does anyone know how to cablibrate a monitor to the ex1s weird color bars by eye? Im familiar with the procedure for plain old sempte bars but im lost with the ex1 bars.

This guy has done a tutorial on it-

HD CINEMA: HD MONITOR CALIBRATION with SMPTE and ARIB Bars (http://hd-cinema.blogspot.com/2008/06/hd-monitor-calibration.html)

Excellent link, very straightforward... Thanks a lot!

Yes thanks. I posted the intial query on my phone. Upon getting home I found that bit.

What does it change for Pal sistem?I've the same problem...

Okay, I know this is a little tangental to the topic, but what is up with this camera? Or, what is up with my monitor? I had a shoot today (talking head interview), and judging off both the EVF and the external monitor that I calibrated to the bars (as demonstrated in the procedure above), I lit a certain way, to achieve a certain contrast ratio. So, just for funsies, at home I plug the camera via component into my 42" plasma to see what HD footage really looks like.

Colors are fine, exposure's okay, but the contrast looks a lot flatter on my TV. Barely a key/fill ratio at all on the subject's face. I've seen this too looking at a client's monitor in the edit suite after transferring EX1 footage. . .on his FCP system and external monitor, looks much flatter contrast-wise than it did in the EVF or the monitor we were using. How come, after calibrating, we keep getting "lied to"? How are you supposed to judge what you're shooting short of buying a light meter?

external monitor appears to be a sony LMD 9050, but I can't be sure 'cause it's not my gear.

Setting to bars correctly unfortunately doesn't guarantee that all monitors will look the same, and the cameras LCD is no guarantee of anything at all. Especially there is a lot of slop in how people like to set up the contrast and black level settings and this is especially true for home TV's.
Until I know a monitor I don't completely trust it. I recently had a scare after calibrating my production and computer monitors carefully using a spyder 3, I looked at a DVD and was scared that my Compressor settings were way off because it looked way to bright on my home LCD. Then I put my production monitors side by side with the home unit and realized that the latter was the problem. If anything a home TV will often be set brighter than a pro monitor. That's why they call it NTSC - Never Twice the Same Color.

duplicate post sorry

That's why they call it NTSC - Never Twice the Same Color.

In that case shouldn't it be NTTSC :-)

Its a nickname created by engineers in the States back in the early days of color TV.

NTSC - Never The Same Color.

:)

But HDTV is not NTSC.

So, just for funsies, at home I plug the camera via component into my 42" plasma to see what HD footage really looks like. Colors are fine, exposure's okay, but the contrast looks a lot flatter on my TV.

Okay, before I launch into an opinion, I'll introduce 'The Word For Today' - which is Ultracrepidarianism: the habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one's knowledge. Which I think I am about to be guilty of...

0) It's rushes! What of your camera's PP settings? Are you grading later? Seen RED rushes (assuming somebody hasn't already done a 'pre-grade' to make it 'look nice')? Really flat contrast. All the punch comes in post. Flat rushes are the price you pay for nearly 11 stops latitude. Make an in-camera 'look' by all means for quick turnaround or less reliance on grading in post, but at the expense of the ability to... fix in post.

1) A TV set is not a monitor - it will be tuned to give the brightest picture possible to make it stand out in a TV show room. Most come with a special 'Theatre' mode which essentially turns off all that picture processing (which burns out highlights and screws the gamma) but then resembles a somewhat dimmer version of your CRT, which is where we should be heading. Yeah, right. Fine for aficionados like us, but not the behaviour of most home users. Sigh.

2) Monitors can be lined up by eyeball (PLUGE etc) or by stick-on sensors, but unless it's a Grade 1 or real Grade 2 lined up by an engineer, there's a certain amount of 'living with them' required just as with monitor speakers. You get to know them by using familiar recordings that you've seen/heard in a wide range of environments and know how to work round its kinks.

3) I have this awful feeling that HD has a different Gamma to a lot of computer screens out there. Please correct if I'm wrong, but I think HD is 2.2 compared to 1.8 or something (certainly for Macs), and who knows what for consumer LCD and plasma TV sets. I've heard between 2.5, 2.8 for SD, so a SD setup may not be optimum for HD!

I've got my first proper Blu-Ray project coming up next year, so will be going with an MXO to drive a good LCD monitor which will be come the equivalent of a Grade 2.5 SD setup, but will be testing and testing and testing on a variety of kit to see what goes awry, and in the meantime shooting fairly flat with the histogram, relying on Red Giant's Colorista to nail the grading later.

NTSC - Never The Same Color.

:)

But HDTV is not NTSC.

or

NTSC = Note The Sickly Colors

HD Grading without a grade 1 monitor is guesswork. On real high end projects I get a top freelance colourist to to the work. I send him the FCP project and a hard drive with the material to work with having discussed style etc. We have a joint viewing to tidy up any queries and the I get peace of mind that everything has been done properly so there will be no surprises later. If client queries anything I know it is their kit at fault.

HD Grading without a grade 1 monitor is guesswork. On real high end projects I get a top freelance colourist to to the work.

That's great - how do you approach the rest of your projects? Can we call it 'Educated' guesswork, which at least is several steps on from 'looks good on my screen'?

Monitoring is an ancient problem with video. Even after proper grading on a perfectly set up top quality monitor it goes out to the viewers who watch it on god knows what. I used to always have a really crappy monitor next to my good one when grading just to see a worst case scenario and try to make it work on both.

It's been noted that Jimmy Page used to do the same thing with Led Zeppelin's material at the studio. He would dub off to cassette and listen to it on the car stereo because he knew that's where a lot of people would be listening to it.

-gb-