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  • 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 :)

Less expensive solution for editing, color correction and grading (4k)

weirdcrew said:
There's one thing though and it's that Iridas (speedgrade) don't have access to the redcode RAW. That Assimilate Scratch and RED are working very closely. If Iridas don't get access to the redcode well then it's not a good way to go (anyone who knows anything about this?)
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Feeding it the QuickTime reference movies might work, once Red updates the QT codec to do full quality.
 
The thread here is about figuring out the cheapest but most sufficient solution. Personally this will only be for my own amusement and learning, but I do want it to be possible to use if I needed to.
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Probably the most reasonable route would be a 1920x1080 broadcast-grade LCD from eCinemasys (FX series) or JVC. They are in the ballpark of <$5k.

*Disclaimer: I haven't really compared the LCD offerings out there / didn't look deeply in them.

What I'd mostly look for is:
A- No wackiness. The colors have to be close to a CRT's, and no wacky image processing.
B- In a LCD, no less than 1920x1080 resolution. Otherwise you run into scaling artifacts and not seeing full resolution. A LCD with less than 1920x1080 is not worth buying IMO.
C- Reasonably good handling of interlacing if you need to deal with interlaced material.

(A) would likely exclude a lot of the consumer displays around (e.g. their colors never look the same when comparing different models).

At the ~<$5k price point, the panels still have some compromises in them. e.g. the eCinemasys' FX black level is not perfect. If targeting consumer TVs then that should be ok (since most of them have a raised black level anyways, due to the TV's limitations and viewing environment).

No I say, let's concentrate this thread in finding the cheapest but really functionable solution, for all the indie film makers out there which has a limited budget. Let's make sure that we find a solution that hold up (with restrains, of course) and that can deliver high end at the end, if needed.
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If you want high-end results, you're likely better off going with a professional facility that specializes in it. They will likely have the talent, knowledge, and the right equipment.
 
Joel, do you have that monitor and have you compared it (e.g. side-by-side comparison) to other monitors?

Certain aspects of it looks sketchy for monitoring... e.g.
3000:1 Dynamic Contrast with ContrastEnhancer
EIZOs ContrastEnhancer adjusts in real time the brightness, gain, and gamma for images that are too light or too dark to their ideal levels. With moving images it produces a dynamic contrast ratio of 3000.1, resulting in deep blacks and more lifelike images.
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GlennChan said:
Joel, do you have that monitor and have you compared it (e.g. side-by-side comparison) to other monitors?

Certain aspects of it looks sketchy for monitoring... e.g.
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No I haven't seen it. What looks sketchy? I've seen advice all over the map on monitoring solutions in my search.
 
It looks like that model will muck with the image. That's exactly what you don't want (unless you can turn it off).
 
GlennChan said:
It looks like that model will muck with the image. That's exactly what you don't want (unless you can turn it off).
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My reading of it made me think it's highly configurable. I'm pretty sure you can tune in the way you want.

Interesting quote from the Cow: - link in next message.


This guy's buying a new Flame and says one of the 24" Eizo's compares favorably to JVC's plasma and the Sony BVM. I've read a number of reviews and it sure looks like most of what Eizo makes is pretty stellar stuff. Might be the way to go. Lustre includes LUTS for a couple of their monitors.
 
GlennChan said:
Something is weird with the forum. Here is the link I think joel is referring to.

http://tinyurl.com/3yfusk

It seems like the word
c r e a t i v e c o w

will get converted to a link that should point to
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Wow - guess someone doesn't like the Cow. Well... actually they are pretty stingy about outgoing links from their site, so turnabout is fair play I guess.
 
weirdcrew said:
The thread here is about figuring out the cheapest but most sufficient solution. (...)

No I say, let's concentrate this thread in finding the cheapest but really functionable solution, for all the indie film makers out there which has a limited budget. Let's make sure that we find a solution that hold up (with restrains, of course) and that can deliver high end at the end, if needed.
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It does seem so.
 
Chris Kenny said:
Emanuel said:
Chris Kenny said:
You know, I'm really not sure I understand this notion that one absolutely has to have a studio-quality reference monitor to get useful color grading done. Would it be nice? Of course. But color in the desktop publishing world (which is actually more challenging, because print and on-screen display use completely different color models) is very often done entirely with low-cost commodity hardware.

