Monitor Calibration

I am using an eMac(tube) with FCE2 and a brand new standard 13 inch tv as a second screen showing the canvas window. This is all the system I can afford right now.

Do I need to calibrate for color or is that even possible with this configuration? The tv looks way different than my canvas both color and brightness out of the box.

Thanks in advance!

Frank

Frank,

What do you need a calibrated monitor for? This is usually done to view color grading on a project that is to go to television transmission.

A TV set will not ever give you an accurate viewing monitor. It is a good way to see what your current project looks like on a true interlaced scan television, but that has little to do with accurate color.

Besides with DV, you have very little chance of ever getting it to a television or cable station.

<Besides with DV, you have very little chance of ever getting it to a television or cable station.>

DV makes it to cable and beyond all the time. PBS, MTV, CNN, National Geographic, Discovery, HBO and many more.

I should have said in my original post how I was hooked up.

My eMac is connected to a Sony miniDV camera "full time" and the A/V outputs are connected to the video in/RCA jacks on the standard 13" TV set. The TV mirrors the video portion of the "canvas" window except I get "full" DV quality and the edges of the frame are all cut off so I get an idea of "title safe" and "action safe" areas on that TV. I am hoping the TV will help me better fine tune my productions in FCE for a typical TV viewer. It was a cheap addition to my system at $59 new.

Thanks again for any advice!

Frank

>I am hoping the TV will help me better fine tune my productions in FCE for a typical TV viewer. It was a cheap addition to my system at $59 new.

By fine tune I presume you mean color correction. If that's the case you will be sadly dissapointed. A $59 TV wont do for color correction required for Broadcast standards. You need a calibrated broadcast monitor. Try picking up a used Sony PVM series.

Hi John,

Thanks for your help.

I can not afford much more system than I have now. I am hoping the TV will help me fine tune a better final product.

From time to time my DV footage makes it to broadcast so I want to try to deliver my best possible for the system I have and I want to get an idea what it will look like on a TV compared to my eMacs "canvas". I shoot alot of underwater stuff. Sometimes I will tweek color tints to give footage a totally different look. For instance, a shot while swimming over the oceans sandy bottom easily starts to look like a helocopter shot of the surface of Mars with a little yellow/red tinting, etc.

So I would like to have my cheap $59 TV give me the most accurate idea possible.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Frank

Thanks Frank Nolan.

My color correction tasks are not as much getting skin tones right. I use it more as an effect on my underwater footage. But I would like to know that when I tweek colors to deep blue, the end viewer is not seeing purple or green.

Will any used Sony PVM series monitor work for me? I will check ebay.

Do you recomend the "broadcast safe" filter in FCE before sending final files to broadcast?

Thanks,

Frank