DaVinci grading suite in London with DCI projection

[Dan Moran]

Hey Toby,

I don’t think any of the DCI suites in London are available for dry hire. I had to rent a room here

https://www.firmdale.com/london/covent-garden-hotel/covent-garden-screening-room/technical-specifications-rates

Not ideal for you but I hope it helps.

I was lucky that a good friend of mine was lugging the equipment around while I arrived empty handed 🙂

Alternatively you can use LUTs to emulate a DCI environment and it works quite well but thats totally your choice!

Hope this helps.

D

Dan Moran
DaVinci Application Specialist
Blackmagic Design EMEA

[Toby Tomkins]

Looks like we’re doing it at Soho Screening rooms (aka mr Youngs) for £125 per hour which is reasonable. Question is do I feed it rec709 or try the DaVinci XYZ transformation or use a LUT that was posted here before (can’t remember by who but people said it was good). As far as I know the projector hardware/server will handle the transformation from 709 well (as it does with hdcam sr decks as input etc)

[Joakim Ziegler]

If your material is rec.709, why do you want a DCI projector? It’s not going to look any different or better.

—
Joakim Ziegler – Postproduction Supervisor

[Toby Tomkins]

Yes and no, its not only the colourspace that we’re checking. The projector handles the conversion from 709 to XYZ in a similiar way that our DCP will be transformed (3d LUT), so it represented our DCP very closely. Other things like the size of the screen and environment are factors that drive some decisions for grade tweaks in the cinema. Smaller things are much more noticeable on a big screen (hue selection edges for example, or noise) that you might not fully appreciate on a monitor. There is also naturally lifted blacks and a little less saturation with projection (a physical limitation of a projector and screen!).

Soho Screening rooms (aka mr Young’s) were great and it all worked out perfectly. I couldn’t recommend them highly enough!