follow-up to Vegasvs FCP (wondering about QUALITY)

[Frank Black]

The Huey Pro also acts as a light sensor in the room when not used for calibration, so it can dynamically adjust your color profile based on changing room light conditions.

Dave, can you please tell me more about how the Huey Pro also acts as a light sensor. I’m not sure I understand what this means. Why would the room’s light condition have any effect on the outcome of your work?

[Dave Haynie]

Calibration of a monitor (LCD or otherwise) is pretty simple. All major modern OSs have color correction built-in to their GUI… color calibration works at this level. You attach a device to your PC, which directly reads each screen. Then you run a program, which displays known colors, reads the result back from the sensor device, and alters your color profile accordingly.

HDTV setup is usually simpler. For one, when you’re correcting a monitor for video or photo authoring, your goal is to produce technically correct colors, that will look proper on any calibrated screen. That would work fine for an HDTV, too, but unlike a PC, you’re not usually connected through some device that supports color correction though a USB sensor (though for the forthcoming “smart” TVs like Android TV, this should be possible via a simple application, if they’ve thought to include color correction in the Android API).

A TV-setup pro might use a color meter and a series of test patterns, but most people use a guided calibration disc, and trust their eyes. The better calibration videos help by giving you scenarios that let you make the correct adjustments without necessarily having to know all of the reasons. Monster Cable has sold the “ISF Calibration Wizard” disc since before Blu-Ray (I have a version with DVD and WMV/HD options around here somewhere). If you have any THX certified DVD or Blu-Ray, you probably have the “THX Optimizer” on it, which gives you a pretty detailed guided calibration video (though to use this fully, you need to get a special blue-tinted eyeglass). You can also get some free and very useful calibration patterns and videos here: https://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496.

-Dave

[Erik Lindahl]

>>> So what do you mean by “it all depends on what you do of course?” 

Well as you’ve recognize as I work with adds it’s similar to feature-film work but in a very small, compact form. Other types of work could be a longer-form such as TV-series or corporate video work. Here you might have more need for higher through-put, less need for “per cut detail work” hence you’ve got more need for a very competent editor. 

I can’t say an AVID or FCP-system makes that huge of a difference, given a system with “true realtime” could help ALOT in some situations. But you also get into features like media and sequence handling. Premier Pro before CS4 I think didn’t support multiple projects / sequences open at the same time – a HUGE limitation in some situations (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on this one, it’s just an example of a feature I could never live without).

Also, and editor can be more of a “finishing system”. I’d say one of the more capable finishing systems out there is Autodesk Smoke. This however is a somewhat different realm than FCP / VEGAS and adds a real compositing solution with-in the editor. Anyhow, finishing features included things like color-correction and other image correction features (image stabilization for example). Here your editor should have a base of features but a very strong point of FCP here is the vast amount of add-ons and plug-ins for nearly anything you can think about. 

>>> I’m also trying to figure out why Avid is multiple times the cost of other NLEs..

There are a lot of reasons for this. They virtually owned the high-end editor market before Apple and FCP came into the scene in the late 90’s. Owning a market they could conduction features and price to their liking. Traditionally an AVID-system has been bundled soft- and hardware pushing up the price quite a lot. FCP, Premier Pro and other software-deraritives are more “build your own” system. This give you more options and adds competition amongst the hardware-vendors. 

Now, since the past year or two AVID has moved into the software only releases, given you still pay a premium for their product. And for people complaining about FCP using “it’s own fileformat” it’s been a lot more open than what it started to compete with – AVID. The latest release here seems to change that a bit however. 

Lots of text, hope it answers some of your questions. 🙂

————————
Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se

[John Rofrano]

[Frank Black] “Dave, can you please tell me more about how the Huey Pro also acts as a light sensor. I’m not sure I understand what this means. Why would the room’s light condition have any effect on the outcome of your work?”

Because colors in bright sunlight will look different that colors in a room with all the lights out. The ambient room light definitely affects the richness of the colors. The Spyder 3 has the same feature. You keep it in it’s holder and it senses when the room light changes enough to require a different profile.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Frank Black]

John, Erik, and Dave — THANK YOU!

And yes, Erik, lots of text in this thread, very fortunately.

Asking about one thing, I learned a lot that now I know I can’t do without. If you guys — and everyone else who can contribute — think there are some other very important things that I, as a beginner, should know about and should learn more about, such as calibration, please let me know when you can.

Thanks guys. One of the things I learned from this thread that excites me, is that post is a LOT more technical than just having an editing system and being good with it. Aside from opening up my eyes, this thread has given me courage. But I still wanna fall in love with “my editor” and that decision has been made 🙂

[Al Bergstein]

Just caught up with this thread. Great information.

Dave, in answer to your question, I do understand that Windows supports hi resolution monitors. I have the *same* HDMI 1080p 24″ monitor with two inputs attached to both my Mac Pro and HP Win 7 64 bit machine. I toggle between them for what I need. So whatever calibration the monitor has, is the same, the variable is the underlying computer and it’s graphics card and tuning.

