WHY oh WHY does footage look really great in the monitor and "crappy" in the PC?

[George D.]

WHY oh WHY does footage look really great in the monitor and "crappy" in the PC?

I know, I know, the footage from a Red-One is RAW, and you're supposed to tweak it in post.

I guess I'm dense, but I just don't get it. We spend hours and hours setting up and lighting a set, and it looks terrific in the monitor and sharp as a razor. So, we shoot it with our Red-One. Later, after downloading it into the PC it looks like shit. It's slightly soft, has no contrast, the colors are off, and there's just no sparkle. It also looks like we almost shot it out of focus, which, of course, we did not. It is very, very disappointing.

I have asked this question before, and everyone has told me that it is supposed to be that way, and you're supposed to do the adjusting in post later on. I'm sorry, but I just don't like that and it is not acceptable. I want to see it later on the PC monitor "EXACTLY" the way we shot it "without" having to fuss with it first.

Is there any way of achieving this, so that what we see when we shoot it is what we get? Then, if we don't like it, or change our minds, we can later adjust it in post, not the other way around.

Maybe there is no solution, and it's just the way it is, but I want to state officially for the record, that I do NOT like it.

Thanks for your time.

.

 

[ericyoung]

Post a representative R3D to let us see what you are concerned about. Also post a screen grab of same R3D in Redcine-X Pro with the settings you typically start with.

 

[BigLu]

Once you or your DIT or someone in the post workflow understands the full design on the outputs of the camera how to adjust the menus.
And REDCINE X inside out with a REDrocket installed so you will be working in full debayer,
you will have a much more pleasant experience.

Dont worry you dont have to go threw this, just need someone or you to have more experience with its workflow and menu settings

Using REDcolor 2 with REDgamma 3 from beginning to end with good properly calibrated monitors all the way threw including your PC.
Should give relatively consistent looks and results.

I hope that helps

 

[Mike Kushner]

when i first shot my RED One on an early build, i needed to add full sharpening in RED Cine to get sharp footage in the transcode

 

[Mark Toia]

Sorry to hear that...
There is obviously something wrong in your post pipe line. I had a fellow come to me with footage from a first gen R1... and he had similar concerns.
I put his footage in RCX and set the settings to RED COLOR AND RED GAMMA 3.... and his shots look great.
Forget about the proxies, thats a long gone work flow if your using it.

Send me a r3d still frame and i'll see what your doing wrong.

 

[Tom.Wong]

it's because a computer, a lot of the time doesn't accurately represent rec709 color and luminance. when you have a monitor hooked up to your camera via hd sdi or hdmi, is is a proper 10 bit legal signal going to the monitor. when you open up your r3d on a computer. those values are all the same as it's coming out of the computer. if you hook up I/O card or red rocket and load up a r3d and hook up that same monitor, it will look exactly the way it did on set. your monitor alone may be way off, and most cheaper pc monitors tend to be like that. unless you are running a monitor that has rec 709 built into it as a color space, you'll never see it the way it should on your computer. not even anywhere close.

computer monitors are one of the banes of color/look management. people trust them too much, but most of those monitors are made cheaply to be cost effective and can't even be calibrated correctly to look close. a computer operating system usually operates in a full range rgb mode, which is beyond a broadcast gamut, and will do wacky things to your picture as well. and usually a proper monitor and certain software corrects for that. I use a hp dreamcolor as my gui monitor set to 709, calibrated often, and that and a eizo seems to be the only few monitors that come close to showing what i see on my hdsdi output.

and depending on what codec and wrapper you convert your r3d to, they introduce shifts in values that change the look as well. so short answer to your question would be, hook up your system to a hd sdi monitor and see how it looks. if it looks the way it's on set, than your r3d's have no issues, it's your monitoring setup that's messing with you.

and no it's not possible to get all yoru images looking the same on every monitor you go to unless you make them all the same monitor and calibrate them all to perfect to line up to each other. at some point you just have to let go. i'm sure more than half the movie screenings out there are so poorly projected that they don't even come close to what it looked like in the finishing DI. You just work to spec, at the highest quality, and highest standards possible. and hope for the best when it trickles through the system.

the standards are presets are initially put there to try to maintain some kind of continuity with the look. but the most important part is to make sure the beginning of the pipeline is correct first. or it just keeps getting worse from there.

 

[BRANDON JAMESON]

Tom, awesome answer, so appreciated!!!

 

[Marc Wielage]

I have asked this question before, and everyone has told me that it is supposed to be that way, and you're supposed to do the adjusting in post later on. I'm sorry, but I just don't like that and it is not acceptable. I want to see it later on the PC monitor "EXACTLY" the way we shot it "without" having to fuss with it first.

Without a calibrated monitor, all bets are off. Computer monitors are notoriously unreliable in terms of telling you the truth about what was shot, what's been processed, and what's being edited.

 

[Stuart English]

I have asked this question before, and everyone has told me that it is supposed to be that way, and you're supposed to do the adjusting in post later on. I'm sorry, but I just don't like that and it is not acceptable. I want to see it later on the PC monitor "EXACTLY" the way we shot it "without" having to fuss with it first.

Without a calibrated monitor, all bets are off. Computer monitors are notoriously unreliable in terms of telling you the truth about what was shot, what's been processed, and what's being edited.

