To a filmmaker, what matters most? Is it the camera, the monitor, the gear? What matters most is the final image: what the audience sees. The last thing your audience sees is the story you worked so hard to craft, and that story passes through your monitor first. Let’s dive deep into an easily overlooked technology that makes all the difference on set: panel technology.
SmallHD has led the way with professional OLED monitors like the OLED 22 and OLED 27, trusted on sets and in post houses worldwide. Now, with the Quantum 32 and the new Quantum 27, we’ve entered a new generation of display technology.
The new Quantum monitors are the result of a partnership between SmallHD and Samsung Display. Samsung has pioneered Quantum Dot OLED, utilizing Nobel Prize-winning nanotechnology to achieve unparalleled color and dynamic range.
This is a great opportunity to highlight how standard OLED compares to Quantum Dot OLED.
Now let’s dive deeper.
TL;DR
Both OLED and QD-OLED share some key strengths:
- Perfect black levels for incredible depth and contrast
- Excellent viewing angles for group monitoring on set
- Superior uniformity with no distracting brightness or color inconsistencies
Image Quality
Color accuracy cannot be overstated in the topic of panels; it’s crucial for creative and technical consistency, it’s about knowing your vision is being faithfully communicated to your audience.
Both standard OLED and Quantum Dot OLED offer perfect black levels and amazing image depth. The blacks of your image are truly black and help the other colors pop, there is depth in the shadows, so that details in the darkness are not missed. This produces a more realistic image and helps filmmakers with judging exposure and contrast.
Standard OLED has less saturated colors and limited color volume at peak brightness. The image is still accurate, but colors are less vibrant and the overall image is less dynamic than the QD-OLED. QD-OLED has a much wider color gamut (over 80% Rec.2020). This results in more saturated colors at higher brightness levels, which is useful for HDR and wide gamut workflows. This makes the QD-OLED more effective for viewing on set and in post.
When it comes to brightness, the standard OLEDs typically have a lower peak brightness than QD-OLEDs. QD-OLEDs have higher perceived and actual brightness, which is typically needed for brighter environments or HDR workflows.
Panel Features
Panel uniformity refers to how consistently a display screen shows the same color and brightness across its entire surface. A uniform display will show a solid, even color without any variations in brightness or hue from edge to edge. Poor uniformity can result in noticeable differences in color and brightness, affecting image quality and accuracy.
Both OLED and Quantum Dot OLED deliver excellent panel uniformity; however, QD-OLED provides superior uniformity due to unavoidable variations in the traditional inkjet manufacturing process. The key distinction with Quantum Dot OLED lies in its more efficient color conversion, which enables better energy performance, improved color fidelity, and higher peak output.
Burn-in risk is an important consideration; traditional OLED panels have a higher likelihood of image retention and burn-in over time, particularly when displaying static UI elements such as waveforms or overlays. QD-OLED panels are still susceptible but offer improved resistance due to their panel architecture. Additionally, SmallHD’s PageOS includes a built-in burn-in recovery maintenance feature, providing users with tools to help minimize and manage potential image retention issues.
Viewing angle is also important for this type of monitor, OLEDs are usually used to help see final grading and many eyes may want to see the image at the same time. Both technologies offer excellent viewing angles, with standard OLED some color shifts may appear at extreme angles under bright ambient lights. With the newer Quantum Dot OLED technology the quantum dots maintain color and contrast consistency even at extreme angles, it’s ideal for multi-person monitor viewing.
HDR Performance
Both QD-OLED and OLED technology are great for HDR imaging and reproduction. But there are some minor differences between how the technologies handle HDR. For QD-OLED when a 10-bit PQ patch reaches 100nits with the monitor set to 1000nit PQ color pipeline, and the image area exceeds roughly 20% of the screen, it automatic limits the brightness (ABL), which slightly compresses the tone curve to preserve overall contrast. But in trade off, you’re getting overall brighter output and richer color saturation. However with OLED panel technology, because it doesn’t get as bright, it does not need to dim itself.
Let’s Wrap
Quantum Dot OLED is a newer technology so with less time in the industry it’s less proven in long-term use and field durability, though early impressions are promising. This technology is typically more expensive due to newer manufacturing processes and higher performance metrics, but the juice is worth the squeeze given how these slight differences will make a large impact on your overall workflow when color grading and viewing.