Color Correction Hardware

Hello Board,
What's the opinion on Color Correction hardware like Spyders or something like that does one work better than the others?

You might find the tests/reviews on this web page useful.

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Color correction hardware advice

Hi all,
I've been a video editor by trade for the past 3 years or so, but have only finally gotten around to investing in my own personal studio. I recently purchased a MacPro and am looking into broadcast monitors for color correction.
The main question deals with Intel compatibility and the hardware out there.. I'm curious what other user's experience has been. I'm going back and fourth between a Blackmagic card and a deck like a DSR-11. Anyone have any advice? The big thing to keep in mind is that I've been editing in-house at the companies I've worked for and have little experience setting up hardware. Thanks in advance!
cheers,
Adam Weinberg

hi Adam
its not all happening in the box alone. if my understanding is correct, you also install drivers which hook into the system to manipulate the DVI output in order to provide the necessary signal to the device. similarly, the drivers, allow FCP to hand off some of the processing to the extermal device, hence the hardware acceleration.
not sure this is the option you want though. if you're trying to set up a home studio, you may be better off looking for a suitable Decklink or Kona card as they will offer you far greater options for both input and output .
cheers
Andy

Real time editing hardware spics ........color correction

hi for all
am ayham from Saudi Arabia ...am working as video editing with Avid and i would like to convert to final cut pro for color correction and video editing for drama
i need it to work real time like other editing software
any one can help me about the hardware and Video card(aja kona3...or any other)
and the storage should i need raid storage like promis VTrack ????????????
plz help me

Hi Ayham,
You need a Mac pro,
Aja Cona LHE (with break out box),
The Apple's fiber optical card (2 or 4 Gbit),
one NAS like this http://starline.de/en/index.html ,
Final Cut Studio 2,
and this http://www.automaticduck.com/products/options-avid-user.php
for converting projects from Avid to FCP.
Hope this heps

Secondary color correction not working in Premiere CC

Greetings,
I'm unable to build secondary color correction masks in Three Way Color Corrector, RGB Curves etc in the current version of Premiere CC.
In any of these plugins, when I check "show mask" I get the usual white slate filling the frame. But when I use the color picker to make a selection the whole frame stays white. It appears that I'm making selections but it's not building the mask for some reason. When making an extreme color change I can see that the mask is not building as it affects the whole frame.
This started after upgrading to CC. I've recently updated to the most up to date version (yesterday) and am still having the same problem.
Premiere CC 2014.1 Release
8.1.0 (81) Build
Macbook Pro Retina, 15" Late 2013
2Gh Intel Core i7
8Gb
Intel Iris Pro 1536Mb
Yosemite Version 10.10
*note-my Colleague is not having this problem, he's working on the same OS and same CC build but he has an Imac. So I'm guessing this problem is unique to my hardware config.
Anybody else have this problem or know of a fix?

I have the same Problem new MAC OS Premier Pro CC or Premier Pro CS6 both have an issue with the Title Tool. If you open the title tool and try to make color changes or change size of the font it sticks at the default color and default font. SOmetimes the title tool will work and then when I exit it's back to the default first type location, default font and default color. Sometimes it will not even let me exit the Title Tool.
Please help I have Projects I'm working on Deadlines and I pay a monthly Fee for Software that works and it's not working.
Model Name:          Mac Pro
Model Identifier:          MacPro5,1
Processor Name:          6-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed:          2.4 GHz
Number of Processors:          2
Total Number of Cores:          12
L2 Cache (per Core):          256 KB
L3 Cache (per Processor):          12 MB
Memory:          16 GB
Software OS X 10.9 (13A603)
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB

Monitor for color correction

Hello guys,
I am a newbie to Color and Color Correction. I have a dual monitor setup with my Mac Pro.
I have two 24 inches of DELL 2408WFP & DELL 2407WFP. These monitors have different color, and I think it is just stupid how Dell manufactures them.
Anyways, From what I have learned, I know I am not suppose to do perform color correction for videos on any regular LCD monitors. Can you experts suggest me good color correction monitor? Not too expensive. I am not doing any major flim/music video or anything such. This is just a hobby of mine, and I'd like to learn new things as time goes on. Most of my videos are travel videos & I try to make a cinematography out of it. I also shoot landscapes.
I hope you guys can direct me right.
Thanks,
Lowell

