Sony monitors

[Thomas Singh]

After reading the monitor response from the Lowepost FBG I'm a bit surprised that none of the users actually work on Sony monitors. Some years ago I remember they rolled out their entry level PVM range and some high-end ones, BVM (?) and back then it seemed like everyone buyed one of them. What happened?

Edited August 3, 2017 by Thomas Singh

[Emily Haine]

A studio I worked for bought several of the PVM-monitors and used them on-set and in the editing suites. We experienced backlighting issues, spectral imbalance and that it was almost impossible to get rid of the green tint that were baked in from the factory. Sony sent their european representative to looks at them together with our calibrators but we sent all of them back.

[Orash Rahnema]

I agree with Emily. 

I freelance in a small post house and they have a Sony bvm. 

Although the contrast is really nice, the color fedelity and the Green tint are really bad. 

I really don't like to work with it. 

I only saw but never worked with the hdr Sony monitor, i think that doasn't have any major issue, at least i Hope so, seen how much It cost

[neila]

Not sure if it's common knowledge, but I figured I'd add to the discussion. For several of the Sony OLEDs, you actually have to set the white point to different coordinates while calibrating. The Sony Trimaster EL OLEDs specifically have an interesting failure of metamerism. Even though the scopes read D65 white coming off the monitor (which it physically is), our eyes don't see it as D65. People have done some research on this and recommend adding an offset to your white point before calibrating. I believe Sony even acknowledged the issue and sanctions this work around. 

I've personally worked on a PVM 2541 calibrated using this method, and to my eye it looks correct. 

Attached are some specifics on the issue. Anyone more savvy on the subject feel free to chime in!

White Balance of Trimaster EL Monitors.pdf

[Margus Voll]

In a way it seems rather messy on that price range.

No wonder people do not use them as much as FSI.

 

 

[Thomas Singh]

On 4.8.2017 at 1:04 AM, neila said:

Even though the scopes read D65 white coming off the monitor (which it physically is), our eyes don't see it as D65. People have done some research on this and recommend adding an offset to your white point before calibrating. I believe Sony even acknowledged the issue and sanctions this work around. 

Is this typical for OLED in general or a Sony OLED only issue?

[Sylvain Bartoli]

Hello, The screens Sony type BVM F250 A or X300 etc ... must be calibrated by modifying the white point example x = 0.3067 and y = 0.3118 they are oled RGB but it is not necessary to do this for a screen LG consumer because it's an OLED Wrgb screen, what you can possibly do on a mainstream screen is to align with a 100% white screen the screen to your screen calibrated interface where is your source (da vinci resolve) .For FSI it'a a same thing that Sony you must be modyfied the white point
regards 
sylvain

Edited August 8, 2017 by Sylvain Bartoli

[Steve Shaw]

The default Sony white point (Judd/Voss) offset has been changed a number of times, and still doesn't work... It is why we worked with FSI (who use the Sony OLED glass) to develop the 'Perceptual Match' approach to overcoming Metameric issues:

http://www.lightillusion.com/perceptual_colour_match.html

And although the LG OLEDs are WRGB, they still suffer Metameric Failure, and will need a different Perceptual match white point.

Separately, Sony do not allow for accurate user calibration, providing for grey scale calibration only. And as the Sony gamut calibration is not accurate from the factory, ignoring any drift through ageing of the display, that is not good for a professional display.

Steve

[Juan I. Cabrera]

I think one of the main reasons for people going FSI instead of Sony is budget... We got FSI first, but we just got the BVM-X300/2 and we are THRILLED with it!! It's really an amazing monitor. Also, you have like 15 of these at Technicolor and like 20 at Deluxe. It has become the maximum standard for monitoring.

I can not talk about the smaller monitors because this is the first time I got back to Sony since the good old tubes.

The problem I see with working with alternative brands (like TVlogic, Eizo or FSI) is that I would be second-guessing myself sometimes. Even with some of the best probes (Colorimetry Research) and Color Management software (LightSpace) it will still feel off sometimes. FSI is the best of the bunch, but still I feel it "separates" colors too much in an un-natural way. The X300 feel much more coherent in that regard. 

J. 

Edited August 10, 2017 by Juan I. Cabrera

[Margus Voll]

So in a way your trust is just psychological and not based on any testing?

I would say slap probe on to your monitor and be confident. 

[Juan I. Cabrera]

My trust is based on EXTENSIVE testing. Calibration sessions of over 5000 patches and deep comparison. Start putting probes on screens and checking your correction thoroughly and you too will start doubting stuff... also, you can not probe metamerism or different technology perception. Sadly, probing, being a VERY important part of the process, it's only one part of the calibration and monitor matching process. And as much as I would looooooove for all of it to just be hard math, there is a component of perceptual matching and adaptation. 

[Steve Shaw]

I can't trust any display that can't be user calibrated - ever. Having to add a LUT box to Sony display to calibrate them (regardless whether that is because of poor factory calibration, or die to display drift, as they ALL suffer) is just not acceptable in any professional display.

We have not tested the v2 Sony X300, but the v1 versions we tested we not gamut accurate.

But, I trust Juan's ability to test and verify any display - he really does know what he's doing!

Steve.

[Nicolas Hanson]

I have the same experience with the PVM-series. I know it's not supposed to be a Grade 1 standard, but they were next to unusable and very experienced calibrators had lots of issues with them. We moved them over to our offline suites, and got them replaced with Eizo's.