Calibration

[Robino_J]

I get my Pioneer Kuro 151 calibrated by a great technician that also happens to calibrate the equipment at SkyWalker and studios around town. PM me if you would like contact info. Located in L.A and he also do tours.

They sell VT50 at Best Buy btw, I think Rob is just a little too excited..

[Danai Chutinaton]

Display calibration and profiling/LUT generation a two different steps. Calibration is getting your monitor to look as close to the standard you want by adjusting the physical color controls on the monitor. Its like tuning your car. You take your car back to Ford/Honda etc...and they tune the engine back to factory specs. In our world that would be equivalent to sRGB for computers and REC709 for video.

The display profile or LUT is created from the calibrated monitor. The colorimeter/spectrophotmeter measures the calibrated monitor's color response and creates a profile or LUT that tells the computer/color processor how to change the colors sent to the monitor for the best results.

ICC Profiles are used in the Mac/PC computer environment and LUT's are used in video processors such as the Black Magic HDLink. So on a Mac or PC the ICC profile will reside in the operating system. The operating system will then use the information in the profile to modify the output of the video card to get the best results on your monitor. The better monitors such as the high end Eizo, and NEC Spectraview computer monitors have a video processor built in to the monitor and thus the ICC profiles are loaded into the monitor. This will allow you to use your calibrated Eizo or NEC monitor in its calibrated and profiled state connected to any computer. So that is why it works well for the above poster with the Eizo monitor that has SDI inputs. I own an NEC SpectraView but I don't see a way to copy the calibrated and profiled state from one input to another. And it doesn't have an SDI input and for some reason I can't get the HDMI out from my Black Magic UltraStudio SDI to work with the NEC's DVI input (via adapter).

So, to ONLY calibrate a Plasma/LCD/LED TV or even a computer monitor that gives you color controls, you would use software such as SpectraCal's Calman along with a colorimeter/spectrophotometer such as an Xrite i1Display Pro or Xrite Hubble. To create an LUT you would need something more expensive such as LightSpace CMS from Light Illusion. For your Mac/PC monitor, you would use the software that came with your i1 or Spyder etc... To calibrate your Eizo or NEC SpectraView models that have an internal color processor you would use the software provided by the monitor which allows the profile to be loaded into your monitor.

Hope this helps a bit.

[Mike Halper]

Danai, that helps and explains a lot. Thanks! So the key would be to use LUTs. Right now I'm using a BMD Intensity Extreme for Resolve monitoring, and that doesn't have LUT capability. I can create a profile using the i1 Display, but those are ICC files. How do I convert ICC files to usable LUTs in Resolve?

[Danai Chutinaton]

I don't know if there is a solution convert ICC profiles to LUTs. Light Illusion only seems to go from LUT to ICC. I still have very little practical experience about color management in the video world because my color management background is from the still photography and fine art printing area.

However my research has led me to two conclusions. 1) Get a good consumer plasma TV such as this year's Panasonic GT50 or VT50 series which has good color controls and calibrates very well with CalMan to the REC709 standard. 2) Get a good plasma or even better yet get a professional grading monitor and use Light Illusion's LightSpace CMS. This will give u a calibrated display with 3d LUT that I believe you can use directly with Resolve without having to use an external color processor such as a black magic HDLink.

I'm going with number 1 for now as I already have the i1 Display Pro (i'm the importer/distributor of Xrite's photo line in my country). I've heard that best results will come from using a non contact probe such as the xrite hubble with plasma displays. But i will try it with what i have available, the i1 Display Pro for now.

I'm running resolve windows with blackmagic ultrastudio sdi. Awaiting delivery of my panasonic 42" GT50 plasma screen. The vt50 is said to have even better black levels. The GT50 series tested as well as last year's VT30 series and is available as a 42" size. I don't need or have space for a 50" which is the smallest available size for the VT50 series.

[Mike Halper]

I have a high quality plasma (Pioneer Elite PRO150FD Kuro) and the i1Display2. So Calman will create a 3D LUT that can be used with Resolve?

I did just come across DispCalGUI (it's a free download), which create 3DLUTs, but only Autodesk Lustre/Kodak Look Manager System (.3dl file) and IRIDAS (.cube file). Will Resolve work with those 3D LUTs?

EDIT: CalMan isn't an option at all since it's Windows only and I have a Mac. I think Lightspace CMS is Windows only as well, but I can't tell because these companies don't say anything on their websites about system requirements.

[Danai Chutinaton]

Yeah both are windows only programs. But both are not required to be running while you are using resolve, only to use the colorimeter when measuring the monitor.

No, CalMan won't generate a LUT for you unless you buy the "Pro" version that supports that feature. And by the time you spend that amount you should just get Lightspace CMS. CalMan is my poor man's solution. The proper way is an XRite Hubble probe with LightSpace CMS. This will give you a 3D LUT.

I'm not familiar with DispCalGUI. Will have to check it out.

[Danai Chutinaton]

Did a quick search and looks like Resolve will work with .cube files. Will have to test DispCalGUI out. Looks promising.

[Mike Lary]

EDIT: CalMan isn't an option at all since it's Windows only and I have a Mac. I think Lightspace CMS is Windows only as well, but I can't tell because these companies don't say anything on their websites about system requirements.

If you're in the market for a LUT-building app you might look at THX's cineSpace HD, which is a new and cheaper version of the cineSpace suite (it doesn't have film LUT features). It runs on Mac and Win.

[Danai Chutinaton]

Mike, I couldn't find a price for THX's cineSpace HD. Do you know approximately how much it costs?

[Mike Halper]

I couldn't find pricing for the THX CineSpace either.

I'm going to try creating the .cube LUT and loading it in Resolve right now.