best monitor for video editing 2020

It doesn't matter if you're buying a monitor for gaming or video editing; understanding their key specifications is an incredibly important step in choosing the right monitor for you. Understanding these areas will ensure that your next purchase is the right one for your specific needs.

With that being said, we have outlined all the different key specifications of a monitor below, so that you can make a more informed decision on your next purchase.

Let's get straight into it.

Panel Type

One of the first things you should learn about a monitor is the panel type. Primarily, there are three main panel types:

TN Panel (Twisted nematic)
IPS Panel (In-plane switching)
VA Panel (Vertical Alignment)

As you can probably imagine, each of the panel types comes equipped with their own pros and cons. These pros make certain panel types ideal for video editing, but not great for gaming. To help understand the differences between the panel types we've created the following table:

As you can see, the IPS panel is a clear winner when it comes to video/photo editing requirements. Doing creative work requires a crystal clear picture with high color accuracy. That's exactly what you get with an IPS panel.

Having solid viewing angles is probably more important than you first think. A high-tier IPS panel will have at least 178° viewing angles both vertically and horizontally. That means no matter where you're looking at the monitor from, your image will not be obscured by a washed-out color/contrast ratio.

The color accuracy in an IPS panel is fantastic. High-end monitors get the highest possible color accuracy which helps the user create a more realistic image. They do cost a little more than other panel types, but it's definitely worth the investment when you consider this (editing) is how you make your money.

Color Accuracy

So, we've already touched upon color accuracy in the above section. But what exactly is color accuracy, and how does one differentiate between the good and bad.

Well, color accuracy comes down to a couple of factors, but first, let's discuss the gamut.

The color gamut is the full range of colors visible to the human eye. You can measure how much of the color gamut your monitor can display by using preset ranges. There are a number of different ranges (or ratings) that can be used to measure your monitor's color accuracy and they are listed below.

Colour gamut

As you can see from the image above, different ratings have either higher or lower color coverage than others. For example, the DCI-P3 clearly has more coverage than sRGB. That means a monitor that can create a large percentage of the DCI-P3 is going to have better color accuracy then something that has the same percentage in sRGB.

A lot of premium tier monitors will be equipped with a wider color gamut, and this will certainly affect its price tag.

Color Bit Depth

The two main bit depths we see in most of today's monitor is 8bit and 10bit.

The bit depth refers to the number of bits per channel. An 8bit monitor will have 256 color steps per channel. This is ultimately what makes up the 16.7 million color range that we see most brands shouting about. On the other hand, a 10bit color depth supports 10bits per channel. That translates to 1024 color steps per channel, or a 1 billion color range.

In the simplest terms, this makes 10bit color depth much more appealing than 8bit – but there is one downside. Your PC's hardware must be able to support this level of color depth or you won't reap the rewards of this premium feature in your monitor.

Having a high-end graphics card that supports 10bit color depth is essential. If it doesn't, you're simply wasting your money on this feature.

Furthermore, you must be working in software that supports 10bit color depth as well. Simply working on a JPG or MP4 movie will mean your work is being saved in an 8bit color format. However, using software like RED 10bit and EXR Sequences will allow you to utilize this feature in its fullest.

Monitor Size & Resolution

Monitor size and resolution are probably more important than you would think when it comes to a video editing monitor.

Your monitor's size is usually measured in inches from one corner to the other, diagonally. To get a full understanding of the size of your monitor, you must then take the aspect ratio into consideration as well.

Two monitors with the same size – let's use 27″ as an example – could be completely different sizes if the aspect ratio is different. The most popular sizes for creators is 24-27″ with an aspect ratio of 16:9 as this gives a more cinematic look, and actually fits our eye's field of vision more naturally.

A monitor's screen resolution is completely different from its size. The resolution refers to how many physical pixels a monitor can display. The most commonly used resolutions for native monitors are below:

1080p
1440p
2160p
4k
8k

A 1080p monitor is restricted to the number of pixels it can display over a 4k monitor because it simply doesn't have the available pixels to do so. This means the 1080p monitor's picture is far less crisp than a higher resolution display.

If you're looking for picture quality and clarity, higher resolution is always better.

Contrast Ratio

Contrast ratio is something brands have been manipulating for a long time. It's a technique used across the board these days and is a way of almost tricking you into thinking the monitor's contrast ratio is actually good.

Let me explain, there are two ways in which a monitor is measured when it comes to contrast ratio. You have a dynamic contrast ratio and static contrast ratio. These, however, are two very different beasts.

A dynamic contrast ratio is something that refers to the distance between the darkest point and the lightest point across different brightness settings.

Since a user will rarely change the monitor's brightness settings, this is a figure that can be disregarded if truth be told. What we as a buyer want to know is what the static contrast ratio is.

Look through the monitor's specs before purchasing and always look for a high Static contrast ratio. We recommend an IPS panel to have a minimum of 500:1 static contrast ratio. But we'd advise aiming for 1000:1 for the best possible visual recreation.

Brightness

Even if you're new to computers and editing, you should still know what brightness is. However, what some people might not understand is how your monitor's brightness is measured.

Brightness is usually measured in cd/m². The higher the cd/m² the brighter the monitor will be. Easy, right?

One thing I will say about brightness, however, is that sometimes you can go too bright. If you work in a room that doesn't require an extremely bright monitor, simply don't get one. We recommend a monitor around the 300cd/m² mark, but they do go brighter.

Monitor Refresh Rate

A monitors refresh rate refers to how fast a monitor can refresh the image that is currently being displayed. This is a specification gamers should be concerning themselves with as "motion blur" can occur in high-fps gaming.

The refresh rate is measured in Hz, with most modern monitors coming equipped with nothing less than 60Hz. High-end gaming monitors will come with 144Hz – 240Hz, but as designers, we don't really need to worry about this too much.

Summarize

So, to summarize; We've gone over some of the more important key aspects of a monitor. What can we take away if you're looking to get a monitor that'll be great for video editing?

Well, below is a checklist of areas that you should try to tick off when purchasing a new display for editing:

IPS Panel, Wide color gamut – DCI-P3 98% or above, 8bit or 10bit (depends on your PC's specifications), 27″ display with 16:9 aspect ratio, a contrast ratio of 1000:1, 350cd/m brightness, refresh rate should only be considered when gaming.

This is the basis for any great video editing monitor. Having said that, you might not always find a monitor with all these specs, and you certainly might not find one within your price range.

Anyway, now we have the specifications out of the way, let's jump into what we consider to be the best monitors for video editing.