Recommendations for computer monitor

I'm looking for some advice on choosing an external computer monitor. I'm currently editing on my widescreen 15 inch laptop and am tired of squinting when I'm looking at my shots while editing. For those who have a separate larger monitor, what size did you go with? Are you happy with it? I'm always worried I will pick the smaller size and end up regretting it. I think I'm somewhere between 24 inch- 32 inch. Not so much worried about the brand but do want 1080p capability. And unsure if I want LED or LCD at the moment. Let me know what you all think. Hoping to keep the price under $250.

I use dual monitors, one landscape and one portrait. The 24 inch portrait is the one I keep the files etc visible and I work off the 27 inch landscape. It works great for me being able to keep it clean and uncluttered but allows drag and drop and use at both monitors at the same time. For me I believe anything bigger would put me too close to the monitor.

I currently have a pair of 1680x1050 2000:1 contrast 22" monitors. (with HDMI, DVI and VGA ports) using the HDMI. Of course the monitors alone aren't the system, I also drive these puppies with an NVidia GTX 670 (dual port) w 3 GB ram. Your laptop is going to most likely limit what you can connect and the speed of things.

I recently got a http://www.orlowskidesigns.com/2013/12/review-blackmagic-designs-ultrastudio-mini-monitor/ to see my work on an external monitor. This is superior to just attaching a second (or third) monitor and dragging your preview window over to it.

The Mini Monitor is under $150 and can be purchased as a card or an external box (the one I have). If you go this route, I suggest getting a 1920x1080 resolution monitor, as anything higher would only "enlarge" your video. You want 1:1 here.

Hi James,
how do you calibrate your external monitor through the BMD Mini HDMI/SDI for REC.709? I know there are special software packages with probes for that but for 1k they're a little to expensive.

At work, our higher-end Blackmagic cards have some (limited) calibration options via the https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/280996/decklinkcalibrate.JPG. However, the Mini Monitor http://www.orlowskidesigns.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Screen-Shot-2013-12-22-at-3.10.15-PM.png. Since the monitor at home I use is just a standard LCD television, I use calibration DVDs and/or color bars to set it up.

Thanks James,
just found a free software for calibrating projectors and tv using standard colorimeters like color munki, i1Display, Spyder, ...

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hcfr/
http://www.homecinema-fr.com/colorimetre-hcfr/hcfr-colormeter/

At the studio where I work every artist who deals with color has a dual monitor setup and one of them is an http://www8.hp.com/ca/en/campaigns/workstations/dreamcolor-displays.html. They are crazy expensive (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/646265-REG/HP_Hewlett_Packard_GV546A8_ABA_DreamColor_LP2480zx_24_Professional.html) but they hold a calibration extremely well. HP is set to come out with an updated version soon that I've been told will be much less expensive. One warning though... the current models do have about a 3 year life. After that they seem to be hard to calibrate.They are still worth looking at. Several years ago when CRT monitors were no longer available, we evaluated 10-15 high end flat panel monitors and nothing else could come close to the HPs for color accuracy for film and TV work.

At home for my Pond5 work, I only have a couple of Dells :)

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the comments. In response to vader's comment about my laptop being limited-let me know if this sounds like enough from the specs below to handle


My specs:

HPDV6T SE
• • Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Quad Core processor (1.6GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz
• 6GB DDR3 System Memory
• 640GB 7200RPM Hard Drive

In my humble opinion, for the same money you might consider doubling your RAM, and make your HDD a 160 SSD. Large primary drives are bad things - you do not want to ever store media, especially working data, on your system drive, and should be using dual externals (which make backups a lot easier) and will keep your system more uncluttered, easier to backup system, faster response times, and easier to rebuild in case of problems. Just a thought.