Just no. Local area dimming is not and will never be it. About 40 x 25 "pixels" worth of blurry light control?! Think that's gonna look good? Just work on solving OLED's problems already.
For professionals, OLED is not the end all/be all solution. It is much more expensive and the life span is far shorter than LCD. Even the Sony X300 at $32K has already reports of shifting colors after 2 years! Some even less!! Sony is planning to leave OLED in the high-end pro market. Shifting to double layer LCD.
There has to be more options not just one panel type.
Actually FALD depending on the number of mini LEDS could be a perfect compromise that produces almost OLED level contrast and brightness. Say for example if there are 50K mini LEDS for the backlight? There is a point where there is enough it isn't perceptible versus OLED then you get all the benefits of LCD like no burn in or color fading over time etc.
Yea 89% for Rec 2020 is excellent compared to current offerings. Obviously, 100% is the goal, but even in the high-end pro market that is not reasonable today.
If Acer are only reporting the "adaptive" (the new name for "dynamic" apparently) contrast ratio of this monitor that apparently means that its true (static) contrast ratio is pretty low. The problem is that professionals are not going to be fooled by contrast ratio marketing tricks such as this. They are not naive average Joe consumers, they are people who are very well versed in such stuff, because it is their freaking *job*.
If Acer want to sell monitors to professionals they need to learn how to properly market the monitors for professionals. If they are not confident enough in their monitors that they think they need to resort to deceptive marketing tricks in order to sell them, then they should just not make monitors targeted at professionals, because such tricks are not going to work on them.
'Professionals' looking at FALD monitors know that contrast ratio of the LCD panel itself does not tell the whole story when it comes to displaying HDR images.
For the target market (video / photo creation) more than 60Hz isn't needed. Color accuracy is the most important thing here. Yes, a higher refresh rate can improve smoothness, but when working with content that is only going to be 60fps at most, there's no real need for it.
If you want a monitor that will be good enough for most content creators + games, there's plenty of other options available.
Even the target market benefits from 100+ Hz. Have you ever worked with a 100 Hz+ panel? Obviously not. The thing is, the panel is fast enough for 100+ Hz. All they had to do is increase the refreshrate and tweak it a bit. At that price that would be as much effort as adding RGB.
And no, theres no good options available. Most of them are AUO panels who have horrible QC and lack in one or the other field. Only LGs new panels look promising on paper, but they havent hit the market yet.
And you also didnt get what I said: I said 60 Hz is an obsolete standard. If one would follow your logic a 1 Hz panel would be enough.
You can scream "60 Hz is an obsolete standard" until you're blue in the face, but the truth is that it's not obsolete, and the vast majority of folks don't need more than 60 Hz. If you want more, buy a display that has the feature, this one is not for you.
It is very much obsolete. Its a standard from the 90s. Manufacturers are just too cheap to go higher, even though most panels would be able to deal with it. Even though the margins are already very high, especially on monitors like this one. Do you have any idea how "much" a panel like this costs? 10% of the retail price at max.
It makes even basic work much smoother and easier for the eyes. Thats a fact, and you claiming to manufacturers PR doesnt make you look very knowledgeable, but more like you work for them.
You may have worked with 100Hz+ panel but have you actually used it or pro content creation? Any other pro you know that use it?
I deal with hundreds of content pros on a daily basis (TV, film, advertisement, graphics designer, etc.). Not one of them every asked for a fast scanning monitor.
Because it is not necessary and adds nothing to their current workflow or needs.
Of course I did. Its much smoother, it lets you judge how your content will look much better. I am sure you never worked with one, nor do you know content creators. I do. I know a lot who ask for them.
But "smoother" is NOT the goal of a professional reference monitor! So I'm not sure why you would say such thing. It is about accuracy. That is the single most important factor for professional video editors, VFX, colorist, compressionist, etc.
This is why monitors in the low to high end of reference monitors do not have fast scan (or what ever branded name Sony, Samsung, etc use). They all have a standard refresh rate of 24, 25, 30, and 60 based. If you ever walked in to an editing room, grading room or VFX bay, if they have a TV or consumer monitor with high refresh rate feature, it is always disabled.
