Calibrated monitors -vs- media players, Editors, etc.

[sanlyn]

I've been calibrating my PC monitors and TVs for several years now, with good results. The biggest problem I have in editing and color correcting video on a PC is trying to guess how the finished DVD will look on a TV. Most people know that PC monitor color spaces, gamma curves, etc., are not an exact match to TV display, irregardless of calibration techniques.

My displays are calibrated with EyeOne Display 2/EyeOne Pro color probes, and with XRite software (for PC) and HCFR and Calman (for TV). In TMPGenc 2.5 and VirtualDub I have no problem getting the color balance correct. The problem is saturation and black\white levels. PC displays are oversaturated. The typical PC monitor tends to crush blacks at gamma 2.2, so I've taken to calibrating these with a gamma of 2.0 to more closely match my TVs' cleaner rendition of low-IRE detail.

I do know that studio monitors are really what we're supposed to be using. Video shouldn't be color corrected on a $200-$400 PC monitor. But how many of us can afford $1500-plus for studio and broadcast gear?

Photoshop can hook into a PC's calibrated ICC monitor profile. SONY Vegas and Premiere, likewise (I never liked using either. Tried both, returned both. The cost of plugins would buy my house. And I've managed to do almost as much with VDub and AviSynth). So I check my color corrections with still captures viewed in Photoshop. It's a back-and-forth thingie with several windows running at once, TMPGenc, VirtualDub, etc., constantly comparing captures back and forth. It usually works, but it's a pain. TMPGenc and VirtualDub don't hook into ICC profiles. Neither does any media player I could find. I managed to use HCFR and a WinXP color patch generator to configure PowerDVD to play a video that looks more like it would on a TV set. I have no idea what colorspace PowerDVD is using, but it doesn't look like anything I ever saw anywhere.

It seems to me that a utility like VirtualDub, which many use for color adjustments, should be able to latch into a monitor profile. Its windows seem to be closer to "correct" than TMPGenc or any media player, but they don't seem to be quite "there". I'm always second-guessing VirtualDub's display and trusting to histograms and vectorscopes like crazy.

The same goes for TMPGenc's editing and preview windows. Has anyone noticed that the Advanced Color window and the Preview window have totally different gamma curves and color balance?

Obviously my next big purchase will have to be a 20-to-23 inch TV monitor with PC input and thorough calibration tools. LG makes the only affordable alternative I've found so far. There's no way I'm going to try to do this work on a gigantic plasma TV or a $5000 production monitor.

I've mentioned some of the tips-n-tricks I've tried so far to match PC display with TV's. Most of them work, but not without considerable trial and error. Short of spending $25,000 on studio equipment, has anyone developed any of their own tricks in this matter?

[poisondeathray]

and VirtualDub don't hook into ICC profiles. Neither does any media player I could find.

MPCHC has color management ICC support
http://voxelium.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/icc-color-management-in-media-player-classic-home-cinema/

It's still a PITA going back & forth. Ideally, your color correcting application should have color management so you can do it in realtime (e.g. after effects, vegas, premiere) . But you said you didn't like them.

My take on this is there is no "in between". It's either full broadcast monitor setup, or you just do the best you can

If this is for other people, 8/10 TV's will look differently anyway. You have no control over that. It makes no difference if you have a full setup - just get everything close.

[sanlyn]

and VirtualDub don't hook into ICC profiles. Neither does any media player I could find.

MPCHC has color management ICC support
http://voxelium.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/icc-color-management-in-media-player-classic-home-cinema/

Say, posion, I just checked it. Great idea. I've had MP_classic for years. After 3 years of Googling, I never found this. Thanks much. OMG, this link set off bells that might have me programming again for the next 5 years. I don't even wanna think about that right now, retirement has been too restful.

It's still a PITA going back & forth. Ideally, your color correcting application should have color management so you can do it in realtime (e.g. after effects, vegas, premiere) . But you said you didn't like them.

No sense getting into detail here, but...no, I really don't. Often use Photoshop to tweak an image, then analyze what it did and simulate it in other software. With the big guys, I gotta set 8 menus every time I move, etc., etc. I was getting claustrophic.

My take on this is there is no "in between". It's either full broadcast monitor setup, or you just do the best you can

Just gimme $50K, I'll be fine. 40 will do. 30 will get me started.

If this is for other people, 8/10 TV's will look differently anyway. You have no control over that. It makes no difference if you have a full setup - just get everything close.

True. But you have to set a standard of some kind. If I can comply with the basics, the output should look fairly predictable. But, yes, some of my PC repair customers watch TV in torch mode. Purple hair. Green skin. Blue food. Meg Ryan stretched out to 350 pounds. I don't know how they stand it.

[poisondeathray]

If this is for other people, 8/10 TV's will look differently anyway. You have no control over that. It makes no difference if you have a full setup - just get everything close.

True. But you have to set a standard of some kind. If I can comply with the basics, the output should look fairly predictable. But, yes, some of my PC repair customers watch TV in torch mode. Purple hair. Green skin. Blue food. Meg Ryan stretched out to 350 pounds. I don't know how they stand it.

Don't blame the victim, blame the manufacturers!

