iMac Pro P3 Wide Gamut Premiere frustrations + display reccos

[Bill Stengel]

I've been struggling with this issue where Premiere is unable to monitor in rec709 and the iMac Pro display can't be calibrated to rec709 – two products which have Pro in their name but are clearly missing some Pro features.

I've tried workarounds like hunt-and-peck gamma and luma corrections in the form of a lumetri layer over an entire timeline and adding contrast and saturation then uploading to Vimeo and YouTube to figure out a recipe that accounts for the loss of contrast and saturation. Turning on Display Color Management doesn't seem to do anything, as Andrew Hake suggested in a previous post.

I'm now thinking of picking up a second display that would serve as a program monitor for coloring and finishing. Any recommendations for a budget-friendly solution?

Thanks!

 

[andrewhake]

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/color-management.html

https://premierepro.net/color-management-premiere-pro/

If this isn't working for you then something else is likely going on in your projects. You may be able to reach out to Adobe or Apple support and provide them an example project or provide them info about your project setup to see if they can determine what is going wrong.

The issue people usually run into is using a different project gamma/colorspace then what will be displayed when .movs are output. macOS tags the standard rec709 1.96 gamma when outputting and displaying .movs. I think Premiere defaults to a different rec709 gamma but I haven't looked into it personally. I know after effects does this and it causes some confusion.

I don't use Premiere, but I know that it and After Effects and Photoshop all properly talk to the macOS ColorSync system and can display properly on a P3 display. You do have to keep in mind that contrast and can often be lost when uploading to a video sharing service as the compression and file handling is in their hands at that point. For what it's worth I never really have any issues when working with .R3D in FCPX and outputting ProRes and uploading that directly to Vimeo. Vimeo seems to respect the way files are tagged from what I can tell.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

I've been struggling with this issue where Premiere is unable to monitor in rec709 and the iMac Pro display can't be calibrated to rec709 – two products which have Pro in their name but are clearly missing some Pro features.

I've tried workarounds like hunt-and-peck gamma and luma corrections in the form of a lumetri layer over an entire timeline and adding contrast and saturation then uploading to Vimeo and YouTube to figure out a recipe that accounts for the loss of contrast and saturation. Turning on Display Color Management doesn't seem to do anything, as Andrew Hake suggested in a previous post.

I'm now thinking of picking up a second display that would serve as a program monitor for coloring and finishing. Any recommendations for a budget-friendly solution?

Thanks!

Avoid computer monitors altogether if you can. Go with Flanders (either DM240 or even one of their 8-bit models would be better for color than a lot of computer displays) or even something like the Atomos 17" Sumo would probably be better. There are some good computer displays (Ezio and those types) but honestly it can be tricky getting these types of displays calibrated and definitely one of those buy good, cry once moments.

Some people make computer displays work just fine, so YMMV.

 

[andrewhake]

Avoid computer monitors altogether if you can. Go with Flanders (either DM240 or even one of their 8-bit models would be better for color than a lot of computer displays) or even something like the Atomos 17" Sumo would probably be better. There are some good computer displays (Ezio and those types) but honestly it can be tricky getting these types of displays calibrated and definitely one of those buy good, cry once moments.

Some people make computer displays work just fine, so YMMV.

Having used every variant of Eizo's CG318 and CG319 I would choose an out of the box iMac 5k display over them any day. The black levels on the eizo are absolute garbage for the price, and 4K 30" is a really terrible size to resolution ratio.

rec709 content can absolutely be viewed and output at a reasonably accurate level on all of Apple's P3 displays with the proper workflow. $40,000 reference monitor accurate? 100% identical to the pixel on every device? No, but having used iMac Pro and Eizo CG318/319 displays side by side for quite some time now I don't have any issues delivering rec709 content on the built in display. Is an iMac Pro display a reference monitor, nope, and the Eizo CG319 absolutely is not. I have created a ton of content on an iMac Pro display that is then shown on massively high resolution low pitch LED walls in rec709 without major issue.

The LG C8/C9 OLEDs are a great bang for your buck setup that can be nicely calibrated. I would buy a C9 (or multiple) long before I would ever look at a CG319 again. In the end it really comes down to who your target audience is and how they will be viewing it. If many will be viewing on Apple P3 display devices, LG oleds, other mobile devices and computers, and iMac 5k display will get you very close on all of them. You are really at the mercy of your audience's viewing habits and your own workflow.

