eeColor LUT box better than Black Magic for $700

[Robert Houllahan]

Looks like a really great little box, and as someone who has a basically useless HD-Link-Pro Display Port….

I think AJA would have a nice product to sell if they made a Mini SDI/HDMI LUT box….

-Rob-

Robert Houllahan
Director / Colorist
Cinelab Inc.
http://www.cinelab.com

MAHC-PRO 6-Core 3X GTX285 20Tb SAS Wave Panel Panny 11UK SDI Plasma. Light-Space CMS + Hubble

[Oyvind Stiauren]

I have a Davio and it does indeed have HDMI 1.3 input and output.

—
Oyvind Stiauren
Post production supervisor, Colorist
Terminal

Mexico City

[Mike Nagel]

Robert,

so u can confirm that the eeColor provides progressive 10-bit to the HP DC ? If so, how did u confirm that you’re actually getting 10-bit on the HP DC ?

I was looking into this solution [LS / eeColor / HP DC (10-bit)] for quite some time but I was not sure if the HP DC receives a pristine 10-bit progressive RGB signal from the eeColor box which it needs otherwise the Dreamcolor engine shuts down and switches to 8-bit…

My eeColor is on the way and will arrive Monday but I don’t have an HP DC (yet) – I will get one if we can establish a 10-bit workflow with the eeColor box…

Thanks !

– Mike

[Robert Ruffo]

Indeed it is 10 bit. I verified this by simply feeing the output to a monitor that does not accept 10 bit – it would not accept it until a I switched Davinci back to 8 bit output. Also, a straight pass-through looks exactly identical to going through the eeColor in neutral/linear setting – so it is not discarding anything.

AJA is the device that converts YUV from the Decklink to HDMI RGB, eeColor simply “color tones” the image using a calibration LUT created in Lightspace in a way that corrects and accounts for inaccuracy in my monitor. The eeColor cannot convert 8 bit to 10 bit or YUV to RGB – that is not its function.

BTW – the Dreamcolor calibration kit is 100% useless – it makes the monitor LESS accurate than its factory state. It is so bad it borders on being a claim with the Better Business Bureau. Shame on you HP! (But Kudos for the Dreamcolor itself.)

Also, yes – Davio also has HDMI – forgot that….

Light Illusion sells the eeColor boxes for $700 or so – you can also pay $1500 for the same box with a different badge elsewhere. 😉

[Mike Nagel]

Thanks Robert for confirming that !

Indeed I was wondering if the HP calibration kit is any good, for the sole reason that others have claimed it does a good job – I would have been surprised if it can match any of the Pro packages.

Here’s more info on the eeColor package in case anybody is interested:

Lightspace VMS:

> creates a 65^3 LUT (to be stored in the eeColor box) from a 17^3 profile – it will read 4913 points on your screen. You can create smaller profiles, 17^3 is the current maximum.
> you only need to profile your display ONCE – u can then create all kinds of LUT’s (Rec709, Rec601, sRGB, P3 DCI etc.) from that ONE display profile

eeColor box:

> 6 internal storage slots for LUT’s
> 3D LUT algorithm only supports maximum of 10-bit input
> max bit-depth of internal processing: 10 Bits for the 3D LUT
> max resolution: 1080P is the offical max supported resolution
> 12 bits HDMI in will be 12 bits HDMI out but will be rescaled to 10 bits for 3D color table processing

– M

[Robert Ruffo]

I did not know that 12 bits were scaled down to 10 bits for processing. I doubt, in terms of monitoring, that you could ever tell the difference. Whether it’s Lightspace or the eeColor or how they work in combination, I can assert that I have yet to see banding from any good (i.e. not-5D video) image fed through the eeColor with a Lightspace LUT applied – including the tough ones like deep sky gradients.

I can say that the box passes 2K without issue. I have not tried 4K – and have no near plans to purchase a 4K monitor.

It’s true with Lighstapce you only have to probe once for each color space, and then you use the info about your monitor’s behavior/misbehavior top create LUTS for any flavor of colorspace, but most monitor types drift a little – front-projectors and plasmas can drift a lot, so you still have to re-probe every few weeks to stay in tune with how your monitor(s) has/have shifted.

[Robert Ruffo]

[Mike Nagel] ”
Indeed I was wondering if the HP calibration kit is any good, for the sole reason that others have claimed it does a good job – I would have been surprised if it can match any of the Pro packages.
“

No – It’s worse than that – it actually makes you monitor LESS ACCURATE – so it is only a negative thing – imagine a cleaning fluid that could only make your house more dirty – same idea.

[Mike Nagel]

“I did not know that 12 bits were scaled down to 10 bits for processing. I doubt, in terms of monitoring, that you could ever tell the difference.”

yeah, that info comes straight from the manufacturer. But in order to see it, you’d need a 12-bit application, 12-bit graphic card and of course a 12-bit display… so 12-bit via that box not really needed atm 😉

[Mike Most]

I have to say that I used the Dreamcolor calibration puck and software quite a few times and never had the issues that you’re describing. It always brought the monitor back to where it was supposed to be, and projects graded using that monitor always remained consistent across other deliverables and viewing systems. Of course, I was feeding the Dreamcolor via SDI through an AJA HDP2, ensuring that the calibration engine was being properly implemented.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I am saying that what you’re stating is not necessarily universally true, either.

[Craig Harris]

I have never found the HP DC and puck to be anywhere close to accurate.
We put it next to several displays calibrated with a Filmlight Truelight box and the DC calibration with puck was way off. We had much better results manually calibrating it.