By Brady Betzel

When asked my opinion on monitors, there are two that I consistently recommend that balance performance and cost — Dell’s brand monitors and Asus’ ProArt. They always look the best to me and consistently hold up over time.

Earlier this year, Asus reinvigorated the ProArt fanboys (including myself) when it released the latest ProArt 32-inch 4K HDR display (PA32UC). Over the last year, Asus has been promoting a ProArt line of production that includes the ProArt Station D940MX workstation, the ProArt StudioBook Pro X, the ProArt Z490-Creator 10G motherboard and more. Check out all of the ProArt products here.

The ProArt PA32UC is a beautiful monitor, but it carries a price tag of $1,500. However, if you are looking for a 4K, 10-bit, color-accurate HDR reference monitor with the ability to calibrate, and you can’t afford the Canon DP-V3120 or the Sony BVM-X300, which are both over $30,000, then the PA32UC is a nice alternative. But keep in mind, any reference monitor under $3,000 will have a compromise of some sort. Even if it covers 100% of Rec. 709, it’s most likely lacking in other areas. It’s almost like the HD-to-4K fiasco 10 years ago — are more pixels better? Not in my opinion. I would much rather have an HD television with more accurate and higher-quality color than a 4K television with terrible color and haloing. But I’ll stop arguing with myself as if I were posting in the LiftGammaGain.com forums. I’ll just say that anyone who understands the differences between the Sony X300s and the ProArt displays will tell you that you absolutely can’t interchange these, and that they don’t even live on the same planet.

It’s up to you which HDR reference monitor you use. Netflix recently revoked the mandate that you must use certain monitors when color grading HDR content for them. They still recommend using certain displays, but they simply require those displays to have the following specs: P3-D65, 1,000 nits of peak brightness, PQ/ST.2084 and more. Obviously, if you deliver it incorrectly, you are responsible, so if you have the money or support, you should probably rent the higher-end monitors when doing color-critical projects. On top of being a good external reference display, it is a really nice GUI monitor for apps like Resolve, Avid Media Composer, Adobe’s Premiere Pro and After Effects, and pretty much any other editing or visual effects applications you use.

Out of the Box
Without looking at the tech specs, I immediately plugged in the PA32UC using Thunderbolt 3 to an iMac Pro, and it immediately recognized and worked flawlessly. However, I really wanted to see how well it performed as a reference monitor for color correction and typical video editing. I connected the ProArt by HDMI via an Avid Artist DNxIQ I/O that was hooked up via Thunderbolt 3 (essentially a Blackmagic UltraStudio 4K Extreme).

Using Thunderbolt 3 to hook up monitors is the way to go, but if you are using the monitor as a reference display, you will likely need to use HDMI or SDI to HDMI. I hooked everything up, launched Resolve 16, jumped into the Project Settings > Master Settings > Video Monitoring to enable HDR metadata over HDMI, and immediately the ProArt switched into HDR mode. I won’t cover setting up a proper HDR project in Resolve, but you need to do this properly, or it won’t look correct on the reference display.

If you want to take this monitor to the next level by calibrating it properly, and you don’t have a $6,900 SpectraCal colorimeter, you can purchase a more affordable version in the X-Rite i1Display Pro for under $300.

The menus on the Asus ProArt 32-inch are a little confusing at first. The different color spaces are under the heading “Splendid.” Under “Splendid” you can use the joystick controller on the back of the monitor to toggle between Standard, sRGB, Adobe RGB, Rec. 2020, DCI-P3, HDR, User Mode 1 and User Mode 2. The joystick control on the monitor is interesting, and it might take you a few tries to really get comfortable with it. I was a bit worried it would get broken off when mounting the monitor. But I digress. Under the “Splendid” menu option you will find other fine-tuning controls like brightness, contrast and more. There is a Blue Light limiter you can enable, aspect ratio adjustment (including Overscan and 1:1), shortcut menus and picture-in-picture controls.

Technically, the PA32UC supports HDR modes, including HDR-10 and HLG, but not Dolby Vision. It is a TFT LCD panel with 384 local dimming zones. For comparison, the Apple Pro XDR display has 576 local dimming zones but costs between $5,000 and $6,000. Essentially, the dimming zones help with making the black output pure black by turning out the lights on black portions of the screen. Besides having 95% DCI-P3, 99.5% Adobe RGB, 100% sRGB and 85% Rec. 2020 coverage, this 10-bit panel is also a great-looking monitor.

While the ProArt display is Thunderbolt 3-compatible with one USB-C in, one USB-C out and one USB-C for the monitor connection, it also has four HDMI (v2.0b) ports, a DisplayPort 1.2, one USB-B to use as a USB hub, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, a 3.5mm Mini Jack and one optical connection for audio. There are also two 3W stereo speakers, which are good for a quick backup if your monitors go out, but typically I keep them muted. The four HDMI ports are interesting because one special feature of the ProArt PA32UC is the ability to create a split screen of up to four inputs at once. It is an interesting idea and seems to be more applicable on the ultra-wide monitors. However, it is a quick way to see multiple inputs simultaneously.

What’s Missing?
Dolby Vision, higher HDR brightness levels (more nits) and 100% color space coverage for DCI-P3 and Rec. 2020. But for the price, those shortcomings make sense. To get to those higher-percentage coverage areas, you would need to take a look at the ProArt PA32UCX-PK, which retails for $4,500. But with the ProArt PA32UCX-PK display, you not only get Dolby Vision and higher color-space coverage, but you get an X-right calibrator included. So is the PA32UC an acceptable reference monitor? Yes and no. Yes, if you aren’t tied to 100% color-critical displays for your output. Possibly, if you’re working on independent or documentary films that need HDR color corrections, wedding videos or online HDR content. Probably not if you have to deliver to a big network like Netflix. With its peak brightness hitting the 1,000-nit mark and its sustained brightness around 600 nits, the ProArt 32UC is a color-calibrated, capable display — packed full of HDR-compatible features for a reasonable price.

Final Thoughts
In the end, the Asus ProArt PA32UC is full of great features. The physical appearance of this 32-inch HDR monitor is just as impressive. The warranty is also comprehensive for the ProArt series of monitors. It includes three years on the casing and the panel as well as a Zero Bright Dot policy (aka ZBD). Under the ZBD policy, you are covered from any full-sized bright dead pixels and five or more dark dot pixels.

One interesting note is that micro-dots (less than or equal to half a dot — 50μmφ) are not covered. This ZBD policy only covers the ProArt line.

Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on shows like Life Below Zero and The Shop. He is also a member of the Producers Guild of America. You can email Brady at bradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @allbetzroff.