Re: Color management for HDTV and Final Cut Pro (Ray Maxwell)
Re: Color management for HDTV and Final Cut Pro (Ray Maxwell)
- Subject: Re: Color management for HDTV and Final Cut Pro (Ray Maxwell)
- From: William Hollingworth <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 11:11:58 -0500
Hi Tom
Great reply.
I'd just like to add a couple of comments since I'm starting to see
more and more confusion related to this issue now that people are
doing more software based desktop video editing:
You are very correct that in a traditional video-to-video workflow,
"color management" isn't normally necessary, since it can be assumed
that each piece of equipment in the workflow knows is working in a
standard color video workspace. There are some minor color
conversions done such as when transcoding NTSC<>PAL/SECAM due to the
slightly different color primaries of each standard.
However that starts to fall apart when people start to use standard
desktop computer monitors and laptop displays for previewing output
on the desktop, instead of using a dedicated external broadcast
standard preview monitor. Most laptop displays have very small color
gamuts (much smaller than sRGB), and desktop computer monitors have
increasingly larger color gamuts as the technology improves and prices drop.
To make things worse, there exists a lot of confusion in the industry
about color gamuts and their relationship to broadcast video,
specifically NTSC. With the push for ever larger display gamuts,
marketing folks have started to list display color gamuts as a % size
or % coverage of NTSC for comparison purposes. Unfortunately this
practice leads some to believe that a monitor with a % value closer
to 100% *must* be better for use with NTSC video.
In reality this is of course not true because the color gamut used
for modern day NTSC video has nothing to do with the original "NTSC
1953" spec, which actually had a very large (and unachievable with
the display technology at the time) color gamut - even larger than
Adobe RGB. It is however the NTSC 1953 spec that often gets quoted in
marketing materials.
For previewing NTSC video on a display monitor without any display
color management by the host application/OS, it would be much better
to use a standard sRGB display rather than one with a larger or
smaller color gamut, since the primaries for sRGB are the same as
HDTV primaries and are very close to SMPTE-C primaries used in NTSC video.
It's interesting to see all of the "wide gamut" consumer TVs that are
starting to show up in the marketplace due to the increased use of
LED backlights and improved color filters and phosphors. While they
may look brilliant in terms of amazing color gamut, technically they
are producing images that are out of spec in relation to the intended
output gamut. I suspect though that the average consumer probably
doesn't care and actually prefers the resulting super-saturated
images they produce.
Getting back to Ray's original question though, I am not aware if
Final Cut Pro or other video editing applications are capable of
honoring the display's ICC profile when previewing video on the
desktop in order to correctly render color corrected motion video to
the screen. My suggestion would be to calibrate the display to be as
close to HDTV/sRGB as possible (D65 white point, etc.). Ideally a
dedicated external professional broadcast grade preview monitor would
be used for final output confirmation.
As an aside: In order to try and reduce the confusion of display
color gamuts and their relationship to NTSC, NEC typically lists the
display gamut as a % size and % coverage of both Adobe RGB and NTSC
1953 in marketing materials, along with a disclaimer explaining the
use of the NTSC 1953 spec. Ideally the NTSC comparison would go away,
but unfortunately it has become a display industry standard benchmark.
Best regards
Will Hollingworth
NEC Display Solutions
At 02:02 PM 6/4/2007, email@hidden wrote:
From: tom lianza <email@hidden>
Subject: Color management for HDTV and Final Cut Pro (Ray Maxwell)
To: email@hidden
Message-ID: <email@hidden>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Hi to all,
The issue of color management for HDTV is an interesting topic. I'd
like to take a few moments to give you some background that relates to
why you don't find "color management" and particularly why you don't
find ICC color management in general practice in this industry.
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