Hisat vs Cinema Matrix

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Daniel Alexander

Active member
Hi, i'm curious to know from those people who are shooting short films/features to what setting they have there matrix set to. I ask because i have an ex1 and will be shooting some shorts but i lack the ideal monitoring setup in my editing suite to really judge how colors are being handled by the camera and even though the ex1 lcd panel is very crisp i wouldnt like to rely on it for what is really happening saturation wise.

My two main areas of intrugue are between the HISAT setting and the CINEMA setting. Now in the camera the CINEMA setting looks (to me anyway) very cinematic as it's name suggests and i love the way the overal saturation is toned down to give a more organic look similar to what i see produced from hvx users. However when looking back at this footage on my not so idea monitoring setup and some DVD conversions for sd playback, the look i thought i loved somehow looked washed out and very weak, not at all like i was seeing in the camera. On the flip side to this, using Bill's TC2 setting with HISAT it made everything pop and look very sharp, well saturated and crisp but to me lacked the organic feel of the cinema setting.

So i would really like to hear people's experience on the different matrix settings (and when they chose to use them) between cinema and hisat and especially to those who have had the chance to see their footage displayed on a professional setup or big screen projection.
 
I use the HISAT matrix a lot when I am certain that my work will never be destined for VHS tape. It gives a more "South Pacific" look to the movies, with it's strong colors that hold up nicely on digital TVs. The Cinema matrix is probably more realistic, in terms of true-to-life output, but we're in the entertainment business and sometimes it makes sense to make the colors 'louder than life' to enhance story-telling. The movie South Pacific was like that and I thought it looked delicious, although some folks I was with said it gave them a headache. Go figure.

Bottom line is, experiment... this is like cooking--you try mixing different ingredients in various ratios until you come up with something that's tasty. Certainly with the matrix controls and all the gamma curves, there is a wide open field of possibilities.
 
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