You can use any IPS based calibrated monitor, prefarably with hood (look at ones made by Cinematics)

If you want to be extremely cheap you can use calibration sensor and any good LG TV (all of them have 10 point calibration, and most use 10bit IPS panels).

If you want to professionally make color correction you need really good monitor. May be second hand.

But good IPS monitors are not very hard to get in USA.

I guess I want to know this: if you have someone who knows how to color correct almost up to professional levels, what difference is there between what he/she can do with a broadcast quality monitor versus a less than broadcast monitor? (What do you get by having a broadcast monitor versus a less than broadcast monitor?)

I've worked in high end post houses and in small closets. When I do low budget projects, obviously you can't go out and splurge for an NEC or EIZO for one project. For my last film, I rented one and calibrated it, then switched to my LCD HDTV monitor and calibrated it. I matched them best as I could and remembered the offset values. The most important thing is to have a solid reference to compare your monitor settings to so you know if it leans towards blue or green, to compensate.

I used the Matrox MXO which works great but is expensive. The setup of the Matrox is pretty much the same process as you would use setting up an HDTV with one of those $50.00 setup DVD's. For a cheap setup, find any THX DVD movie and they provide a setup video in the main menu. That will get you close enough for proofing a rendered movie on DVD/Bluray. Many of my students (who have no money) color correct on their computers calibrated with Spyder Pro and then burn DVD's to watch on calibrated HDTV monitors. Not ideal, but you do what you have to do. Besides, some festivals just screen DVD's.

If you get into a festival, you can always go to the theater a few days beforehand and project a few minutes of your film. I always do this if I can because, for all the time worrying about getting things just right, you will find that not all theaters and projectors are set up precisely. You take notes, go back home and do a final adjustment. Hope this helps-

All I can say is, the Dell U2311h is fantastic.

Have you ever tried to calibrate two cheap monitors of different model to really match? Its not big fun, depending on type you also run into banding problems. The more expensive models can load the LUT in hardware, so banding is less a problem.

@qwerty123 Can you say specifically which Matrox and which HDTV? Why not a Matrox with an IPS computer monitor? And what's the downside of either approach? That as your monitor ages, you might be off somewhat (and will have to rent again)?

I use the original Matrox MXO with DVI interface. I did use a rented IPS monitor as I said. I was contemplating buying the HP LP2475w but I just didn't want to lay out the cash and it had some edge performace issues. I teach at a university, so I can hop over to the Barco and check it out there. The monitor I used was just a 32" Samsung PAVV. There is no downside to an IPS, that's what the MXO was built for, so that you could use an affordable IPS and get a SDI or DVI output for color correction. All monitors age, all monitors have different color characteristics. In the post houses where I timed my negative back in NY, Sony's were blue, Ikegami's were green, Shibasoku's were...you get my point. It's never going to look exactly the way it looked in the 500.00 an hour room.

The point is, in a non-professional ($) setup you must compensate on some level which requires extra work. You're in a good spot here, there's a huge range of working people with different ideas.