HDMI Field Monitor Review

by Sebastian WöberFebruary 25^th, 2010

Summary

smallHD DP-1


The DP-1 is a solid aluminum unibody field monitor with a large 8.9″ screen. It has a reflective surface and good quality lcd screen with sufficient brightness. It comes with a very good and easy to mount neoprene sunshade to help in daylight.
At 720p this monitor had the highest resolution in this test and due to the scaling feature the dslr output could be put on the whole screen. This makes resolution, sharpness and size stand out over the other field monitors in this test.
The DP-1 has a good viewing angle. Instead of inverting the colors like other monitors the image simply darkens, no matter from what side you’re looking at it. At 20° you still have a good image, at 40° it starts to get considerably dark.
The controls of this monitor are on the back and are a solution that is not easy to get used to, but even then it is not very intuitive and can take time on a shoot. You will find a lot of functions in the menus.
The DP-1 is the heaviest monitor in this test with 1000g. Although the unit is very hard I’m not sure wether it would survive a drop.
There are several different inputs like component or vga. Those are situated at the top which might be a problem because the cable will usually fall in front of the screen when using a 7D or 5Dmkii, the image swap feature is disabled during hdmi mode. There are no outputs.
The battery lasts for 2:16 and loads in the same time, a second one comes with the screen so you can always load and use at the same time.
There is a sunshade, hdmi cable and neoprene sleeve coming with the unit and shipping is free.

Opinion:
This is a first generation product which I thought I felt when using it. There are great ideas in it and some outstanding attributes and it differs a lot from the other devices on the market. At the same time it also has some flaws and I imagine that’s due to the missing experience of prior generations.
It’s a unit I would call partly professional and partly unprofessional, it isn’t one or the other. For the really good price tag of this one I for my part could live with the flaws. This is a very well designed and innovative product and one of the few that currently gives you a great hd image of your footage when using a dslr on set.

ikan V8000-hdmi

The V8000 is an 8″ field monitor with a plastic casing and good brightness values, it’s lcd quality is ok. It’s not HD, but has a slightly higher resolution than the lcd’s on most of the vdslr’s. There is no scaling feature on this monitor so the picture in picture output of the Canon cameras drains some more resolution which should leave you at about the same resolution like the Canon cameras itself, but will improve your focusing powers with a much larger display.
The viewing angle is very good from the sides and the top you’re still able to make out the picture at 80°. If you watch the screen from the bottom though you will lose it at about 25°.
This one doesn’t have a lot of features, it is simple and easy to use.
The battery performance of one and a half hours could be better. Replacement batteries are inexpensive and widely available.
There are several inputs like component and s-video and the jacks are always bnc which is good. There are outputs as well. There is no sunshade coming with this monitor but one can be ordered for another 44$. You also need to buy the battery pack seperately.

Opinion:
The V8000 is a good inexpensive monitor. It is very similar to the Marshall V-LCD70P. It doesn’t have a bunch of features, it’s simple, lightweight and fast and could be a good companion on set. Unfortuntely it provides approximately the same resolution as the on cam lcd so it isn’t a perfect match for my dslr. This one will probably be a good choice when using several monitors on set. I’d go into it via a/v and out to the next monitor via composite. Not a professional monitor, but a good and reliable middle class device for little money.

Marshall V-LCD70P-hdmi


The Marshall is a 7″ monitor with a resolution of 480p like the ikan V8000. It has a protective plastic shield in front of the screen, a metal front bezel and plastic back. Most of it’s attributes say that it is a semi professional device. Brightness and resolution though are far behind. With the picture in picture display the dslr’s output via hdmi the resolution comes to result at about the same as the dslr’s 3″ displays themselves. The viewing angle is good from all sides, the image washes out the higher the angle gets but you’re still able to make it out at 80°. When viewed from the bottom though you lose the image at about 20°.
The controls are very simple and easy to access. There are 4 function keys that make this even easier. This screen has some good functions like blue only, a false-color chart for exposure and good color control.
The rca inputs at the back are all bnc connectors. The monitor also offers video outputs to connect more devices.
Battery performance is very good at over four hours per load and only 1 hour to charge a battery.
At 800$ this one is a good deal, but you will need to buy batteries, charger and sunshade seperately.

Opinion:
The Marshall monitor is very similar to the V8000. It has slightly worse image quality, worse brightness and is less lightweight but has more functions and an impressive battery life. Unfortunately it displays the image smaller than the V8000, probably it can’t crop a 16:9 image and therefore loses some resolution and screensize because as we know our dslr image comes as a picture in picture.
This is a good monitor, cheap at it’s featureset but there’s better for use with a dslr.

ikan V5600

The ikan V5600 is ikan’s smallest monitor and also the smallest in this test while still pulling off a higher resolution performance than it’s colleague the V8000 or the Marshall. 600p at a size of 5.6″ sounds good, but due to the picture in picture output of the dslr’s the image is eventually very small, almost as small as the dslr’s screen itself. The lcd of the V5600 isn’t very powerful. It is a little dark and has a bad viewing angle that makes it even hard to see the image from the front. At the slightest change of angle the image fades.
The controls are simple as on the V8000, basic features like image swap and color correction are included. The big advantage of this monitor is that it’s really lightweight. Even with the huge battery it only weights 520g. Surprisingly battery life isn’t very good at only 1:08, but ikan said I had the wrong battery and they’d do a replacement if it doesn’t last for at least 3 hours. Would probably change the weight a bit.

Opinion:
The ikan V5600 promises a high resolution at a small form factor, but due to the missing scaling feature our dslr’s hdmi image is displayed very small that makes not much difference. Focusing is a little easier but there’s not much more advantage than that. It’s size and weight are great and I’d love to put this monitor on my setup just for it’s outside specs, but once I turn it on, it turns me off. Although it’s almost a good non dslr monitor for me the bad viewing angle and poor brightness are exhausting attributes.

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