Internet Viewing

[darrin p nim]

Sorry, i think this is the appropriate section.

 

So my biggest question has stemmed from past issues of viewing work over the internet. Now, a large majority of viewers have monitors that aren't at all close to proper calibration. Do you guys ever worry about your work being viewed online and people interpreting them without understanding whats wrong?

 

Example: I just shot a music video that takes place in a graveyard at night and it will mostly be viewed on the internet but will possibly be on television (mtv, fuse or ?).

 

Now im sure it comes into play which direction to decided to output for but im trying to accomadate both but to be honest mainly broadcast TV. So I calibrated it on SMPTE calibrated monitors. My biggest problem is that many home computer monitors (in my experience) show my work on average to be more contrasty and darker than on a calibrated monitor. Do you guys worry about this? This latest music video is perfect on a calibrated monitor but is fairly dark on computer monitors which worries me when any one is viewing them. Im sorry if it doesnt make much sense but i hope you guys get the idea? what do you guys do?

 

I will follow up later in regards to why i dislike H.264 aswell. Thanks.

Edited May 30, 2007 by Darrin P Nim

[rory hinds]

Hi Darrin

 

You would normally do various grades for the different deliverables you have planned.

 

Having difference versions which are optimised for your delivery format.

 

Regards

Rory

[Kevin Zanit]

Internet viewing issues are something I think about more and more. I am used to the notion that most people's monitors are not SMPTE calibrated, and I have seen my stuff broadcast on TV, on my own TV and have been surprised how it looked (with whatever workflow the project went through for broadcast changing the look). I have also seen my stuff on other people's TVs that were way off.

 

My big concern is also how with places like Youtube getting bigger, and the flv video format in general looking pretty bad that the standard for online content is getting lower and lower.

 

I recently shot a series for superdeluxe.com, a internet TV site, one of my concerns was how its viewed (compression and such). It's completely out of my hands. For the type of show it was, the quality is not a huge issue, but as more and more content is for online viewing, I just hope that the bar does not get too low as far as quality goes.

 

Kevin Zanit

[Phil Savoie]

Your post reminds me of when we wanted to show our student films in their best light ? literally ? we used to go into the screening room and check the projector was putting out 40 foot lamberts to the screen with our light meters. Those were the days?.on some DPs websites you?ll find a grey scale to calibrate your monitor before viewing, so the tradition continues.

 

The Internet as a delivery platform is still in early stages. Speaking for myself I really don?t worry about calibration issues. People in the business know they are seeing a fraction of the resolution, color, bit depth, etc. The trade-off of films not being shown in their full glory is surpassed by the ability to get the work out to the vast international Internet audience, potential clients, etc.

 

For my website film clips are in Flash format and fairly low quality ? but they are good enough for the viewer to get an idea of the work. Flash doesn?t take a long time to download but on the flipside Flash can produce some very nasty compression artefacts ? anything with fast movement or something like moving water blocks up horribly. Quicktime has better quality but they usually take quite a long time to download. We Pod cast films via I tunes in Quicktime, with small viewing devices the quality is surprising. The best I?ve seen are two shorts I did for Apple, you can download them in HD in two different sizes from their website and they look good ? but they take ten minutes to download.

 

For years I worked for the BBC and would cringe when I saw my work transmitted in the US on 525 NTSC. As a DP no matter what viewing format it?s never up to par with the original work screened properly.