What’s the point of the Pro Display XDR?

When Apple released the Pro XDR Display, no one knew why. For consumers, it was outrageously expensive, even just for the stand. For pros, it had a 6016 x 3384 resolution, a format that doesn’t even exist. It uses mini-LED, a technology that could create blooming around high contrast highlights in some situations. And worst of all, Apple compared it to Sony’s £32,000 BVM-HX310 HDR grading monitor, enraging the pro colourists who owned one. What were they thinking?

But the point wasn’t that it was the same as the Sony. The point was that UHD reference monitors that can do HDR are very, very expensive. So perhaps this 6K resolution monitor isn’t as overpriced as it seems, in fact it might just be good value. It’s just not built for consumers. So who is it built for?

The Holy Grail

For the last thousand years or so, post production has meant one monitor to work on, another SDI reference monitor to show you what’s really going on, and third one to show the clients what it might look like at home, while someone attractive brings them beer. Wouldn’t it be nice if the monitor you were actually working on showed you the film with the right colours? What if you could edit an HDR project, and see it in HDR, not just on your reference monitor, but above your timeline? Imagine grading in DaVinci Resolve, and having the viewer show you exactly how the film will look on YouTube on an iPhone 12, or on a ten year old Dell laptop, or on TV. What if you didn’t need a separate reference monitor at all?

Colourists will complain that their monitor does a better job of showing Rec.709. But the simple fact is, Rec.709 is not the best choice for grading most content. PCs generally use sRGB, while Apple screens aim for the P3 Cinema colour gamut. Increasingly they can play HDR, and most of them in future will be Mini-LED. So what you really want is a working monitor that can show how your content is going to look on an iPhone. For good measure, it can be switched to Rec.709 too, or sRGB, or cinema P3 while you edit the next summer blockbuster, or 4K HDR for your Amazon Prime series. Finally what you see is what you get, allowing you to preview final looks and make critical decisions on your working monitor.

And then there’s that 6K resolution. Why would you want a reference monitor that uses a resolution that ‘doesn’t exist’? In the screen grab below, the viewer is showing 4K UHD at 100%. within that 6K screen. The editor is seeing every pixel, with no scaling, and there’s still plenty of room around it for tools and the timeline.

Better still, DaVinci Resolve can finally be set up (if you know how) so the preview window within the app is showing accurate levels, which look the same in FCPX, and the same on YouTube or Vimeo. No more SDI breakout box, no more second monitor, no more wondering how your footage is going to look online. This is huge.

So this is really the point of the Pro XDR. It may not be the holy grail, as the current generation of technology isn’t perfect. But it is trying to be, and it can change the way we work. Soon, all Apple devices will use the same mini-LED technology, making it the only accurate reference monitor for Apple devices.

It may not be exactly the same as that £32k reference monitor, but if you’re making content, or even cutting a feature, it might just be more useful.

For more details, check out regular 3D and compositing collaborator Nicholas Lekai’s review, here.