YouTuber Compares Apple Pro Display XDR to $43K Sony Reference Monitor, Says It's a 'No Go' for Professional Colorists

[rkuo]

I don’t expect you to understand or accept any of the above, fine if you do, fine if you don’t. As you gain experience you’ll learn that price is different from value.
The 4K monitor that you were crowing about would be an extremely foolish purchase for any of the above use cases, whether it’s $4,000, $3,000, $500 or you gave me the damn thing for free. Thanks but no thanks. I’ll gladly spend $6k on the XDR, you can buy whatever you think best.

OK, nice story ... and now back to the real world.

No one is going to buy their employees this monitor unless they really really need it. That’s just common sense. I’m not gonna spend my credibility points justifying a 5000 dollar monitor for someone that doesn’t really need one. A 1000 dollar monitor is more than enough.

 

[AppelGeenyus]

You're not really one to talk.

You still haven't addressed how your setup of two 4k monitors is supposed to work in practice. Do you run it at 1x, with awful legibility and low UI quality? Or do you run it at 2x, with relatively little screen estate? At $3k times two, I would expect a setup that works well, and a 138 ppi desktop monitor just won't work well in macOS no matter how you configure it.

How about you actually go and try MacOS @4K on a 32" monitor instead of wasting everyones time with your totally misguided assumptions.

 

[chucker23n1]

Second, it runs perfectly well in "scaled" mode at "looks like 2560x1440" (i.e. 5120x2880 downsampled to 4k - 2560x1440p doesn't actually come into it unless you're running ancient pre-retina software)

OK.

Would you spend $6k on two $3k monitors in order to get high quality, then set them to scaled mode? Do you think that's an option so much better than Apple's offering (at the same price tag!) that it justifies @AppelGeenyus's assertion that Apple is “most overpriced” and “worst value display in history”?

which is distinguishable from the 5k... if you climb on the desk with a magnifying glass. Frankly, if your golden eyeballs are bothered by the difference you're not going to have trouble reading text in 1:1...

Isn't the whole point of this exercise in high-end displays to find minute mistakes in video production?

Oh, and don't forget that if you want to look at 4k content, 8k or 1080p video content full-screen on your 6k wonder you'll have to use non-integer scaling too. Probably still won't notice the difference but, ew! non-integer-scaling! squick!

True. Would someone do that, though? They'd simply fill the rest of the screen with UI chrome.

Yes, 6k is "better" than 5k, which is "better" than 4k, which is much better than 1440p which is incomparable to SVGA - but it is diminishing returns the higher you go, with disproportionate increases in bandwidth and GPU load.

Absolutely. But @AppelGeenyus didn't say the difference isn't worth it. He made far more hyperbolic assertions than that.

 

[citysnaps]

Let's be clear, they are already people who own a reference monitor and Apple Pro display make a review about it which stated there are significant difference in color grading that makes it unsuitable for colorists.

Great! That's exactly what I'm looking for, being interested in Apple's XDR display.

Can you post some links to the above reviews by professionals who are in the business (not people who for a fee set up televisions for best picture in peoples' home) and use $30K+ reference displays daily in their work, and who have purchased and evaluated the Apple XDR display for suitability in their line of work.

Thank you.

 

[Adult80HD]

Great! That's exactly what I'm looking for, being interested in Apple's XDR display.

Can you post some links to the above reviews by professionals who are in the business (not people who for a fee set up televisions for best picture in peoples' home) and use $30K+ reference displays daily in their work, and who have purchased and evaluated the Apple XDR display for suitability in their line of work.

Thank you.

If you dig around there's actually a really nice overview written up by a guy who does professional color and grading work where he notes it can't replace his reference display for that work, it's so great for everything else that he's happily keeping it.

Meanwhile....the trolls going on about how it's a failure still have no answer as to why its selling so well that Apple has long backlogs on the orders.

 

[chucker23n1]

...now try and collect on that notional "saved" money. Are you going to cut the employee's pay since they get the job don in fewer hours? Or, can you guarantee bringing in extra work to fill those extra hours?

No, but if I don't do it, I risk losing that engineer to a different employer.

