Can Apple Cinema Displays be properly calibrated for color correction?

[Stephen Pruitt]

Hey guys. . .

We're coming down to the final work on our second feature film, "Terminal," and I'm wanting to know if it is possible to properly calibrate an Apple Cinema Display to get reasonably transferable results using one of our monitors. We have both a 23" and a 30" Apple monitors. We are editing the film using Premiere Pro CS 5.5 on a Mac Pro.

If it IS possible to properly calibrate one of these pups, what would be the mechanism to do so?

Thanks.

Stephen

 

[Steve Sherrick]

In short, not really. I assume you'll want to do some preliminary color correction and then send those looks off to colorist correct? One option would be to use something like the MXO which can allow for some color space conversion and allow you to tweak the monitor but this is certainly a workaround at best. Ideally, you'll want an I/O device that sends your image to a monitor that will be a lot closer to one the colorist will use. That way you're not looking at images that will be worlds apart.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Thanks for your post, Steve.

Unfortunately, I do not believe that we will have anything close to the budget for a real colorist this time around. The film is 3-hours long, so I can only imagine the bill for that one. Unless I can find a colorist who will do it for a piece of the action, I'm probably going to have to keep the color work in house. It won't be as good as it could have been, but dollars are dollars, and I just am pretty much out of those green things at the moment.

Stephen

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Oh, understood. I thought you were just creating looks to send off to someone.

Okay, in that case I would consider the following as a cheap alternative. Guys like Jake and Mike M might have better suggestions but I'm thinking budget here.

Buy something similar to this. http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...-SD-SDI-Boards-499&highlight=sony+BVM+monitor
If you don't have an I/O card from BM or AJA buy one. Even the $295 BM card could do the trick.

Basically you want to make sure that you end up working in the color space you will be delivering in. I assume REC709 will be your final deliverable correct? You want a monitor that can handle that accurately. CRTs are going by the wayside but I'd argue it's probably still better than an Apple Display getting a pseudo REC709 calibration. If you can find a BVM in good enough condition to get you through the movie, I'd look into that.

 

[jake blackstone]

Here is my suggestion. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-BVM-D2...372?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ec238748c
I'd look around and find one with low hours. It is VERY easy to calibrate and it even can be used in 2k mode. It is still the most beautiful monitor ever made, beside Dolby and Sony OLED, but a at a fraction of price.
And it is much cheaper, than a colorist

 

[paulherrin]

you can definitely get it to 'better than what you had' - it's not all about having the fanciest equipment, but it's always good to have the best display you can get.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

In the case of doing your own color, I would suggest the following.
- Make sure your signal chain is solid. If a 1080P finish, then grade in Resolve 9 Lite. Send signal out via HD-SDI to a REC709 monitor that is in good calibration. Grade away.
- Once complete, export out your final deliverable.
- Bring this deliverable to a finishing facility and hire them to do a QC with you. In your case probably 4 hours or so @ $200-400/hr. This will allow you to view the film in a proper environment and make sure you didn't botch anything.
- Make any necessary adjustments
- Export to final deliverables.

You can skip the QC stage and just watch on a bunch of different TVs and see if anything jumps out at you but I highly recommend doing the QC stage. You'll have peace of mind about what you are doing.

Nothing beats a real grading process with experienced colorist but this is a budget way to do it.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Thanks for the suggestions gentlemen.

I so wish we could afford someone like Jake or John Tissavary (who did our previous film) this time around. Sadly, when you're writing the checks yourself, there just reaches a point where "good enough" has to be "good enough." Heck, we were too broke to take advantage of the Epic Stage III trade-in. Just didn't have the coin.

But what I do have is one heckofa great film going. I'm not sure if they make ultra-low-budget (under $200,000) any better than this one. Time will tell.

Thanks again.

BTW Jake. What would you consider "low hours"? That one on Ebay was at 65,000 hours, which doesn't even seem possible. That's like THIRTY working years. . . or one good indie film (it only seems that way).

