Scopes and Reference Monitor: Switching from FCP Color to PPro +

AlmaVideo

AlmaVideo

Active member
I'm on a Mac, and switching to PPro. I really liked FC Studio 7, but seeing Apple withdrawing its commitment to the Suite the writing is on the wall. Where I'm stuck is in trying to figure out how I will do color correction.

I previously used FCP and Color. I loved the Color interface and tools. I relied a lot on the scopes. I have an AJA HLe card, and I used the SDI out to a Panasonic 17" BT-LH1700W for a color reference monitor. I calibrated the monitor using color bars. I have a Cinema Display, but haven't trusted it for grading hence the reference monitor. It gave me a nice 2-monitor setup.

For the switch to PPro, the color correction options I'm looking at most closely are Magic Bullet (free trial till I decide) vs DaVinci (lite until I decide).

I am encountering 3 problems even getting set up:

1. Neither seems to play with well with my AJA to reference monitor setup (updates are current).

2. Neither has the scopes I am used to....waveform, luma, parade, vector scope especially.

As a practical matter, what reference monitor solution and scope tools should I be looking at to make these programs work as well for me as Color did?
 
Da Vinci Resolve Lite has all those scopes.

Great realtime scopes and they can be set to clipping levels. eg 63 - 940 in 1023 10bit video.

I run them large on a second desktop monitor.

Black Magic also have the Ultrascopes.
 
Maybe I am too old school but RGB curves and the built in Premieres scopes have been always done the job for me.
 
nwstudios said:
Maybe I am too old school but RGB curves and the built in Premieres scopes have been always done the job for me.
Click to expand...

They are fine for non broadcast work but do not easily work well for making "broadcast legal video". Not helped by the lack of CC/grade controls in Premiere to legalise video eg soft clip , hue vs sat, sat vs luma...controls

The Premiere scopes have no setup control for precision.
 
Thank you both. Personally, the way the controls work in PP are much less intuitive for me than FCP's Color (I really liked that program!). I prefer interface in DaVinci (among other dedicated CC tools). Just a preference.

Shooter, you have pointed me in the direction I need to explore. It sounds like you are making your grades using scopes and a computer monitor to observe the images (please correct me if I'm wrong). I think given that I'm still way down on the learning curve I don't need to stress over the connection of my SDI monitor. My issues are more basic. Once I get the basic setup, I can tackle the SDI out to monitor issue.....

Also, I have looked at the manual, and while there is mention of the software scopes, esp p 186 and 299, neither reveals how/when/on which tab to find them! Can you tell me what I need to do to be able to see them?

Once I'm properly configured, I should see the output on my SDI out to my monitor (I notice YUV 422 SDI out on the video Monitoring tab). I may need to switch out my AJA Kona HLe for a Balckmagic product. The Cuda version I'm on is higher than the DaVinci certified, and I think may be causing me some issues...that's certainly something for me to deal with.
 
I found the scopes!! If anyone else is curious: Right click on the image in the "Color" window to configure the scopes.

Can I change the units to IRE? What does default the scale...."0 to 1023" mean? What levels represent 100 IRE and 0 IRE?
 
0-1023 is 10 bit video signal and = 0 - 100 IRE

Google it up for better explanations than I can give.


You can set clipping levels in the Resolve scopes.

Dble click left sdie of the scopes for some options

You cant change to IRE ( and you dont need to)

Absolutely I use a decent computer monitor for grading and thats kind of the way Resolve works as well.
 
Thank you!! I'm set up for basic functionality thanks to your guidance.

Now I can go to work on a learning project. I got the 2 Hullfish books to begin with, and Van Hurkman to follow.

John
 
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