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At it’s worst…
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An RGB monitor calibration system is probably more applicable for most editors these days as most corporate, non-profit, and educational videos go to the web. Clients review intermediates almost exclusively via digital file on laptop or desktop. I personally use a Colorvision Spyder2Pro (which I originally purchased to help calibrate for photo printing). FCPX’s profile support should make this calibration process even more accurate.
I don’t do a lot of broadcast work. But the documentaries I have worked on are reviewed in the same way and don’t need a broadcast monitor until the online session which is usually elsewhere.
I do have an Matrox MXO2LE, but rarely find myself needing it these days.
I agree that those doing online broadcast work are out of luck until FCPX accommodates such output.
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[Craig Alan] “Word processing/broadband did this for writing. There are writers now at all levels that get an audience. There will be room for ‘pros’ now that video is a new form of literacy.”
Yes, I know those people too, and none of them are making much money now. It’s a part-time thing now for a lot of them. Having said that, I get your point. Graphic Designers went through the same thing. There was a huge wash out rate and a dearth of time before it started coming back a bit.
[Craig Alan] “I have been wondering for a while … if the cloud is the distribution system, what is the proper form of color correction?”
Hey, it’s the wild west… your guess is as good as anyone’s…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
[Craig Alan] “I have been wondering for a while … if the cloud is the distribution system, what is the proper form of color correction?”
Computer monitor (with hardware color calibration puck); they are not any more variable then current HDTVs or SD NTSC monitors before them… Never The Same Color twice (NTSC), remember?
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I’m going to disagree.
I’ve delivered precisely 13 High Def spots for local network affiliate broadcast over the past 3 months.
On the first 3, I was scrupulously and obsessively careful to use scopes and make sure everything was “broadcast safe.”
By the time I got to 4 and had talked to the back room guys at the head end of the upload links, I started relaxing.
Perhaps the encoding software I use (Telestream Episode) is doing all the signal clamping and color monitoring in the background somewhere – I don’t know about that since I just set the output the way each station tells me (and every single station is different, by the way) – but not a single one of those spots has had a problem. And lest you think they were simple to begin with, they were composites of 5dMkii footage with Photoshop created client logos – and all had art-directed “corporate color” specified logos over “solid white” FCP generated closing screens.
Lots and lots and LOTS of places where the digital outputs could have gone over limit and out of spec.
Yet none of them did.
And Mitch, I know for a fact that like me, you’ve spent a lot of time suffering through trying to get things like computer generated titles to display properly on broadcast rasters. What’s the point of all that anti-aliasing if TV resolutions are equal to computers? In point of fact they’re not. My Cinema Display is cruising along at 2560 x 1600 without breaking a sweat. Which, unless my math is bad, is a lot MORE PIXELS than the 1920×1080 US SMPTE 274M HD TV standard – and a LOT more than the 1280×720 “720p” standard used by most broadcast stations.
And even that ignores that the VAST majority of what gets broadcast is compressed further at satellite head ends, and in stations before delivery. So broadcast now and for the forseeable future will be a process of fitting an original computer raster into the coarser one that HDTV demands. When you look at direct computer to computer delivery, theres’ no need to “dumb down” the original resolution other than to accommodate smaller file sizes. And in my experience, web delivered “computer video” is a WHOLE LOT better than broadcast TV – including “High Def.”
And yep, one of the 4 most recent direct to computer downloads I’ve recently watched was probably done on FCP-X, Steve Martin’s FCP-X guide. And the screen shots are OUTSTANDING. Plenty of details even in shots of a computer interface with tiny elements.
I shudder to think what that would have looked like back in the SD video days.
Peace.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner
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[Bill Davis] “Perhaps the encoding software I use (Telestream Episode) is doing all the signal clamping and color monitoring in the background somewhere – I don’t know about that since I just set the output the way each station tells me (and every single station is different, by the way) – but not a single one of those spots has had a problem.”
Episode has nothing to do with it, the TV stations you’re delivering to are most likely using “legalizer” hardware.
In any case Bill, it sounds suspiciously like you’re now arguing that FCP X is better than its predecessor(s) because it has no professional I/O or monitoring capability. And, I thought I’d heard it all.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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