No I haven’t professionally calibrated either the Mac or the Windows machine, I need to but haven’t sprung for the device yet. So this is like any standard user that would try and use either of these machines. I’m not doing a huge volume of commercial work, but I have been getting paid for what I do.

I do editing preview on both machines. The *same footage* looks noticeably better coming off the mac. No question about it.

I don’t understand your comment about “no need for application to support a graphics card.” Of course the OS is where the drivers live to support the app, that’s what I was meaning. Whether the app can output the right quality of resolution would be some code in the app talking to the OS, which is all the tuneable settings in Vegas or is this no longer true in Windows 7?

Perhaps my problem is that if I properly calibrate the Windows machine to the monitor (which is what I guess that device will do for me), I’ll get a closer rendition to the Mac output on it. But that’s the point of my post, the Mac just does it without me messing with it… if there’s something I need to know about settings on the Windows machine, (i.e. what *are* the right settings for us in the project properties dialogue? there is no training material I’ve seen to help me understand when to change those settings!) And also in Options>preferences>Video and Preview Device …for example, should I be tuning the Monitor color profile? I just can’t find decent info on those variables. It might help those of us who are struggling to just get things done fast and clean, to use more of Vegas.

I agree with you, I get simple things done “much” faster on Vegas. Cross fades are a perfect example, and for simple jobs “why transcode?” It *makes* me money to not transcode when the job is simple.

So some decent pointers to some training on how to properly color balance this highly tuneable machine is needed. For me and apparently others on this thread.

The Mac can operate on assumptions of underlying hardware and software that we on Windows can’t. So we need help. Sony? You listening?

Alf

[Dave Haynie]

I don’t understand your comment about “no need for application to support a graphics card.” Of course the OS is where the drivers live to support the app, that’s what I was meaning.

If you don’t have the right language, you can’t express the proper meaning. An application should know as little as possible about the underlying hardware — it talks to an OS-level abstraction. That’s why it works with any graphics card.

Whether the app can output the right quality of resolution would be some code in the app talking to the OS, which is all the tuneable settings in Vegas or is this no longer true in Windows 7?

Vegas works in Windows, not direct-to-hardware. The application, like all applications, sets some specifications when creating a Window, and it gets updates when the user makes modifications to that Window. Windows has a couple of different APIs for speaking to a display; last I heard, Apple uses something fairly similar to Adobe Acrobat to create content in MacOS Windows (perhaps they have something more low-level, like Microsoft’s DirectX… and of course, for some aspects video, they both use the OS’s video APIs… the don’t know a whole lot about the specific video device in use, or even if there is a real video device).

Perhaps my problem is that if I properly calibrate the Windows machine to the monitor (which is what I guess that device will do for me), I’ll get a closer rendition to the Mac output on it. But that’s the point of my post, the Mac just does it without me messing with it…

The Mac doesn’t exactly calibrate itself. But they store the color profile of their monitors in the monitor, and MacOS knows how to pull it over… it’s essentially an ICC profile, hidden in the monitor itself. Apple explains what they do here: https://www.apple.com/pro/color/workflow/basics.html
This is certainly better than nothing, but not as good as doing an actual calibration. Apple calls their color management system “ColorSync”.. here’s another article: https://www.gballard.net/psd/colorsync.html

On Windows, Vista and Windows 7 use the Windows Color System, detailed here: https://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/color/WCS.mspx

Of course, since Apple’s building these in for Macs, unlike other monitor manufacturers, it’s not easy to find the profiles from Apple. But there are collections, like this one, which might help here: https://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/icc_profiles.htm . If you find a useful profile for Windows, download it and put it here: C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color.

But again, without actual calibration, you will not have fully corrected color on any monitor. Period. It has nothing at all to do with operating systems, it’s the nature of color on monitors. And printers, and any other output device you use. And the TV in your livingroom (assuming you have a TV, and/or a livingroom).

If there’s something I need to know about settings on the Windows machine, (i.e. what *are* the right settings for us in the project properties dialogue? there is no training material I’ve seen to help me understand when to change those settings!)

There are no “right” settings… it depends on what you’re after. Vegas is a tool, and not the easiest one on the planet to use — the best tools are always more complex than the simpler ones. Read the manual. If you’re still confused, there are plenty of tutorials around. In my experience, Vegas is the easiest video editor that can produce this level of result.

Keep in mind that project settings aren’t binding… you can change them any time you like.

And also in Options>preferences>Video and Preview Device …for example, should I be tuning the Monitor color profile? I just can’t find decent info on those variables. It might help those of us who are struggling to just get things done fast and clean, to use more of Vegas.

That’s for color management… using an ICC profile, if you haven’t set it globally, you can specify a profile for Vegas to use (if it’s globally set, you don’t need this). Select the “use color management” box, you can overide the OS defaults for color management. If you find an .icc profile for your Apple monitor, you can add it, as above, and select it here. Things will look better, and more specifically, they ought to look the same as they do with the Mac, assuming the color profile you find is close to what the monitor reports.

-Dave