Best 4K Monitor for Video Editing

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  Hybroid on 18/08/2021 - 15:39

  +2

  You asked for "best" with focus on accuracy and brightness for video editing, so, the Apple ones. Literally their intended purpose.

  https://www.apple.com/au/shop/buy-mac/pro-display-xdr/standa…

  Alternatively the LG Ultrafine 4K or 5K if you want something more reasonable.

  https://www.apple.com/au/shop/product/HMUA2X/A/lg-ultrafine-…

  https://www.apple.com/au/shop/product/HMUB2X/A/lg-ultrafine-…

  • 

    Hunter14 on 18/08/2021 - 17:15

    I did look on the Apple site and saw these.

    Not keen for the apple display but that LG 4K display looks reasonable.

    Would that be better suited for Mac and Final Cut Pro then say an equivalent Dell monitor?

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  pharkurnell on 18/08/2021 - 16:21

  What is your budget?

  • 

    Hunter14 on 18/08/2021 - 17:13

    Ideally less than $1,500.

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  albyone on 18/08/2021 - 17:17

  While editing, I plug my iPad in and use it just for playback. Most people are watching on YouTube on a phone or tablet so why not use one to balance colour…

  • 

    Hunter14 on 18/08/2021 - 17:26

    Yeah I've uploaded a few raw videos on private to observe the image quality using my iPad/iPhone.

    Never thought to use iPad to playback while editing. That's a good idea. I'll try out.

    Is it as simple as connecting via usb c cable to your mac?

    • 

      albyone on 18/08/2021 - 18:01

      I use a PC, so use Duet and have my iPad Pro set as an extra monitor. Playback on iPad also means you have a larger area for timelines on the monitor.

      Think it is easy on Mac now, may have to join iPad OS15 beta…?

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  TheBird on 18/08/2021 - 20:03

  If you're after a cheap monitor that holds relatively decent color accuracy for the price, pick up a monitor from Apple. That's about as close as you're going to get unless you lift your budget considerably. It's been a long time since I've looked at monitors for color grading, but I doubt they've come down below the $5k mark yet. Not to mention, you'll need to calibrate it often.

  The truth of it, you're not going to get the picture on your monitor to match the look from another monitor. Most monitors aren't calibrated.

  That all being said, if you want accurate color reproduction without spending more than you spent on your car, learn to color through your scopes (or learn to if you don't already know). Your monitor isn't great for any professional level color grading, but I'm guessing your working eivironment is doing you more harm to your ability to grade than your monitor. You can drop huge wads of cash on a good reference monitor, but you're flushing it down the drain if your environment isn't set up right.

  What I meam by this is your lights (whether it be natural light or artificial light) and other color casts in your room (wall color, lack of neutral back light) is likely to be throwing off your ability to perceive colors accurately.

  I doubt you're looking at professional level grading, but if I were you, I wouldn't waste money on another monitor. You're likely to get the same issue.

  I did color grading training a long time back. Even though I could get through the theory fine enough. I did it for a little while but it turns out I have no eye or patience for grading.

  • 

    Hunter14 on 19/08/2021 - 11:38

    This is very good advice.

    Thank you so much for writing all this down. No, I am not a professional editor. I just want to do YouTube as a side hobby and getting a bit ahead of myself down by wanting the next shiny object, when the one I have is more than capable.

    If I did get a more expensive monitor, it would only benefit my viewing experience and not my audience. So kind of defeats the whole purpose.

    Another poster mentioned most people watch YT through their smartphone or tablets so I'll use that as the test to get the right 'colour accuracy'.

    • 

      TheBird on 21/08/2021 - 10:48

      I was a professional editor for a while.

      What a lot of professional color graders do is when they export their work, they view it on a range of devices. Since the most common device is Apple, if they run out of time, they tend to test it on an ipad first.

      A lot of time, at the hobby level, the issue would be lighting and/or camera settings more than the grading.

      If you didn't grade the footage, what are the issues you'd be having?

      • 

        Hunter14 on 23/08/2021 - 12:10

        Hey mate, thanks for the follow up.

        Yeah, I've been filming a few sample clips in a variety of settings and do a quick export on FCP and upload on Youtube private and view on multiple devices.

        I've probably spent more on lighting than a beginner should. I've watched a ton of videos about 3 point lighting.
        I shoot on a Sony A6400 with no picture profile (to minimise colour grading time in post). Would shooting on one of the picture profile help with colour & skin tone?

        My main issue is trying to get my skin tone at a natural colour that I see on YT. So a nice blue tone with a hint of orange. But it seems it goes extreme one way or the other. I put my lights at 5600K and set my white balance accordingly.

        I'm still learning to fix this in post with LUTs and a bit of colour correction.

        Any advice would be appreciated :)

        • 

          TheBird on 23/08/2021 - 21:54

          @Hunter14: I'm not familiar with that particular camera. Do you know if it's shooting in a flat profile? Basically speaking, when you look at the picture, does it look all grey and desaturated? If so, just start with increasing the contrast and once that's pretty much sorted, increase the saturation and you should have a basic picture.

          If it's not a flat profile, then it'll have to do with your capture. It's not really my area, but I see more people get in trouble with mixing different color lighting than anything else. If memory serves me right, 5600k is about daylight at midday at a particular point on the planet… generally speaking. One thing that most people don't realise is daylight (from the sun) changes its temperature at different times of the day. The closer to the horizon, typically the warmer the light. Why talk about all this? Most people shoot with both lights and sunlight and fail to balance multiple times if shooting over a peroid of time. Another error I see if people color balance before the lights are setup.

