Flanders Scientific is notable for being one of the few monitor companies targeted purely at color accurate monitors for film and television professionals. Panasonic, Dolby, Sony, and Canon make monitors that show up on set and in color suites, but they each do something else.
Flanders Scientific is devoted to color accurate monitoring. That's the company's focus, and the company is beloved by many colorists and DPs for providing consistent color reproduction, staying at the bleeding edge of technology. Thus, this month's upgrades, which include three new monitors and a fascinating price change, are particularly exciting.
The flagship upgrade is the new XM311K, which at $55,000, competes against top-of-the-line Sony and Dolby models and will be the new flagship for Flanders. A true 4096 DCI 4K panel, it qualifies as a DolbyVision monitor, which is a rare feature in a world where we are all used to reading the phrase "doesn't include DolbyVision" when evaluating HDR gear.
With a peak luminance of 1,000cd/m2, it's ready for PQ and HLG HDR. Most groundbreaking of all, it's built around a new light modulating LED technology that should allow the monitor to deliver the rich blacks of organic LED (OLED), without the burn-in worries that those monitors have. In addition, it appears to cover the full P3 color space within the monitor.
Of course, $55,000 is out of the budget for the vast majority of us, and Flanders has always been good about offering panels at a wide variety of price points, though they have never really made a big splash in the "big client review monitor" space. They are moving into that arena with the new 55" and 65" OLED monitors, the XM551U and XM651U.
The monitors come in the same sizes as the popular LG OLED monitors (and presumably are built around identical panels) but as always, it's not just the panel but the processing that surrounds it that makes for an amazing experience. With Flanders, you are getting not only Flanders color science and calibration, you are getting SDI inputs, internal LUT processing for both the panel and for the outputs, on panel scopes, and more.
Of course, you end up paying more than $10,000 for the Flanders in order to get those benefits, but for the professional facility, it's well worth having.
Especially interesting is that Flanders is promoting this monitor for its on set use, something we have to second. We recently did our first shoot with a 50" monitor on set (an older Panasonic Pro Plasma with SDI, but still...) and it was really wonderful.
It allows you to evaluate your own set work in a whole new way, and these OLED monitors, which weigh much less than the Plasma, finally make that a realistic option for small to mid-sized productions.
It's rare that you ever see a price raise from $10,000 to $25,000. However, that's just what happened with the previous flagship Flanders montior, the DM250. It was originally the top of the Flanders line, and it is exceptionally popular with on set DITs and in smaller color suites.
Originally priced under $10,000, Flanders has raised the price to $25,000. There has been a lot of discussion and some very smart theories (on this Reddit thread) that point to Flanders' desire to keep the panel officially "in-stock" even though there is low supply as a favor to its current owners.
If you rent a DM250, you make more renting it if it's a "current" item than if it's discontinued. Rather than discontinuing it and hurting its users, Flanders is keeping it as an "active" item in its inventory, but raising the price high enough to keep it in stock, since the company can no longer source the necessary panels. Very considerate.
On top of that, the company is offering a trade-in of up to 75% for current DM250 owners who want to go XM55 or 65, and offering lower end OLED owners the ability to upgrade. As discussed above, it's not just the panel but also the processing that surrounds it, and Flanders is now allowing owners of the AM250 and CM250 OLED monitors to upgrade those panels with the DM250 processing for $4,000.
While the price jump is a shock, once it's understood and viewed as a way to work with and help existing customers, it makes more sense.
Check out the Flanders Site for more information.
Tech Specs (XM311K)
- 4096x2160 resolution
- 31" diagonal
- 10bit display
- 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio
- 1,000cd/m2 max luminance
- 4x 12G/6G/3G/HD-SDI inputs
- 4x 12G/6G/3G/HD-SDI outputs, clean or processed
Tech Specs (XM 65 and 55)
- 3840x2160 resolution
- 55 or 65" diagonal
- 10bit
- 900cd/m2 peak luminance
- 4x 12G/6G/3G/HD-SDI inputs
- 4x 12G/6G/3G/HD-SDI outputs, clean or processed
- 150,000:1 contrast ratio
- 51lbs (55" model)
