Ernest Burden

For my final color work I cling to a good old Sony CRT. I have some really good LCDs but I do not trust them for subtleties of color and shading. Fine.

Except this CRT recently had a sort of seizure, a bizarre few minutes of flashing colors, odd noises and dropping out of one of the primary colors--odd for a single-gun system. It's feeling much better now, thank you, but I suspect it's days are numbered. It's actually not that old, maybe four years. Sonys usually last a decade or more. Looking at the usual websites for hardware I see only a few CRTs, no Sonys.

Is it time to go to the next display technology? If not LCD, then what? Is OLED ready for serious work yet? Plasmas are better on color, but can suffer burn-in so aren't recommended for computer monitors.

Thoughts?

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Ernest Burden III
AcmeDigital
architectural rendering

AJLynn

Lester_Masterson

Just got a Samsung 245B 24" ($420 CDN). Once the Natural Color and MagicTune software were installed, I am simply stunned by the results.

I have been using an NEC 19" CRT for color matching, but now...I may just have found a reason to retire it.

Another great choice would be the Viewsonic VI-VP2250WB 22" ($425 CDN). Not near the resolution as the samsung (1920x1200 vs 1680x1050), but it does feature a 106% NTSC color gamut.

Happy shopping

jackb602

A good friend of mine who is a professional photographer recently picked up this monitor and loves it:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11034

It's his main monitor for editing and color correcting his photos for print. I haven't read all the technical details, but it's supposed to be a big step forward in color accuracy for its price (around $1000). I was very impressed by it when I checked it out a couple of weeks ago.

Jack

EDIT: My friend bought the version that includes the color calibrator. He said it was much easier than using a 3rd party calibrator.

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Built Light

shaneis

It seems Sony has discontinued their CRT's. Maybe try for a Phillips? I'm from the same school of thought as you regarding CRT's for colour work. If you can't find a nice CRT or simply want 2 sq.ft of your desk back, EIZO is the next best thing...though about 5-10x more expensive. Will last you near 10 years though, just like your Sony.

afterglow

I have 3 trinitrons, all on their way out too.. one of them had the same prob as yours, ie, one of the primary colours dropping out, and the other two have developed a shaky picture.

I've just ordered one of these.. comparable to the Eizo's but a lot more budget friendly;

http://www.necvisualsystems.com/Prod...3-74c35a363b57

baker1444

Ernest Burden

Here's the question I have after looking at the NEC with all the special color and fidelity stuff for several thousand dollars--is that going to be any better than the color, brightness and contrast of a $500 Sony CRT? Is it even going to be as good? My sister loves Barco monitors, which are high-cost CRTs (maybe they do LCDs now, I will check) that promise better results than a regular CRT monitor.

I'm not against paying more for a monitor if that's what it takes to get the quality I need, but don't want to ditch CRTs unless I have no choice. LCDs are better in a number of ways, but not the one that counts when doing final work on renderings and animations.

OLEDs?

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Ernest Burden III
AcmeDigital
architectural rendering

AJLynn

So why not just get a CRT? They've got a good 21" NEC on Newegg for $300.

scotty

Get a nice CRT for your primary, a Dell LCD ultrasharp for your secondary, and this...
http://global.wacom.com/lp/20WSX.htm...C-D3B688542000

you be rockin then!

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Scott Erstad
■ Anderson Illustration Associates
www.andersonillustration.com