ok, a client made a passing comment that while our clips looked good online, they looked kinda red when viewing our demo DVD. I had checked our demos on our ye olde TV and our monitors, and they looked fine. So I half assumed that it was probably their settings.
I just double checked a blur ray disc we burnt off at a friends house (we do not have an HDTV yet), and I was shocked to see the redness on the disc (and the standard DVD version as well). It was only on a couple of shots - most of it is fine.
We use MB for grading and I guess that in those two shots, we had to raise the exposure due to them being dark.
Apart from visiting my friend everytime to check the grading on a project (not convenient), or buying an HDTV myself (money needs to be spent on our house instead), what can I use to track my grading process more effectively?
Thanks in advance
Without knowing what type of monitors you are grading on it is hard to give advice. As long as they are truly capable of being calibrated and you have properly gone through that process then your monitors should be the correct version.
You should also be using the scopes that are built in to your NLE at the very least, or preferably hardware scopes. This is one reason I don't advise people to just slap on a Magic Bullet preset. You don't truly know what it is doing from shot to shot. But you should zoom into the problem area (pan & crop) and check the NLE scopes and see if the redness in the problem area is over saturated using them. That will give you a more scientific verification of what is going on.
Agreed - not much point in using ANY colour-grading software (just because it's fashionable?) unless you've got a calibrated system to see what the results actually look like. And then, in any case, most customers are just using their TV "as it came out of the box".
(Sorry - pet hate of mine - those using grading tools maybe just to achieve "something extra" - but not sure what, and not sure why, and not sure what it looks like on a customer's system, because nothing's been set up to any sort of standard before it's sent out.) Magic Bullet has a lot to answer for, with its aspirational software, used indiscriminantly. [/rant]
Hi guys,
My monitors were calibrated correctly and unlike some, I don't rely on presets to achieve what I want my vids to look like. we use MB as I find it quicker to achieve the looks I want in a quarter of the time as it would take with an NLE.
As i said, it was down to two clips. The rest of the footage was fine and looked as it should. However what I found odd was that the two shots in question were fine on our TV, but not on my friends. Every other shot was fine. Maybe I didn't fully explain the issue - sorry if that's the case.
Oh, just to make sure this isn't assumed as well - we grade each clip individually. Blanket grading just leads to all sorts of painful ends.
Apologies if I implied a less-than-professional approach, Bluesproggit. No offence intended. I must have had a bad day. Sorry.
Clearly, as you grade every clip, you take the time to get things right.
It does indeed sound peculiar that, despite this, two clips looked different from the rest, but only on a particular monitor. I suppose to get to the bottom of this, you'd have to now calibrate both your own TV and your friend's TV as well.... but there is a limit to the time you can spend chasing these things.
We use MB for grading and I guess that in those two shots, we had to raise the exposure due to them being dark.
Given the above, that its fine on calibrated/pc monitors but not on telly, could be non 'broadcast colours'?
As you say it was underexposed, possible not, but I'm guessing the same scenes also had brighter areas, which are now too bright, which is where the reddish appears?
Maybe 'ye olde telly' is tube type and more tolerant to non-broadcast colours at brighter end of spectrum than client/mates lcd/plasma etc?
I'd be 97% certain that this is a black balance issue.
If you get a small black balance error, you'll probably not see anything amiss on a proper monitor, but if the consumer display has the black level set a bit high, you'll definitely see it. To make sure that you're seeing the truth, always set your display up using SMPTE or ARIB bars before you make critical decisions. And when you're happy with the grade, then deliberately set the monitor black level a bit high and play it through. You'll soon see if you've got problems.
Apologies if I implied a less-than-professional approach, Bluesproggit. No offence intended. I must have had a bad day. Sorry.
No probs Martin. I apologise for being a bit too defensive as well. I guess the shock at seeing that clip annoyed me no end considering how much work I put into the grading to get things to look how I wanted them.
I'd be 97% certain that this is a black balance issue.If you get a small black balance error, you'll probably not see anything amiss on a proper monitor, but if the consumer display has the black level set a bit high, you'll definitely see it. To make sure that you're seeing the truth, always set your display up using SMPTE or ARIB bars before you make critical decisions. And when you're happy with the grade, then deliberately set the monitor black level a bit high and play it through. You'll soon see if you've got problems.
I think you were on the right lines Alan. I recalibrated my monitors using SMPTE and looks like the gamma was slightly off. Even though the clip in question isn't as red on my monitors as on my friends lcd there was still a difference. I have to admit it has been a while since I calibrated my monitors, so have to make sure I check it every month or so.
The benefit of all this is that my wife just announced "right, you're getting an HDTV for your birthday then". I love my wife :D
The benefit of all this is that my wife just announced "right, you're getting an HDTV for your birthday then". I love my wife :D
Can you tell your wife we've been having problems with the Gennaker on the yacht please.
Can you tell your wife we've been having problems with the Gennaker on the yacht please.
Lol. To be fair to her, I've asked her each year not to bother getting me anything although, she made me agree to accept a decent gift for my 30th.
These Jedi mind abilities really work.