The Great Daylight Monitor Shootout Options

[Charles Papert]

loving it...thanks Eric!

to quote Peter O'Toole from "The Stunt Man", playing the film director addressing the crew before a one-take only stunt:

"I must have this shot! I therefore order that no camera shall jam, and no cloud pass before the sun!"

[BJMcDonnell SOC]

Good to see you all. That was a really cool display. Was very cool seeing the monitors side by side like that in the daylight. Results to come soon Im sure for those who couldnt make it. I personally have to say I still love my TB-6 monitor. The Hummingbird was very impressive in the daylight. The PRO monitor looked superior to everything brightness wise. The free beer helped to

[Eric Fletcher S....]

First off Congrats to Charles Papert for pulling this off. 14 monitors, 2 green screens and 12 Flat Panels.

I'll let Charles do the full write up, but I will say this. The Green Screen is still King and IMO the flat panel still has a long way to go.

Looking forward to the comments and discussion

[Jens Piotrowski ...]

the first images, more to come.....

webalbum

[Erwin Landau]

Charles,

Great job in organizing the event.... It was a great and almost once in a life time opportunity to see that many monitors in the exact same place and under the exact same circumstances together... nice!!!

I guessing there were at least 100 people spread over the day.

I will move this thread into Monitors as it is turning from an announcement into a discussion and it will be lost if left in this forum...

Again great Job.

[Charles Papert]

Thanks everyone who helped--more to come on that, it may have been my baby but I couldn't have done it without the cheerful and willing assistance that I received along the way. Right now I'm working on getting a nice little celebratory buzz on...!

It's safe to say that everyone who attended learned some interesting things, from attendees to exhibitors. Thankfully the weather held up and we had our first sunny day in weeks, so the results were conclusive (and entirely individual, like everything else Steadicam-related). I enlisted a photographer to take stills of all monitors and will be compiling that over the next few days. In the meantime, I put up a little teaser clip for those who didn't attend to see the rotisserie in action:

tinyurl.com/monitorshootout

That will remain the site for the results, I'll post back when the stills are ready for perusal.

Great event, it was worth every minute and I was delighted to see such a massive turnout.

back to my cocktail...

[Jess Haas]

IMHO the hummingbird and the Tiffen monitors were probably the brightest LCDs but I have to say I was most impressed by the Marshall and the Nebtek monitors which were about as good at a fraction of the price. The hummingbird of course isn't HD and the form factor kind of sucks.

The Transvideo was the most feature packed including adjustable framelines, digital bubble and all those goodies and had good daylight viewability. Of course it is also rather expensive.

I found the Marshall intriguing since instead of being a super high nit rating to achieve daylight viewability it is Transflective. The result being lower power consumption and not as hot while still competing well with the others and being reasonably priced. Unfortunately it had the fewest features of any of them. It has framelines but only standard ones not user adjustable. It can't flip the image and only has the mounting hole on the bottom not one on top or any provision on the sides for mounting a yoke. At only $2100 you can't expect too much but I would like to see them add a few of these features.

As far as daylight viewability goes it seemes that the reflectivity of the screens had a lot more to do with it than nit ratings. The Bolands faired rather poorly in this respect which surprised me while most of the rest of them were close enough in daylight viewability that it would be very hard to rank them.

If Marshall can add a few features to there monitor I will definitely buy one, if not I am going to have to decide if I can do without them or not. If money suddenly becomes not an issue I might go with the transvideo but at 3 times the price im not sure if I need all of the extra features it includes.

~Jess

[Steve Fracol SOC]

Thanks Mr. Papert for organizing the event. Thanks to each vendor that participated especially those that were on hand to answer questions. I was very surprised to see that some vendors did not attend.

I was quite surprised with what I saw as well. It is sad that we have such a long way to go to match the good old green screen CRT. That said...I have been getting by with the Tiffen monitor for many years now and I do not miss the CRT all that much. OK...not so true...sometimes outdoors I do. And now that I saw them side by side I might be missing it even more. Thanks Chas. HAHAHA.

