Re: colorsync-users digest, Vol 2 #314 - 19 msgs
Re: colorsync-users digest, Vol 2 #314 - 19 msgs
- Subject: Re: colorsync-users digest, Vol 2 #314 - 19 msgs
- From: Don Hutcheson <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 07:11:27 -0400
Andrew,
There is no free lunch. As I've often said in public, the Cinema Display
suffers from three drawbacks: angular variation, price and limited blue
gamut. But let's put those into perspective:
ANGULAR VARIATION:
At normal viewing distance, if I tilt my head to an UNCOMFORTABLE position
off axis I can JUST see a slight variation in contrast and color. This means
another observer cannot see what I see when he or she is 45 degrees to my
left or right. But as the primary observer I have a very comfortable range
of head angles that work just fine.
Regular users tell me they quickly learn to 'stabilize' their viewing angle
as part of their normal work practice. No worse than waiting the 30 minute
warm up required by CRTs, or dealing with reflections from the CRT glass.
PRICE:
At $2,900-odd retail the ACD under-prices yet out-performs any Barco or
Radius of a couple of years ago. My growing list of ACD clients are
reporting no noticeable degradation after a year of use, when any CRT would
already be showing local color shifts due to burn-in.
So it looks like you'll get about twice the life of a CRT. Let me see, with
50% more pixels (read, no need for a separate menu monitor) and twice the
life, the ACD starts to look like a bargain!
LIMITED BLUE GAMUT:
The blue filter is a little less saturated than the typical CRT blue
phosphor. This limits the range of blues and magentas displayable on the
ACD. Fortunately these are mostly colors that cannot be printed in SWOP
anyway, but for HiFi work it is something of a limitation. The ACD's red and
green filters are almost identical to a good CRT's R & G phosphors, which
are anyway not as rich as SWOP.
So, there is no perfect display. So we continue to do what we've always
done- make mental allowances for colors we can't display and be grateful for
those we can.
BRIGHTNESS & CONTRAST:
Here the ACD beats any CRT I've seen hands-down. So bright you can use it in
almost normal room lighting, and such contrast that blacks look more real
than on a CRT. Dark detail is easier to judge because, like the white point,
it is proportionately much lighter than those dingy CRTs we've come to
accept.
GRAY BALANCE:
One little-known virtue of the ACD is it's almost uncanny neutrality from
whites on down to pitch black. There are no electron 'guns' to develop
crossed curves that make older CRTs blue in shadows but red in highlights.
On the ACD you have a plain white light source sitting behind passive
neutral density shutters. The more they open, the brighter that white is.
The more they close, the less of that same white light you see. So it's just
about impossible to lose gray balance.
RESOLUTION:
At 1600 x 1024 pixels the ACD features impressive real-estate, but unlike a
CRT of similar 'addressability', the ACD delivers razor-sharp resolution
corner to corner. You don't realize how unsharp CRTs are till you compare
them side-by-side.
METAMERISM FAILURE & WHITE POINT:
An even more subtle characteristic I have observed is that
spectrophotometers and colorimeters seem to see the ACD more as we do. Ask a
measuring device to set D50 on a CRT and you'll end up with an ugly
yellow-red color that doesn't come close to matching the adjacent D50 SOFV
booth. But do the same on an ACD and you'll likely get a very close match.
Why? Frankly I don't know for sure, but me thinks it's because the white
light spectrum is closer to 'normal' on an ACD than the fake 'illusion' of
white created by three narrow-band phosphors on a CRT.
FLICKER AND FATIGUE:
Ergonomists will confirm what users report, that the ACD is easier on the
eyes for long spells than a CRT. Largely because it doesn't flicker, but
also because your eyes are not straining to see a dim image, nor to make out
fuzzy details.
I consult to a total of about 50 ACD seats at various companies. All these
users, without exception, absolutely LOVE the unit and swear they will never
buy another CRT. It's not so much that LCD is a great technology, as that
CRT is clearly at the end of it's life, at least for color-accurate soft
proofing.
As always, good to chat with you.
Regards,
Don
*************************************
Don Hutcheson
Hutcheson Consulting
(Color Management Solutions)
www.hutchcolor.com
11 Turnburry Rd
Washington, NJ 07882
Phone: (908) 689 7403
Fax: (908) 689 5305
Mobile: (908) 500 0341
email@hidden
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