Matching a Panny TH-42PF2OU to a Flanders LM-2461W?

[Jake Blackstone]

If your Panny is brand new, you need to burn it in for at least 300 hrs, before you attempt to try to calibrate it. As to doing it by eye, well…

[Andrew Smith]

yeah i know but i just dont have that time unfortunately – just have to get it close to the flanders for clients view to match mine…in the meantime might i run something over night running out of FCP or Color to at least start to burn in the panny? I know there are special burn ins used to break in the panny’s any advice on best practice to do this on the quickfast?
thanks jake!

MacPro 4,1 OSX 10.6.8 / FCS3 / CS5
2.26 ghz 8-core / 24GB RAM
Nvidia GT 120/285 combo

[Robert Houllahan]

Burn it in and then find a local ISF/Calibrator guy with a decent probe and Cal-Man to help match it. Cheaper than buying a Hubble and a Color Management package….

-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.

[Omar Godinez]

For a quick fix, set it to Cinema mode. Create a SMPTE Color bars, 35-40% gray field and 100% white field project in your NLE. You can use the color bars to set your brightness (PLUGE)/contrast settings, the gray field for your RGB bias settings (advanced picture menu settings) and the white field for your RGB gain settings for uniformity across the screen to your eye. Maybe that will help.

After about 300 hours of use, do what Robert said.

Omar Godinez
Colour Cafe, LLC
Dallas, TX

MacPro5,1 2.93GHz 12-Cores
24GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD-5770
Film Systems 5-Slot 80Gbps Expansion Chassis w/2 GTX-470s, RED Rocket & 16TB RAID5 Storage
950 MB/s Avg Read/Write
BMD Extreme 3D+
FSI LM-2461W
Calibrated 50″ Panasonic 12 Series Plasma HD-SDI
BMD UltraScope
Tangent Devices Wave

[Thomas Wong]

also remember to burn in with grey if you are just gonna leave a static image, or just running video. i think one of the cheaper solutions is to load up a lut into a hdlink pro and have that go to the plasma, but you’ll still need someone to come in with a probe to match the monitors and create that lut for you. there’s no fast way of doing it, you won’t get consistent results as your grading with a un burned in monitor. the brightness decay will start happening during your sessions.

[Andrew Smith]

Thanks for the advice guys!

Omar quick question:

I did the SMPTE out of FCP to get pluge to match now I want to do the other steps you recommended but I am not sure exactly how to make those and get them into FCP to output. any chance you can explain in details or possibly hook me up with your own “35-40% gray field and 100% white field”?

thank you
Andrew

MacPro 4,1 OSX 10.6.8 / FCS3 / CS5
2.26 ghz 8-core / 24GB RAM
Nvidia GT 120/285 combo

[Omar Godinez]

Hi Andrew,

I’m not a FCP editor, so I had a buddy do it for me per FSI recommendations. As I understand it, you can generate a 100% white field and a 35% gray field in FCP and output to your monitors via your BMD Decklink.

Perhaps an editor on this forum can share how to do this? Sorry, I don’t know how. Post the question on the FCP forum.

This doesn’t substitute for a pro-calibration, but it’s nice to have these settings while you do your 100-300 hour break-in period for reference viewing.

I’m not suggesting you leave these fields up on your plasma for those hours, just to use them for ‘ball-park’ settings.

Personally, I used movies on my Blu-ray in a loop mode for the break-in period. After that, I hired a pro technician to calibrate with excellent results.

Omar Godinez
Colour Cafe, LLC
Dallas, TX

MacPro5,1 2.93GHz 12-Cores
24GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD-5770
Film Systems 5-Slot 80Gbps Expansion Chassis w/2 GTX-470s, RED Rocket & 16TB RAID 5 Storage
950 MB/s Avg Read/Write
BMD Extreme 3D+
FSI LM-2461W
Calibrated 50″ Panasonic 12 Series Plasma HD-SDI
BMD UltraScope
Tangent Devices Wave

[Andrew Smith]

In advanced settings i see W/B High RGB and W?B Low RGB so is the ‘low’ my bias? I dont see anything that says bias – i assume the gain would be the high?

I just went into FCP and selected what looks like white and grey as separate color solids to throw in order to adjust those settings.

Otherwise I have gamma set to 2.2 in cinema mode and have turned down the brightness by -3 to match the pluge on my Flanders.

any other advice would be great! and in terms of the burn in i just have a 2 hour fcp sequence with various moving footage on a loop to go all day and night – is this ok?

thank you for your help.

MacPro 4,1 OSX 10.6.8 / FCS3 / CS5
2.26 ghz 8-core / 24GB RAM
Nvidia GT 120/285 combo

[Omar Godinez]

Andrew –

On my Panasonic TH-50PF30U Pro Plasma, Picture Advance Settings, I have separate Red Green Blue high settings and Red Green Blue low (bias) settings available.

In FCP, use your Video Scopes to set and confirm your white and gray field parameters before you output to your monitors.

As far as breaking in your plasma, sure, use your FCP sequence in loop. Just be aware of how many hours you do that, including having it on while you’re grading. It took me a while to stack up the necessary hours between the two before calibration.

Omar Godinez
Colour Cafe, LLC
Dallas, TX

MacPro5,1 2.93GHz 12-Cores
24GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD-5770
Film Systems 5-Slot 80Gbps Expansion Chassis w/2 GTX-470s, RED Rocket & 16TB RAID 5 Storage
950 MB/s Avg Read/Write
BMD Extreme 3D+
FSI LM-2461W
Calibrated 50″ Panasonic 12 Series Plasma HD-SDI
BMD UltraScope
Tangent Devices Wave