Pro Colorists... may we pick your brain

Question

Pro Colorists... may we pick your brain

Hi Color professionals--

I’d love to pick your brains about color for a bit. We produce a TV series that is beginning to do fairly well on Vimeo on Demand. There are a few of us in post. We each have a generally understanding of scopes and we are confident in our skills to get each episode looking uniform and looking good on our primary distribution medium -- a computer screen. We also use Pro 10 bit color grading monitors. Because VOD offers their service on Apple TV, Roku, and other smart TV devices, we are now running into issues that we are not readily equipped to handle.

We know enough about the world of TVs that we know no two look the same, and that fact is the bane of every colorist’s existence.

Our show looks great on the average computer device (iPhone, Mac, PC, iPad, Andriod), but the same video file, when streamed to your average TV looks like absolute rubbish. It looks amateurish with color so intense that is looks cartoon-like. Some TVs are better than others and some are ever worse than I described. After testing our show on various TVs, I always flip around Netflix and watch other stuff -- and it looks fine. It’s not the TV settings. OR it is, but colorists smarter than us, adjust for it.

About 20% of the people who are buying our content now watch it on their TV. We need to get it looking better.

How do the big boys do it? Do they produce a version for broadcast and a different one for streaming.

Do they compromise and make content that looks “decent” everywhere? Quick note on this: I spent some time yesterday and re-colored one of our episodes. It does look better on TVs, but does not look as look on computers -- it looks overly desaturated.

A few points.

-We shoot with both Red Epic and Panasonic GH4. All of the episodes talked about here were shot with the GH4. The issue seems to be the same on both cameras.

-Modern TVs seem to be more forgiving. The more modern, the better.

-interesting enough, even the versions that look way oversaturated on TVs, I do not see any evidence of it being oversaturated on the vectorscope.

Thanks!

Posted on Nov 29, 2015 4:33 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 1, 2015 1:53 AM in response to Steven Galvano

preface: I'm no colorist, nor a 'pro' … 😉

Steven Galvano wrote:

… It does look better on TVs, but does not look as look on computers …

no real surprise, hm?

afaik, in the professional sector, final check is always, just and only on a TV, connected using all those AJA, blackmagic, etc stuff 😝

TVs are set to the rec709 color space, which is (far) 'less' than sRGB or whatever your set-up is calibrated to ...

so, my first check would be:

at what point of your workflow you apply the broadcast-safe filter?

imhu of things, this should be last in the processing chain, to guaranty a signal within specs.

and even with my hobby material I'm noticing a huge difference btw what my Mini delivers on a 150€ monitor or, straight via hdmi on my 8y old telly.... e.g. my Lumix records 110-120% luma - no prob on a computer, looking odd on TV (Panasonic users are familiar with the purple-sky phenomenom, based upon out-of-specs recording)

… and just to feed my curiosity:

Why posting that in the Motion section of this board? 😉

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Answer 2

BenB

Level 6

12,097 points

Dec 3, 2015 5:02 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter

"afaik, in the professional sector, final check is always, just and only on a TV, connected using all those AJA, blackmagic, etc stuff 😝"

No, not how it works. A professional, calibrated broadcast monitor is NOT a TV. Every television set made has built in filters and image manipulation to make the image look brilliant. No two work the same, nor should they, each has its own unique guts to make images and sounds reproduce well. Thus, you can't rely on a regular TV or computer monitor to judge color grading properly.

Anyone grading on a regular HDTV or computer monitor, and sending that out for broadcast, is not being very smart.

Can't go by scopes alone, need a calibrated broadcast monitors, like Flanders Scientific, through a broadcast output device (AJA, BMD, etc). Only then will you be able to see the raw, unadulterated image, and make your artistic visual judgments, AFTER you've brought things in line with desired scope targets.

Once released, there is no guarantee and no way to control how the image looks on various monitors and TVs. That's life, you let it go, you have no control. But well graded images will hold up over a larger number and variety of playback devices.

Just like audio engineers playback their mixes on a variety of audio speakers to make sure they have a mix that will be as universally uniform at possible. "As possible", not "absolutely". There is no universal absolute playback quality. Just get over that. It ain't gonna happen. Get some quality formal color grading education, do your best, let it go, move forward.

And yes, this should be on the FCPX board, not the Motion board.

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