Yesterday I met with Marshall Electronics, manufacturer of production monitors. The company was showing off its 23in. V-R231P-AFHD, a 1920×1080 native LCD that sells for only $5,999. Thom Belford, VP of marketing and engineering (when was the last time you saw that combination?), told me that the monitor was able to produce 98 percent of the SMPTE chart, making it close to a reference monitor in quality. Belford said that Marshall was looking at LED backlighting as a way to cover even more of the chart, but at this point hasn’t yet developed the necessary servo system that would respond to saturation feedback and modulate the LEDs. This is a challenge that’s specific to moving pictures, he said—still images already can be displayed just fine in a LED backlighting situation.

Over at the Panasonic booth today, Steve Golub showed off the BT-LH2600W, a 26in. widescreen LCD production monitor with a 1366×768 resolution and a relatively low price tag under $5,000. It’s got a ton of features to make the guys in OB trucks and post facilities happy. Audio level meters can be superimposed across the top of the screen. The BT-LH2600W has two auto-switching SDI/HD-SDI inputs. Its waveform monitor graphically displays luminance levels from -5 to 108 IRE in any of the monitor‘s four corners. There’s a split screen/freeze frame function for scene comparison and critical color matching. A safe-area frame marker is selectable in both 16:9 and 4:3 modes. Check out the press release for more info.

And I couldn’t resist taking a look at Panasonic’s 103in. plasma monitor (pictured), which it’s claiming to be the world’s biggest. It will get its official debut at InfoComm in June. MSRP: If you have to ask.