I think they should be the ones to do some minimal QC and standardization before equipment is shipped off to the consumer. Most consumers don't spend time calibrating stuff, they use it out of the box

[bendixG15]

Since when did the consumer want to pay for quality ?

Close enough and cheap enough for everything is what m-o-s-t of the world lives by.

[aedipuss]

there are a couple ips panel monitors at a decent price point. much nicer color than lcd tn panels but sloooowwwww response times, so don't fps game with them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Descr...anel&x=25&y=29

[sanlyn]

If this is for other people, 8/10 TV's will look differently anyway. You have no control over that. It makes no difference if you have a full setup - just get everything close.

True. But you have to set a standard of some kind. If I can comply with the basics, the output should look fairly predictable. But, yes, some of my PC repair customers watch TV in torch mode. Purple hair. Green skin. Blue food. Meg Ryan stretched out to 350 pounds. I don't know how they stand it.

Don't blame the victim, blame the manufacturers!

I think they should be the ones to do some minimal QC and standardization before equipment is shipped off to the consumer. Most consumers don't spend time calibrating stuff, they use it out of the box

I'll second you on that, poison. And third, too.

[sanlyn]

there are a couple ips panel monitors at a decent price point. much nicer color than lcd tn panels but sloooowwwww response times, so don't fps game with them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Descr...anel&x=25&y=29

I recently broke down and purchased one of the models shown, even though I have little confidence in LG and think LED edge lighting is absurd ("It's better 'cause it's thinner! Right, folks?). I saw an NEC IPS that was visibly green on the left half and slightly purple on the right. The effect was obvious; move to the side and it's worse. Saw the Asus on display, looking like a cookie sheet that got scorched brown in its center. But, gosh, it's thinner so it's got to be better. So many wild effects, yet LG makes the IPS panels for all the units shown, and for Dell, HP, and others.

I'm trying to live with an LG now. I wrote about it here:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/308607-Best-lcd-monitor-for-video-restoration?p=207...=1#post2071633

[aedipuss]

LED is most likely going to be your only choice soon. it typically uses less than half the energy of cold cathode lighting and it can be dimmed. it has nothing to do with "thinner". my led monitor is thicker than any of my cc monitors so i don't know where that idea came from? some marketing campaign?

[sanlyn]

and VirtualDub don't hook into ICC profiles. Neither does any media player I could find.

MPCHC has color management ICC support
http://voxelium.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/icc-color-management-in-media-player-classic-home-cinema/

Well, it ain't working. Shucks. "Render Settings _ enable" is greyed out. Using the hint to set GPU to VMR9 made no difference.

It could be because when I first start MP-Classic I get a warning that the latest DirectX 10 revision isn't installed. The one that's installed now is fairly new (Service Pack 3, installed a month ago). In the past I've installed two DX updates and SvcPak 3. On every occasion, here's what Microsoft's DX updates do:

1. Removes all ICC profiles from the Color Management list and sets the monitor's OEM ICM profile (for printers) as default. The ICC has to be restored to the list and re-set as default.
2. Removes all references to ATI WDM capture and VFW capture, rendering VirtualDub capture useless. VDub will capture only at 352x240 and doesn't recognize the ATI card. All ATI drivers have to be completely uninstalled and reinstalled. This also involves revising FCC handlers in the registry to replace some of ATI's weird video codec references with the proper FCC handlers.
3. Renders my Calman test patch generator useless. Has to be uninstalled, new version for the new DX downloaded, and reinstalled.
4. For some reason, many AviSynth plugins don't display properly, or won't work. Have to uninstall AviSynth, reinstall, and copy all plugins back into the new plugin folder. Have yet to understand why. Must have something to do with changed registry settings.

Takes hours. Too much for me this morning. I removed MP Classic and will try later.

[sanlyn]

After several days of experimenting with PC monitor calibration and lots of test videos, I managed to make some adjustments for PC-video to TV-video. I ignored the usual PC calibration standards of 120cdm brightness and 2.2 gamma. I increased brightness slightly to 140 and lowered gamma to 2.0. Over the years I've repeatedly seen posts by photogs who set their monitors along these lines.

Maybe it's just the LCD monitors I've been using, but these parameters seem far more predictable. This also opens up low shadow detail, which non-CRT PC monitors don't handle well. Slightly higher brightness also desaturates the color and midtones somewhat; I now find myself increasing saturation a bit in the videos on the PC and having video look much better when blown up on TV. Then I took those same re-corrected videos and viewed them on the wild-and-crazy settings that others use on their TV's, and the videos look more like their usual program viewing.

Of course, a restored, ancient VHS isn't going to look like DVD no matter how it's viewed. But at this point, for a change, I'm not seeing one thing on my PC and seeing something entirely different on TV's. This is a long way from the CRT days when I had far fewer of these match-up problems (could I have my old Trinitron back, please?). Lo and behold, even VirtualDub's windows look more accurate now. As for media players, well...I'll just have to learn to maybe set up VLC player's open-source code for more competent image controls. PowerDVD and MediaPlayer are just hopeless -- I've no idea how they handle color or contrast, but those two mongrels have never made any image look natural. I've taken to testing video full-screen by manipulatring VirtualDub's windows. So far, works well...at least, better than before.