          LUTs are good when you're taking a balanced neutral image and stylising them. If you don't have a neutral image, a LUT will take a mess and make it a further mess. Think of it like a road map. Directions to a destination only work when you know where you're coming from. They don't work if you only know the destination. A LUT is basically a set of directions.

          When doing a simple grade, you're typically trying to get the skin right. On your scopes, that basically means, get your skin on the diagonal line. If the light temperature gets mixed, it's no longer simple to fix. As a beginner, it's easier to get it done right in camera than it is to fix it in post.

          If you're needing a color grade, what color is your original image?

          Out of interest, what are you shooting?

          • 

            Hunter14 on 24/08/2021 - 00:15

            @TheBird: I'm starting a Personal Finance channel so basically just shooting a lot of talking to the camera at a desk type footage.

            I don't think I'm using a flat profile as I heard that takes more time to correct in post. I'm using no picture profile so the colours I get are pretty much finalised so I don't think I can do too much colour correcting. As I get more confident, maybe I'll start shooting in flat profile.

            • 

              TheBird on 24/08/2021 - 11:03

              @Hunter14: Is there any sunlight coming into your shooting area.

              Are there any colored lights or color sources that could be making a color cast onto the white card when you're doing the white balance?

              If you're only doing talking heads, I'd never suggest shooting in flat profile. The whole purpose of flat profile is so you can match footage from different shooting areas. It compresses the spectrum (for a lack of a better word) so you don't lose any information, that way, you have fuller control over what you need to correct. It's good when you have a lot of shots in different areas/environments/camera & lighting setups that need to match. When it's all one shot, it matches.

              With talking heads, so long as you're not getting outside light coming in, the environment doesn't change over time. In one of thees tiny studio/vlog environments, it's common to set things up, not touch stuff and just turn on and shoot each time, without the need to set up lights/color balance etc again.

              Assuming you want to keep using your camera: With these consumer cameras, I'd turn the lights on, basically where you want them, put a pure white color card in front of your camera and color balance it. Try all the video modes in your camera and pick the one that you like and stick to it. Hopefully, it's successful. Your next best option is to pay a cinematographer a half day rate to come in and work through and get your setup right.

              Then, if you want to put on a color style, see if a LUT can get you to where you want. If not, pay a colorist to create a LUT that suits your needs, otherwise, you'll be spending more time and money than it's worth trying to learn. Learning film stuff from youtube it nuts. There's so much wrong information out there and most people don't have enough base knowledge to weed out the misinformation from the good info.

              This will sound counter intuitive, but with these kinds of things, it's often best to stick with as close to basic consumer level as you can for the camera. (This is specifically for beginner level stuff. if you want to learn professional filmmaking with cameras and lens kits worth more than luxery cars, it's different) So long as you can control your environment with enough lights, personally, I'd set it up with a GoPro to capture the video. Out of the box, the picture looks right. Since it's talking heads, you won't care about depth of field. You don't need to worry about focus. It's about as easy as it gets and so long as there is enough light, the image is half decent (it's low bitrate, but bang for buck, it's pretty good).

              That all being said… Audio. That's what makes or breaks videos… doubly so in talking heads channels. If you have poor audio, the whole thing will feel wrong to the audience.

              • 

                Hunter14 on 24/08/2021 - 14:29

                @TheBird: Hey mate, thanks again for the detailed write up.

                So I’ve already done all the things you suggested with the white/grey card while the lights are on where the subject will be sitting etc.
                Last night I was playing around with the colour wheels on FCP and noticed I could change the ‘temperate’ so I changed it to the temperature of my lights and white balance setting and it’s done wonders for the skin tone. So now I’m quite happy with it. Funny thing is viewing it on iPhone and iPad always seems to produce a cooler blue tone compared to my monitor and Dell laptop.
                All the other colour tools on FCP are really confusing to me so I’ll start learning more once I get more experienced.

                In terms of audio, I think I got that one down well. I use a Rode Videomic Pro+ rigged to a boom arm and placed close to my mouth but out of frame. The quality seems to be quite good.

                • 

                  TheBird on 25/08/2021 - 12:54

                  @Hunter14:

                  Funny thing is viewing it on iPhone and iPad always seems to produce a cooler blue tone compared to my monitor and Dell laptop.

                  Yeah, most monitors (and headphones for that matter) are flavored in their colorspace settings.

                  So now I’m quite happy with it.

                  That's what is important.

                  All the other colour tools on FCP are really confusing to me so I’ll start learning more once I get more experienced.

                  I've never used FCP, so I don't even know if they use their own system or stick with what most of the industry uses.

                  In terms of audio, I think I got that one down well. I use a Rode Videomic Pro+ rigged to a boom arm and placed close to my mouth but out of frame. The quality seems to be quite good.

                  Yeah, that should get you 70% of the way there, which is usually more than enough for podcasts. It's not quite the right microphone for the task but it's great for a beginner. You just have to be a little more careful with your head movements as it's polar pattern is not as wide as some other options. Most Rode products sound great without tuning and are great value for money.

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  pparanoidd on 19/08/2021 - 00:03

  Brand new monitor, costs about $1.1k for the 4k version with the stand. Reviews have been positive

  https://evedevices.com/pages/spectrum/