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Please help, a very important question...


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Hi everyone,

 

in few days I'm gonna show my short film to a commission for my graduation... now, until now I just worked on my laptop, never tried to see the result on TV, but as soon as I did it... I really freaked out! watching the film on my laptop, everything is good: high quality definition, bluish and desaturated look which is exactly what I wanted to achieve, no digital noise...

 

when I saw it on TV, it was yellowish and very saturated, really bad definition with a LOT of digital noise... I don't really know what to do, my school career will be probably influenced by this project... can someone help with that? do you think I'm doing something wrong linking the PC to the TV, or is it normal all that noise??

 

I used a RGB cable to link the PC to the TV, and I'm using premiere pro cs6 to edit... is there something I can do in the export settings to have a really good HD product once it is shown on TV, or on a big screen?

 

Please help, I will be really grateful for any kind of answer :(

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The problem with this is that there's so many places it could be going wrong. Can you at least post some stills or a short section of video so we can look at it and make some sort of determination that at least the original image is OK?

 

P

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Big screen, TV, and Computer are different color spaces (even PC and MAC look different), and then you get into whether or not the display is properly calibrated in and of itself.

This is why you spend money for post... to make sure the colors "match" as closely as possible, But I'd wager, you were grading your film off of a computer monitor, and of course it'll look not much like that at all on a TV let alone a big screen.

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Big screen, TV, and Computer are different color spaces (even PC and MAC look different), and then you get into whether or not the display is properly calibrated in and of itself.

This is why you spend money for post... to make sure the colors "match" as closely as possible, But I'd wager, you were grading your film off of a computer monitor, and of course it'll look not much like that at all on a TV let alone a big screen.

Adrian thank you very much for your kind answer... you got any suggestion about how I could have the film shown on TV and big screen with the colors as close as possible to what I created? also, now I know that on TV colors are brighter and more saturated, but how will a big screen affect the colors? thank you very much if you will answer...

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Digital cinema uses P3 color space, broadcast TV uses Rec.709 color space (I don't know if there is a standard for computers), so you have to make color-corrected masters for each type of release using calibrated monitors or projectors.

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I color correct a lot with computer monitors (documentaries, shorts, etc.), and have managed to get decent results outputting to also rec formats for tv sets, and even dcp. I actually don't have dedicated monitor calibrated to rec709, I just grade to one color space and use software conversion to output for different spaces.

 

You really, really must have at least:

 

-One good quality, properly calibrated monitor. Never, EVER do ANY color correction without having calibrated the screen you use! (You can manage with Spyder type of calibrating tools if you are short of money. The thing is really about knowing what the image should look like with your settings.

Calibrating with screen calibration wizards found for ex. in Windows is NOT accurate enough for ANY kind of grading work, not even in amateur use.)

 

-video scopes, and the knowing how to use them. You do basic adjustments using scopes, then start finding the look with monitor image, then go back to scopes and adjust again, etc.

 

I usually use two monitors, one calibrated to 55cd/m2 (about same brightness as the basic movie screen) and another to 180cd/m2 (about same brightness as the tv set could be). Switching between the two, one can bake the look of the image until it looks reasonable with both monitors (---->most watching situations the final product could have.

The viewer could have any kind of settings in his/her setup, but at least the image SHOULD look OK in most setups because it is graded to very wide range of display brightnesses.

But it is common practice to do slightly brighter grade for tv use because the watching conditions are so different from the movie theatre, with all the ambience in the room etc.)

 

 

For me it is easier to color correct with dim monitor (55cd/m2) and then make sure the image looks good with the brighter monitor. Not other way around ( --->making the image too dim by grading with too bright monitor).

 

I usually always grade, with computer, to rgb 0-100 IRE (0-235 rgb) and when mastering, let the used software do the conversion to other color spaces, e.g. rec709.

 

 

 

As said, it is quite impossible to calibrate screens only with eye, you really must have dedicated calibration tools for this.

And most of the tv sets have various "image enchanging circuits / modes" which almost always hurt the colors and make the grading very difficult, you should at least switch them off if possible ;)

 

 

You can't do anything if the viewer has so badly off-spec set that it shows all the hues and gammas incorrectly. You can adjust for it, but you have to live with it, knowing youre movie may be shown in a 20 year old CRT with incorrect black levels, massive green color cast and wrong aspect ratio :lol:

Edited by aapo lettinen
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