Please point to any professional monitor from Sony, Flanders Scientific, Panasonic, etc. Eizo has a gaming line, but their professional line do not have anything what you are describing. Maybe they do now but again, as a lead technician, I deal with content creators every day. We ilterally get zero inquiry about high refresh rate monitors. Maybe TVs? But reference monitors? Zero.
I game and don't care about anything over 60Hz. Really doesn't matter to me at all and yes I have had 120 Hz monitors, could drive them at that rate, and still don't care. If the picture quality is high and input lag on the monitor is low Im happy. I would always take a monitor with very high picture quality over a 144Hz TN.
So you look for low input lag, but not for low response time? That makes as much sense as buying a race car with a suspension that isnt made for racing. And why do you mention TN? This is an IPS panel. And the thing is... the picture quality isnt high with 60 Hz motion blur.
Neither do like 99% of the gamers either. Going from 120Hz to 60Hz reduces the input lag from the refresh rate from 16.67ms to 8.33ms. Virtually nobody is going to really be impacted by 8ms change in responsiveness. Some people might notice very fast moving artifacts but if the monitor is really good at overdrive it wont matter either.
You clearly have no idea what youre even talking about, like most here. Input lag has little to do with the refresh rate. An input lag of 16 ms would be far too much already. 8 ms would still be a lot. Good panels have lower than 2 ms, some even lower than 1 ms. Refresh rate impacts the response time. Motion blur. I dont know how you work, but even reading with a high refresh rate monitor is MUCH better, since you can basically still read while scrolling or remember better where you left off after scrolling. When editing video, you can much more easily see what a sequence will look like, especially if you work with motion blur, and a low refresh rate would add to the added motion blur effect and would make the result look much worse than intended. It has advantages everywhere.
Especially nowadays when even mid-priced TVs have 100 Hz and content creators have to create with them in mind.
And it works the other way around too, btw. Remember when LCD TV just were introduced for a few years and professionals still worked with CRT? They cut fast action sequences that quickly in movies and series that you didnt even see what was happening, because of the LCD motion blur that the CRT didnt have. Only many years later they also worked with LCD and made cuts that were meant for LCDs.
What are you talking about LCDs and cutting action scenes?
First, when films are edited during the creative editing phase ("offline") they are cut often in digital low res. Even in the early 2000s when Avid became the standard, many also edited in traditional film format using flatbeds. Never ever has an action in film ever considered the refresh rate of LCD when making a cut for the simple reason the priority was the film master print. Projected! Which runs at basically 48 fps! (if you count the blacking frames during projection).
Second, the only desirable motion blur in the film is those created by the camera. Any blur, be it CRT or LCD or whatever the display medium created is not desirable because it becomes not the intent of the filmmakers. It is an artifact which they have no control over.
Please stop. You are making a nonsensical connection between editing and LCD refresh rate where there is none.
The reported contrast ratio is always a joke - even "non-reflective" screens reflect some ambient light giving a real life contrast ratio that rarely exceeds 1000 to 1. Add to that the internal light scattering in eyes (and specs or contact lenses if worn) and the perceived contrast ratio drops even further. It would be an interesting experiment to take 2 identical high quality displays and feed one with a high quality 10 bit signal and the second with the signal degraded to 9 bits and see if the difference was noticeable in normal lighting.
Why bother with the 3W speakers? I mean, sure, they're "free," but will anyone end up spending $3k on a monitor and miss what are almost certainly so-so speakers?
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30 Comments
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ABR - Saturday, April 20, 2019 - link
Just no. Local area dimming is not and will never be it. About 40 x 25 "pixels" worth of blurry light control?! Think that's gonna look good? Just work on solving OLED's problems already.crimsonson - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
For professionals, OLED is not the end all/be all solution. It is much more expensive and the life span is far shorter than LCD. Even the Sony X300 at $32K has already reports of shifting colors after 2 years! Some even less!! Sony is planning to leave OLED in the high-end pro market. Shifting to double layer LCD.There has to be more options not just one panel type.
