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February 2010

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I 've had the chance to sit with HP's LP3065 monitor for a little while now to really get under its hood and kick it around a bit with real production work. The LP3065 is a liberally large 30-inch LCD dis- play with a native resolution of 2560x1600 using a dual-link DVI output. The screen space on this beauty is fantas- tic. I can really spread my windows around and not feel claustrophobic like I would on a single 24-inch screen (I'm such a princess). This is the most striking and impressive fea- ture of this unit for sure. And as it sits on my desk at the studio, it's made quite an impres- sion on folks here. Running on an HP Z800 workstation with an Nvidia Quadro FX board, I've put the screen through some serious paces. I'm no slouch when it comes to abusing my hardware. I usually run at least one instance of Maya 64-bit, Photoshop CS3 and a Nuke instance or two. There's a minimum of one Firefox and an Outlook, and several Win- dows Explorer windows open all at once as well. So I take my screen space for the pre- mium it is, and no resolution is too big for me. Having the elbow room is wor thwhile and presents an easier workflow. T H E D E TA I L S The ergonomics are great.The LP3065 is built on a strong base that keeps the entire platform steady, allowing for a five-inch height adjustment. It has a generous amount of movement options with a wide range of side-to-side rotation — from -45 degrees to +45 degrees — and a very im- pressive ver tical tilting, from -5 degrees to +30 degrees. You can't orient the screen in por trait mode, though I don't find that to be an issue. The standard VESA mount will allow even more of your own mounting options from there, but I found the base to be very notable. Alongside the left edge of the LP3065 is a four-por t USB hub, but no card reader. Not a deal breaker by any means, but card readers are a nice touch on other branded screens. What is a killer feature on the HP, however, is that it sports three dual-link DVI inputs.That in and of itself is pure gold. If you have multiple systems to run on a single 30- inch panel, finding an affordable and capable dual-link KVM switch is near impossible, so having multiple input options is sheer jazz- hands fantastic. It would have been great to see different connection options, such as HDMI or component, but in my studio, I only need dual-link DVI for my two worksta- tions. No time for watching DVDs here! The LCD panel itself is ver y similar to Dell's 3007 screen. Using them side by side shows just how brilliant each screen is. The 1000:1 contrast ratio is great for a monitor a couple of feet from your face, and its 24-bit color is perfect for pretty much ever ything short of color mastering . For that you'll defi- nitely want the HP DreamColor display with a richer, deeper color range or a crazy ex- pensive broadcast monitor. Using PassMark's Monitor Test, I found the LP3065 displayed very rich colors with a slightly more noticeable color banding in the green scale test. Its font display was impres- sive with clear readability down to Arial 7 point, with slight bit of smudging at 6 point and below. Its greyscale display is solid with good transition between gamma scales, and the blacks look about as good as any decent LCD screen. There is some noticeable brightness to the black, but the HP was even, no light leaks from any sides of the bezel. Fur thermore, there was a slight amount of LCD ghosting on faster moving high-contrast ob- jects (moving above 600 pixels/sec). But I found that to be true of most LCD screens, even of this profes- sional caliber. I managed to run both a Dell 3007 and the HP LP3065 as a dual-monitor set-up powered by the incredible Nvidia QuadroFX card in this HP Z800 worksta- tion (a separate review of this gem is com- ing). Now, with a whopping desktop space of 5120x1600, I can truly gauge the two panels side by side looking at the same exact thing, literally. As far as the LCD pan- els themselves, they are largely the same, if not exactly the same. Where these moni- tors differ is in the input and stand mobility options. But I am tickled pink by the multi- ple DVI inputs.That saves me the headache of an expensive and unreliable dual-link DVI KVM solution. That's a lot of acronyms I can live without. F I N A L T H O U G H T S When you get right down to it, the LP3065 is a crazy impressive screen.The real estate and native resolution alone are worth the price of admission and a more elegant solution than two 24-inch screens. With a typical price of $1,200 and a standard three- year warranty, the LP3065 is a good deal. You can't get a bigger screen (shor t of a lower resolution TV) and the only better color you'll get are from much more pricey, and smaller sized, 30-bit displays like the DreamColor monitor. My perfect solution would be to have the 30-inch panel for my workspace paired with a 30-bit color 24-inch screen to gauge and final my colors. By DARIUSH DERAKHSHANI VFX Supervisor/ Head of CG Radium Santa Monica dariush.derakhshani@radium.com V I T A L S T AT S R E V I E W HP's LP3065 LCD display PRODUCT: HP LP3065 LCD display WEBSITE: www.hp.com PRICE: $1,119 · impressive ergonomics · great resolution and size · three dual-link DVI inputs "The LP3065 is a crazy impressive screen." www.postmagazine.com February 2010 • Post 43 This LCD panel offers a 1000:1 contrast ratio and 24-bit color.

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