FULL RANGE QC LEVELS for DELIVERY

DaVinci Resolve

FULL RANGE QC LEVELS for DELIVERY

Posted by Johnathan Throbins on May 4, 2015 at 10:12 pm

Hi all, I’m wondering what safe levels are for a full range delivery.
I’ve delivered a full range prores 444 file to make a DCP with. A DCP house made a DCP but the DCP dupe and distribution house says the levels are over on the DCP.

I’m wondering if this is my fault or the people making deliverables, so I’d like to know proper delivery specs and how people handle outputs from davinci. I don’t have my monitoring settings set wrong or anything and haven’t had issues in the past, but I’m stepping up to bigger jobs and wondering if I am missing something.

Final monitoring on this was done on a calibrated barco in rec.709. Some of the levels are clipping, but it looks how we want that way in session. Do I have to manually bring it lower? Is letting davinci chop the signal at the top not enough on a full range shot? If so, where do I need to set it?

If you have any tips for full range master file deliveries, regarding levels, saturation, etc, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks!!

Johnathan Throbins replied 11 years ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
3 Replies

Tom Tomlinson
May 5, 2015 at 1:33 am

I think you have to stick to the standards that have been setup by camera manufacturers.
Even if your software is capable of it—why rock the boat.

All ProRes should be Video Range. Thats what Arri decided with Alexa. Image Sequences should basically be Full.

Personally I prefer Image Seq all the way.
BTW, we had a 350gig red file the other day. It was freezing up the computer.

Good Luck with the film.

Tom Tomlinson
Telecine Ass’t.
NYC
Sascha Haber
May 5, 2015 at 9:36 am

In my world it is the responsibility on the DCP house to maintain specs.
You are working in rec709 which is a choice and a limitation of your projector i assume.
If you can set your monitoring equipment to P3 color space you can basically do the DCP yourself and it will be fine.
But you should not accept that “your levels’ are to high…
We are talking DCP her and not video color space.
It is on their plate and they have to do the proper scaling, that is what you are paying for.
If you are only in charge of the creative part you may want to deliver to a third party for technical inspection.
But again, that is basically what a DCP conversion suite is for.

Resolve 11.2 – Smoke 2015 EXT1SP2 – Sapphire 8
Colorist / VFX Guru / Aerial footage nerd
https://vimeo.com/saschahaber
https://dk.linkedin.com/in/saschahaber
Johnathan Throbins
May 5, 2015 at 12:13 pm

Thanks! That’s what I thought. I’ve never had this issue in the past with the people I trust, but I was pushing the limits on contrast on this thing, so I thought maybe I was missing something. So I can crank my levels to be as bright or dark as I want in full range and am not accountable for any limitations on levels besides what is pleasing in my working color space. Right?

The projector I finished it on was P3 capable but I started it on a plasma then finished in the DI theater. Money saving method, but limits my workflow to 709.

If you or anyone else has any more thoughts on how I can prove/articulate this to the producer I’d love to know. I’m not quite confident enough to do the yelling I’ll have to do to make them change houses. ;-/

Thanks for the response though, that makes me feel a lot better.

-J

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