Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

SmallHD AC7 OLED - Calibration Fail

Dave, so there is officially a difference between hdmi and sdi? So we need 2 separate calibrations depending on our input?

I really do like this company. Really. BUT, the website marketing which touts the awesome color accuracy and such leaves me feeling a bit like I was suckered. Why is this info you gave us here not on the website. That would have been useful info when deciding on my $1200 purchase.

I know you guys will get it all ironed out, but please hurry!!
 
I've had my OLED-SDI for a week now and I can tell you the color out of the box is absolutely abysmal; everything is saturated and way off (skin OMG). Tried various different calibrations but never got it matching. Frustrated because If I matched a specific color it seemed to throw the others off and so on. Tried with color cards, etc to no avail.

Now, I do have to say that the main use for this monitor is mainly to pull focus and some framing, but will definitely not be used to judge exposure, etc. However, I am disappointed that the color is not even close to that of the RED 5" touch screen or viewfinder, and I mean not even close.

Looking like I'll return it.
 
I receive my Oled 7 and tried it under lowlight. It is unsuable. You caan't see any detail in dark area. I hope firmware update will make it better soon because now, it is just good for pulling focus.

Very disapointed.


Olivier
 
A month ago I requested guidance from Small HD on calibration as I was having to 'fiddle' everytime I changed shot.
This was the answer...
"If you do want it to look like an LCD you can turn up the brightness and down the contrast quite a bit"
That's not good is it?
If you are going to level yourself at the pro world, don't insult your customers with BS like that.

Phil
 
I have to semi-agree with the thrust of this thread -- while the AC7's color is far better than the DP6 was, the extremely crushed blacks do make the monitor a real problem. But I've always used on-camera monitors for focus, not color. My 17" Flanders is my go-to for color. The TV Logic small panels offer truer color, though I've found them to be unreliable in terms of physical fragility. The Flanders units are superior (but the resolution is low enough that it's hard to use them for focus). BUT... let's face it, the RED LCD panels are easily as bad as the monitors we're complaining about here. I actually often replace my 9" Touch with the AC-7 just to get color that's closer to accurate (!!!!)
 
I just wanted to ask this. Do you guys know ANY on-board monitor (under 9") that can be calibrated to REC709 specs? Maybe SmallHD has false marketing going on, but there's no on-board monitor that meets the standard specs.
 
In case anyone is interested, smallHD did offer help, and for that you can't beat them. Although I ended up returning the AC-7, here was their response:

"The AC7 is not marketed as a pro-level monitor. It does fair amount better than a lot of the OLED competition out there that are 3 times the cost of the AC7. The DP7 will be much more adjustable with the color since the board and all the software is more geared toward that. We do not suggest trying to have it match an LCD since it will not look like an LCD.

Here is a link to a good guide about using color bars for video calibration:
http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/usermanual/index.html#chapter=78%26section=9%26tasks=true
You can generate color bars onto the monitor with your HDMI compatible computer or your camera may be able to output them via HDMI.

There is no great way to get the color on your Smallhd monitor to perfectly match the LCD on your camera because all LCD panels are so different. If you want to try doing that though, we recommend pointing your camera at something pure white then use the RGB Gain and Offset controls until the SmallHD and camera LCD look similar.

NOTE: SmallHD monitors are not designed to be color perfect because to put a color perfect LCD panel in a monitor this size would drive the cost up astronomically. If you are trying to achieve perfect color accuracy you will spend a very very long time adjusting things to no avail.

Hope that helps.

SmallHD"
 
Nook Kim said:
I just wanted to ask this. Do you guys know ANY on-board monitor (under 9") that can be calibrated to REC709 specs? Maybe SmallHD has false marketing going on, but there's no on-board monitor that meets the standard specs.
Click to expand...

Nook,
Flanders, JVC (but glare panels aaaargh!!), Panasonic lh910, Marshall...are all much, much better colorwise!!!!
 
Tommaso Alvisi said:
Nook,
Flanders, JVC (but glare panels aaaargh!!), Panasonic lh910, Marshall...are all much, much better colorwise!!!!
Click to expand...

Tommaso,

I guess the SmallHD has really bad look. I thought people were asking for color accuracy on (such cheap) on-board monitor, which is very unlikely since there's not a single on-board monitor that comes even close to Rec709 luminance level.
 
