a HDTV, or Production monitor?

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