Digital Video - October 2007 - (Page 27)

LH2600W: VIEWING ANGLES VS. BRIGHTNESS HORIZONTAL ANGLES MEASURED ANGLE (degrees) 90 (straight on) 80 70 60 50 45 MEASURED ANGLE (degrees) 90 (straight on) 80 70 60 50 45 READING (footlamberts) 1500 1400 1300 1200 940 820 READING (footlamberts) 1100 1000 940 820 760 670 LOSS IN BRIGHTNESS (%) 0 (base) -7 -13 -20 -37 -45 LOSS IN BRIGHTNESS (%) 0 (base) -8 -14 -15 -31 -40 box in the corner—and I wish that it had a delineated scale on it instead of just lines at every 10 IREs. It’s understandable to forgo these features on a smaller LCD, but on this 26” big boy, it’s a bit frustrating not to have those options. At least I can tell the system where to position the waveform (bottom or top left or right corners) to keep it out of the way of important screen information. Calibrating the monitor to SMPTE color bars generated from an HD camera hooked through HD-SDI, I found that I was able to set chroma and phase deadon. I like that the adjustment knobs have positive “clicks” for each step in their adjustment and a numerical scale to note my settings. There is an excellent selection of screen markers available, although they are not customizable. In 16:9 mode you have 80%, 88%, 90%, 93% and 95% markers for your “safe zones,” in addition to “Vista” (1.85:1) and “CNSCO,” which took me a minute to realize meant “CinemaScope” or 2.40:1. There are also markers for 14:9, 13:9 and, of course, 4:3. Testing the markings with my Target MultiFormat Frame Chart, I found them to be absolutely accurate. You can set the area outside the marker to normal image, 1/2 www.dv.com brightness or black, which is really nice. The center mark is a rather large cross hair, with no flexibility, either on or off. Color temperature settings are very impressive. There are three presets: 56K, 65K or 93K, in addition to three variable settings, with an incredible amount of flexibility over red, green and blue gain and bias. The LH2600W has three different gamma settings: “Standard,” “Film” and “Studio/Post.” Film gamma selection is further subdivided into “VariCam” and “Other.” “Standard” and “Studio/Post” appeared nearly identical to my eye with “Film,” surprisingly, appearing a lot brighter, contrastier and more saturated. Reading the gray chip on SMPTE color bars (generated through an HD camera via HD-SDI) in “Studio/Post” and “Standard” I read 880 footlamberts (fl), while in “Film” mode I read 1300 fl—a 140 percent increase in image brightness. The menu adjustments take a little getting used to. The down selection is on the left and the up selection is on the right; for some reason, I felt like I wanted them to be the other way around. When you select a category in a menu, the “enter” button gets you into the options for that selection. You then must hit “enter” again to set the new selection— if you don’t, the setting is rejected. Several times I fumbled through hitting “menu” after I made a selection only to have the monitor resort to the previous option. Some options are circuitous: when you get to the bottom option on the list, you can’t simply hit the down button to return to the top option. It’s a little inconvenient, but not horrible. I’m not a guy who trusts LCD monitors for critical color work, as they simply never live up to the precision available in CRT monitors. That said, the LH2600W is very impressive in its color reproduction and image sharpness. Comparing the monitor to my JVC TM-H1750C CRT monitor with standarddefinition NTSC footage connected through S-Video (Y/C), the Panasonic seemed to represent more green than red in the image. Working with the user white point, I was able to dial it in to match the CRT pretty closely. Adjusting the green gain in the color temp, I could get the monitor to match very nearly what my CRT was representing. Although I wouldn’t turn to this LCD for color correction, I would have no problem with this as a field monitor for any number of HD cameras to make critical judgments while shooting. The monitor offers five user save settings so that it can recall, on power up, the color, marker and function settings for five different users or situations. It also supports both NTSC and PAL formats. Lastly, you have the option to turn off the monitor’s internal cooling fan, which is moderately loud in close quarters, with a loss of about 28 percent screen brightness. Next up is the BT-LH80W 7.9” 800x450 pixel WVGA LCD monitor, the LH2600W’s little brother. The monitor itself weighs in at 3 1/4 lbs. without battery, 5 lbs. with an Anton Bauer battery and 4 1/4 lbs. with an Anton Bauer AC adapter attached. This is a little heavy for an on-board camera monitor, but not impossible to deal with. The base of the monitor, of course, features two screw sockets for attaching to hardware such as an Israeli arm. dv october 2007 VERTICAL ANGLES 27 http://www.dv.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Digital Video - October 2007

Cover Contents Letters DV Update R&D Fest Circuit Light Brigade Follow Focus Shootout Image Conscious Instant Expert Close-Ups Eastern Europe Exploit Call of the Wild Four Principles of Storage Storage Media Production Diary

Digital Video - October 2007

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