 

[citysnaps]

If you dig around there's actually a really nice overview written up by a guy who does professional color and grading work where he notes it can't replace his reference display for that work, it's so great for everything else that he's happily keeping it.

Meanwhile....the trolls going on about how it's a failure still have no answer as to why its selling so well that Apple has long backlogs on the orders.

Thanx, I'll look for it! Living in LR daily and with a couple hundred K of image files, I'm looking for a step up in displays.

 

[clickerclacker]

I'd like this guy to review every product I ever want to buy. Informative and slick!

 

[Adult80HD]

Thanx, I'll look for it! Living in LR daily and with a couple hundred K of image files, I'm looking for a step up in displays.

Your use case sounds like mine. In my experience so far, I love the XDR for LR photo editing. I have the nano version, which seems to put some off, but the total lack of any reflection is ideal for photo editing, unless you like working in a dark windowless room.

 

[WRX-SRQ]

A monitor that costs 9x more is better? Wow.

Another person who missed the point of the video comparison. Wow.

 

[theluggage]

Would you spend $6k on two $3k monitors in order to get high quality, then set them to scaled mode? Do you think that's an option so much better than Apple's offering (at the same price tag!) that it justifies @AppelGeenyus's assertion that Apple is “most overpriced” and “worst value display in history”?

Scaled mode is high quality. And you conveniently missed out the bit about 1:1 being perfectly usable once you go over about 27"... Or maybe you could run one in scaled mode for the UI, and one in 1:1 for viewing content... anyway, it only takes seconds to switch.

True. Would someone do that, though? They'd simply fill the rest of the screen with UI chrome.

...which would mess up your perception of the image, especially if you're at the "find minute mistakes" stage. Do you get annoyed if someone in front of you in the theatre fires up their phone? Right,

Absolutely. But @AppelGeenyus didn't say the difference isn't worth it. He made far more hyperbolic assertions than that.

Value is a subjective issue and @AppelGeenyus owns their own comments - but Apple set the tone when they claimed it was "the best pro display in the world". If you really want to spend $5000-$7000 for the bragging rights of having 6k pixels when 4k or 5k would do the job easily for a couple of thousand less, then nobody is stopping you.

Real problem is that this is the only matching display that Apple are offering - and even after two years they haven't added 8k support, ruling out the obvious alternative from Dell. Meanwhile, there are a bunch of other issues counting against the XDR: poor viewing angles, no HDMI/displayPort inputs or non-Mac compatibility, manual calibration options "coming real soon now" and $200 extra just to get VESA mounting boltholes (dismissing the $1k stand as an optional luxury).

 

[citysnaps]

Your use case sounds like mine. In my experience so far, I love the XDR for LR photo editing. I have the nano version, which seems to put some off, but the total lack of any reflection is ideal for photo editing, unless you like working in a dark windowless room.

Thanx for the heads-up on the coating option. My lighting is arranged so that reflections aren't much of a problem. OTOH, in general, on decisions like that my view is only cry once on the $, and then it's all good.

Is there anything you don't like about the nano coating?

 

[Hopefully Smarter]

But what if you compare it to a free pony?

How many films has the reviewer color graded?

How many ponies has the reviewer taken care of?

 

[gnasher729]

It's a $5,000 monitor. There are two obvious questions, that we would want to be answered: 1. Can it replace a $40,000 monitor? 2. Can it be replaced by a $1,000 monitor?

The obvious assumption is that in both cases the answer ought to be "NO".
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Actually Apple make the comparison against reference monitors in the $20k range. I am pretty sure there is a difference between one costing $20k and one over $40k. But haters are always going to hate. Whatever.

I bet there are $20k monitors that are vastly overpriced, and $20k monitors that are good value for money. The first ones will be closer to Apple's $5k monitor, the second ones will come closer to this $40k monitor. So I'm quite sure there are $20k monitors that can be replaced with Apple's monitor, and there are others that cannot be replaced.

