Kona LHi and HP Dreamcolor for timeline output

[Tom Frisch]

I'm looking at getting an HP Dreamcolor display and Kona LHi for my PC to actually see what I'm doing during editing with Ppro CS5. I dream of solid timeline playback to a calibrated REC709 display.

Currently, I've got a i7 desktop w/ nVidia Quadro CX card. Most of my footage is Canon 5/7D, w/ some random gopro and other stuff on occasion. In the future- Red? Canon C300? Sony F3? Who knows. Most likely Canon's MPEG2 50mbit. I don't want to transcode, especially since there is no ProRes for PC, and I'm not satisfied w/ Cineform.

-Does anyone else have this setup running for them?
-Does it work well? smooth, fast reliable?
-Are there other more affordable or reliable solutions?
-Can I still use 2 monitors from my Quadro CX while viewing timeline out of Kona card?
-Will I still get any benefits of CUDA with this setup? Or will Mercury be software only?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Tom

[Steve Kalle]

I considered the Aja and HP but I went a different route and couldn't be happier. Because you also have a powerful Quadro card (I have the FX3800), I suggest getting the Eizo CG243W which is newer and better than the Dreamcolor AND the Eizo doesn't have the signal requirements like the Dreamcolor (progressive and RGB in order to use a color space like 709). Also, our Quadro cards have Displayport outputs which support 10bit output. Combine that with the 10bit Eizo and Premiere Pro's 10bit support and you get a very high quality setup.

With the above setup, every time you open a project in PPro, the screen flashes which means Windows & PPro are outputting 10bit (this is what Adobe said when I asked if something was broken).

My experience with SDI/HDMI output cards is that ALL of them introduce problems with PPro and other programs. However, CUDA acceleration works with all of them. The one positive aspect to the Aja Kona is more file format support such as 16it Tiff within PPro.

[Tom Frisch]

Thanks so much for your response Steve.

When you are monitoring your timeline w/ the Eizo CG243W via Displayport out of your FX3800, are you able to set the FX3800 to output Rec709 colorspace? (and the Eizo to display in Rec709 colorspace?) Or more simply, is what you see on the Eizo the same you'd see if your project was sent off to air on TV?

If this question illuminates my misunderstanding about colorspaces, please tell me that too. I was under the impression that Rec709 is a limited color space, and the whole reason for using a broadcast monitor in editing was to make sure that the colors you think you have will be seen that way by the average end tv viewer (ignoring the problem where everyone's TV set does different horrible things to your pristine program).

-Tom

[Steve Kalle]

I use Premiere Pro to edit and it displays whatever color space the video is. Almost all HD video is Rec 709 so PPro displays that. There is a great article on provideocoalition.com that explains why and how PPro plus Quadro & Displayport works for critical monitoring.

For HD broadcast, I have my Eizo set to Rec 709 and for SD broadcast, I use Rec 601 aka SPMTE-C. The Eizo has pre-calibrated settings for 709, 601, sRGB and a few others in addition to 3 settings for custom calibration with something like the i1 or Spyder. (I have the i1)

I have spent quite a bit of time researching color spaces; so, please ask anything on your mind.

PS There is no replacement for using the Waveform and other scopes. I took screenshots of my home setup with 2 20" monitors (in my studio, I have the Eizo as my main monitor and a 1080p Dell Ultrasharp next to it)

[Tom Frisch]

Thanks for the quick response-
I'm assuming the PVC article you referred to was this one:ProVideo Coalition.com: TecnoTur by Allan Tépper

In it Alan Tepper basically says there are 4 reasons an editor would need a traditional IO card (AJA, Matrox etc). If you can satisfy this checklist, then you can use a 10 bit monitor w Quadro and have pro monitoring w/o the additional hardware.
- no capturing from tape, other than via firewire
- no output to tape, or playback live to air
- only deliver progressive programs
- video card has a spare non-mirroring output- Displayport or HDMI* for 10bit
*Wait a second, I swear I've read that Quadro/Nvidia drivers do NOT output 10bit on HDMI port...

Here's more questions:
1) When you are running in this configuration- are you getting the right colors in Ppro even when you aren't full screen on your second display? (like in your attached photo)

2) Are the colors correct between your 2 monitors? (assuming you've calibrated both w/ i1)
How does that work when your Eizo is set to Rec709 and your Dell is set to... 8bit dellness?

3) When you calibrate your Eizo w/ i1, are you then no longer in Rec709? If so, how do you know that Rec709 preset is calibrated properly?

4) What happens in After Effects? Can you monitor accurately there?

5) Is there a way to use your Eizo w/ a camera in on-location/video village setup? Maybe w/ an SDI to displayport converter? (BM HDlink?)

