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You don’t need a Davio and you don’t need an HD link – perfect REC 709 with just a consumer plasma
ALl you need to do is:
– get a good probe – i1Display is GREAT and cheap
– get a very good consumer plamsa – Vt30, or better, Vt25 (yes last yera’s models were better and had superior QC)
– Get Calman DIY to adjust your monitor as best you can (better to have a good starting point right at the display). You will find that with most displays the best you can get is “OK” no matter how long you fuss, and there will still be parts of the greyscale that are visibly off, but it won’t be as obnoxiously color-pushed as out of the box.
– Buy Lightspace. Run it’s special DPX sequence in Resolve – it will automatically create a 3D LUT for you – a 3D lut has thousands of “calibration points” that set not just gamma and white balance but gamut correctly – I’m talking a Delta E of zero across the board.
– Load the resulting 3D Lut into Resolve as a display LUT.Voila! Your monitor will now be absolute obcessive-compulsibe standard-meeting perfect while working in resolve (would also be in AE or any soft that can use display LUTs.
Yes Lightspace is not cheap – but how much is actually offering your clients a professional grading room worth to you? How much is having off monitor color going to cost you in the long run? To me, these are scary considerations.
Also, a box is operating on a 10 bit color stream at best, whereas the LUT within Davinci is pushing around vectors in 32 bit space.
Anyway, no I don’t work for Lightsapce, I just love their product.
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23 Replies
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Thanks for the info… But…
Delta E of 0 is impossible with a colorimeter like i1 display… At least across the board…
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Yes, you are right – this is only if you have a better meter. But Delta <1 is no problem. You can always get a better meter later, plus if you take measurements slowly and average them (what Lightspace does) you can get very good precision.
Still, the point is you don’t need a LUT box, or even an SDI card.
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i need a lut Box (HDLINK) because i have 2 monitors (dream color for me and Panasonic 58″ for client) and both have unique LUT …
g
Davinci Resolve Control Surface
MacPro
Cubix desktop 4
2 Red Rockets
GTX470+GTX470+GTX285
24GB RAM
HP Dreamcolor
Panasonic 58PF Plasma -
With 2 monitors, you can use Lut from decklink preference panel for hdmi out… and don’t use resolve lut. And the other SDI out to any Calibrated monitor, or a hdlink.
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I was speaking from the P.O.V. of a small, indy boutique, in a city where space is very, very expensive. We have just one shared monitor carefully positioned so that both the colorist and the client can see it easily.
Hey, it works.For us, every dollar counts and being able to save ourselves buying an external box, plus an SDI card figured into some math. That math also looked at the price of a Flanders and other factors.
If we were to expand and get a second monitor, we would probably need to get an external box, although if both monitors were the same model unit variance would probably be sufficiently small to easily correct within the panel’s settings, and we could get away with not doing that. Anyway, the external box could be Fed a lut that corrects for Davinci + display lut of first monitor + problems with 2nd monitor itself. But we like that we can grow in smaller steps, and not have to buy all that gear at once. The same Lighstcape license will adjust the box, if/when we will need it.
I was also a little imprecise in my language in my OP. When I said “Delta 0” what I meant was zero at a practical, human vision level. I do realize that perfect 0 does not exist in reality, anywhere.
If an i1 display is so spot-on that no one in the room, in a room full of highly trained eyes, can tell the difference between its results and those of a $10 000 meter, no matter what sample images you run, then really, who cares what those differences are at a tech level. For some clients, we will rent that $10 000 meter and calibrate with it before the session so they can rest easier. WIll its calibration result end in different color grading decisions vs. the i1 display calibration? Probably not.
I also realize that delta-E is only one measure among many, and perhaps not the best one. but I bring it up because it is familiar to many.
Somebody sent me a PM saying that gamut should be left wider for working. I disagree. I think everything should be correct to Rec 709 and as such look as much as possible like the perfect middle between all the TV sets out there with all their individuated color pushes. “What you see is the average of what they will get” We do broadcast, however, not P3. In P3 I might chose a different approach. MAny here might have different opinions and I’d love to hear them.
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How will you get the hdmi signal out of Davinci without a Blackmagic Card? Would you use an DVI to HDMI converter and use the second outpout of the Graphic card? Please tell me the trick – I don´t quit get it…
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You can use an Intensity Pro card – since you won’t be bending the signal (the LUT takes care of that at the software level before the card) you don’t need more than 8 bit HDMI. Intensity Pro is about $130.
i do not feel one should grade in 10 bit for Rec 709- one should grade in the same color space as final use whenever possible. Blu-ray and cable TV are both 8 bit as is web delivery – so for what we do we grade on a “perfected average” of user screen capability.
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i believed that as well (grading in 8bit) a while ago ..
than later on , i have realized how clients , in My room what to to see the most stunning image as possible ,otherwise they might be not happy of the money spent .
g
Davinci Resolve Control Surface
MacPro
Cubix desktop 4
2 Red Rockets
GTX470+GTX470+GTX285
24GB RAM
HP Dreamcolor
Panasonic 58PF Plasma -
Clients take what you grade home and show it on other screens.
Our facility is based on the “full guarantee/no surprises” philosophy.
Besides, grading in 10 bit for a 8 bitspace target delivery is like grading in 3D for a 2D delivery – OK not as bad but in that direction.
You can run into real problems, like maybe the center of attention is less obvious in 8 bit, because its colour and the backgrounds render as too similar when down-converted. (Unlikely, but not impossible, and certainly possible at a subtle level.).
Besides, “bedazzling” clients in this somewhat deceptive manner I find potentially disrespectful of their intelligence. We have great clients, we very much respect them.
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i totally disagree .
8 bit vs 10 bit is not as Bad you are saying , 8 bit H264 can be delivered with such high quality that the grading experience should not be compromised by the internet delivery …Blu Ray can look Like the R3D color session etc…
It’s like a 16bit Tif and a 8 Bit Jpeg Properly compressed (inside the files the amount of information is incredibly different (high on tif and super poor on a Jpeg), but on the surface you basically cannot tell the difference)
g
Davinci Resolve Control Surface
MacPro
Cubix desktop 4
2 Red Rockets
GTX470+GTX470+GTX285
24GB RAM
HP Dreamcolor
Panasonic 58PF Plasma
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