Monitor vs TV

Hello All,

I will be color matching my documentary shot on mini DV (canon XL-1) ntsc. At home all I have is a 13" 60$ tv set. Is this good enough? Or should I rent an ntsc professional crt monitor?

Thanks in advance for any advice!
Robert



robert
robertohp2001@yahoo.com

eeek! - RENT!

EVERY consumer TV adresses color differently. will it KILL you? maybe - maybe not. but do you want to bank on a variable???

I agree rent, borrow, buy, just make sure you get something you can control and set color bars with.



SL8UP

Rent.

As they said, TVs all handle coor differently. GO to Best Buy or Circuit City or Target and look at their wall of TVs for a good example.

That's actually a really good one I hadn't thought of. Look for a "Blue Only" button on the front of the monitor. That's a good indicator that the maker is expecting you to use he monitor in a helpful way.

TVs and low end monitors don't have that button.

To greatly abbreviate the process, using the blue button and colorbars on a professional monitor will set the exact place that the Color, Hue/Phase, and Brightness knobs should be. Those three knobs aren't optional. There is one place where each is correct. The Contrast control is a little more fudgy. Set that either for the center click position, a pleasant picture, or, if you have one, the white point on a color calibrator.

TVs have a lot of problems when you try to use them as monitors. The most obvious problem is the Consumer Color distortion. Take all the colors close to flesh tones and force them to actually be flesh tones and then boost them. This makes people look terrific but isn't the slightest bit accurate or repeatable.

Koz

If you're really low budget you could do a basic color correction pass with your TV. Then when you're ready, rent a good monitor for the final tweaking.

Another option is buy a refurbished NTSC monitor from a respected source. If you continue to edit, you'll need to bite the bullet sooner or later.



- Justin Barham -