HP Dreamcolor monitor!

[4seasonphoto]

Okay, not mine, but I got to play with 'em [] ]'>

The other day, a couple of HP boxes arrived at the office. Boxes seemed awfully big and heavy for 24" LCD monitors, and in fact, one of the handholds on the box tears, and I drop the thing! Get it into the server room and am recording the model and serial # when I see the word "Dreamcolor": What, must be a mistake, because I can't think of anything the company does which would justify a $3000 monitor with ultra wide color gamut, much less two of the things.

Background: This monitor was designed especially for use by Dreamworks Animation, hence the name, and it's supposed to have true 30-bit color. Don't recall my G5 video supporting better than 24-bit, and it doesn't. But Leopard seems to automatically recognize the monitor and perhaps includes a profile for it.

Out of the box, it's an exceptionally thick and hefty thing and sealed in an airtight pouch. Hook it up to my uniprocessor G5, fire up Aperture to view some of my DNG files, and wow, right out of the box it looks outstanding: Whites look exceptionally true, colors look wonderfully rich and saturated without looking overdone. The poor Cinema Display looks way too blue by comparison. Leopard even seems to have a built-in profile for it, which it automatically utilizes. I normally expect a new LCD to be way too bright, and to have contrast set too high, but without touching any controls, the Dreamcolor's looking pretty good.

It sure would be nice to have one of these things for my photography!

 

[Cory5412]

Oh man... that's epic. A photo or two (edited on the dreamcolor, of course) would be awesome.

It makes the reality of how bad laptop displays really are stand out even worse.

Where are the displays ultimately headed?

 

[4seasonphoto]

You'll have to settle for a photo taken with my Sony digicam under bad light [:I] ]'>

Looks like the Dreamcolors will be used to aid in medical diagnostics! We had met with the Nikon microscope rep awhile back and among other things ended up buying Coolscope II remote-controlled microscope which the pathologists can use to view slides located at a different site. Pretty interesting gadget, which basically combines a camera + motorized microscope + Linux computer all in a compact white box, and all one needs in order to access it is a web browser, plus a tech on the other end to feed it slides as needed. From Firefox or any other browser, you see the specimen, and have X-Y controls, can focus and change magnification. (but products like this do open up the possibility of pathologists's jobs being outsourced overseas...)

I wouldn't have thought that viewing stained specimens mounted on slide would call for the highest quality color reproduction, but apparently it does make a difference.

 

[Unknown_K]

Macs were used in the medical field ages ago with hugh 10 bit color cards and monochrome and color high rez monitors (monochrome for xrays).

Was it DOVE that made monster Nubus video cards with huge amounts of RAM in the 68K era?

 

[4seasonphoto]

In person, I think the monitor tends slightly to the warmer side, but not quite pink as it appears here:

No shortage of ports on the bottom of this thing! I'm a little surprised they are using RCA jacks and not BNC:

Not quite "consumer":

 

[Cory5412]

Oooh, the stand tilts too. Is it also height-adjustable? I'll admit to being a huge fan of Dell's UltraSharp monitors purely for height adjustability and the rotating, which I have used before (although not for too terribly long, as both OS X and Windows tend to get cranky when you have a rotated secondary display.)

I'm not too surprised by RCA jacks, especially if it's sold to photographers and high-end "consumers" rather than specifically to the broadcast market, who may not find it suitable as a preview monitor anyway, but I'm not sure how the broadcast market works with things like that.

Also, bad light is never a problem with Camera RAW [] ]'> *EDIT: I should amend that to say that bad light color balance isn't that big of a problem. No light at all, or bad use of fake light is still a problem. [] ]'>

*EDIT2: Also, is that USB port on the bottom for a USB hub, or some other management/color functionality?

 

[4seasonphoto]

Does Dreamworks Entertainment qualify as "broadcast"? Dunno if they actually used the things in the making of Kung Fu Panda, but they certainly do a bit of product placement for HP in the making-of features.

Remember too that it's only 1900 x 1280 and sells for a hundreds more than a 30" Cinema Display which has a heck of a lot more pixels.

Yes, stand is fully adjustable, and easily removed by means of a quick-release clamp on the back of the display panel.

Not sure what the USB port is for. Not real convenient for general use on the bottom of the display, is it. Didn't recall seeing a display calibrator probe in the box. One of the menu items does show "X hours since last calibration", and elsewhere is mention of firmware updates, so there are obviously some built-in smarts in that panel. Guess I will have to read the (stupid, needlessly PC-only) documentation disk to find out.

Light-wise, I've been thinking of getting a tiny LED ring light for the pocket cameras, maybe something I could simply leave in my bag. But mixed light sources are still a problem for me.

 

[Cory5412]

Ah, I actually don't know if they'd count as broadcast, or whether or not this monitor would be used for their "broadcast" stuff, as much as just being computer displays.

Yeah, I am really not in the market for a new display, and I'd probably go for the Dell display anyway, USB hub, similar portage (but more on the 2409 and 3007/3008) and they're much cheaper. One day... One day.