“The Current State of Reference Monitors

(2015 edition): Part 2”

Bram Desmet is the CEO and General Manager of Flanders Scientific, Inc., based in Georgia just 30 minutes outside of Atlanta.

Despite holding a B.A.in Philosophy from GA State University – and being an instrument rated airplane pilot – Bram ultimately followed in the footsteps of his father, (a 30 year veteran of the professional broadcast industry) when he joined DDA (a sister company of FSI) and then later Flanders Scientific. Both companies focus heavily on professional display technology.

As Managing Director at Flanders Scientific Bram is a vocal advocate of FSI’s core philosophy of providing professional broadcast products that strike an ideal balance between performance, features, and affordability.

In Part 2 of Bram’s Interview we discuss:

* Is self-calibration of your reference monitor attainable ‘for the rest of us’?

* The new fast profiling options in CalMan and LightSpace

* DaVinci Resolve’s test patch generator

* Low cost hardware test patch generators

* What is the point of reference monitors when ‘grandma’s TV’ is blue?

* Can a pro colorist rely on a sub-$1000 probe for accurate calibrations?

* What is a tri-stimulous colorimeter? And why do you need the matrix settings for your specific probe?

* What is a spectroradiometer? When does the precision become overkill?

* How often do you need to recalibrate your reference monitor?

* What’s the difference between color drift in OLED vs RGB LED vs CCFL LED displays?

* What’s the drift in colorimeters?

* Why did FSI change the default factory gamma setting to 2.4 from 2.2?

* Why does FSI use the Power 2.4 setting rather than BT.1886?

* How to adjust your minimum black level on an OLED?

* How to adjust your peak white levels on an OLED?

* Where should you set the black levels on an OLED?

* What is the EBU standard for reference black levels?

* What problem is BT.1886 trying to solve?

* Why did FSI change their default factory peak luminance setting to 100 nits?

* What’s the potential problem with BT.1886?

* Setting the reference display to see brightness change from bit 16 to bit 17

* Can you see the difference between 100 nits and 125 nits?

This podcast was edited by Tom Parish out of Austin, Texas. Visit him at TomParish.com.

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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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More Interviews

Show Notes (links open in a new window / tab):

* LightSpace CMS

* CalMan

* The (less expensive) FSI-only versions of LightSpace and CalMan

* FSI quickstart videos for LightSpace and