FCP, Matrox color calibration & the use of a "wide gamut" LCD monitor

[Steve Kalle]

I would download TMPGEnc Authoring Works and try it out - its functinoal for 14 days. In Avid, export a MPEG2-DVD compliant file and Authoring Works won't need to transcode anything.

It sounds like the Sonic DVD might be the culprit. However, I have noticed going from HD to SD causes a loss of saturation and contrast but that was when I was using just my Dell LCDs & Adobe CS4. With my Eizo, I never have any 'surprises'.

Now that I think of it, it could be due to your HP LCD because this LCD is wide gamut; thus, it tends to be oversaturated, especially the reds.

Is there any shift when exporting HD? Is the shift only with MPEG2 or what about H264?

In Avid's export settings, can you select which gamut to use, ie Rec 601 or 709?

Is the LCD calibrated to 6500k and between 80-120 cd/m?

Try this: take that ramp image and export it from Avid and then bring into Photoshop and see if Avid is automatically setting the levels to 16-235. Then do the same with Sonic DVD. I say to use PS because it is easy to check the levels of an image. If PS doesn't work for you, then use any program that can show the info for each pixel in an image.

See attached image. On the right is the original XDCAM EX MP4 shrunk down a little within After Effects and the left is the encoded video out of Premiere Pro CS5 which is H264 720x406 @4Mb/s average, and is increased in size within AE to better match the original. I exported as a Tiff sequence and the attached image is directly from that.

EDIT: I added a PNG so it can be viewed within the website.