 

[fathergll]

I've watched Vincent's videos for years. He knows his stuff. He is an expert. He also gives bad advice (if you listen to him, he will easily sell you a 5-10x more expensive screen because of some obscure uniformity you can only detect by measuring it with specialise equipment which is a service that, oh, btw, he offers for a price). He is obsessed with things that shouldn't matter to people, including professionals. And he misses the point.

Hold the boat up. Please explain to us exactly which TV Vincent 'sold' us that is "5-10x more expensive" because of some obscure uniformity. If you are going to throw accusations out then please be specific.

 

[panjandrum]

So I guess the question is: Does this monitor fill an actual need or does it just exist for people with too much money and too little sense who will buy an Apple branded monitor when there are alternatives just as good but cheaper, or better at the same price? Is there an unpopulated (or lightly populated) "prosumer" market, that needs something significantly better than even the very best consumer-level displays, but significantly less good than the true professional displays? There certainly could be, and maybe Apple has really hit the nail on the head with this one. Think indie bands making music videos. Middle-tier popular Youtube creators, and the like. Seems like maybe this is a great product at the proper price point to for that kind of thing? The stand? No way though, that's simply absurd. I could pay my local body shop (great metal fabricator) to make a one-off cheaper than that. I'm not kidding. That's just Apple outright stealing from you. Regardless, Apple probably shouldn't market this in a way that makes it sound like it competes against monitors which are actually dramatically better. Position the product accurately and honestly.

 

[I7guy]

...Value is a subjective issue and @AppelGeenyus owns their own comments - but Apple set the tone when they claimed it was "the best pro display in the world". If you really want to spend $5000-$7000 for the bragging rights of having 6k pixels when 4k or 5k would do the job easily for a couple of thousand less, then nobody is stopping you...

People are reporting a back-log ordering, if that means anything. But it's up to the individual to decide if they need or want 3k, 4k, 5k or 6k. Can't leave that up to MacRumors forum posters.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Canon wants me to spend $39,000.00 and it still doesn’t tell me what color spaces it supports and how good the coverage is - https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/...e-displays/4k-uhd-reference-displays/dp-v3120

Same thing for the Sony -https://pro.sony/en_GB/products/broadcastpromonitors/bvm-hx310

I love the disclaimer
Note: BVM‑HX310 does not cover the ITU-R BT.2020, S-Gamut/S-Gamut3 and S-Gamut3.cine colour space in full.

Ring me when these so called Reference Displays cover Rec. 2020 100% and then we can discuss it. Otherwise, the XDR Display is missing some key items, but will work just fine for color critical up to the point the Producer and the Director have to sign off on the production and before they do, they’ll view it on a rented Sony or Flanders display and as well as a screening room with a properly calibrated digital projector so that can cover their asses. That’s all a “Reference” display ends up being in a lot of cases, a CYA. Sure, they have a lot more tools than the XDR to help you get a good image, but essentially they are there for CYA purposes.

Besides, if you’re color correcting most projects, you’re reading RGB values off the screen, using your experience and making the correct adjustments to get skin tones correct or to match a greyscale chart in post. Directors have such individual visions that the colorist’s job is to make sure everything matches in post. David Fincher doesn’t look like Cameron who doesn’t look like Kubrick. Once the basic values are sussed out, the rest is making sure it all matches.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Questioning someones truthfulness and credibility are synonymous.

No, they’re not. But, you seem to be in somewhat of an extreme defensive mode about this Vincent guy, so maybe it was more of an emotional response?

Or maybe he just forgot

He... forgot. Look, you don’t have to make excuses for him. Someone else posted a phrase from the video that struck me as odd, and I respond to that poster for clarification. Then YOU say, “he literally said why” and, now, apparently he didn’t. BUT, since you still have this strong desire to defend him, you’re pushed to making excuses for him.

It was very likely just a simple bit of hyperbole and, really, all the YouTubers do it, some more than others.

 

[Zdigital2015]

People are reporting a back-log ordering, if that means anything. But it's up to the individual to decide if they need or want 3k, 4k, 5k or 6k. Can leave that up to MacRumors forum posters.

5K and 6K means I can view a DCI-4K image (4096x2160) at 1:1 in FCP X and still have editing tools, timeline, and such on the same monitor in Retina, whereas anything 4K is giving me the image at 2048x1080. It’s got as much to do with workflow and personal preference as anything. And budget.