[Steve Kalle]

Correct, no graphics card supports 10bit output via HDMI. In addition, no camera has a 10bit HDMI output.

And yes, that is the article I was referring to.

1) Yes. For large amounts of grading, I move the effects window to the Dell and use the ~ key to make the Program window fullscreen.

2) Nope. I only know of very expensive software/hardware that is capable of matching different monitors. I didn't even bother to calibrate the Dell next to the Eizo. At home, I calibrated my Dell's but they still don't come close to my Eizo - ie., they have a bit too much blue compared to the Eizo at Rec 709.

3) The Eizo has its own calibration software called ColorNavigator which interfaces with the i1 puck. In the software, it allows me to save 3 custom calibrations. For each saved calibration, I can choose which color space to use. Each calibration is actually stored in the monitor itself; so, I can connect the monitor to any device and use any custom calibration or one of the presets. This is called 'hardware calibration'. The opposite to hardware calibration is software calibration where the calibration is saved in the computer and uses the GPU to alter chroma and luminance values.

On a side note, there are other quality monitors available for less money, but one feature that sets the Eizo apart from cheaper alternatives is its color and brightness uniformity across the screen. For example, ASUS released a 10bit LCD this year for ~$600 BUT its color & brightness change drastically from one side to the other. I saw a test that showed a 20% change from the left side to the right side. Compare that to the CG243W's 2-5% and you can see why the Eizo is able to command such a premium.

4) In AE - Yes. AE can seem complicated because it offers the ability to use LUTs or use color management by emulating various color spaces. Here is an example of when AE's color management would be needed: a feature is shot on a certain Kodak film which has its own color characteristics, and the AE artist needs to add in 3D elements from Cinema 4D. In order to match these 3D elements with the look of the Kodak film, the AE artist enables color management to emulate that film stock.

5) Yes and I have considered buying that BMD HDlink, but I have a nanoFlash that can send out via HDMI and SDI ; so, I can feed my Panasonic 1710w with the SDI and the Eizo with a HDMI to DVI cable. FYI, both the HDLink and the Eizo can store 3D LUTs. For example, this helps when you are recording a very flat image like with the F3 & S-Log or the Alexa's Log-C and you want a monitor to display how the image looks when graded or how it would look when printed to film. I read about a similar setup on the set of the last Chronicles of Narnia film where they used a device like the HDLink to emulate a certain film stock while being displayed on a Dreamcolor monitor.

However, there is one aspect that needs to be considered when using a monitor for post and for production - for post, the monitor's brightness should be set to 100-120 cd/m2. For production, you usually have bright lights around so the brightness needs to be increased for better viewing, which isn't a problem. The only thing that changes is the black point which is the lowest cd/m2 value the monitor can display. With LCD technology, there is no way of getting around this issue - OLED is a whole different ball game.

On a side note, I have the Matrox MXO2 Mini and its been collecting dust ever since I got it 2 years ago due to all of the problems it caused in PPro. I also have 2 BM Decklink Extreme 3D cards in a broadcast playout server and at one point, I had a 3rd card in my studio PC (HP Z800). I tried editing with this card for several weeks, but I did not like the extra problems and issues it added. If you search my name and these devices, you will find several posts where I highlight the issues I had. I have no patience for errors that arise during editing and compositing; so, I decided to make life as uncomplicated as possible and not use any 3rd party I/O devices. I even have 2 different hard drives in the HP Z800 with Win 7 installed. One drive has misc software installed in addition to the Matrox software for times when I need to record news clips from the cable DVR. The main drive has the absolute bare minimum software installed; so, there are fewer chances of driver and software conflicts.

[Tom Frisch]

Wow Steve, I'm so impressed with the depth of your understanding, and level of explanation you are providing. I really appreciate it, and hope if others come across this thread with similar questions, they will too. I'm assuming you don't work for Ezio- but they should hire you, or at least add some of your explanations to how the hardware calibration works, and some of the potential workflows this allows. I also think Adobe could do a much better job of explaining that many users don't need a i/o card for timeline monitoring with CS5's new YUV-RGB conversion, and AE's colorspace options.

This whole thread should really be renamed to "Using an Ezio CG243W with Nvidia Quadro card to display 10bit calibrated REC709 output from the Premiere Pro timeline without an additional IO card"

-Tom

[Steve Kalle]

Hi Tom.

I think one day that I will be a teacher because I really love helping people :)

People like you who really appreciate my help is the reason why I spend the time to explain everything.

And no, I don't work for Eizo or Adobe or Nvidia.

The most likely explanation for why I know so much about this topic is because I am a research-aholic before I buy anything.

[Tom Frisch]

Researchaholic: takes one to know one.
Thanks for being an enabler.

-Tom