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While his conclusions are probably accurate overall, the vfx example is not. You don't need reference quality monitors for vfx. Decent pro-level monitors are fine for "adding lens flares." Final color is not established by vfx artists. The mission critical color balancing is done by a colorist, and that's where you'll see the best monitors money can buy.
 
Come on Apple, release an XDR Pro for real professionals. Tagline: “What’s a monitor?”
People know what a monitor is. Apple oversold the capabilities of this one. They’ll certainly take back any unit that anyone wants to return.

btw, what does that have to do with a 6 year old girl wondering why her nosy neighbor is calling her iPad a computer. I’d love to see an updated version where she says “ok boomer. It’s not a computer, it’s an iPad”.

Maybe some would then understand the point of the commercial.
 
Who is the apple monitor for? What user needs a monitor that expensive BUT also not a colorists monitor?

People who can't afford a colorists monitor but need something better than crappy office-grade sRGB displays. People like indie productions, YouTube and online, local commercials and TV...

There's a space between an 8K RED cinema camera at $80,000 and filming on an iPhone.
 
I'm a bit confused. I get that as a creator you want the best you can do. Makes sense, you want that extraordinary lens flare, add it in and you'll see it on an expensive reference monitor. But us consumers that are going to just be watching what you did will never see that slightly increased flare because our panels generally are exponentially worse than what you just created it on. Didn't that happen with GoT? They can see all the dark details on their reference monitors, but when it hit consumers, we couldn't see squat. So what is it referencing to if the majority aren't even using what is considered a reference?

Sure you'll see the increased lens flare, to the degree that your display can reproduce it. If your monitor is already set to be too hot, then an increased lens flare will appear even hotter and may even clip. Or if your monitor is set to be too dim, the increased lens flare may still seem diminished.

Abrams knows that the lens flare he just created in that editing bay is exactly what is going to be represented in the files. The thing of it is that he can't account for consumer displays that don't have near the accuracy tolerance of his Sony X310 (X300, hopefully). The inaccuracies of our consumer monitors could make the lens flare brighter *or* darker. So start off with the most accurate point possible to accommodate the highest number of variables that could occur on our meager displays downstream.

In your Game of Thrones reference, I could see the night battle just fine on my loosely-calibrated LG OLED. My issue was with the horrendous compression more than it was with the darkness. So when I woke up the next day and saw all the complaints about the darkness I was a bit confused until I dove in and read about it more.
 
It’s a weird beast
Apple definitely carved an odd niche with Pro Display XDR.

It performs significantly worse than high-end video production display ($20-40K). It's still very much suitable for non-grading work, especially with its spacious 6K resolution.

It compares more favorably to photographer's displays ($2-4K), also thanks to its 6K resolution (most are 4K). But here, the value proposition is considerably weaker. Apple would also be wise to offer a cheaper non-rotating stand option.

Apple could've avoided a lot of ridicule by offering a 27" 5K display alongside Pro Display XDR -- simply take 27" display from their iMac and sell it as a standalone monitor at $1499 ($300 discount from entry level 27" iMac).
 
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.
 
Apple definitely carved an odd niche with Pro Display XDR.

It performs significantly worse than high-end video production display ($20-40K). It's still very much suitable for non-grading work, especially with its spacious 6K resolution.

It compares more favorably to photographer's displays ($2-4K), also thanks to its 6K resolution (most are 4K). But here, the value proposition is considerably weaker. Apple would also be wise to offer a cheaper non-rotating stand option.

Apple could've avoided a lot of ridicule by offering a 27" 5K display alongside Pro Display XDR -- simply take 27" display from their iMac and sell it as a standalone monitor at $1499 ($300 discount from entry level 27" iMac).
On top of that, re-enable the iMac to be a target display.
 
Apple could've avoided a lot of ridicule by offering a 27" 5K display alongside Pro Display XDR -- simply take 27" display from their iMac and sell it as a standalone monitor at $1499 ($300 discount from entry level 27" iMac).

They'd get a ton of ridicule for slapping a $200 Apple logo on an UltraFine 5k.
 
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A monitor that costs 9x more is better? Wow.

Did you miss the part where Apple themselves claimed it was “The world’s best pro display”? They’re the ones that invited the comparison, not anybody else!

It’s still a nice display, but this is a pretty comprehensive smack down of Apple’s marketing department. A total marketing fail.
 
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Apple definitely carved an odd niche with Pro Display XDR.

It performs significantly worse than high-end video production display ($20-40K). It's still very much suitable for non-grading work, especially with its spacious 6K resolution.

It compares more favorably to photographer's displays ($2-4K), also thanks to its 6K resolution (most are 4K). But here, the value proposition is considerably weaker. Apple would also be wise to offer a cheaper non-rotating stand option.

Apple could've avoided a lot of ridicule by offering a 27" 5K display alongside Pro Display XDR -- simply take 27" display from their iMac and sell it as a standalone monitor at $1499 ($300 discount from entry level 27" iMac).

This is what I'm saying. They just created an odd product. It's very expensive, quite good, but as we have seen in the video not good enough for the kind of work they mentioned in their presentation...

Who is gonna buy it? Pro photographers maybe? Prosumer videographers? ... they should have just released updated 27" 5K monitor for a reasonable price (under $2000).
 
Well, sure but if you care about movies or content in general and don't watch stuff on iPhones (like some individuals keep demanding) then your home tv system is calibrated.
In other words, if you have 55, 65, 75 or bigger inch tv at home and you didn't calibrate it then you either don't care and in that case it doesn't matter whey they throw at you or you are just plain silly.
So, Apple referencing their monitor to Sony reference one is because the target audience is professionals that care and Apple clearly overshot.
I feel that this should be made bigger as I'm never a big fan of marketing lies or misleading tactics.

Regardless, accuracy matters. My Sony 65" came in fairly accurate but after the calibration it was 10x better.
Sure, it costs a bit more ($350 in my case) but if you buy expensive tv it needs to be calibrated.



Sure you'll see the increased lens flare, to the degree that your display can reproduce it. If your monitor is already set to be too hot, then an increased lens flare will appear even hotter and may even clip. Or if your monitor is set to be too dim, the increased lens flare may still seem diminished.

Abrams knows that the lens flare he just created in that editing bay is exactly what is going to be represented in the files. The thing of it is that he can't account for consumer displays that don't have near the accuracy tolerance of his Sony X310 (X300, hopefully). The inaccuracies of our consumer monitors could make the lens flare brighter *or* darker. So start off with the most accurate point possible to accommodate the highest number of variables that could occur on our meager displays downstream.

In your Game of Thrones reference, I could see the night battle just fine on my loosely-calibrated LG OLED. My issue was with the horrendous compression more than it was with the darkness. So when I woke up the next day and saw all the complaints about the darkness I was a bit confused until I dove in and read about it more.
 
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