HDMI Field Monitor Review

by Sebastian WöberFebruary 25^th, 2010

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Resolution

Resolution varies a lot between the tested devices. The Marshall and the ikan V8000 have 800×480 (480p), the ikan V5600 has 1024×600 and the DP-1 has 1280×768 (720p). The 7D and 5DmkII lcd’s both have a resolution of 640×480.

On paper as well as in the field I realize that focusing isn’t much easier on the V8000 and Marshall than on the camera lcd itself. Of course many people have troubles seeing all pixels on that small sized screen of the Canons so the bigger diameter of the Marshall and V8000 will help. The older you get the farther away your eye’s near limit gets.

Important note on resolution output of the 7D and 1D markiv:
By pressing the “info” button on the Camera you can adjust the output size of your live view image. There is the normal setting with all the overlays and then there is the scaled setting which comes in very handy when using a monitor. This way you get about 20%-30% more resolution. You can see an example of the scaled setting in the images below. The screen reflection photos on the previous page had this setting disabled.

Opinion:
Focusing is very very easy on the DP-1 because you can see so much of the image. It feels like it usually does when watching the footage later in the editing room. There is not much focusing improvement on the V5600 but there is a little. I made the following comparison of screen size (Note: This is a photo taken with my iPhone and it’s edited together to resemble what I saw. The screens are not actually showing at the same time!):

Unfortunately due to Canon’s picture in picture hdmi output the image on the V5600 isn’t much bigger than on the camera lcd itself thus losing some resolution as well. It looks like a wrong aspect ratio too, but after photoshopping the two layers ontop of each other I realized aspect ratio is perfectly fine.

I did the same game with the V8000 just to check:

Image quality is something I couldn’t photograph so I’ll just leave you with my opinion:

Opinion:
As far as image quality goes I felt the DP-1 performed best because it had a really clear contrasty image (although backlight wasn’t as consistent all over the screen as on the ikan’s), however quality can’t be compared to an Apple cinema display for example, it’s a different world, the Marshall had the second best image quality in my opinion, still ok contrast and good colors, but it is very close to the V8000 which also did good. The V5600 had the worst image quality in my opinion, the least contrast of all the models.

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