At the very least I suspect one could put in the vast majority of hours required on a grade using commodity hardware, and then just rent a more serious monitor for a day for final checks and tweaks.
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«Color calibration doesn’t have to be an expensive add-on for a monitor. Pantone’s hueyPRO ($129) includes an ambient light sensor to deliver a consistent reading under most lighting conditions. The company’s Eye-One Display 2 ($249) is designed to calibrate color over a mix of displays, including CRT, desktop LCD and laptop LCD. Datacolor’s Spyder2PRO ($249) includes calibration profiles for front projectors, as well as CRT and LCD displays. The Spyder2PRO’s Ambient Precise»

But you can find out other less or more expensive solutions exploring this link here:

http://www.studiodaily.com/studiomonthly/tools/ultimatekit/8158.html
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I have a Spyder2Pro. The calibration software comes with a Rec. 709 calibration target. In other words, for $250, you can take any computer screen and calibrate so it's as close as it's physically capable of getting to Rec. 709. And if you verify your profile, you can see exactly how close you got. Which is usually pretty close. (Black levels are the largest problem area on commodity LCD screens.)
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Here's the idea already posted there, BTW:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=95856#post95856

«Laptops can have the performance, the disk space, the disk speed if configured correctly. Yes, an external calibrated display is highly recommended, maybe even required.» ~ David Newman

Can this be more than necessary?... There's the question.

www.xrite.com/documents/literature/en/985629_i1_Monitor_Solutions_en.pdf

It does include calibration on laptops.

LINK to overview page

Besides the Spyder2PRO already mentioned, for instance:

http://www.colorvision.com/product-mc-s2p.php
 
Chris, as Spyder2PRO user, do you think that it wouldn't be necessary anything else (for all the indie film makers out there with limited budget and that need to deliver high end at the end) ?
 
Gordon Prince said:
Chris, as Spyder2PRO user, do you think that it wouldn't be necessary anything else (for all the indie film makers out there with limited budget and that need to deliver high end at the end) ?
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It's a good question. I'm actually going to do some testing tonight on a couple of monitors to see just how close I can get to Rec. 709.

Note that even if it turns out you can calibrate a desktop screen pretty well to Rec. 709 this way, there are still some significant advantages to having a real Rec. 709 display hooked up though a Kona card or whatever.

For one thing, a calibrated desktop display won't give you accurate color in Final Cut (because of the gamma "correction" stuff I discussed earlier). I think it'll give you accurate output from Color, but I'm not completely sure and I can't find any explicit statement on whether Color makes gamma "corrections" for you. (Which I'm hoping means it doesn't.)

Another issue is that you'll obviously only be monitoring at 8-bit, which is going to show banding in places.
 
Chris Kenny said:
For one thing, a calibrated desktop display won't give you accurate color in Final Cut (because of the gamma "correction" stuff I discussed earlier). I think it'll give you accurate output from Color, but I'm not completely sure and I can't find any explicit statement on whether Color makes gamma "corrections" for you. (Which I'm hoping means it doesn't.)

Another issue is that you'll obviously only be monitoring at 8-bit, which is going to show banding in places.
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Do you mean Color Finess?

And about After Effects?
 
Chris Kenny said:
Another issue is that you'll obviously only be monitoring at 8-bit, which is going to show banding in places.
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8-bit? Why? Is there any limitation from the software? That said, is there any similar software higher than 8-bit?
 
Gordon Prince said:
Do you mean Color Finess?

And about After Effects?
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I mean Color, the color grading program included with Final Cut Studio 2.

After Effects should be fine; it provides a fair bit of control over this sort of thing and is actually even one of the few motion media apps that have native support for ICC profiles.
 
Emanuel & Co said:
8-bit? Why? Is there any limitation from the software? That said, is there any similar software higher than 8-bit?
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I mean 8 bits per channel, of course. Operating systems, desktop monitors and most graphics cards are all pretty much still limited to 24 bit color in practice for normal output. Whereas, if you hook up a video monitor to a Kona card, you can get 10 bits per channel.
 
Chris Kenny said:
I mean 8 bits per channel, of course. Operating systems, desktop monitors and most graphics cards are all pretty much still limited to 24 bit color in practice for normal output. Whereas, if you hook up a video monitor to a Kona card, you can get 10 bits per channel.
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Correct. Some of the HDMI 1.3 output cards have Windows drivers supporting 10bits/channel. But these are consumer oriented and usually have TV tuners attached to them.

All current OSX offerings are 8bits/channel unless you run a display off of a separate interface like a Kona card where 10bpc or 12bpc in analog mode. Of course it requires that your software also supports using the card.
 
A large amount of “the best” LCDs are not even 8 bit.
If it’s in your lappy more than likely its 6bit(Dell,Apple...etc)
 
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