 

[57004]

This monitor is probably great for web-level stuff. 95% of the web people probably don't understand color calibration, color spaces, and creating images for the web. This is for them, to make sure that what they're making is sort of close to what their users might be seeing if their user has a good screen. And I suspect that most users have a decent screen these days.

Not really.. If you want to see what a regular user might see, you take a screen that a regular user would have. Or more than one. That's just an excuse to convince the wife to drop 5K on this, admit it (But I hope she'll fall for it, good luck!!)

I've had issues with this myself, in the time (around 2000) where CRTs were still common and offered saturated colours, and I was webdevving on an early laptop TFT display which turned saturated colours into pastels. No calibration fixed that, so I just had a CRT beside the laptop to make sure it didn't look ridiculous on either. It also meant that it wouldn't look great on either but that was the way things were back then. Monitors are actually really great across the price range these days.

When you design for end users you shouldn't (just) look at the best case but at the entire range. Of course when doing stuff for cinema it's an entirely different story.

 

[theluggage]

People are reporting a back-log ordering, if that means anything.

Well, no, it doesn't - if Apple made a first run of 50 and they got orders for 55, or predicted that 50% of buyers would get the nano coating but only 20% actually did, then there would be a backlog. And, of course, there's nothing else going on in the world at the moment that's interfering with supplies of electronics goods, is there...?

But, no, neither you nor I have any idea how well these are selling (or how sales are going to hold up over the next few years). Apple's previous displays sold so well that they never received an update...

But it's up to the individual to decide if they need or want 3k, 4k, 5k or 6k.

Absolutely. So I'll just get the 30" 5k non-XDR Apple display in the same nice case, then. Oh, wait...

That's what's really irking people with both the Mac Pro and the XDR displays - Apple have gone straight for the "best" (debatably) without filling in the usual "good" or "better" slots. OK, so its a display so there are plenty of 3rd Party options... but not that many if you want 5k and/or Thunderbolt and the obvious 8k competitor isn't supported by Apple (...surprise...) So the "best" option is getting a lot of flack.

 

[Adult80HD]

Well, no, it doesn't - if Apple made a first run of 50 and they got orders for 55, or predicted that 50% of buyers would get the nano coating but only 20% actually did, then there would be a backlog. And, of course, there's nothing else going on in the world at the moment that's interfering with supplies of electronics goods, is there...?

But, no, neither you nor I have any idea how well these are selling (or how sales are going to hold up over the next few years). Apple's previous displays sold so well that they never received an update...

LOL. Really, made 50? I'm pretty sure they know a lot more about their supply chain and demand, and even then they clearly didn't predict it well enough to meet initial demand. Keep on trying to justify why you think it's terrible, while those of us buying it really don't care. The backlog in orders has been there since right after the release, it's not because of the coronavirus or any other conspiracy you can dream up.

I'm certainly glad I managed to get one of the only 50 displays Apple made. Sadly that means I'll probably never get the second one I ordered.

 

[PestoBalsamic]

You literally have no idea what you are talking about ... you're just running your mouth. Content is mastered to a higher grade all the time and then tone mapped down at the consumer device level, sometimes adjusted at the encoding level, to something that makes sense for the display's capabilities or the user's custom settings. Whether or not you understand the process doesn't change the facts of how it works.

I know exactly what I'm talking about you have literally zero perspective. Color accuracy is something that is not as objective as certain people pretend it is, nor is it as important as certain people pretend it is.

Until/unless people are carrying around smartphones and tablets and laptops with the same color accuracy as the $43k reference monitor, then your elitest nonsense is nothing more than that: elitest nonsense. You can master media on a 5K iMac and it be more than adequate for the entire world to consume, and that is an absolutely irrefutable fact.

 

[Zdigital2015]

This is probably a better use of a $1,000.00 than the XDR Display Stand, IMHO. Personally, the VESA Mount is not that expensive to me, but it seems like a deal breaker for those people who have zero intent to buy this monitor anyways LOL!

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