New HDR grading monitor from EIZO

Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 1, 2018. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.

High-end 4K cameras have been able to deliver material with a contrast range of over 16 f-stops for some time now. This means that a large proportion of the raw material produced in recent years is already available in HDR-compatible quality and only needs to be remastered accordingly. The bottleneck so far has been the playback devices, i.e. monitors and televisions. Reliable standards and specifications were also lacking for a long time, but these are now available in the form of licence-free HDR-10 and HDR10 as well as the competitor Dolby Vision, which requires a licence. There are now numerous televisions on the market that can display HDR content, and HDR is increasingly becoming the focus of many content providers, especially streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.

EIZO monitor offers extreme black levels without ABL or local dimming

In the post-production pipeline, the choice of HDR-compatible reference monitors for final grading has been relatively limited up to now and often the domain of OLED monitors. This has now fundamentally changed with the presentation of the EIZO ColorEdge PROMINENCE CG3145. Despite a brightness of 1,000 cd/m², the new LCD monitor from EIZO achieves a contrast ratio of almost 1:2,000,000 thanks to a minimum brightness of 0.0005 cd/m² – without the annoying halos caused by local dimming. These extreme black levels are made possible by an innovative, two-layer LCD panel, which enables black levels that were previously almost only known from OLED monitors. At the same time, clipping of large, bright image areas, as known from OLED monitors as ABL (Auto Brightness Limiter), is not necessary. The new ColorEdge PROMINENCE CG3145 therefore offers the contrast and dynamics of OLED displays without their disadvantages.

Local Dimming

With “local dimming”, the brightness of the backlight of LCD panels is reduced selectively in order to realise higher contrasts and lower black levels. The disadvantage of local dimming is the halos that occur in dark areas of the picture when these border on bright areas. The reason for this is that the dimmable segments are comparatively large, which means that only very large areas can be dimmed.

ABL

ABL (Automatic Brightness Limiter) is a technology designed to protect OLED panels from excessive wear and damage. For this purpose, the brightness of bright areas of the screen is limited above a certain luminance or area. This leads to an imprecise image display. In addition, the white point of affected devices often changes.

First user feedback

The ColorEdge PROMINENCE CG3145 is expected to be launched in early 2018. Even before the start of series production, some specialists and users such as the team of post-production experts from Pirates ‘N
Paradise, based in Düsseldorf and Berlin, have already been able to form their own impression of the qualities of the new LCD display. We spoke to Marc Versteeg, Managing Partner at Pirates ‘N Paradise in Düsseldorf, about these plans and his experiences with the new monitor.

DP: HDR is becoming more and more of an issue. For you too?
Versteeg: Sure, many of our customers are asking about it. We have been following this topic from the very beginning and have now built up a great deal of expertise in this area. That’s why we organised an event on HDR back in the summer. We are sure that it will really pick up speed in the near future. We are currently planning to equip some of our suites with HDR grading monitors.
We were therefore delighted to be able to test the ColorEdge PROMINENCE CG3145 extensively with our own material.

DP: What do you see as the special appeal of HDR?
Versteeg: HDR comes much closer to human vision than conventional technology has been able to do so far. We don’t notice this at the moment because we have always been used to the relatively low dynamic range in film. However, HDR film corresponds much more to our real perception, which is why HDR film does not come with a similarly spectacular pop effect as 3D technology, for example. Nevertheless, in our eyes HDR is a much more effective improvement than the step to 4K or even 8K. Depending on the viewing distance to the screen, the added value of the higher resolution is lost. The high dynamic range of HDR, on the other hand, is always retained and the larger colour space does the rest to achieve a much more vivid effect in films. The screen, TV or projector really becomes a window to reality
Reality. We are very sure that HDR, unlike 3D for example, represents a sustainable development in film technology that will enrich our viewing experience in the future. For cameramen, lighting technicians and directors, this will open up completely new expressive possibilities and challenges. It’s going to be really exciting.

DP: Back to the present: what are your experiences after a week?
Versteeg: We were really amazed at the dynamics that EIZO can display with the CG3145 PROMINENCE. The blacks of the monitor were so dark that we could hardly recognise any difference between the panel and the housing frame. We have only seen this before with OLEDs.
The precision of the image display is outstanding. Our artists would have preferred not to hand over the monitor at all.

DP: How do you rate the ColorEdge PROMINENCE CG3145 compared to other monitors?
Versteeg: The black levels of OLED monitors are great. However, the problem with OLEDs is that very bright or large bright image areas have to be clipped (ABL) so that the panel is not damaged. Other LCD HDR monitors use local dimming, a technology that causes very unsightly halo effects in bright image areas in dark surroundings. Local dimming and ABL have not yet convinced us. We are therefore all the more pleased that EIZO has now developed the first LCD monitor that achieves black levels like an OLED monitor without using local dimming and at the same time can display the full brightness over the entire surface without distortion.

DP: So your conclusion?
Versteeg: Even the pre-production model of the ColorEdge PROMINENCE CG3145 is really very promising. With its excellent image quality and good price-performance ratio, the new EIZO has a good chance of finding its way into our suites next year.

Founded in 1998, PIRATES ‘N PARADISE has been one of the most renowned and innovative post-production companies in Germany for many years. With locations in Berlin and Düsseldorf, all facets of modern, digital post-production are served: from editing to compositing, digital lab, motion graphics to complicated 3D projects and stereoscopy, archiving, data banking, data wrangling, DIT as well as documentary production, guerrilla, viral and online.
The team realises large advertising campaigns for film productions, agencies, network agencies and industrial clients both nationally and internationally. And that in all disciplines of TV advertising and beyond – from event films to multinational campaigns with multiple country versions. Pirates-Production also realises documentaries in feature film format (from 45 minutes) for ARTE, MDR and other TV stations. www.piratesnparadise.de

CG3145 – the data