I think there is a lot of snobery on this forum regarding hardware requirements. If you are not entertaining clients who have just come from a Da Vinci suite, then you CAN live with out a Broadcast monitor that meets EBU specs. The important thing is to use a video monitor and not a computer monitor. You will need a decklink like card to get the video into composite or component format, that later will give a cleaner image but most television is viewed in composite any way. Colorgrading is a matter of comparing the before and after image and comparing the graded shot with the pictures around it. The scopes will keep you informed of the limits and will help you interprit the monitor. Rember if the shot looks better after grading on a cheaper monitor then it will look better on a Grade A monitor with SDI inputs. Don't let the "big" boys put you off, and use the software that you own to inprove your video and your skill-set.
Good luck from Boaz

Monitor color correction

no matter how i try to calibrate my monitor it seems off. different each time. the color correction utility isn't doing it for me. so i'm using an acer al2416w. i don't know if that matters at all. but what are some good products to do some real color correcting. it's important as i do graphics and have spent over a grand on being ready to do color correction for final cut. maybe i should be posting this in that forum. any ideas?

When you say you do graphics, I assume you mean print work? If so, there are hardware color calibrators such as Gretag MacBeth's Eye-One Display 2 or Pantone's huey and huey pro.
I have not used either of these products

What's the best decklink usage apply for color correction

Hi Guys,
recently i jsut noticed that matrox supplied a very good color corrcetion for Adobe, im using blackmagic hd extreme 2 now, seems it doenst grade color very well compare with matrox, i wonder, any decklink u guys using that grade color very well? Im newbie in color no matter in FCP nor COLOR. Thanks for help guys

What is this footage that you are trying to color? The hardware used really doesn't matter in this case, all they are doing it outputting a signal to your monitor. How that footage looks and how far you can push it isn't dependant on the cards...it is dependent on the footage you have to work with.
I know your English might be poor, so I hope you don't get lost.
Read this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_subsampling
Now, if you have 4:4:4 footage, you can push it very far. Film, HDCAM SR, Viper...all sorts of high end HD can have this sampling. However, a more common high end format is 4:2:2, like DVCPRO HD, HDCAM SR, D5. If you shot HDV...HD on those miniDV tapes, then your chroma sampling is 4:2:0. You are missing information COMPLETELY. So HDV cannot be pushed very far when color correcting. DV is 4:1:1, so it too cannot be pushed very far. If you shot on those formats, there is only so much you can do.
Shane

Color correction doesnt come through well on DVD project on TV

I burned my short film onto a DVD and played it back on a SD television. The film has many color grading tweaks and I noticed that they barely come through on the TV. Definitely not representative of what i have ont he timeline. Any clue as to why this is?

cfg_2451 wrote:
VidNoob wrote:
I burned my short film onto a DVD and played it back on a SD television. The film has many color grading tweaks and I noticed that they barely come through on the TV. Definitely not representative of what i have ont he timeline. Any clue as to why this is?
Does your monitor show you the Rec.709 colorspace? And is it fully calibrated?
If not, you're not getting WYSIWYG, so there's no way you can know what the output is going to look like without burning a DVD and playing it. Then you can iterate, making changes in PPro and burning more DVDs, until you get what you want.
Very few computer monitors can show you Rec.709. To get that, you need either a production monitor, or a fully calibrated HDTV (look for one that's easy to calibrate (supports ISFccc Calibration Mode). If you use a TV, you need to make sure you're getting the proper signal to it also, but PPro using the NVIDIA graphics boards can do this without extra hardware (driving the HDMI port). If you set the driver up correctly.
But if you don't have a production monitor, or a calibrated HDTV, you're really just shooting in the dark when it comes to color correction and especially color grading. Not what you want to hear I know. But that's the current state of the art.
I'm pretty certain it doesnt show the rec.709 colorspace. My monitor isnt even widescreen. I actually had no idea about the rec.709 space until just now when you mentioned it. I am a vidnoob hence the screen name
I have a geforce 560TI card. Do you know if I can buy a cable that goes from the card to maybe an S video adapter I can plug into the TV to then color correct my project on the TV when doing things intended for TV playback? There's a DVI port on the back of my graphics card and my TV has an S video female port.

