Color Correction for Online Delivery

Very soon I will be editing and color correcting a project shot in 720p intended for internet distribution (on sites like YouTube but also in higher quality through it's own site).

1.) How do I calibrate my monitor for this kind of color correction? I do not own an external reference monitor, but I hope that this one time it is really not needed, since the film will only be seen on computer monitors. I do own a Gretag MacBeth Eye-One and use it to calibrate my iMac's monitor for photography work. But I have no idea at all how to calibrate it for internet video work. Which white-point, which gamma setting, etc.

2.) Once my monitor is set up, how do I color correct for internet delivery? I don't expect anyone to answer such a broad question here, but maybe you could point me in the way of some good articles or tutorials about the subject.

Thanks a lot!

Well, I'm not sure how useful calibration would be, given the massive diversion in viewing platforms and the lack of standards for the web.

Generally a big reason for colour correction is to meet certain boundaries required for broadcast. This is because it used to be (and probably is, in some small places) that illegal luma and colours could actually knock the transmission off air. These days most places have clippers which will stop this happening, but there are still rules to abide by.

Inside these extremes you can go just about anywhere you want. You want everyone's skin to be green? Fine. That's a creative decision. So. I guess what I'm saying is, there isn't really a standard. Since your output will be on computer screens, grade for computer screens - not an external broadcast monitor. And test your output on a PC as well as a Mac. PCs are 10% darker than Macs.

I see. I just thought that maybe there is some kind of an average setting that I could calibrate to. For example, there would be no point in having my monitor calibrated to 6500K and 1.8 gamma, when 95% of all the monitors in the world would be around 8000K and 2.2 gamme, or something like that.

Yeah you could, but I'm not sure how useful or important it would be in reality. Maybe if you got a really popular brand of monitor and added it to your system right out of the box, you'd get what most people would be looking at.