Affordable DCI P3 color monitor options

[Juan Salvo]

Well for P3 you’re really talking about theatrical release… so while there are some monitors that will show you p3 gamut (Dolby, Sony BVW-F/E, Panny BT300u, FSi, DreamColor) eventually you’ll need to look at it on a projector. Most DI facilities are using Christie/NEC/Barco 2K projectors. These are 35K+. Some have tried using consumer projectors capable of DCi gamut (sony vpl-vw1000es/ jvc rs-65) though these are limited to HDMI inputs and HD resolution signals, both of which are a hassle. I can’t personally vouche for these as DCi systems. All of those solutions require careful and ongoing calibration, with a high precision probe.

As far as software for calibration/luts the standard is pretty much light space, sometime cinespace.

But if you want affordable grading for DCI you’re far better off doing a poor-man’s DI and just grading in 709 and converting. You might not be pushing it as much, but at least you’ll know what you are getting and can afford the gear to do it right. Better a great or even good 709 grade than a bad/inaccurate P3 grade!

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[Eugene Lehnert]

Thanks for the information. I’ve been living in a Rec709 world for a long time and am just getting my feet wet in the big wide world of large gamuts. The Resolve is an affordable color corrector but it still requires a large investment to work with these higher end workflows still it seems.

So even though the Dolby monitor can show the P3 color space it is not recommended to grade on since nobody would see it on that type of device?

From what I understand going from XYZ from P3 is not much of a change since XYZ is the visible part of the P3 Color Gamut? So a 3D LUT may be all you need for a conversion to a DCP? Then if you do a Rec709 version of the film you need to do a color pass on the movie since a 3D LUT may not be enough to convert the color spaces?

[Marc R leonard]

I’m hearing more and more that people are going this route with great success.