FreckledTrout - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
Actually FALD depending on the number of mini LEDS could be a perfect compromise that produces almost OLED level contrast and brightness. Say for example if there are 50K mini LEDS for the backlight? There is a point where there is enough it isn't perceptible versus OLED then you get all the benefits of LCD like no burn in or color fading over time etc.Devo2007 - Sunday, April 21, 2019 - link
A $3000 professional 31" monitor with only 89.5% Rec. 2020 color gamut? Fail!Devo2007 - Sunday, April 21, 2019 - link
Wait, I got confused between Rec. 2020 & DCI-P3. That actually is better than quite a few other displays.crimsonson - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
Yea 89% for Rec 2020 is excellent compared to current offerings. Obviously, 100% is the goal, but even in the high-end pro market that is not reasonable today.Santoval - Sunday, April 21, 2019 - link
If Acer are only reporting the "adaptive" (the new name for "dynamic" apparently) contrast ratio of this monitor that apparently means that its true (static) contrast ratio is pretty low. The problem is that professionals are not going to be fooled by contrast ratio marketing tricks such as this. They are not naive average Joe consumers, they are people who are very well versed in such stuff, because it is their freaking *job*.If Acer want to sell monitors to professionals they need to learn how to properly market the monitors for professionals. If they are not confident enough in their monitors that they think they need to resort to deceptive marketing tricks in order to sell them, then they should just not make monitors targeted at professionals, because such tricks are not going to work on them.
edzieba - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
'Professionals' looking at FALD monitors know that contrast ratio of the LCD panel itself does not tell the whole story when it comes to displaying HDR images.Beaver M. - Sunday, April 21, 2019 - link
Why is 60 Hz still standard in 2019?It was in the 90s...
3k for a 60 Hz display? I guess their market studies say that there are enough idiots.
Devo2007 - Sunday, April 21, 2019 - link
For the target market (video / photo creation) more than 60Hz isn't needed. Color accuracy is the most important thing here. Yes, a higher refresh rate can improve smoothness, but when working with content that is only going to be 60fps at most, there's no real need for it.If you want a monitor that will be good enough for most content creators + games, there's plenty of other options available.
Beaver M. - Sunday, April 21, 2019 - link
Even the target market benefits from 100+ Hz. Have you ever worked with a 100 Hz+ panel? Obviously not.The thing is, the panel is fast enough for 100+ Hz. All they had to do is increase the refreshrate and tweak it a bit. At that price that would be as much effort as adding RGB.
And no, theres no good options available. Most of them are AUO panels who have horrible QC and lack in one or the other field.
Only LGs new panels look promising on paper, but they havent hit the market yet.
And you also didnt get what I said: I said 60 Hz is an obsolete standard.
If one would follow your logic a 1 Hz panel would be enough.
niva - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
You can scream "60 Hz is an obsolete standard" until you're blue in the face, but the truth is that it's not obsolete, and the vast majority of folks don't need more than 60 Hz. If you want more, buy a display that has the feature, this one is not for you.Beaver M. - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
It is very much obsolete. Its a standard from the 90s. Manufacturers are just too cheap to go higher, even though most panels would be able to deal with it. Even though the margins are already very high, especially on monitors like this one. Do you have any idea how "much" a panel like this costs? 10% of the retail price at max.It makes even basic work much smoother and easier for the eyes. Thats a fact, and you claiming to manufacturers PR doesnt make you look very knowledgeable, but more like you work for them.
crimsonson - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
You may have worked with 100Hz+ panel but have you actually used it or pro content creation? Any other pro you know that use it?I deal with hundreds of content pros on a daily basis (TV, film, advertisement, graphics designer, etc.). Not one of them every asked for a fast scanning monitor.
Because it is not necessary and adds nothing to their current workflow or needs.
Beaver M. - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
Of course I did. Its much smoother, it lets you judge how your content will look much better.I am sure you never worked with one, nor do you know content creators. I do. I know a lot who ask for them.
crimsonson - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
But "smoother" is NOT the goal of a professional reference monitor! So I'm not sure why you would say such thing. It is about accuracy. That is the single most important factor for professional video editors, VFX, colorist, compressionist, etc.This is why monitors in the low to high end of reference monitors do not have fast scan (or what ever branded name Sony, Samsung, etc use). They all have a standard refresh rate of 24, 25, 30, and 60 based. If you ever walked in to an editing room, grading room or VFX bay, if they have a TV or consumer monitor with high refresh rate feature, it is always disabled.
