Finished video looks SO different depending on player?

[Gerry Cast]

Thanks. I bought a good Sony Reference monitor (not a TV), to use with my Intensity Pro (external) for playback of my Adobe Premier Pro video editing sessions.

My Spyder 5 will only calibrate monitors hooked directly to the computers video card, so how do I calibrate with my Sony hooked to the Intensity Pro? People are telling me it can’t be done (unless maybe it I get a LUT device from Aja).

Any help would be appreciated because I feel the expensive reference monitor is going to waste using it like this. My color calibrated Ben Q computer monitors are showing my deep rich colors, and the Sony Reference monitor looks a lot less saturated.

I used to use a plain old flat screen HDMI input TV as that would reflect what most people would use when playing my Blu Ray or DVD discs, so that seems to make more sense now that using this monitor (which I can return for the next 6 days).

Or, can I just get rid of the Intensity Pro external unit, plug the Sony monitor into my computer’s 980Ti card, calibrate using the Spyder 5 and then move my Premier Pro Program monitor to the Sony Reference monitor, and like you said, do the best I can grading on that?

Everything looks good on my computer monitors, but Blu Ray and DVD disks all are “lighter” looking and the Overly Blending Mode I used to “darken” a bright audience in a theater don’t seem to be translating to discs, but again, all look good on a computer, so the outputted H.264 file is ok, I guess. Frustrating.

I’m starting to suspect Adobe Encore is doing some Gamma (is that brightness and darkness?) shifting when outputting to disk.

Thanks.

[Tero Ahlfors]

[Gerry Cast] “My Spyder 5 will only calibrate monitors hooked directly to the computers video card, so how do I calibrate with my Sony hooked to the Intensity Pro?”

You can create calibration LUTs in this case. I use Lightillusion’s Lightspace but there are different options. Also the Spyder probes are notoriously bad and not recommended. The Xrite i1 display pro is a good cheaper model probe.

[Gerry Cast] “My color calibrated Ben Q computer monitors are showing my deep rich colors, and the Sony Reference monitor looks a lot less saturated.”

Deep rich colours aren’t necessarily correct. If you’re doing an sRGB or Rec709 project on a wide gamut display the colors will look nice and vibrant but they aren’t right for what you’re trying to do.

[Gerry Cast] “Or, can I just get rid of the Intensity Pro external unit, plug the Sony monitor into my computer’s 980Ti card, calibrate using the Spyder 5 and then move my Premier Pro Program monitor to the Sony Reference monitor, and like you said, do the best I can grading on that?”

No. The point of the I/O device is that it is bypassing whatever the GPU and the OS is trying to do to the colors. You COULD do this (Premiere should have some ICC support now but I haven’t tested it) but you should know EXACTLY what you’re doing and validate that you’re actually seeing what you’re supposed to see.

[Gerry Cast] “I’m starting to suspect Adobe Encore is doing some Gamma (is that brightness and darkness?) shifting when outputting to disk.”

No. It’s using whatever you’ve put into it. 99.5% of these cases are wrong viewing/playback options and if something looks lighter or darker then it is usually a video/data level issue. Check out: https://www.lightillusion.com/data_tv_levels.html

[Gerry Cast]

Thank you Tero!

Thanks about the Spyder, yes, I’ve heard the Xrite is better too. Looks like it $125.00 more than the Spyder I purchased already, but I’ll consider it anyway.

OK, got it, so the Instensity Pro is bypassing whatever the GPU and OS is trying to do to the colors. Don’t know, as you said, if PPro has ICC support, but will try to find out.

Regardless of the above questions and answers, the one weird thing in PPro 2019 ver 13.0 is that I’m using Blending Modes on a projects to darken areas of a theater that has a small audience in it, but that has empty seats. I’ve successfully darkened those empty areas. I export to H.264 High Quality 2 Pass and the resulting video looks fine. But, when I export of of Encore to make a Blu Ray or a DVD, the Blending Mode darkened areas play back brighter, as if there are no Blending Modes any more. I’ve tried different burning software, different hardware burners, different DVD/Blu Ray playback devices and different TV’s, all with the same result. Any ideas? Thanks.