Premiere pro cc having trouble with color corrected clips

I've been working on a project for a few days and today when I opened premiere pro it gave me a warning about what software it had been running with and how it was no longer available. I'm sorry I've already forgotten the name of the software, but I know I didn't remove anything from my laptop. When I began watching the playback I noticed that color corrected clips were very jumpy and didn't play smoothly, but the ones that had not been color corrected were fine. There were also two lines at the top of my timeline, a red one over all the jumpy clips and a yellow one over the clips that played through completely. This is my first time using premiere pro so I'm not sure what it means or how I could fix it. It may be worth noting that my laptop isn't bad but I don't think it's necessarily the best for editing. Is it possible that memory space or hardware within the laptop are the issue? Any advice will be appreciated, thanks.

Just me today I guess.
The solution to this problem is simple. Download and install the latest Adobe PPro CS3 3.2.0 patch. 50 Mb download, 20 second install time. Everything works great now!

5930K vs 5960X for AVCHD editing and color correction?

***I have also posted this in Hardware Forum because I'm not certain which forum will be the best place to ask. Mods, I apologize if this is a no-no and of course you're welcome to remove the one you deem inappropriately placed. Thanks**
Hi guys, getting ready to have a new custom system built (probably iBuyPower, not sure yet). I would love your input on choosing the ideal processor. I have read benchmarks and forums on both the Intel 5960X and the 5930K. Most benchmarks are only concerned about encoding times, not the actual editing and color correction processes. I realize that encoding (exporting) would be generally faster on the 8-core 5960 compared to the 6-core 5930. HOWEVER, all my source material is AVCHD and for that, higher clock speed does make a big difference during the actual editing. So let's forget about encoding/exporting right now and ONLY think about the actual editing. Let's also assume I will not overclock, or if I do then never more than 20%.* I 'm not a gamer and this workstation is ONLY for editing. I use Premiere Pro CC 2014.x and always keep it up to the latest version.
Since the 5960X is only clocked at 3.0 Hz. I'm concerned that editing and color correcting AVCHDs will be not as smooth as one would expect from a $1000 chip. The editing process is quite complex, with multiple video layers (all AVCHD, either 60p or 60i), picture-in-picture, color correction (mostly GPU-accelerated ones such as the Three Way CC and RGB Curves), and so on. It's not simple cuts and a few transitions. In fact, the work required on those AVCHD files is very much beyond what AVCHD is meant for but it is what it is.
So, considering all that, would you STILL fork out the extra cash to get the 5960X versus the 5930K, and if so, why?
I thank you in advance for your opinions and insight!
Current planned system specs (highlights)
- Win 8.1
- 5930K or 5960X (help!)
- Asus Rampage V
- 32 Gb 2666 RAM
- GTX 780 (possibly will invest in a Titan X 12 Gb if funds allow)
- Intel 730 SSD (480 GB) for OS and programs
- I will use my current set of 5-6 SSD drives for sources, scratches, misc pull files, exports
Thanks again for your feedback!
PS: I would like to emphasize again that the actual process of editing and color correcting AVCHD files is what matters most to me here rather than getting the absolute fastest encoding times.
* I realize that both chips are unlocked and made for overclocking. I've overclocked for years but frankly, I was never that comfortable with it, lots of crashes and instability - and that was at low overlock levels of around 20% or less. I do not want manage overclocking or thermal management or worry about frying the chips. If at all possible I would like to run the chips at stock, or as close to stock as possible. However I'm also open to suggestions about that.

