Is an Apple Cinema Display good for FCP Color correction and viewing?

Hey FCP people

I do a lot of FCP editing and often the director or DP wants to see how it will look when its aired, so I was thinking I could hook a cinema display to the Kona card or Deck output and pretty much use it just for viewing or color correction purposes....

The question is, how precise are those monitors for that kinda stuff. If I was to use it for color correction and viewing would it work or do I really need to purchase a real HD monitor with an HD SDI port? What differences have you found between true HD TV monitors and computer monitors in regards to the picture quality or image distortion? ....

Thanks much,

David

The only way you can view critical color on the ACD is with the MATROX MXO. It connects via DVI out, uses internal electronics to correct the gamma so that the ACD can display them properly. Compares to higher end $5000 Panasonic LCDs.


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Shane if you allready have your two DVI outs being used, is there anything to stop you dropping a second graphics card in the mac to power the matrox mxo?

A Kona LH card, a Tempo 4+4 SATA Controller card, and an eSATA bridge.

I'd have to unplug one of the monitors and connect the MXO to one of the ports. But that is fine. I'd do this only when I am color correcting, so I can use one monitor for the color correction setup.

If I didn't have that SATA bridge (for this reason: [lfhd.blogspot.com]) then I might try the second graphics card.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
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Not sure if you could use this in conjunction with the MXO [www.matrox.com] but it would be sweet.

Hi!

There are several different solutions out there for colour. Its been the hole-y grail for many years at visual effects studios. (hole-y because it has been a money pit, too.)

Here is a solution that I've used very successfully. (We did vfx for different shades of "white" on Eight-Below with this setup. -- uugh hated that movie. )

- Sony GDM-FW900 ($350 or so on eBay.)
- GraetagMacBeth (Now X-Rite) i1color Monitor2 ($199 at Macworld.. not sure of real world price)
- Rising Sun Research's CineSpace ($1000?)

The FW900 is a beautiful monitor. It has extremely good colour representation, and can handle a variety of resolutions. It is also ideally suited for colour, as it has more than just "bias" colour controls in its setup window. (Very important for accuracy.)

The i1color probe is used because it is the only one out there that works. period. Its a spectrophotometer, not a light meter. You could use the $3500+ Philips probes, but they don't adjust black levels very well. Black levels are often ignored, which is unfortunate, because any good calibration needs both the white and the black points to be calibrated.

Rising Sun Research did an excellent job on their software. They have nailed what needs to be done to Computer Monitors, LCDs, and Data projectors to get them to display colour as accurately as possible. Even if the display is limited. (I will go into this shortly.)

With this setup, you can get the display of choice to mimic D1, HD, (both R601 and R709 colourspaces) as well as Film, (you can even do different film stocks, too, such as Kodak or Fuji stocks..)

The package is also application agnostic, and plays well with any piece of software so that you can actually see what you are getting.

Hope this helps!

bob..

Robert Monaghan
Glue Tools - Cineon & DPX QuickTime Components
www.gluetools.com
Santa Barbara, CA

I think the best way to color correct / monitor is through a Kona Card to an NTSC Monitor - not an LCD. I don't even look at my Cinema Display when I am color correcting...just the NTSC output monitor.

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

The flat panels, except for possibly the top of the line ones, will not do enough different colors to perform correction except in a very broad sense. I tried to color match a friend's business card on a panel a litte bit ago and finally gave up and did the job on a glass monitor. I would make a correction and nothing would happen--or it *did* happen, but the screen wouldn't show it to me. I've been watching movies on an LCD panels for a while and I had the occasion to bring one of the DVDs into work and watch it on a glass monitor. I was stunned how much better the colors were--even though I know it works like that.

Nobody ever does this, but if you run a glass monitor (not TV) still in good shape next to almost any panel, there's no competition. The effortless blacks and true 17 million colors blows everything else you're likely to afford out of the water.

We are desperate to get the SED panels into service. Glass monitor characteristics in a flat panel.

Koz

<<<We are desperate to get the SED panels into service. Glass monitor characteristics in a flat panel. >>>


Desperate, but not doing well.

Turns out the licensing for the SEDs is not Toshiba or Canon, but a third party, and they've dropped Toshiba as a partner.

"...technology would be in fact owned by Nano-Proprietary...Ten days ago, Nano Proprietary announced that this licence had been granted to Canon and Canon only."

So there's a nice political battle on top of the research and production engineering trying to get this thing out the door. It's pretty much doomed. By the time (next year at this count) they finally do get a product out, the much cheaper almost-as-good existing panels will eat its lunch.

Oh, and the remaining glass monitors will be fuzzy and blooming and beyond help.

Shucks.

Koz

Koz, moving to an LED backlight rather than the current cold cathode would give LCDs a vastly greater than "NTSC", 601 or 709 colour gamut. Modulating the LED would give great black levels too.

Graeme

<<<Modulating the LED would give great black levels too. >>>

I've heard about doing that.

OK, that leaves the flicker problem. I guess it could be argued that they don't show flicker and it isn't a problem--it's a solution, but slowing down the display causes theatrical motion problems. When, for example, CSI Miami goes into that speeded up, non-motion blurred action thing, that's invisible on my panels, and I bet it's invisible on most of them.

Koz