Stephen

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Hi Stephen.

Check your pm.

Cheers!

G

 

[Björn Benckert]

I would not be to worried to grade a feature on a apple cinema display with nothing else around. I graded and worked on features on far worse displays. And coming from film I find just about any monitor very accurate compared to the color timing process where the liquids differ from day to day and nothing is ever the same etc.
So if you are not willing to spend a single coin and have some time to work with it I would do the following, which i tried and thinks work quite well.

Grade your stuff looking only at the cinema display. make sure to get a pleasant look on that one monitor and balance the shots etc so you got a grade you like for the whole thing (or act by act). Then when you are done cut together a little reference reel, in other words like five seconds of key shots/scenes. Then make a DCP of that reel and take it to the closest theater near you that can play it on the big screen for you. If you are lucky you will like what you see. Probably your gamma will be off in one way or the other. So if it's no contrast and bright on the big screen then you run back home to your test reel and adjust, and you can probably do about 5 different settings, more contrast, adjusted gamma and contrast, only gamma correction, more / less and so on. Then you name them 1,2,3,4,5 etc. and go back to the theater. Now (if you are lucky) you will find one that is pleasing if not you probably have one that is closer to the goal then the rest, then you just take it for another lap.

Then when you have a setting you like you just apply it to the whole film and render.

This might sound a bit stupid but to me it's essential to see the work on the big screen any way so, making a final conversion grade from your "on monitor look" to "cinema look" is actually not so complicated. And even if you render your first grade to 10bit you have the information needed to do the final tweaks to do your calibration render no problem.

I have seen a lot of monitors and actually never seen one thats dead on, so no matter what money you spend there will always be an issue, understanding that is probably making things much easier than guys that sit around and say that their screens are perfect and everybody else has theirs not calibrated properly.

 

[eric schneider]

I have seen a lot of monitors and actually never seen one thats dead on, so no matter what money you spend there will always be an issue, understanding that is probably making things much easier than guys that sit around and say that their screens are perfect and everybody else has theirs not calibrated properly.

Hi Bjorn, I agree, but am curious, as the older Cinema Displays were based on a 1.8 Gamma, and newer Macs are based on 2.2 Gamma. I know this is not relevant as much for something that will be shown on a big screen, but curious as to your thoughts on outputting to web. I graded a music video on an older Cinema Display, then, similarily, checked it out on different monitors.laptops/phones etc, and found it flat, so recalibrated my Cinema Display to 2.2 Gamma, and regraded with that. Seems to be working better for me that way. But was wondering what your thoughts were, (as, either way, it's important to check it out on alot of different monitors, and find a happy medium, in terms of Gamma), but it seems to me that calibrating a Cinema Display to 2.2 is the way to go now? Until I can upgrade, I am still on a Cinema Display too and trying to figure out the best starting point, or middle ground Gamma, so that I wont have to adjust as much after comparing on different monitors. And thanks for your thoughts on this.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I so wish we could afford someone like Jake or John Tissavary (who did our previous film) this time around. Sadly, when you're writing the checks yourself, there just reaches a point where "good enough" has to be "good enough." ...But what I do have is one heckofa great film going. I'm not sure if they make ultra-low-budget (under $200,000) any better than this one.

You'd be surprised. I have a few under-$500K features on my resume that we blew through in 2 or 3 days, and I think they actually came out very well in terms of color correction, under the circumstances. There are facilities (and freelancers) out there who will work with you on the rate, and while no one is stupid enough to go for a percentage deal, they might at least knock off a few bucks. I just finished a $400K film last week where I think the total color-correction bill was about $6K, and we had an actual broadcast monitor, DaVinci Resolve, and a very comfortable facility in Hollywood. Sure, there were compromises, but we fixed 90% of the real photographic problems, and the DP and director both told me they were blown away with the night-and-day improvement.