Actually the 5960X will clock the turbo speed for all cores if you set it that way which is one of the things we do with our systems. All Intel chips that are not locked can clock to their turbo rating for all cores if set that way. Even without setting all cores to the peak turbo ratio they will turbo to a clock speed higher than base when all cores are active. It's just not the peak turbo ratio. That has to be manually set. Turbo occurs anytime the system load reaches beyond a low level regardless of what your doing. The system boards and bios effect that. You can also disable a setting in the bios and the system will always stay at it's peak clock ratio. The 5960X clocked at 3.9 will easily outperform the 5930K with all codecs due to the cores and cache.
We can configure the systems with any hardware available in the market. However we cant include all those items on the website right now without making it far harder for people to configure systems. The hardware options we list are there because they are tested to work with the video and audio hardware/software and the reliability. We also support the systems as a solution for the life of the system. We have price the systems for that support which is part of the price difference. The options you are looking at wont have near the same support or expertise with the hardware and software together hence why your asking the questions here.
Eric
ADK

27" LED Display Color Correction

I can't find any information no whether this display is able to be calibrated for color correction. I recently purchased one and one of our Color Correction vendors told us this display was not capable.
Your help is greatly appreciated.

The answer is yes. I assume you mean using a calibration hardware and software device like an EyeOnedisplayTwo. That device can also calibrate luminance which sets it apart from some calibration devices. I calibrate my ACD, 27" iMac and my new LED Apple monitor with this to the same "settings" as I use these with Photoshop and Lightroom (the iMac is a standalone - the ACD and LED run in dual mode off a MacPro) Not sure what those people are talking about.

Color Finesse vs Colorista 2 Premiere vs After Effects for color correction

Hi,
I want to get in to color correcting of my Canon XF305 footage that is converted to the Blackmagic 10 bits lossless codec.
I have two Eizo calibrated monitors etc , but my only doubt is the choice of the program (to do it in Premiere-pro or After Effects) and with Color Finesse or with Colorista 2.
So if there are people with color correction experience please share it here.
Thanks! David

When shooternz said 'gain' I presume he means "what was the benefit". If your original footage can be opened in PP, converting it isn't usually necessary unless you find the scrub performance is really hampered by the camera's codec - and that's more of an issue for line editing rather than color correction as you won't be playing it back and forth very much. PP will edit in 32-bit color space no matter what the footage is, so you don't need to force the ingested material into a higher bit depth.
We get the 'real time' question asked a lot. PP is a non-linear editor so realtime playback and scrubbing are essential, but the exact content of each frame isn't all that important. AE works on individual frames so it's not designed to play back in real time - it has to compose all your effects onto every single frame before it can show you the results, and in every frame it processes every pixel. The realtime monitors in PP don't do that - they show something that looks visually the same but only some of the frames are actually processed, then the rest are interpolated.
AE has some extremely powerful CC tools, but realistically it's intended for use on small clips - if you look at grading workflows in studios their typical AE timelines might only be 20 seconds max, and often only a couple of seconds. It can work with longer clips but it gets painful. The big advantage in AE is the ability to layer up lots of effects with masks, so for example you can color-correct a video clip so it exactly matches another clip or a still image, fine-tuning one coffee cup in the background of a scene or relighting in post by masking up zones of color and exposure adjustment.
PP on the other hand is great for long timelines and cutting together clips into a program - that's what it's designed for - but it works on clips so correcting at a frame-by-frame level is correspondingly horrible. I'd say the 3-way CC in PP is perfectly fine for prosumer and indie work; if you know what you're doing it's possible to replicate any of the motion picture styles people are used to seeing, it's simply that it doesn't have a library of presets and you don't get the same level of spatial controls (there's no masked adjustment layer concept in PP like there is in AE). As shooternz says some of the third-party plugins for PP give you those power tools.
New in CS6, Speedgrade provides a standalone program with more powerful features, though the workflow at the moment isn't all that seamless (SG wants frame images, as do most pro grading applications, so there's a gnarly export-import thing to go through that makes round-tripping a one way street).
A professional colorist will use a standalone grading program for several reasons, but they're not all down to pure 'quality';
pro colorists tend to use special hardware desks with physical versions of the three color wheels, and they only work with certain software.
if you're matching the 'look' of an entire motion picture, being able to store, share and batch process with preset styles and look-up tables (LUTs) is important - MB Looks and the Colorista plugin bundled with AE both have libraries of presets, the native fast and 3-way CC tools in PP don't.
On a big project the grading is done by someone other than the editor, so they don't generally need (or want) access to the master timeline - they'll get an exported mezzanine format from edit (an image sequence or uncompressed video track) so don't care about all the other stuff PP or AE can do.
If your only job is grading then a standalone package is the way to go. If it's one of an army of things you do, from shooting and editing to burning the DVDs and writing the blog, I'd say to stick with the inbuilt tools in PP/AE, have a go in Speedgrade if you have CS6 and some time to teach yourself, but the expense of a standalone grading tool would only be worthwhile if you have a few months spare to learn the skills. There's a reason the best colorists earn top dollar, it's 50% art, 50% science and 100% dedication.

