Resolve - Mac - FSI LM-2340W - Workflow

[Steven Weber]

Hi,

we just bought a mac pro and davinci. Our preview monitor is a Flanders Scientific LM-2340W (couldn't afford the 2461) hooked up to a Deckling HD Extreme 3D.
The movie I will be grading is already cut in Adobe Premiere. We used the RED RAW data for cutting and have quite a few Effect Shots which will be thrown in as DPX Sequences out of After Effects.
I have a few questions about the workflow and especially about the color management and settings, because I couldn't find any infos about DaVinci with a LM-2340W.
I hope you can help me out and give me some hints or links which would help me along.

My first problem seems to be, that I have to grade for cinema. As I understand the LM-2340W is calibrated for Rec709 or at least has no color space selection.
Is there any way I still could manage a grading in DCI P3? Like Applying a LUT in Resolve? Or is the FSI display simply too far away from that color space?
Would it be possible to grade in Rec709 and transfer it to DCI P3 later (obviously with a worse quality - but how worse?)?

If I can't select a color space on the previewmonitor - how would I set up Resolve to get the correct colors?

In After Effects the projects are in Universal Camera Film Printing Density. When I use the LM-2340W as Previewmonitor in AE I have to apply a LUT Converter (Uinversal Camera Filmprinting Density to Rec709) above my layers to get it to look right.
Is this correct?
Also in the systemsettings of the Blackmagic Card if i choose 444 I get a green tinted preview. Can someone tell me what that is about?


I would really apreciate it if someone could help me out or give me a little push in the right direction.

Sorry for my english, I'm from Germany.


All the best,

Steven Weber

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www.bela-kiss.com
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[Bram Desmet]

Hi Steven, first some basics regarding the settings:
1. The Decklink HD Extreme unlike many other cards, when outputting a 3Gbps SDI signal, can only give you 4:4:4 via Level B 3Gbps SDI, not Level A. So if you want to monitor 4:4:4 that is not a problem, but you should go to the monitor's SYSTEM menu, select the 3G Level B option, and then change this to the selection named OVERLAY. This will allow you to monitor the Level B 3Gbps SDI 4:4:4 signal properly.
2. The LM-2340 is fully capable of reading the payload ID that should (in theory) be present in the 3Gbps signal that identifies whether the signal is YCbCr or RGB. However, if for some reason the card/system in use is falling to pass Payload ID then you will need to manually tell the monitor whether you are monitoring a 4:2:2 YCbCr, 4:4:4 YCbCr, or 4:4:4 RGB signal. You can do this from the video menu with the SDI format selection option. If after selecting OVERLAY as outlined in step 1 you still have a green cast to the signal as displayed on screen then you are likely feeding the monitor a YCbCr signal while the monitor is set to RGB. If payload ID is being passed to the monitor you won't have to worry about any of this as you can just leave the monitor set to AUTO in the SDI format selection.

Now with respect to color grading for digital cinema this is really a matter of buying the right tool for the job. The LM-2461W is our 'color grading' monitor and for digital cinema destined material I would not suggest the LM-2340W. The LM-2340W is a great monitor for the money and works perfectly as an affordable onset or general editing monitor, but as clearly stated on that unit's product page the LM-2461W is the right tool for any advanced color grading applications.

The LM-2340W has a native color space that is quite close to Rec 709. It is not a wide gamut monitor and unlike the LM-2461W cannot be switched from Rec 709 to DCI P3. One possible workflow would be to operate with Rec 709 settings and then use a standard transfer LUT to a digital cinema deliverable. I obviously do not know the extent of your budgetary restrictions, but for a project destined for digital cinema the $2,000 extra it would cost for an LM-2461W would be well worth it to have a unit that is so fundamentally better suited to your intended application.

-Bram Desmet / Flanders Scientific, Inc.

[John Tissavary]

My personal experience is that though monitor selection is extremely important, monitors and manufacturer engineered colorspace are often only part of the equation, and with good color management tools the number of display options really opens up. Quite often even though one has purchased a monitor with a panel or display chip capable of emitting the correct gamut, without a way to manage color from inside the application (Resolve, etc...) the image chain is incomplete and, as you've discovered, limited.

Color management software like Cinespace or Lightspace CMS coupled with a decent probe is your best bet, IMHO, to (as accurately as possible) mimic colorspaces for varied target media - p3, film emulation, etc... I use Cinespace with a Klein K10 probe - best money I invested, and now I can use a variety of displays - projectors, LCD, Plasma, etc... with the confidence that I'm looking at as close an approximation to the delivery medium as the current display technology allows.