NEC PA241W Monitor

[d2creative]

Is this still the best monitor in the $800-1000 range?
And is the Spectra Vue calibration worth the additional $420 or would you go a different route for that?

My apple cinema display with the silver bezel is getting worse and worse. I don't think I can hold out for much longer...

[Rson]

LG makes cinema displays.....look at the higher line, friend just got the 27.....Holy cow razor sharp and great picture.

[srwatters]

I use the PA241W daily and find it an excellent choice. I did buy the software, but use it with my Xrite EyeOne Display 2. I think you would be hard pressed to find something better in the same price range.

[Rson]

Newegg.com - LG E2750VR-SN Black 27" 1920 x 1080 5ms Full HD HDMI LED BackLight LCD Monitor Slim Design 250 cd/m2 5,000,000:1 (DFC)

[srwatters]

Originally Posted by Rson

Newegg.com - LG E2750VR-SN Black 27" 1920 x 1080 5ms Full HD HDMI LED BackLight LCD Monitor Slim Design 250 cd/m2 5,000,000:1 (DFC)

This is not a wide gamut display device nor does it have a built in LUT for accurate calibration. I would not find this comparable to the NEC device the OP asked about.

[d2creative]

Scott... why the software?
What is the software exactly and how are you able to use it with other calibrators?

Would I be better off buying the all in one solution for $1200, or buying just the monitor for $800 and another $200 for the Spyder3 Elite kit, saving me $200?

[Rson]

Originally Posted by d2creative

scott... Why the software?
What is the software exactly and how are you able to use it with other calibrators?

Would i be better off buying the all in one solution for $1200, or buying just the monitor for $800 and another $200 for the spyder3 elite kit, saving me $200?

+1

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by d2creative

Is this still the best monitor in the $800-1000 range?

Yes, in fact quite a few graphics/color professionals prefer the NEC PA's over more expensive models from Eizo and Lacie.

IMHO you want a display specifically targeted towards graphics and photo editing, as opposed to the "cinema" or consumer-oriented displays. For serious graphics/photo work things like wide gamut, hardware LUT, even illumination, manageable contrast, etc are all important. The NEC also has some other nice features such as a highly accurate sRGB emulation/profile, and display-port input supporting 10-bit color in Photoshop CS5.

And while the cheaper panels may claim super-high contrast ratios, they usually achieve it by having a super-bright white point; but it's the black point you care more about, because you're going to calibrate the white point in the 100-150 cd/m2 range anyway. The fact that a display can achieve 2000:1 or higher contrast ratio at 350 cd/m2 is absolutely meaningless. In fact a lot of those less expensive displays claiming high contrast ratios are difficult or even impossible to calibrate to a more reasonable white point without the image quality looking terrible.

One other thing to watch out for is "True HD" displays that use a 16:9 ratio panel. Pretty much all the lower- to mid-priced displays are 16:9. I don't know about you, but I'll take a 1900x1200 display over a 1900x1080 display any day. 1080p is great for watching movies, but for computer work I want the extra vertical real estate.

And is the Spectra Vue calibration worth the additional $420 or would you go a different route for that?

It's not $420 more, it's actually only $277 more. Right now the SV-II bundled version of the display isn't as competitively priced as the non-SV model, I guess because it's not carried by as many retailers. But you can buy the more attractively priced standalone display, and then get the SV-II/Sensor kit for $277. In the end you'll have exactly the same thing as the bundled version of the display, for almost $175 less.

And yes you do want the SpectraView II kit, because the SV software is the only way to calibrate using the display's advanced hardware calibration features such as the 14-bit 3D LUT, which will provide for a much smoother image without the banding you would get using a 3rd party profiler such as Spyder3 or i1match. Those other programs will ignore the NEC's LUT and use the 8-bit LUT on the video card; the difference is significant.

If you already have a good colorimeter, I believe you can purchase just the SV software from NEC for less than the SV/sensor kit. But I'd recommended getting the NEC sensor; because even though it's based on the i1Display2, the color filters have been tuned to provide an optimal match to the wider gamut of the latest NEC displays. Besides, colorimeters will drift out of spec over time and should be replaced every few years anyways.

(BTW I'm putting my money where my mouth is, I ordered the PA-241 and SVII kit this week to upgrade my 24" Eizo, which I previously spent quite a bit more on. The Eizo is getting demoted to my development machine).

[jeffkohn]

For more info on what exactly SpectraView II is, see here. The compatibility section will tell you which colorimeters/spectros the software is compatible with. The software alone costs $90 if you want to use it with your own measurement device.

[srwatters]

Don't take my word for it. This is really Jeff's area of expertise. He was a tremendous help to me when it came to understanding color management and calibration of cameras and displays.

Thanks for jumping in Jeff.

[d2creative]

Wow, thanks Jeff! And Scott. Huge help.

[Sonny]

This is some great information. Thank you Jeff & Scott.

[hhscr]

Great info. I have a question regarding the calibration. I am needing to also calibrate my printer so I was looking at the i1 system to calibrate monitor and printer, but from what Jeff says that the SV is a better way to go for the monitor. How would I be able to get the best from the monitor and printer if I use the SV and i1 both. Won't the i1 over ride the SV settings?

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by hhscr

Great info. I have a question regarding the calibration. I am needing to also calibrate my printer so I was looking at the i1 system to calibrate monitor and printer, but from what Jeff says that the SV is a better way to go for the monitor. How would I be able to get the best from the monitor and printer if I use the SV and i1 both. Won't the i1 over ride the SV settings?

If you mean one of the i1 packages that contain a spectrophotometer, you can use the i1 spectro with the SV software, but it wouldn't be my first choice. Spectrophotometers tend to get noisy readings for the darkest tones when used in emissive mode (for calibrating monitors). The result can be that the darkest grays end up being not quite neutral. A colorimeter is actually better at that, which is why I plan to use the NEC sensor for display calibration even though I have an i1 spectro for printer profiling.

The i1 software won't interfere with the SV display calibration; just use it for printer profiling and not display calibration.

You may want to hold off a little bit on the i1, XRite is coming out with new packages any time now based on their new i1Profiler software, such is supposed to be a big upgrade from PMP/i1Match, combining the best tech from PMP and MonacoProfiler.

[JohnT]

Love my 241. However, I really need to move up from the Spyder2Pro to something that will give me an even better calibrated display.