 

[Charles Bergquist]

There is no fix for the specific issue. I’ve searched everything and held out hope for the ‘managed update’ that Premiere Pro added. For those that don’t use Premiere Pro and newer iMac or iMac Pro or even MacBook Pro P3 displays, there’s an issue with the Program Monitor in Premiere Pro that displays an image with MUCH more contrast and saturation than what is actually there. It’s basically a bug that they just can’t figure out, it’s amazing that it hasn’t been fixed.

If you open up After Effects / Photoshop / Resolve or anything else you’ll see relatively accurate color for the Mac P3 display in your program monitor. Obviously it’s better to have a calibrated monitor, but the Mac P3 displays do a decent enough job.

If you’re committed to Premiere Pro and do color work within its Program Monitor, I’d suggest using a different Mac and Monitor combo. They won’t fix this specific issue for some strange reason, I’d imagine it has something to do with the display hardware on the Mac side, since this happens specific to the newer Mac P3 Monitors ( ie iMac Pro / iMac 5K )

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

If many will be viewing on Apple P3 display devices, LG oleds, other mobile devices and computers, and iMac 5k display will get you very close on all of them.
You are really at the mercy of your audience's viewing habits and your own workflow.

That's not the issue, gamut and gamma discrepancy for footage preview over GPU and OS monitoring pipeline is.
Which is why video cards exist. : )

 

[Bill Stengel]

There is no fix for the specific issue. I’ve searched everything and held out hope for the ‘managed update’ that Premiere Pro added. For those that don’t use Premiere Pro and newer iMac or iMac Pro or even MacBook Pro P3 displays, there’s an issue with the Program Monitor in Premiere Pro that displays an image with MUCH more contrast and saturation than what is actually there. It’s basically a bug that they just can’t figure out, it’s amazing that it hasn’t been fixed.

If you open up After Effects / Photoshop / Resolve or anything else you’ll see relatively accurate color for the Mac P3 display in your program monitor. Obviously it’s better to have a calibrated monitor, but the Mac P3 displays do a decent enough job.

If you’re committed to Premiere Pro and do color work within its Program Monitor, I’d suggest using a different Mac and Monitor combo. They won’t fix this specific issue for some strange reason, I’d imagine it has something to do with the display hardware on the Mac side, since this happens specific to the newer Mac P3 Monitors ( ie iMac Pro / iMac 5K )

Charles,
Thanks for the response. My previous machine was the first gen 5K and I didn't have any issues regarding color consistency between Premiere and web or broadcast. This iMac Pro P3 thing is really frustrating.

 

[Bill Stengel]

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/color-management.html

https://premierepro.net/color-management-premiere-pro/

If this isn't working for you then something else is likely going on in your projects. You may be able to reach out to Adobe or Apple support and provide them an example project or provide them info about your project setup to see if they can determine what is going wrong.

The issue people usually run into is using a different project gamma/colorspace then what will be displayed when .movs are output. macOS tags the standard rec709 1.96 gamma when outputting and displaying .movs. I think Premiere defaults to a different rec709 gamma but I haven't looked into it personally. I know after effects does this and it causes some confusion.

I don't use Premiere, but I know that it and After Effects and Photoshop all properly talk to the macOS ColorSync system and can display properly on a P3 display. You do have to keep in mind that contrast and can often be lost when uploading to a video sharing service as the compression and file handling is in their hands at that point. For what it's worth I never really have any issues when working with .R3D in FCPX and outputting ProRes and uploading that directly to Vimeo. Vimeo seems to respect the way files are tagged from what I can tell.

Andrew,
Thanks again for chiming in. I haven't changed anything pertaining to my projects or pipeline except for getting this iMac Pro last December. I did notice that there is now a REC709 2.4 gamma profile in the color tab on displays in system preferences. Admittedly, I don't know enough about this to really work through it aside from the fact that for some reason the Mac is stretching the rec709 space out to fit the P3 space. What is most important to me (and to anyone for that matter) is that I can find a solution that gets me back to having a more tightly closed loop on the color front.

As a medium-term solution, is getting a second display for the program monitor a solve for this, provided it can be set up for sRGB/rec709?

 

[Bill Stengel]

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2482948

This sheds more light on the issue.