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Is it the monitor?
So I was editing a video and played with the color so it had that film look. On the computer it was looking great! Then when I rendered it down, and put it on dvd it didn’t look like how it did on my computer monitor? What is it? The monitor?
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8 Replies
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Due to their nature, computer monitors and TV sets have different gamma settings so there’s almost no way to guarantee that you’ll get what you thought you had.
This is the main reason that you should always use an external video monitor, even if it’s a TV set with a video input jack on it. -
So basically just hook up a tv right?
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As long as it has a video in jack on it and you have a miniDV camcorder that has the pass-thru feature, you’re all set.
For calibrating the TV, try this tutorial. -
It also should be pointed out that you should calibrate your computer monitor as well. Preferable with a hardware calibration device like a Spyder3 or equivalent but if you connect an external broadcast monitor as Mike suggests and use that for all color correction you should be fine. Note: a TV will not be as a accurate as using a broadcast monitor and TV’s don’t have a blue gun mode so you’ll need to buy the correct blue filter overlay to calibrate it properly and if you get the wrong shade of blue it will throw everything off.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
In my experience, computer monitor calibration hardware does not help with video activities. My monitor, and of course my video card, are calibrated with a Monaco Optix unit. The result is dead on accurate for photography. What I see on the screen is what I see on prints coming off an Epson 2400, 4800, etc. It is correct for color, and it is correct for brightness. My prints are not too dark or too light, and I can see fine gradations of color on my monitor.
However, my monitor does not display video the way that a TV does. If I set luminance so that a video looks correct on my monitor, it will invariably be too bright and overexposed on a television. While I have not yet invested in a studio TV monitor, I do attach a portable TV so that I can get a rough idea of how the video will look. That allows me to get a rough idea of how the rendered video will look. The acid test, for me, is a test burn of a DVD which I can then view on a TV. The open issue is whether or not my TVs are reasonably close to accurate. I think they probably are because commercial DVDs look as I expect them to look when displayed on the same TVs.
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> However, my monitor does not display video the way that a TV does.
That is absolutely correct. I didn’t mean to imply that computer monitor could ever match a CRT TV. For that you need an external TV monitor to check. A PC LCD can, however, match an HD TV LCD. So you can color correct for HD on your PC monitor; just not for SD.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Are you saying that an SD TV and an HD TV LCD display video at noticeably different luminance levels? That what looks good on an older TV will look much darker or noticeably different on an HD TV LCD? Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to debate this question. It is an observation that truly surprises me, and I would like to understand it better. I have not noticed any difference between the images I see on an older TV, and those I see on our newer flat screen TVs. If there is a difference, that is something I would like to know.
The image displayed on the computer monitor can easily be adjusted. In my case, I can simply adjust the video card driver to produce a brighter image which will match what I am seeing on TVs. However, if I do that, my monitor will no longer accurately display what my photo prints will look like, and it will no longer conform to how the Monaco Optix led me to adjust the monitor. That was what I was getting at. The monitor calibration devices will set the monitor to the standard used in the wider world of color. That standard appears to differ from what is used for TVs. At least that is how I am interpreting the difference that I have seen.
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> Are you saying that an SD TV and an HD TV LCD display video at noticeably different luminance levels?
Yes, and a DLP will have different levels than a Plasma. Have you ever been to a TV store? The difference in ability to represent luminance in display technologies is quite noticeable. If there wasn’t a difference, a 50″ LCD would be just as cheap as a 50″ DLP (instead of twice the price) but they are not and the LCD will always look better and cost more.
> That was what I was getting at. The monitor calibration devices will set the monitor to the standard used in the wider world of color. That standard appears to differ from what is used for TVs. At least that is how I am interpreting the difference that I have seen.
That is true for SD TV’s but not for HD TV’s. One reason is because SD and HD technology use two different color spaces. Standard definition TV uses ITU-R BT.601 and Hi definition TV uses the ITU-R BT.709 color space. You can color correct for HD on a PC monitor. This is why Vegas now uses the Windows Secondary Display as a preview device. I’m not talking about watching SD media on an HD TV. I’m talking about color correcting HD media for HD TV.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com
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