Rejected: Noise / pixelation at full size

@Beckhusen No worries, just shop around a bit if you intend to buy it. I paid 73 euros after tax decuction, but you can probably get it cheaper in Germany. It's the Spyder Express 4 by the way. There are other alternatives out there, so I suggest you do some research before deciding what's best for you :)

My Dell 2209WA will hardly need any adjustment as people have bought a corrector and used them on this model and found it was pretty spot on when shipped. I haven't had any footage rejected on the basis of wrong colour.

"Noise / pixelation at full size" - yep got one last week from them and what they called noise was a cloud of dust from the Sahara. As long as they accept 90%+ of what I submit, I do not worry. When I started their rejection rate was 40%.

Good luck, many have made good suggestions. I've used Dell monitors for years and one of my dual monitor setup is a similar Dell. Like others have said, we will always color correct even directly from Dell.

Something to consider for the future. If only I knew someone who could lend me a Spyder ;-)

Lend also your camera? ;)

Marbury: <<< I haven't had any footage rejected on the basis of wrong colour>>

Initially more important than colour is getting your blacks, whites and most of all, your brightness spot on. Many LCD monitors are too bright (particularly laptops). The spyder deals with this.

If these aren't correct then you can't judge your whites properly. Of course you can "do it by numbers" and make good use of histograms for stills and waveform on video.

Check out sites like this:
http://www.w4zt.com/screen/
at the foot of the page "another option" you can at least see how 0, 255 and points in-between look. Ideally you want to see a difference between 0 & 10 and between 245 & 255. Depending on your eyes ;-)

Just shoot it correctly in-camera - as a beginner, don't mess with H.264 footage from your camera - (leave that to the experienced guys who know what they're doing) think of it as a flimsy jpg. Use the waveform and picker tools to confirm you got it right - not to make it right - you'll have less trouble with curators and clients.

Ok, I see your point and I have been watching a tutorial on youtube on how to get the blacks and whites right in PP by using the fast colour corrector. I have also been shooting slightly under exposed to make sure I am in the safe zone of not over exposing and getting detail in the shadows. I always render my AVCHD files to H.264 at 95% from advice some time ago here as they are (I thought) good quality. What do you recommend rendering to for better in the future ?

My advice is don't underexpose and then bring up the shadows - don't overexpose and blow out the whites - hit it smack on and don't fiddle.

Sunny days are easy for exposure - do some test shots and bracket - simply talk over the clips so you know exactly what you've done when you're examining the shots back at the office. Check the waveform and make a note of the exposures that were spot on for your camera. Worry about the whites, don't worry about the blacks - let them take care of themselves. Once you know what exposure your camera wants in full sunshine, simply shoot at that to be consistent with your results.

Do the same for bright overcast (open up 2 stops) and dark overcast (open up a further stop) so you know what sort of exposure you are expecting. Let the meter confirm rather than dictate. Sure mistakes will be made - but the more you practice the luckier you'll get!

Get familiar with the Sunny 16 rule
http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com/tip/1565/the-sunny-16-rule/

I don't know if video guys use it but it works perfectly for stills - Simply adapt the figures to take into account that in video you are on ND filters and fixed shutter speeds.

Set your white balance to "daylight" and leave it there. If the light is warm - let it be warm - if it's cold keep it cold. Only bother with other balances when you're indoors. KISS (keep it simple).
I'm sure everyone has their own ideas on this but I'm just trying to get you started using sweeping generalisations.

Sorry I don't know anything about AVCHD files; I simply render my camera's footage to .mov, Photo-Jpg @ 95%.

A lot of good tips for a novice like myself thanks. I will try photo Jpeg and see what that looks like.