A lot of it boils down to priorities. Sound, color-correction... all these are pretty basic issues on any film's post budget, and there are ways to minimize expenses, spend money where you need to, and slash costs when you can. But beyond a certain point, the film suffers when you haven't planned for the essentials. There are always things you can do yourself, but that can't make up for having someone with real-world experience (and I would certainly recommend Jake Blackstone and John Tissavery as being among them).

 

[Bob Minervini]

Brave of you to say such a thing in this place where everybody is marketing their (almost) perfect pipeline...
kudos

I would not be to worried to grade a feature on a apple cinema display with nothing else around. I graded and worked on features on far worse displays. And coming from film I find just about any monitor very accurate compared to the color timing process where the liquids differ from day to day and nothing is ever the same etc.
So if you are not willing to spend a single coin and have some time to work with it I would do the following, which i tried and thinks work quite well.

Grade your stuff looking only at the cinema display. make sure to get a pleasant look on that one monitor and balance the shots etc so you got a grade you like for the whole thing (or act by act). Then when you are done cut together a little reference reel, in other words like five seconds of key shots/scenes. Then make a DCP of that reel and take it to the closest theater near you that can play it on the big screen for you. If you are lucky you will like what you see. Probably your gamma will be off in one way or the other. So if it's no contrast and bright on the big screen then you run back home to your test reel and adjust, and you can probably do about 5 different settings, more contrast, adjusted gamma and contrast, only gamma correction, more / less and so on. Then you name them 1,2,3,4,5 etc. and go back to the theater. Now (if you are lucky) you will find one that is pleasing if not you probably have one that is closer to the goal then the rest, then you just take it for another lap.

Then when you have a setting you like you just apply it to the whole film and render.

This might sound a bit stupid but to me it's essential to see the work on the big screen any way so, making a final conversion grade from your "on monitor look" to "cinema look" is actually not so complicated. And even if you render your first grade to 10bit you have the information needed to do the final tweaks to do your calibration render no problem.

I have seen a lot of monitors and actually never seen one thats dead on, so no matter what money you spend there will always be an issue, understanding that is probably making things much easier than guys that sit around and say that their screens are perfect and everybody else has theirs not calibrated properly.

 

[jake blackstone]

BTW Jake. What would you consider "low hours"? That one on Ebay was at 65,000 hours, which doesn't even seem possible. That's like THIRTY working years. . . or one good indie film (it only seems that way).

Stephen

Monitors in a facility are never turned off, so 65,000 comes to about 7,5 years. Also, those CRTs were regularly replaced, so even 7,5 years do not mean that much. It's the tube hours, that are the most important. Buying mine I was able to choose from about four available, so yes, it is possible to get one, even with 65,000 hours, that is in decent shape, that would blow any FSI, Dremcolor or plasma out of the water in performance, ease of calibration, image reproduction or just about any other metrics.
Don't forget, those are professional monitors, specifically designed for color critical applications, at the time selling for well over $20,000 each.

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

Monitors in a facility are never turned off, so 65,000 comes to about 7,5 years.

Why do they burn power and tubes when nobody uses it?

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Brave of you to say such a thing in this place where everybody is marketing their (almost) perfect pipeline...
kudos

Hafta say I agree with Björn, though...

 

[jake blackstone]

Why do they burn power and tubes when nobody uses it?

Normal post facility had probably well over a 100-200 monitors altogether. Electronics last much longer, if you don't send a surge of power every time it's powered up. CRT monitors need time to come up to the operating temperature and most important, once it is calibrated by a night engineer, you don't want disturb it's calibration.
There is a need to save energy of coarse, but in that case it wasn't practical.
Regardless, nowadays, CRT monitors are not used anymore, so it's a moot point...

 

[paulherrin]

Hafta say I agree with Björn, though...

we're not the only three that have been saying this stuff. it's not a matter of bravado, we're developing common sense.

i'm thankful there are guys like bjorn giving energy to explain stuff.

 

[jake blackstone]

I would not be to worried to grade a feature on a apple cinema display with nothing else around. I graded and worked on features on far worse displays. And coming from film I find just about any monitor very accurate compared to the color timing process where the liquids differ from day to day and nothing is ever the same etc.
So if you are not willing to spend a single coin and have some time to work with it I would do the following, which i tried and thinks work quite well.

