Which monitor to trust?

B

buhce

Active member
Hello,

The situation I have currently is one in which I'm constantly worrying about my monitor calibration insofar as, I don't know which one to trust. I have two fairly old Viewsonic monitors running Windows 7 on which my timeline is spread across and a recently purchased Dell ultrasharp IPS monitor. My instinct would be to grade and trust everything I see on the Dell of course. Which is where my problem lies. Coming from a sound engineering background, I learned to 'mix down' and test my mixes on different speakers to ensure the mix was well balanced and acurrate. So I apply this principle to my grading too. Yet when I grade on the viewsonics or even my laptop the occasional clip looks totally different when viewed on my IPS or Mac screen [ it's fine on every other windows computer running average screen], often with a colour tone that wasn't intended and with more saturation. So I'm perplexed as to what's going on? If only high end screens like IPS and MAC can pick these colours and tones up that cannot be seen on your normal everyday monitors, then I'm wondering whether it makes sense to grade on such screens, since a lot of people don't have them or whether to grade on them 'cause they're more acurrate and screw the 'normal' screens, even if the image they will see as a result will be sometimes not what I intended. And also, why is it only sometimes, with some clips and grades and not others? Surely there is an equilibrium that I can acheive where footage graded on an IPS screen can look similar enough on other less exspensive screens?
I have run calibration on my screens and any adjustments made have little effect on the problems I'm experiencing. It could be that I'm grading wrong, or just looking at the whole thing in the wrong way, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks
 
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You need to grade with a reliable color calibrated external monitor, and a vectorscope/waveform monitor. Especially if the project is intended to be broadcast. Output your project timeline preview to this reference monitor and stick to it. Using the vectorscope/waveform monitor make sure you have legal luminance and chrominance levels first of all. Without knowing and seeing exactly what monitor and computer setsups you have it is difficult to give "a one size fits all answer". You may be seeing a difference because of different graphics cards and diferent screen types (CRT vs LCD for example). They all have their own characteristics and hopefully only slight variaitions.

I use a calibrated external monitor in my editing setup and than also cross check a project on a 67" calibrated big screen HDTV. Don't rely on an LCD computer monitor for grading. You shouldn't have to 'mix down' for different monitors. That is why we have broadcast standards and references in place... hopefully to keep everything as uniform as possible. Go to your TV when the president is giving a speech on all the TV networks. Switch between 5 different networks and you'll notice that they all have slight variations in luminance and chrominance levels.. "Y", "I" and 'Q vectors". It will be especially and most obvious with the presidents skin tones ... But all networks should and most likely will be within the FCC broadcast spec...
 
Good HD plasmas properly calibrated are generally the grading monitors of choice these days. Computer LCD monitors, with the exception of those intended for color reference work like the HP Dreamcolor series that can be properly calibrated for REC 709 and sRGB video references, are inconsistent as you have observed. Fact is you have little control over what your video will look like on other peoples monitors, but unlike audio there are reference calibration standards for video.
 
My IPS screen is a Dell u2311h which was with my price range. It's not really intended for broadcast mainly online content and is only a small operation. I see people producing grades that are perfectly fine using only an imac and magic bullet that seem to translate fairly well onto windows and Mac platforms. Of course I will never know if all their grades are as they intended, but they never look like they're 'uneven'. I tend to use magic bullet looks but if I'm honest, I don't really understand the 'graph' section of it which I presume is similar to the vectroscope/waveform and would like to learn more about it. I am only really noticing real differences between IPS screens like on the imac and my Dell screen and the more commonplace LCD found in your average computer screen and those differences are only usually slight, except for the odd clip or two where the difference is quite big. I know there are standards for video which is why I think it comes down to my limited knowledge when it comes to using and fully understanding the graph section, which I presume is there to help you make sure your grade fit these video standards.
If you could point me in the direction of information or tutorials that'll help me understand it then that'd be appreciated.
 
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