Make sure that nobody has messed with the PC monitor settings - or habitually cancels the metadata settings recorded by the camera as their first step in grading - because NO that is not the way it is supposed to work. What you see on your monitor in the field is what you should see as your default grading look on your monitor with REDCINE-X.

 

[Johnny Friday]

This will not turn out to be a great example, but you get the point and i can tell you that if you understand and work post well, you won't be disappointed. I'm posting a low rez example of a RAW and then colored frame grab from Epic. But, this said, if you don't want to learn the post pipeline and can't afford to bring someone along that can do this, then red just may not be the camera for you. if shooting TV and you are delivering Prores and want out of the camera great looking images....there are a lot of great options out there.

I for one took about 2.5 years to figure out how to manipulate in post and why/how it was advantageous for me....but this is another step from shooting to umm....can't say coloring since i'm a crap colorist, but something in between.

As pointed out by another poster....get ready to spend a pile more $$ on proper post gear.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Too funny. Our footage looks terrible on our cheapie monitor, but looks great once color-corrected. All we use our monitor for is seeing what's in the shot!

Stephen

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Tiny monitors are going to be super duper crazy oversampled. If you look at RED footage in 4k it's going to look a bit soft cropped to 1080p. If though you scale down your red footage to 1080p it looks much better and significantly sharper.

Apply Sharpening, increase contrast and saturation and things will look a lot better.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Personally, we find dropping "shadow" (to the left on PP) to be the single most important control in post. . . but you can't do it on a One in camera.

Stephen

 

[Tom.Wong]

the monitors that even have a chance of looking "right" are

hp dreamcolor
one of the new eizo's that have 709 built in

or one of the new dell ultrasharps. the top model. i don't think they have 709 built in, but they just look REALLY good...

 

[Mark Toia]

My MAC LED's sit next to a SONY PRO OLED... Even though the SONY is expensive and perceived to be the best grading monitor out there at the moment... The MAC LED's are seriously as good.

the monitors that even have a chance of looking "right" are

hp dreamcolor
one of the new eizo's that have 709 built in

or one of the new dell ultrasharps. the top model. i don't think they have 709 built in, but they just look REALLY good...

 

[Tom.Wong]

My MAC LED's sit next to a SONY PRO OLED... Even though the SONY is expensive and perceived to be the best grading monitor out there at the moment... The MAC LED's are seriously as good.

though the mac displays are very nice, there is still the fact that inside of an OS, it doesn't operate natively in any industry standard color spaces other than for photo. no rec 709, no p3 etc. and they have limited calibration abilities. so out of the box it can be very aesthetically pleasing, but a properly calibrated sony PVM or BVM series really more accurately shows you your true values in the matter. for critical color decisions, knowing for a fact that your monitor and your scopes are true to the standards is the only thing you have to rely on to make sure you are starting at the best. since there are so many inconsistencies with viewing mediums now, that's kind of the only thing that can give production, DP, Director, etc any peace of mind.

but I pretty much have to abide by that as a technician. In the end, the only rule there is, is if you can make it look good on your end, and it can stay looking good for the most part or completely as it goes down the pipeline, than you're gold.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The more I look at the Sony OLEDs, the more apparent it's become just how overrated and overpriced they truly are. Save your money, buy a DreamColor. The Apple LED display and several of the other good LED backlit LCDs on the market from HP, Dell, Samsung, LG, etc.. are also great once calibrated / tweaked properly. For color work, I still recommend a good Panasonic plasma, a DreamColor or a good projector. All calibrated, of course. The DreamColor is the easiest way to go for calibrated color on a tight budget. Only real down-side is the small screen size and lack of a higher resolution 27~30" panel in that line.

 

[George D.]

This will not turn out to be a great example, but you get the point and i can tell you that if you understand and work post well, you won't be disappointed. I'm posting a low rez example of a RAW and then colored frame grab from Epic. But, this said, if you don't want to learn the post pipeline and can't afford to bring someone along that can do this, then red just may not be the camera for you. if shooting TV and you are delivering Prores and want out of the camera great looking images....there are a lot of great options out there.

I for one took about 2.5 years to figure out how to manipulate in post and why/how it was advantageous for me....but this is another step from shooting to umm....can't say coloring since i'm a crap colorist, but something in between.

As pointed out by another poster....get ready to spend a pile more $$ on proper post gear.

Holy jumping rat turds Johnny, is THAT your rig? Is it 3D? Wow, what a pile of equipment to juggle around. Wheeeeeeeew!!

YOU have to be at the forefront of underwater cinematography.

Thanks for your input, and everyone elses. I'll just have to learn post production better, especially since it looks like I have no choice.

.

 

[Olivier Madar]

Hi,


Don't trust your RGB moniteur. Use a matrox or BM card and connect a TV plasma or real monitor like this Panasonic BT-LH910. You are in "reel life" configurtation with REC709 and curves on the monitor. You see on this picture the huge difference between the image on the monitor and the Pana. If you are working near the black or white level, it is even more important. Here, we are dealing directly with R3D through Adobe CS6. No transcoding required, and when you change the Raw parameters, you see directly on the Pana what you get.
The litle Intensity USB3 BM works perfectly with my Clevo Notebook. Everything is powered with batterie if you need to go on the field.

 

[ericyoung]

the monitors that even have a chance of looking "right" are

hp dreamcolor
one of the new eizo's that have 709 built in

or one of the new dell ultrasharps. the top model. i don't think they have 709 built in, but they just look REALLY good...

Which Eizo and Dell models are you talking about here?