My biggest issue with all this HDSDI monitoring is the fact that only Transvideo has developed an HD overlay on-screen level and frame lines. I truly wish that a 3rd party vendor would build such a thing. I would love the XCS on screen level to work in HD. That would make my day. I still use my UltraBrite 2 in standard def about 70% of the time because I like having my on screen level. The down side to running it in standard def is the rather massive frame delay. When I pipe HDSDI into it, it has just a minor latency issue, nearly not detectable. When down-converted it has about a 5 frame delay from the Genesis. That makes it very hard to follow action or even a walk and talk that has 90 deg corners.

I thought the Transvideo monitor was very good considering the LCD systems...yet expensive compared to the others. However...paying for the HDSDI on screen level and frame lines pretty much makes it worth it in my book. I do however feel that they need to offer the on screen level in a WHITE/BLACK color just as ours are now. The color thing does not work for me. You need the ability to switch it to black or white or gray depending on what your scene is (also placement is an issue but I hear more options are coming soon via software upgrades). Color separation is the key. I am betting that they can offer that in a software upgrade down the road but that is a question I have for Maryann.

The distance the LCD's had from the green screens was quite huge. Green screens were clearly the best for contrast and brightness as I expected. All that said...I do not want to give up my larger screen and my color images.

This was a great test and hopefully a good wake up call to the vendors that participated so that they all can see what we have to go through on a daily basis to view images. For them to see their LCD's next to the bright green screen monitors was fantastic. They truly have a long way to go to catch up to the old technology. This was a very interesting day.

Thanks Charles, Camera Support and all those that helped you put on this event.

Steve

[Erwin Landau]

I'm still surprise that Transvideo is getting all that flak for being "expensive" as far as I could tell, the Transvideo was the only one that had Frame Lines AND Level...

It's also interesting that that is not mentioned... same thing with the Tiffen one... but anyhow.

Considering that a PDL (Programable Digital level) cost almost $3000.-, more then a few of the monitor shown today... I think it levels it out... there was the thing also that you can't compare Apples with Oranges... Many are screaming... but we don't need all the fancy add ons... I do... I use my frame lines and level on a daily bases...

Maybe some one has to talk to Marrell about a stand alone level, frameliner... add that to the total and it will look closer, at least price wise.

I'll stay with my CRT for the time being.

[Alfeo Dixon]

I'm still surprise that Transvideo is getting all that flak for being "expensive" as far as I could tell, the Transvideo was the only one that had Frame Lines AND Level...

It's also interesting that that is not mentioned... same thing with the Tiffen one... but anyhow.

Considering that a PDL (Programable Digital level) cost almost $3000.-, more then a few of the monitor shown today... I think it levels it out... there was the thing also that you can't compare Apples with Oranges... Many are screaming... but we don't need all the fancy add ons... I do... I use my frame lines and level on a daily bases...

Erwin,

Tiffen's UltraBright2 does not have a digital level built into the monitor, the level is in the nose of the rig. So only the levels LCD display is on the monitor. That way it works no matter what signal you put into the monitor. Can't wait until they add frame lines in HD.

Charles,

Nice work, can't wait for the full wrap up!

-Alfeo

[Michael Stumpf]

It was good to see so many people there.
I haven't had a chance to see many of you in many months due to my schedules and so forth.

I agree with what BJ and Eric already pointed out however, the greenscreens still ruled when it comes to daylight viewability, and angle of view. There is no disputing that.
I love my TB-6 and have for 10 years. I'm not sure why, but the TB-6 there on display didn't seem as bright as mine, and the PRO greenscreen looked noticeably brighter. Not sure if they checked other TB-6's but again, first thing I did when I saw the TB-6 looking a bit dim was to turn the brightness up only to find it was up all the way already. Maybe it was just a fluke of that particular one, as mine never seems that dim and I never have mine turned up fully bright either.

I was also suprised by the Hummingbird, too bad it's not HD though.
Transvideo was impressive but expensive. Nebtek 1000 nit was up there in quality/picture too.
But lacked amenities.

All in all, green screens still best bet for now in bright direct sun situations, as well as off angle viewability.

Oh and Charles, thanks again, nice job!!
Take care all, see you all again soon.

[Charles Papert]

I'm not sure why, but the TB-6 there on display didn't seem as bright as mine, and the PRO greenscreen looked noticeably brighter. Not sure if they checked other TB-6's but again, first thing I did when I saw the TB-6 looking a bit dim was to turn the brightness up only to find it was up all the way already. Maybe it was just a fluke of that particular one, as mine never seems that dim and I never have mine turned up fully bright either.

