Monitor upgrade situation

[Chris Kenny]

[walter biscardi] “You really don’t understand broadcasting do you?

David and I are not talking about the signal that goes to the TV. We are talking about the requirements of broadcaster across the world.

If you are required to deliver a 1080i / 59.94 (or 29.97) signal to a broadcaster (which 100% of the broadcasters I work with do) then you MUST be able to view that 1080i / 59.94 (or 29.97) signal properly on your editing monitor.”

And what I’m telling you is that unless your editing monitor is a CRT, there is nothing it is doing to let you “properly” view that interlaced signal that couldn’t in principle be done in software, to provide the same result on a 60 Hz computer monitor. If you think there is something it’s doing that couldn’t be done in software, what is that thing?

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read What is FCP X’s relationship to iMovie? on our blog.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Chris Kenny] “And what I’m telling you is that unless your editing monitor is a CRT, there is nothing it is doing to let you “properly” view that interlaced signal that couldn’t in principle be done in software,”

Your editing monitor does not have to be a CRT, hasn’t needed to be for several years now. There are professional Grade 1 monitors like the Flanders Scientific we keep mentioning (but you keep ignoring) that take a proper interlaced signal from a proper video card such as AJA or BlackMagic and display it properly on their LCD reference monitors.

I’m done with this discussion, if you want to recommend a computer panel with a software simulation, that’s your choice.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

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[Chris Kenny]

[walter biscardi] “Your editing monitor does not have to be a CRT, hasn’t needed to be for several years now. There are professional Grade 1 monitors like the Flanders Scientific we keep mentioning (but you keep ignoring) that take a proper interlaced signal from a proper video card such as AJA or BlackMagic and display it properly on their LCD reference monitors.

I’m done with this discussion, if you want to recommend a computer panel with a software simulation, that’s your choice.”

Yes, I’m aware that people regularly monitor from LCDs. It’s the core of my argument that it’s not necessary to monitor from a natively interlaced display.

Look, here’s my point. The current standard signal chain for monitoring, say, 60i goes something like this:

1) NLE
2) Video I/O card (AJA, Blackmagic, etc.)
3) “Real” video signal (60i over HD-SDI or HDMI)
4) Video monitor processing (processes 60i into 60p)
5) Video monitor display hardware (usually a 60p LCD, these days)

The first four steps of this process consist exclusively of moving around and manipulating ones and zeros. And the manipulations being performed are simple enough that they can now be done in software. Thus, the entire chain is theoretically reducible to:

1) NLE (which also processes processes 60i into 60p)
2) Standard computer graphics card
3) 60p DVI or DisplayPort signal
4) Standard 60 Hz computer monitor

There is no fundamental technical reason the image displayed though this signal chain cannot be entirely identical to the image displayed through the previous signal chain. And if you’re talking about, say, a high-end 24″ Dell monitor (which is more than capable of reproducing Rec. 709 these days) substituting for a 24″ Flanders Scientific monitor, and you include the cost of a video I/O interface, this second approach saves perhaps $4,500. It also lets you monitor any sort of strange non-standard format you want to, because it’s not constrained to signals that can be represented as standard video, lets you use operating system color management to calibrate the monitor instead of expensive and laborious manual external calibration systems, and it lets you display GPU-rendered graphics without having to ship them back over the system bus to a video I/O card, thus saving PCIe bandwidth and enhancing performance.

Now, I don’t recommend this approach to anyone right now, because there really isn’t much pro video software designed to work with this signal chain. Currently most NLE’s don’t understand OS color management (which means you have no idea what sort of color you’re getting on a computer display), and many can’t necessarily provide technically correct real-time de-interlacing.

But with ColorSync support in FCP X, it looks like Apple is at least taking one step in the direction of resolving this. That support should at least allow accurate representation of video color on computer displays. That seems like a worthwhile thing to mention to someone looking to save money on monitoring two months before FCP X comes out.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read What is FCP X’s relationship to iMovie? on our blog.

[Cade Muhlig]

So is it possible that FCP X will change things regarding this subject?
I don’t absolutely have to upgrade now, waiting an extra 2 months is not a big deal.
Everyone is debating, but I just get to sit back and learn stuff.

[Chris Kenny]

[Cade Muhlig] “So is it possible that FCP X will change things regarding this subject?
I don’t absolutely have to upgrade now, waiting an extra 2 months is not a big deal.
Everyone is debating, but I just get to sit back and learn stuff.”

Depending on your specific requirements, yes, it’s possible. FCP X’s ColorSync support should allow for accurate monitoring of video color on computer displays. How well Apple’s implementation of that works in the real world, and what other current issues with computer display monitoring FCP X may or may not solve, nobody can really be quite sure about. My argument in this thread was essentially that this sort of monitoring is technically plausible, and FCP X takes a step toward making it viable, not that it will necessarily be entirely workable once FCP X ships.

Personally, I’d say it’s wise to put off pretty much any non-essential video-related purchase right now, as FCP X could change a lot of things, both in terms of loss of compatibility with existing hardware/software (at the very least, plug-ins are all going to need to be recompiled for 64-bit) and in terms of new features possibly reducing or eliminating the need for other hardware and software products.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read What is FCP X’s relationship to iMovie? on our blog.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

yeah, small two cents but you have to be able to see what the fields are actually doing – FCP can’t always be trusted to manage the field order correctly for the different types of footage and the only way of knowing what’s going on is to see interlaced video output on a BVM.

Not, he said, that I can recommend one to save my life – the last one I worked with was a sony BVM, the last of the CRT ones – about the same weight/composition/price as a ford focus, amazing picture.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
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