Please point to any professional monitor from Sony, Flanders Scientific, Panasonic, etc. Eizo has a gaming line, but their professional line do not have anything what you are describing. Maybe they do now but again, as a lead technician, I deal with content creators every day. We ilterally get zero inquiry about high refresh rate monitors. Maybe TVs? But reference monitors? Zero.
crimsonson - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
Not to mention if you are delivering content for 50/60 display using high refresh rate will display introduce interpolation, thus inaccurate.FreckledTrout - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
I game and don't care about anything over 60Hz. Really doesn't matter to me at all and yes I have had 120 Hz monitors, could drive them at that rate, and still don't care. If the picture quality is high and input lag on the monitor is low Im happy. I would always take a monitor with very high picture quality over a 144Hz TN.Beaver M. - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
So you look for low input lag, but not for low response time? That makes as much sense as buying a race car with a suspension that isnt made for racing.And why do you mention TN? This is an IPS panel.
And the thing is... the picture quality isnt high with 60 Hz motion blur.
PeachNCream - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
There is no clear need for greater than 60Hz refresh rates in most professional production environments.FreckledTrout - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
Neither do like 99% of the gamers either. Going from 120Hz to 60Hz reduces the input lag from the refresh rate from 16.67ms to 8.33ms. Virtually nobody is going to really be impacted by 8ms change in responsiveness. Some people might notice very fast moving artifacts but if the monitor is really good at overdrive it wont matter either.FreckledTrout - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
Going from 60Hz to 120Hz....No edit.Beaver M. - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
You clearly have no idea what youre even talking about, like most here.Input lag has little to do with the refresh rate.
An input lag of 16 ms would be far too much already. 8 ms would still be a lot. Good panels have lower than 2 ms, some even lower than 1 ms.
Refresh rate impacts the response time. Motion blur. I dont know how you work, but even reading with a high refresh rate monitor is MUCH better, since you can basically still read while scrolling or remember better where you left off after scrolling. When editing video, you can much more easily see what a sequence will look like, especially if you work with motion blur, and a low refresh rate would add to the added motion blur effect and would make the result look much worse than intended. It has advantages everywhere.
Beaver M. - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
Especially nowadays when even mid-priced TVs have 100 Hz and content creators have to create with them in mind.And it works the other way around too, btw. Remember when LCD TV just were introduced for a few years and professionals still worked with CRT? They cut fast action sequences that quickly in movies and series that you didnt even see what was happening, because of the LCD motion blur that the CRT didnt have. Only many years later they also worked with LCD and made cuts that were meant for LCDs.
crimsonson - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link
What are you talking about LCDs and cutting action scenes?First, when films are edited during the creative editing phase ("offline") they are cut often in digital low res. Even in the early 2000s when Avid became the standard, many also edited in traditional film format using flatbeds.
Never ever has an action in film ever considered the refresh rate of LCD when making a cut for the simple reason the priority was the film master print. Projected!
Which runs at basically 48 fps! (if you count the blacking frames during projection).
Second, the only desirable motion blur in the film is those created by the camera. Any blur, be it CRT or LCD or whatever the display medium created is not desirable because it becomes not the intent of the filmmakers. It is an artifact which they have no control over.
Please stop. You are making a nonsensical connection between editing and LCD refresh rate where there is none.
crimsonson - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
display lag and input lag are 2 different things. I think you meant display lag.Duncan Macdonald - Sunday, April 21, 2019 - link
The reported contrast ratio is always a joke - even "non-reflective" screens reflect some ambient light giving a real life contrast ratio that rarely exceeds 1000 to 1. Add to that the internal light scattering in eyes (and specs or contact lenses if worn) and the perceived contrast ratio drops even further. It would be an interesting experiment to take 2 identical high quality displays and feed one with a high quality 10 bit signal and the second with the signal degraded to 9 bits and see if the difference was noticeable in normal lighting.bill44 - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
The Eizo CG3145 can achieve a world-beating million-to-one static contrast ratio. No OLED required.crimsonson - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
Isn't that a $30K monitorsing_electric - Monday, April 22, 2019 - link
Why bother with the 3W speakers? I mean, sure, they're "free," but will anyone end up spending $3k on a monitor and miss what are almost certainly so-so speakers?