speedgrade and REC709 colorspace

[Julien Deka]

Hi everyone,

I just dug into speedgrade for the first time, and I saw a bunch of buttons that let you choose your color space, but nothing called REC709... the color spaces seem to be related to cameras (Arri, films stocks, RED,...)

I'm viewing the footage on a Dreamcolor HP monitor that allows me to display a specific color space, like REC709 or even DCI emulation... I was use to view my footage this way in After Effect and to turn on the color management for the render, so my result was consistent with what I was previewing on my monitor.

I didn't see anything like that in speedgrade, but it should be somewhere, right?

Also, since I'm there I have other questions:

- in the setting, I saw you can display on a dual monitor. But I have 4 monitors: how can I specify the software which one I want to display... For now, speedgrade is choosing for me, and it displays the image in the wrong monitor.

- I work back and forth on US and European projects... I found out where to change frame rates (from 24 to 25) in the setting panel, but it's like changing the preferences... Is there a way to change those settings per project... Is there a project setting panel available somewhere?

I'm pretty sure Speedgrade is the right tool for grading, rather than using After Effects, but for now, I'm a bit confused with the interface, and the colorspace management is obviously something I should know where to turn it off and on :)

Thanks in advance for your answers

Julien

[Ian Vertovec]

Julien,

As long as your display is 709, and what you render out is what you see on your display while coloring, then you should be producing 709 files. You shouldn't have to tell your system what color space you are displaying in. It just is.

Ian

[Julien Deka]

Ian,

First I'm really thrilled that you took time to answer - I am a super fan of your work.

Then, coming from an After Effects background, I'm a bit confused with your answer.

In after effects, if you turn off the color management, you're not going to embed the Rec709 into the created file. And it is not going to be properly interpreted by other softwares...

Before to get this Dreamcolor monitor, I was working in AE and constantly turning the color space management on and off (you can't have it always turned on, as it slows down to much the computer). Because when I was applying the color space management to the render the file, I would have a very different result depending if it is on or off...

Now that I'm using this monitor, still in AE, I can live the color management always off when working, and turning it on only when rendering. I know that what I was looking at (on the Dreamcolor) corresponds to what I'm exporting...

So basically, in Speedgrade, I just don't care?

Sorry for those dumb questions: color space always freaks me out probably because even after having read tones of stuff about it, I still don't fully get it, and I'm always concerned of having my image staying as much consistent through different monitors.

In other words, I can't wait to get enough budget on my next projects to be able to afford to work with Light Iron :)

Thanks

Julien

[Ian Vertovec]

Thanks for the kind words Julien. Speedgrade was originally designed to be used with an external SDI monitor. That way calibration is handled externally. it's simpler this way, you only have to worry about the calibration on one monitor.

When I use after effects, I keep color management off, because I don't want AE to introduce a color shift.

If you prefer the results you get using AE color management, that's fine. However if you plan on using several applications for your workflow, you should make sure you can round-trip things without introducing color shifts.

[Julien Deka]

I though I would get away of color shifts more easily by turning ON color managment - meaning embed the color space into the file... so other programs would read it properly.

But what you're saying makes sense, because my workflow implies that every program understands color management the same way, and that is not necessary the case.

So I should be judging my work on a monitor that display 709 but not trying to embed anything in the render files, then.
Then they will look like they are supposed to look, once played on a Rec 709 device...


And since I have the opportunity to ask you questions :

when you work on a movie that will live on theater... Do you grad for DCP and then everything is automatically (sort of speaking) converted for blurray and/or online trailers... or do you work on specific grads for a each specific device (one grade for theater, one for bluray/DVD, one for the web...)? Or do you try to get a grad that will look good and every device at the same time...which I don't think is possible (but what do I know).

Just curious... Thanks in advance for your response.

Julien