My HD TV as NTSC Monitor for secondary color correction

Can I use my new Panasonic HD TV model TH-42PX80U as a NTSC monitor for secondary color correction using both Final Cut Pro out of a Macbook Pro intel? What cable I can use to conect via HDMI? Will the color acuracy will be similar to that of a NTSC color correction monitor? will my TV do a decent job for NTSC? THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!
I am not sure I have this HDMI cable to be use in my macbook pro does it comes with it?

Can I use my new Panasonic HD TV model TH-42PX80U as a NTSC monitor for secondary color correction using both Final Cut Pro out of a Macbook Pro intel?
Yes, but I would only trust it if you are going to be making DVDs, and ONLY if you properly set it up. I would not rely on it for broadcast color correction. The reason broadcast monitors exist is to have a standard...HDTVs don't have a standard. Go to best buy and look at all of them....none of them match. BUT, as a nice simple solution for DVD, I'd use it.
But the only way you are going to get a signal to it is with the Matrox MXO. It will do component to the monitor, or you can get a DVI to HDMI adapter...if you do that the MXO software will allow you to set the monitor up to color bars. That option is only available from of the DVI out of the box.
Will the color acuracy will be similar to that of a NTSC color correction monitor?
No...it would be similar to color correcting NTSC on your home television...because that it what it is.
will my TV do a decent job for NTSC?
I doubt it. Taking an SD image and blowing it up huge on this HD TV...scaled up. I wouldn't think so. I wouldn't use it for SD color correction.
I am not sure I have this HDMI cable to be use in my macbook pro does it comes with it?
You have a DVI port on your MacBook Pro. And they make DVI to HDMI cable adapters I'm sure.
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/ross_shane/MXO.php
Shane

Looking for a particular color correction tutorial

I am looking for an online tutorial on how to do color correction if the video one is working with has color bars. This happens on a lot of analog videotapes that come to me. I know what my scopes are suppposed to look like when analyzing color bars, but I need something that shows me how to get from A to B.
If I Google some varient of "color correction video color bars," all I get is information on calibrating monitors.
I am using Premiere CS5.5
Thanks in adavnce for any response!
J. D.

APP - Layer...
Also... Check this site for looking at APPs.. I've posted this before but it's a good site. It just started up a week or so ago.
http://androidapplications.com/

Color correcting more than one clip at a time

Perhaps I am missing something very elementary here... but here is my situation. I have three camera angles, each of the same concert. They are synced and ready to go, each on a separate track. Each needs color correction. I have found the color correction for each that I want. Before I slice up my clips I can very easily color correct each line separately, as the color correction applies to the whole clip. However, this takes about an hour to render because it is so much material. But since I am slicing up each track anyway to form a composite track, wouldn't it make more sense for me to slice up each track as I see fit, delete the unwanted footage, and then color correct each line before I drag them all into one composite track? That way, the color correction would just be applied to the clips that I am using, presumably taking about 1/3 the time to render. Know what I mean? So here is the question: can I select all of the clips on one line and THEN color correct just those? Or do I have to select each little clip and type in the boatload of numbers into the numeric color correction. Or is there another way all together. (Like, is there a way to SAVE the color correction values that I want and call them like "camera one" "camera two" etc... and then just apply those settings to the clips I want?)
With my sound editing program I have presets for this concert. I am able to take each piece, open it up and apply the same equalization, amplification, reverb, etc. that I did for all of the others, thus making them all sound the same. I'm sure FCE has this option for video, doesn't it?
I have 10 more pieces to do and by far this was the most time consuming part of the job. So any help would be most appreciated!
Much thanks!

Apply the color correction to one clip and adjust as needed. Copy the clip. Select all other clips that you want to apply the filter with those settings to. Right-click on one and select Paste Attributes/Filters.
-DH

Color Correction Hardware

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