Grade your stuff looking only at the cinema display. make sure to get a pleasant look on that one monitor and balance the shots etc so you got a grade you like for the whole thing (or act by act). Then when you are done cut together a little reference reel, in other words like five seconds of key shots/scenes. Then make a DCP of that reel and take it to the closest theater near you that can play it on the big screen for you. If you are lucky you will like what you see. Probably your gamma will be off in one way or the other. So if it's no contrast and bright on the big screen then you run back home to your test reel and adjust, and you can probably do about 5 different settings, more contrast, adjusted gamma and contrast, only gamma correction, more / less and so on. Then you name them 1,2,3,4,5 etc. and go back to the theater. Now (if you are lucky) you will find one that is pleasing if not you probably have one that is closer to the goal then the rest, then you just take it for another lap.

Then when you have a setting you like you just apply it to the whole film and render.

This might sound a bit stupid but to me it's essential to see the work on the big screen any way so, making a final conversion grade from your "on monitor look" to "cinema look" is actually not so complicated. And even if you render your first grade to 10bit you have the information needed to do the final tweaks to do your calibration render no problem.

I have seen a lot of monitors and actually never seen one thats dead on, so no matter what money you spend there will always be an issue, understanding that is probably making things much easier than guys that sit around and say that their screens are perfect and everybody else has theirs not calibrated properly.

Bjorn.
I wouldn't even think of suggesting to anyone anything even remotely related to VFX work, as that's not my particular area of expertise. As I understand, VFX is your specialty. So, why then do you feel, that you're qualified to make statements, related to color grading? If you "actually never seen a monitor, that's dead on", then you haven't seen a properly calibrated professional monitor. Sorry, but your statement is just incorrect and you shouldn't propagate this misinformation in relation to color grading.
Properly calibrated monitor is the foundation and the cornerstone of color grading. if you don't know what you're looking at, then what exactly is the point of grading? Isn't that is one of the main reasons, why nowadays there is so much crap on Vimeo and Youtube?
I'm not seeing anyone on this thread " marketing their (almost) perfect pipeline". I'm not even sure, what does that mean, but if you feel, that monitor, that can't be properly calibrated is good enough for grading work or an iPad can be used to judge the grade, as some had suggested, then it is your opinion and you're free to express it. And it is my right to disagree...

 

[Björn Benckert]

Bjorn.
I wouldn't even think of suggesting to anyone anything even remotely related to VFX work, as that's not my particular area of expertise. As I understand, VFX is your specialty. So, why then do you feel, that you're qualified to make statements, related to color grading? If you "actually never seen a monitor, that's dead on", then you haven't seen a properly calibrated professional monitor. Sorry, but your statement is just incorrect and you shouldn't propagate misinformation in relation to color grading.
I'm not seeing anyone on this thread " marketing their (almost) perfect pipeline". I'm not even sure, what does that mean, but if you feel, that monitor, that can't be properly calibrated is good enough for grading work or an iPad can be used to judge the grade, as some suggested, then it is your opinion and you're free to express it. And it is my right to disagree...

I did not mean to offend you or any one else. Offcourse your screen is probably 100% correct. Im just saying that working of a slightly misleading monitor can possibly be worked around, Kind of like working with the process that was used when color timing film. I actually have done quite a bit of grading though the years. I wasted quite a bit of money and time back in the days to get our Domino close looped calibrated among other things just to realize that the lab process is a cricket one. So yes getting a well (or perfect) callibrated monitor helps out a lot off course. But I think it's also good to remember that films have been done in the past that looks quite amazing and they did not have anything near as accurate as a cinemadisplay when they where doing them.

If you are selling your services to somebody then using a off the shelf screen and hope for the best is probably not the smartest thing to do. But for low budget work I would not be so worried to bang out a feature using our macbook pro with rocket raid and nothing more.