OSEE 15.6 inch 10 Bit for 650.00. 1st Impressions.

Bkn Soc of Cinematography · June 18, 2015

So this being a site that hails great new tech that indies and owner operators can afford, I thought I'd give my first impressions of a 15.6" field monitor I recently picked up. It's made by OSEE, a company I never heard until they recently released a 1080p, 15.6" 10 bit field monitor for 650.00 called the LM 156. Let that sink in for moment. Usually specs like this start at three grand or more. I also liked the size. 15.6" inches is like the difference between the 17" Macbook Pro and a 15". For my uses, doc, indies, run and gun and having to hop on a plane with little warning or assistants to lug my gear, the smaller size at 8 lbs definitely felt like it could fill a need for my style of shooting. And it can in a self contained, metal shipping case that doubles as a stand. Specs, size and convenience, I bought on faith.

Anyway, I got a chance to test it on an indie I'm shooting in NYC called "Dick and Jack". So far so good. The color calibration is absolutely neutral with no shift. Easily beats my old Panny BTH 1700 and is on par with a Flanders 24" 1080p I used to own. Gone is the 8 bit banding. The other great thing is I can install LUTs. Will be trying that tomorrow. Anyway, not sure how it'll stand the test of time, but the overall build is quite pro. It's menu driven but my DIT had no issues navigating. The only problem we had was it wouldn't take the loop through from an F&V 4.3" hdmi to sdi. But it did take it from an A7s HDMI to F&V 4.3" HDMI out to HDMI to Paralynx transmitter to Paralynx receiver. I'm suspecting the signal from the F&V just isn't strong enough while the Paralinx receiver with its independent power must boost the signal. More testing is necessary.

Also, regarding power, it'll take AB, V mount or AC power, but I ended up using 5000mah Lipos, without a hitch. One would last over six hours. Not bad.

In all, the colors our honest and no green or magenta bias I've found with some other leading brands. It's as neutral as FSI monitors. Anyway, we'll be taking it through some serious use in the next two weeks, so I'm sure I'll more to report. In the meantime, I'm still in awe that the threshold to 10 bit field monitors is now in grasp for folks like me.

I'm not on OSEE's payroll or anything, but I was able to reach a real person who went out of his way to get me a model (even though they were way backordered) before my indie feature started. It's good to know there are electronic companies run by people with first and last names. I wasn't expecting any kind of customer service at 650.00, so this review is my gratitude.