Any update on these? I'm either going to be buying a TVLogic or the SmallHD OLED, and a few reports say that the new hardware/firmware increases the quality on the SHD OLED to acceptable levels.
 
Was on a shoot today with a brand new AC7 SDI. Colors may not be accurate, but it was a joy to use for pulling focus. The screen is nice and big and I really like Small HD's implementation of focus assist. All was well until about the last 2 hours of the shoot. The monitor kept powering off and rebooting itself, losing picture in the middle of takes. It was being powered via P-tap and the Epic showed plenty of voltage. I checked the cables and couldn't find any problems with them. The stage was a bit hot, but not too crazy. Needless to say I wasn't too impressed after that.

With all these calibration problems as well as my issues today, I'm very hesitant to follow through with my DP7 pre-order. I need a monitor that is accurate and reliable, neither of which seem to be the case in the current monitors and the latter caused me headache today. I really want to like these monitors and I want the DP7 to be awesome, but $2700 seems like a lot to gamble.

I wish the much cheaper Convergent Design Odyssey 7 had a better focus assist feature. I played around with a prototype and really like everything else, but the focus assist feature left me less than impressed. Maybe it'll work better in the final product.
 
Kyle Wright said:
The monitor kept powering off and rebooting itself, losing picture in the middle of takes. It was being powered via P-tap and the Epic showed plenty of voltage. I checked the cables and couldn't find any problems with them. The stage was a bit hot, but not too crazy. Needless to say I wasn't too impressed after that.
Click to expand...

The voltages don't necessarily drop when amps aren't enough...which batteries do you have? maybe you were near their total power limit?

It happened the same to me with Marshall, TV Logic and SmallHD monitors via ptap before buying 160whr batts...
 
I also have a problem with the lemo connector. When you ove it a little bit, you loose the power. The power in at the back of the DP7 is more robust (but i has also disconnected several time with a Dtap batterie). I live in France, so to send it back for the warranty is a real nightmare with all the customs and cost associated, but I think I will have to send it back.


Olivier
 
Not sure if it helps. I used Energizer XP 18000 before on one shoot and it powered the monitor until the end of the shoot (about 14 hours shoot) and still left 1 bar. Then i shifted to smaller XP8000 Energizer, it powered up about 5-6 hours before changing the second one. I never put it to D-tap anymore. Hardly anybody use this piece of amazing battery since it is not well known in motion picture industry but it works incredibly well for lots of accessories that needs extra power. Even for downconverters, etc.. it just works and last very very long, and it is cheap !

R
 
Tommaso Alvisi said:
The voltages don't necessarily drop when amps aren't enough...which batteries do you have? maybe you were near their total power limit?

It happened the same to me with Marshall, TV Logic and SmallHD monitors via ptap before buying 160whr batts...
Click to expand...

Using Anton Bauer Dionic HCX powering just an Epic w/ 5" LCD and the AC7 OLED SDI, so batteries have plenty of power.
 
UPDATE: Had some time yesterday to do more thorough troubleshooting. Discovered that the power down issue was due to the P-tap cable. If I moved it just right (or wrong, depending how you want to look at it), I could sometimes get the monitor to lose power. So I messed around with the tap end part and tightened it up and the monitor was rock-solid after that. No more power issues.

The color issues are still a bit annoying for a $1400 monitor, but I don't use it to judge exposure or color rendition. As a monitor for pulling focus (we were shooting Master Primes wide open), the monitor made my life much easier. As I've said before, the focus assist feature is top notch. I'll take it any day over what the competition is using. After using the AC7, I'm still not totally sold on the $2700 price tag of the DP7. I'm gonna have to give my pre-order a bit more thought.
 
Why do you need color calibrated on camera monitors on a RAW cinema camera??. These are really for pulling focus and framing. I have two AC7 Oled and they are great for AC monitors. Sure they are not the same league as our transvideo's but at 1300 bucks?? Great monitor.
 
The problem I have and so do AC's I work with as far as focus pulling is the focus in red setting is compromised by a bright source in the frame, a window for example will show up as in focus even though the your focus range is no where near the window.

I pointed this out at NAB and Small HD said they are working on it, but I have not seen any firmware updates since.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top