Calibrating a Monitor

A

adanac

Carbonite Member
I wish to calibrate a 13" SD Sony Trinitron broadcast monitor for use in video village. I will be shooting with a 5D and 60D, although I imagine this process is not camera-specific.
 
Which model? It'll help to know which 13" Trinitron, as you need to have a "blue only" feature.

Also, this requires a reliable color bar feed, which the 5D and 60D cannot do. And you have to be careful with color bars sourced from NLEs, or downloaded from the 'Net. Not sure if they ever rectified it, but for the first several versions FCP's color bars weren't accurate.

Basically, you center your contrast setting and turn on the blue-only (aka "blue gun"). Then adjust your Chroma until the bars on the left (white) and right (blue) each have no discernible difference with the small rectangles (blue under the white and vice versa) underneath. Last, adjust the Phase until you get the same effect with the bars to the left of center (cyan over magenta) and right of center (magenta over cyan).
 
I have a Matrox MX02 card which has HDMI and Component/Composite out, with great colour bars. It's an absolute doddle to set up, the documentation on their site explains the process very simply and it's incredibly straightforward to do once you understand the practice behind what you're doing. Blue only is very necessary for adjusting contrast and gamma etc.
 
It is a PVM-1345Q and it does have "Blue Only" as well as a degaussing feature. It was my plan to download a jpeg of bars from the net and use on my 60D, although I also have an HVX and I think (have to check) I can output bars from there.


C2V said:
Which model? It'll help to know which 13" Trinitron, as you need to have a "blue only" feature.

Also, this requires a reliable color bar feed, which the 5D and 60D cannot do. And you have to be careful with color bars sourced from NLEs, or downloaded from the 'Net. Not sure if they ever rectified it, but for the first several versions FCP's color bars weren't accurate.

Basically, you center your contrast setting and turn on the blue-only (aka "blue gun"). Then adjust your Chroma until the bars on the left (white) and right (blue) each have no discernible difference with the small rectangles (blue under the white and vice versa) underneath. Last, adjust the Phase until you get the same effect with the bars to the left of center (cyan over magenta) and right of center (magenta over cyan).
Click to expand...
 
adanac said:
It was my plan to download a jpeg of bars from the net and use on my 60D, although I also have an HVX and I think (have to check) I can output bars from there.
Click to expand...

Beware of 'Net-downloaded JPEGs. The compression can destroy valuable information, and Quicktime has gamma problems (only a problem if QT was used in creating the JPEG at any time, and you don't really know for sure when you download). Your HVX has bars, and that's your best option.

Peace,
Alex
 
What is the alternate way to color calibrate if your field monitor DOES NOT have a blue only setting? I have a 668gl Lilliput monitor that I need help calibrating, but it does NOT have a blue only setting.
 
CRT is a dead to dying technology. Makes sense now to move on to a different monitor. Sell it and get a Marshall. Why lug that thing around?
 
kaydawgy said:
What is the alternate way to color calibrate if your field monitor DOES NOT have a blue only setting? I have a 668gl Lilliput monitor that I need help calibrating, but it does NOT have a blue only setting.
Click to expand...

Matrox makes a box for around $500 that allows you to color balance HDMI monitors, and when used with your NLE will feed the HDMI out with various production windows (as I understand it, you can have, say, FCP's canvas or AE's work window doubled on the color corrected screen). Haven't bought one yet, but if I understand the features correctly, there's one in my near future.
 
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