Erwin and Colin thought so too, and Colin shlepped his rig inside so that we could compare his TB-6. It looked similar, but Erwin discovered that the downconverter (Decimator) we had on the TB-6 was possibly affecting the contrast, so he switched it to the same downconverter that was feeding the other SD monitors. I didn't see much of a difference myself. I realized later that the Decimator has dipswitches for setup (7.5 vs 0 IRE) that may have been set to 0. In the past I hadn't found that the Decimator's signal affects luminance (have seen it on a scope) but I will make sure to check that particular unit to see if there was a problem.

In any event, while the TB6 definitely looked dimmer than the PRO, I believe that this was purely a case of relative levels. It has been about 12 years since I last saw the two monitors side by side while shooting a movie in Minnesota and Greg bringing a prototype out to set, and this was fairly consistent with what I remembered. The Pro monitor does drive hotter but the TB6 holds the shadows better in full-on sun; essentially one has whiter whites and the other blacker blacks. For me, I'd rather have the latter as it results in a more contrasty image. Interestingly as soon as the sun went into cloud, the PRO gained the contrast back so it might have something to do with the AR coatings and filtering.

[Marianne - Trans...]

IMHO the hummingbird and the Tiffen monitors were probably the brightest LCDs but I have to say I was most impressed by the Marshall and the Nebtek monitors which were about as good at a fraction of the price. The hummingbird of course isn't HD and the form factor kind of sucks.

The Transvideo was the most feature packed including adjustable framelines, digital bubble and all those goodies and had good daylight viewability. Of course it is also rather expensive.

I found the Marshall intriguing since instead of being a super high nit rating to achieve daylight viewability it is Transflective. The result being lower power consumption and not as hot while still competing well with the others and being reasonably priced. Unfortunately it had the fewest features of any of them. It has framelines but only standard ones not user adjustable. It can't flip the image and only has the mounting hole on the bottom not one on top or any provision on the sides for mounting a yoke. At only $2100 you can't expect too much but I would like to see them add a few of these features.

(-----)
If Marshall can add a few features to there monitor I will definitely buy one, if not I am going to have to decide if I can do without them or not. If money suddenly becomes not an issue I might go with the transvideo but at 3 times the price im not sure if I need all of the extra features it includes.

~Jess

Jess,
As you all know I've NEVER logged on this site or any other to discuss someone else equipment, but here I really have to jump in:
I am a bit surprised we are still mentioning the Marshall for sun use. As most people noticed, two out of 3 of their monitors went down after warming up for 2 hours or so in the sun. One area of the matrix became completely black and it got bigger and bigger as the temperature rose. One f them actually had almost have of the matrix blackened. This is not a glitch in the electronics, this will only happen if he LCD matrix reaches temperatures above its specifications. If the monitor is left longer in the sun the matrix will be completely dead and even after cooling down, the pixels will no longer display an image in this area. It was not even hot yesterday: just 73F. In California we experience 90F and more all summer long. By the way similar things will happen in extremely cold temperatures.

[Marianne - Trans...]

the first images, more to come.....

webalbum

Jens,

Since you have already logged here today, I was expecting to first read the retraction you said you would post about the Transvideo 6" HD SuperBright being like a mirror. As everyone could see at the rotisserie, there is no reflections issue when the monitor is turned on with a video image.
I have checked with the person with who you looked at the monitor at Cine Gear. For your information, you looked at a privately owned monitor, where the private owner decided to put an after market film on top of the Transvideo glass to prevent people from scratching the glass at the show. This film is not installed nor recommended by Transvideo as it is very reflective indeed. The Transvideo monitors are already protected by a glass, there is no need o protect the protection as it will affect the monitor's performance. The HD monitors have been out for 2 years, we have never had to change a glass because of scratches.

[Marianne - Trans...]

Just one more piece information:
The Transvideo 6" HD SuperBright monitor that was at the rotisserie yesterday draws exactly 1.15Amp at 12v. That is to say that you can run this monitor with a Dionic 90 battery for 6.5 hours none stop at full brightness. The monitor accepts any voltage between 10v and 36v DC.
I would be glad to read feedback from Transvideo 6"HD owners about the power consumption of their particular serial number.
Anyone is welcome to stop by our office to check the power consumption of any of the monitors with have here. We will be glad to hook up the amp-meter for you.