2k CTL on 2k DLP equals Awesome!

[RPMpost]

We just screened the 2k 'Crossing The Line' trailer out of our Barco 2k DLP and man 'oh man was it sweet! Definitely a different aesthetic to film or HD but really beautiful in its own right.

Detail was fanstastic and colors rich and vibrant .... took you straight into the 'movie experience'. Even with stereo sound the emotional effect of the imagery and cutting was stunning .... whoever the director is he should do well ... I just hope he has a low RED reservation number on order ;-)

Couple of observations:

1) First, we tried playing CTL out of QT player through DVI into the Barco ... came out a little dark and crushed .... we have our DI suite calibrated to Rec. 709 with a gamma of 2.22 ... but adjusting the gamma to 1.75 brought back the detail in the midtones. So, if you have problems viewing it correctly on your LCD/CRT try adjusting the gamma.

2) We then played CTL directly out of FCP 6.1 using 10 bit SDI out of the Kona 3 and WOW! ... did it pop or what? It would seem that 8 bit DVI is doing something to the gamma and chroma of 10 bit ProRes 422 HQ. If you want to see the trailer in all it's glory view it out of SDI not DVI.

3) We then took some CTL clips into Apple COLOR and pushed the colors around ... beautiful ... so much detail there .... got a very cool desaturated bleach by-pass look very easily .... lot of detail in the shadows ... plenty of color depth to play around with. RED plus ProRes422 HQ is going to be a winning combination.

4) Technically speaking, the trailer is HD (1920 x 1080) not 2k ... but what's a few pixels between friends.

If any one in the Los Angeles area is interested in viewing the 2k CTL trailer in a highly calibrated DI environment drop me an email explaining a little bit about your background and whether you're a reservation holder or DP about to shoot a RED show.

We're in West Hollywood on the old Warner Bros Lot - we have 33 seat theater with 20 foot DI screen and tightly calibrated Barco 2k DLP projector ... if there's enough interest we might organize a screening session for next Saturday (Sept 1st) ... screen the trailer a few times, have a play around in COLOR and then an informal discussion on the color-pipeline and post workflow.

Drop me a line at info@rpmpost.com if you'd like to see the CTL trailer and know more about RED and the Apple based color-centric workflow we've developed.

Cheers,
Neil Smith
VP, Worfklow and Technology
www.RPMpost.com
RPM used to mean 'Revolutions Per Movie'
RPM will soon mean 'Red Post Masters'

[Rob Lohman]

whoever the director is he should do well

Do you know who Peter Jackson is? :usd:


1) First, we tried playing CTL out of QT player through DVI into the Barco ... came out a little dark and crushed .... we have our DI suite calibrated to Rec. 709 with a gamma of 2.22 ... but adjusting the gamma to 1.75 brought back the detail in the midtones. So, if you have problems viewing it correctly on your LCD/CRT try adjusting the gamma.

That sounds like the typical Apple 1.8 gamma which darkens everything


2) We then played CTL directly out of FCP 6.1 using 10 bit SDI out of the Kona 3 and WOW! ... did it pop or what? It would seem that 8 bit DVI is doing something to the gamma and chroma of 10 bit ProRes 422 HQ. If you want to see the trailer in all it's glory view it out of SDI not DVI.

It probably bypasses the gamma stuff mentioned above

[Cail Young]

It probably bypasses the gamma stuff mentioned above

Yes, FCP does its own gamma thang. Whether FCP's Digital Cinema Desktop via DVI would give you the same results as via the Kona is an experiement I leave to Neil :)

[RPMpost]

Thanks Rob.

Any chance of issuing a 2k version of the CLT trailer? ... one that's downrezzed from the 4k rather than one that's uprezzed from the HD version we have.

Cheers,
Neil
RPMpost
Red Post Masters

[Roberto B]

Do you know who Peter Jackson is? :usd:
an academy awarded?.. :sarcasm:

[Rob Lohman]

RPMpost: I don't see that happening. Crazy busy here. If you don't want to upsample see if the projector can project the 1920 x 1080 signal native (with black around it).

If it can't you can always do that on the computer before projecting it. In that case you really want to go uncompressed or lossless compressed to not add more compression artifacts.

[Rocco Schult]

Yes, FCP does its own gamma thang. Whether FCP's Digital Cinema Desktop via DVI would give you the same results as via the Kona is an experiement I leave to Neil :)

The Apple Quicktime gamma crap was invented to compensate for the computer screen gamma, making the video image on the computer monitor (almost) "look like" on a video monitor.
The gamma shift is not applied to video outs.
Its only a display gamma, ignored on video outputs. Don't know HOW they ignore it, but they do.

[RPMpost]

RPMpost: I don't see that happening. Crazy busy here.

Understand totally Rob ... we did the color correction for the original RED IBC footage this time last year ... crazy is understatement.

Don't particularly want to uprez from the HD version ..... want to see how true 2k looks and convert the 2k QT version to DPX to see how far we can push it in Scratch.

Perhaps after IBC there might be some time?

Thanks,
Neil Smith
VP, Technology and Workflow
RPMpost
Red Post Masters

[RPMpost]

Its only a display gamma, ignored on video outputs. Don't know HOW they ignore it, but they do.

The Rock,

Do you have any documentation on the Apple gamma shift issue when using DVI?

Is it a QT "feature" or OSX system call?

Thanks,

Neil Smith
RPMpost
LA. CA.
Red Post Masters