Calibrating 30' cinema displays for color correcting on FCP

Question

Calibrating 30' cinema displays for color correcting on FCP

Hello everyone, I recently bought another 30in Apple Cinema Display and I was curious if the System Preferences color calibration is good option to calibrate the two displays to get them to match in color and contrast ratios. Between the two displays I definitely can see a difference in the brightness value so I was wondering if performing this calibration option is a good idea to match them so I can do some color correcting as accurate as possible as I can on my set up even though I do realize this isn't a professional color grading and color correcting suite. Thanks for the advice

Jeff

Final Cut Pro 6, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 3,2 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 8 GB

Posted on Aug 13, 2012 10:14 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 14, 2012 1:53 AM in response to jefferyfromclovis

no its not a good option at all, its a very basic adjustment for still photography and graphics colour space, it wont match two monitors correctly.

To calibrate a Mac Cinema Display showing video you need the Mattrox MXO.

To do it properly you need a broadcast output card such as Blackmagic connected to a PAL or NTSC monitor.

Mattrox MXO

Blackmagic Design

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Answer 2

Aug 14, 2012 7:30 AM in response to Gary Scotland

PAL and NTSC are both Standard Def. You can use a card like a blackmagic intensity pro to downconvert on the fly to a Standard Def monitor, but you might want to consider an HD monitor. The blackmagic card has an hdmi output and many cards have sdi outputs for HD "broadcast" monitors. Consumer monitors are not considered suitable for color correction.

But... If you're video is just destined for web distribution for viewing on computer monitors, perhaps the issue is not as important.

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