Getting by without a reference Monitor

I guess this question may be a little bit provocative, but here it goes:

I want to edit and color-correct accurately, but can't afford a reference monitor right now. Also I plan to edit HD in the near future and especially can not afford an HD reference monitor.

But I do own a Gretag Macbeth Eye-One monitor calibration thingy, which I use to calibrate the monitor of my iMac for Photoshop work.

Would it be possible to use it to also calibrate my iMac's monitor for video color correction?

Thanks for any advice!

Koz... you're on.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

>Would it be possible to use it to also calibrate my iMac's monitor for video color correction?

Nope. That calibrates it for working with PHOTOS. You need something that you can balance Color Bars too, and that acurately represents color bars, and can show you BOTH fields of an interlaced image. The cheapest way to go would be the MXO and Apple Cinema Display. Very accurate, and under $2k for both. And really the only setup that will work with an iMac.

If you plan on editing HD in the future, you are gonna need a MacPro or MacBook Pro.


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"I guess this question may be a little bit provocative..."

Did you happen to watch "Mythbusters" last night? They did a "Macgyver" inspired episode... you remember that show: I have this paper clip and a piece of a light bulb filament, if I just touch these two wires together I can achieve cold fusion and save the world.


No offense Danqi, but that's what you're trying to do. On last night's episode they tried to build an airplane out of bambo, garbage bags and a cement mixer motor. Do you think it could fly?

Well, they pushed it off a cliff, and it "glided" for about ten feet before it crashed and burned. That my prediction for you if you try to do full on color correction and on-line without the proper tools. Given an updraft you may stay airborne for a few seconds, but you WILL crash and burn.

Mark

Yeah, well, I kinda expected this.

I guess I was just hoping that because I am not interested in cutting interlaced footage and because my iMac's monitor is a flatscreen and because most TVs nowadays are also flatscreens somehow I...

...well...

...or not.


Dumb thing is I am working on private low-budget projects right now, no more client work. Free but poor. No money for equipment.

Seems like it's back to color correcting by the numbers for me.

The signal on a flatscreen TV is still interlaced, unless you're getting progressive scan from a DVD player, a 720P signal or a 1080p signal (which I don't think anyone is broadcasting yet, right?) So working with just your iMac's screen is not at all apples-to-apples. Computer LCDs and LCD TVs are not quite the same beasts (although they are getting closer). You have some other cheap monitoring solutions using your DVI port (if your iMac has one) but none of them would be considered color-accurate.

JK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

Sorry to add to your misery, but even worse news is that until you start to get very pricey ($2k and up) LCDs aren?t even recommended for critical work with photos. I have a Dell 2407, which is lovely, but? I see a marked difference between stills displayed on it and on my bin monitor, an old but pretty good CRT. Both are calibrated with a GretaMacbeth in a fully colour managed workflow.

randy

the "requirement" for a properly calibrated monitor also depends a lot on the kind of work you do and who your clients are.

ive been at this for like 16 years - and although i do use a reference monitor. its rarely made a night and day difference in what im doing. now keep in mind that im not in the movie-biz. i mainly do industrial/promotional stuff. not once have i had a client mention ANYTHING about color. ive found as long as sky looks generally like sky and skin is skinnish. nobody says anything.

wayne granzin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the "requirement" for a properly calibrated
> monitor also depends a lot on the kind of work you
> do and who your clients are.
>

That's a really interesting point, because my next project will be shown only on the internet. I have actually just started a thread in the Color forum, which is basically a continuation of this thread. In it I ask how I would go about color correcting for the web and how to calibrate my monitor for that.

there really is no one color standard for the web. its a useless pursuit. with such an array of good and crappy monitors, video cards, viewing environments and people with ghastly opinions of color and contrast youre NEVER going to establish any kind of norm.

best you can do is use client dictated pms to rgb conversions and let things fall were they may.

you can however use a higher end computer monitor calibrator. match your display to an established rgb profile at least then you can say youve done all you can.

May the voice of ignorance intrude? I doubt that a reference monitor is necessary for editing and color correcting. Almost all of color correction is relative. Provided that your monitor calibration isn't horribly wrong, good visual judgements of relative color are possible. The baby-settings in OS-X are sufficient for this. Another aspect of color correction is making images look good, or deciding when they can't look good. Looking good (or not) on a reference monitor is no guarantee that it will look good (or not) on everyone else's monitor, but it is supposed to be the best general indicator. More important than monitor quality is attention to the Waveform Monitor in FCP. Your image can look as you wish it to look on a monitor, calibrated reference monitor or not, but if its waveform is pathological you can expect trouble down the line -- in compression or on other displays.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

Shane,
I just wanted to confirm with you that you are in fact using the MXO/Cinema display combo to color correct for the type of cable network shows you have mentioned working on many times. I am planning to recommend this setup to a client as all of the reviews I have seen pretty much state that this setup is sufficient for Discovery/History/A&E, etc. type shows.

Also, is there a way to split the signal out of the MXO to feed two monitors, the edit system monitor and a client monitor? Or would you need two MXO's for that?

Thanks for any info.

<<<Koz... you're on.>>>

Is my wig straight? Makeup OK?

"CSI Miami" and "Numb3rs" are both 1080-29.97. I have motion problems with both, but I can't tell if it's an interlace problem, or just the Duo-Core Mini can't keep up with the off-air signal. None of the other 720-59.94 shows (Ugly Betty, California's Gold) have problems

Yes. Isn't monitoring fun? We finally broke down and bought a full-on Christie theater projector so quite literally, if you're watching digital theater, you're watching the same thing we're watching. If your last experience was a home projector, this puppy will blow your shoes and socks off.

But back in editorial and commercials, there is no solution. We had all the standard glass television monitors and the equipment to keep them color balanced and calibrated, but anything further than that....

I do have notes from the search to replace glass in movie production. We're pushing panels into service for artists that don't matter.

What.

If you're an animator, positioning of the wing on a bird is much easier on a sharp, clear, broad panel and it doesn't make the slightest difference what color the wing is. The various colorists are still on periodically calibrated glass.

Web work. Stop using Macs. Oh, you can create the work on your fuzzy-warm, but it's a waste of time to do final color on one since the vast majority of people seeing the work will be on PCs and you should keep a calibrated one around the house.

[www.kozco.com]

A note on my home TV. We discovered that most "TVs" have terrible color. I mean knee-knocking awful. I was keeping my glass monitor alive with lightning bolts and illegal intravenous chemicals until we finally found a flat panel that, although it wasn't wide screen or 1080, had very good blacks, good refresh, and very, very good color. That and the Mini are my TV.

I believe everything I'm using is discontinued. Speakers, panel, amplifier, everything. Can't buy any more. Have a happy day.

No. We probably won't.

Koz

>I just wanted to confirm with you that you are in fact using the MXO/Cinema display combo to color correct for the type of cable network shows you have mentioned working on many times.

I don't use this, as I have a better monitor for this. I use the Sony PVM-14L5 for color correcting reference. But I have compared the MXO/ACD with the Kona LH/PVM and they are very close. So close that if I didn't have the PVM, I would be using the MXO/ACD.

>Also, is there a way to split the signal out of the MXO to feed two monitors, the edit system monitor and a client monitor?

It outputs Component and Composite and HD SDI along with DVI. So you can have the ACD connected via DVI, then three other monitors connected at the same time if you wanted.


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