Calibrating LCD for correct colour, brightness, etc

discburn wrote on 9/20/2012, 4:20 AM

Hi,

I'm using MEP MX Premium on a Dell XPS M1530 Laptop. I've extended the screen, via the laptop's HDMI output to a Sony Bravia HDTV. When working in  MEP, I use the Sony as my preview screen and the laptop has the timeline.

To calibrate the Sony, I've viewed TV channels coming directly into it and set up the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, etc so that it looks good. Then I've simply dialed those settings into the HDMI input.

The picture from MEP over HDMI looks good, and when I burn DVDs or BDs for clients, generally they look good on their screens. However, I'm wondering if further calibration is needed and how to do it?

Are there Colour Bars that can be generated/played out from MEP?

Should I use my Pantone Huey Pro Screen Calibrater?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Seamus.

PS  I'm in Ireland, so I'm using PAL

Comments

gandjcarr wrote on 9/20/2012, 10:57 AM

Hello Seamus,

Using the Pantone Screen Calibration tool will give you certainty that the colors are in fact correct, however my experience is that most consumer clients don't really care if the color is accurate and true, they care about how they want to see it and will set up their monitor or TV to reflect the colors they expect to see.  In my business, I really only care about pure black and pure white, everything else is pretty much up to interpretation by the viewer.  So for example if I shoot and or edit a wedding video and the bride is wearing a white dress, that dress needs to be white beyond a doubt, so by having your primary monitor calibrated for white levels, you will know if you need to make adjustments if the original video was shot without the camera being properly white balanced.

I hope this makes some sense to you and that I have been able to help out.

Good Luck

gandjcarr wrote on 9/20/2012, 12:02 PM

Hi Seamus,

I just thought of something else.  As far as contrast and brightness goes, I personally like high contrast and realtively high brightness, others prefer a "softer" look, so when setting either of those two on a client video, I try to go somewhere in the middle and let the and give the client enough room to make their own adjustments.