A cost effective HD monitoring system…If it exists.

[Aaron Neitz]

We are considering using the 16×9 downconvert to feed SDI to our legacy NTSC BVM monitors for final color sign off….(for the money, I don’t think a better CRT was ever made). and 23″ apple LCD for the rest of the workflow.

[Dan Riley]

Thanks Bob.
Good info.
More to think about.

Dan

[Steve Covello]

There has been a raging debate among myself and my producer on the topic of whether color correction “counts” only when it’s done on calibrated CRT versus “what the customer will see.” After all, when you do a mix, the last thing everyone does is listen to it on little Ritz Cracker sized speakers, right?

The semantics of the argument are whether you want to be “accurate” or “realistic”. The problem I have with the “realistic” argument is that it is entirely subjective to the singular (innacurate) reference you have in your studio versus the millions of other references in the viewing audience. While the rule of thumb in audio mixing is “you lose music levels when it goes out to air” (so I’ve been told), you lose quite a bit more in color accuracy by the time it gets piped out over the air/cable system. So if a client is watching at home when their spot/program comes on and they say to you, “Geez, the blacks were so washed out! What happened? I thought we color corrected it?”. What do you say?

I never will advocate the “realistic” argument when it comes to color correction by measuring against anything other than an accurate monitor.

Steve Covello
double wide post

[Bob Zelin]

This raging debate is everywhere, and no one wants to “color correct” on LCD or Plasma scrrens. This will be reinforced by the hi end color correction facilities that will buy $25,000 – $35,000 Sony HD CRTs (the few that are still produced).

But this means NOTHING – does anyone mix on Westlake, Quested, or other hi end recording monitors – of course not. Mixing (for almost the entire industry) is done on near field monitor (Mackie, Genelec, KRK, Behringer,
Roland, Event, JBL, etc, etc). and even these are better than the typical home stereo speaker. Does it sound as good as on Westlakes, Questeds or the big monster Genelecs – of course not – BUT WHO CARES – no one will ever hear it that way.

Same thing applies with TV monitoring. It’s not my fault that Sony and Panasonic have decided to stop making CRT monitors (with the rare exception
of the very expensive Sony HD CRT’s) and LET ME ASSURE YOU that there will be NO AD AGENCY, NO CORPORATE BOARD ROOM, NO RECORD COMPANY, NO CONSUMER,
and NO TV STATION CORPORATE CONFERENCE ROOM that will EVER have a glass CRT
in their rooms. The only place you will EVER see new hi end HD monitors will be in network QC stations (maybe – probably not) and hi end color correction suites (because they will convince you how much more accurate it is).

IT’S OVER. Get used to it. And the people who push the $35,000 Sony HD
CRT will be the SAME people who will soon convince you that Sony HD Cam and
Panasonic DVCProHD suck, and that the ONLY way to work is dual link 4:4:4.
Good luck to them, and God Bless them if they can get those clients.

Bob Zelin

[Walter Biscardi]

5) You are dreaming if you think that “color correction” must be done on a tube monitor, as there WILL BE NO CLIENT THAT WILL EVER SEE HD ON A TUBE CRT MONITOR. Every client you will ever have from this day on, will only have a Plasma or LCD to see your image – better color correct on what they will own.

So Bob, let me get this straight. I’m cutting a series for HD Broadcast right now and you’re telling me that every single person in every single household who watches this show in HD will own a Plasma Screen or LCD Screen? A little unrealistic don’t you think? After all they are my ultimate client and they will all be watching this show from an HD feed and I’m betting that a LOT of them will still own projection or tube television for at least the next year.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Mrvideo]

[Walter Biscardi] “they will all be watching this show from an HD feed and I’m betting that a LOT of them will still own projection or tube television”

Isn’t the issue really how it looks on an LCD or DLP projection unit. Either a standalone projector or one of the new $2500 desk top projection televisions?

Those others you seem to be defending that only have CRT’s are 4:3 or some pseudo frame cram projection, but just go to Best Buy or Buy.com amd look at what is for sale. Agreed there are CRT based 30″ and 34″ televisions but the whole of projection televisions or LCD 25″ to 35″ televisions are not CRT and the CRT is DEAD for all practical purposes as a medium for HD viewing.

There needs to be a different “standard” for color correction with LCD and projection.

The Apple 23″ CRT display with either the AJA or Decklink HD converters are the most practical way of displaying every pixel of 1080.

[Steve Covello]

My point is that when you are sitting in the room with a Director, DP, producer and client and they ask you if what they are looking is accurate, if it’s anything but a $40,000 telecine CRT, I will always so no. But if I have a $3000 CRT at 800 lines, I will say “this is close as I can get without going into a telecine suite.” If they are satisfied with this standard, fine. If not, they can pay for a telecine room. Not my nickel. And I’m not the least bit convinced that color correcting for “bad TV” is a good policy.

If I were to turn to them and say, in effect, “I realize that you’ve just spent $500,000 to shoot all this beautiful footage, but I’m going to show it to you in the screwed up color balance and luminance range of the real world just give you an idea of how much worse this footage will look once it leaves this room.”

They are not interested in what it will look like for the viewing public. They care about what it will look like on their reels for their next job. Or if the director and client are in the same room, the director wants his/her footage to look “worthy” of the money the client just blew on them.

Steve Covello
double wide post

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Walter –
to respond to your comment about the CRT at home – home viewers (including myself) will be viewing HD images as DOWNCONVERTED SD images on their old tube CRT TV sets. I was trying to poing out that anyone viewing the actual HD image will be doing so on a Plasma or LCD, and NEVER a CRT monitor. Certainly, we will have tube CRT monitors everywhere for at least the next 10 years – but this will be SD images.

Bob Zelin