Michael Tebinka

Are there any newcomers on the market now in the beginning of 2023 that could/should be considered both from FSI/Eizo/others?

Hi all, I have been wondering for a long time why it is that most field monitors (sized 5-7") generally lacks accuracy. As much as some manufacturers include the ability to calibrate them (to some level) it is still surprisingly few that are capable to produce an image that is accurate. I understand that there are limitations to what could possibly go into a small-sized monitor. It feels like the development of panel technology should have brought us to a high enough level to make it right once and for all - paired with clever interface programming. When looking in the market for a on-board monitor today I am under the impression there is always compromises from one brand to another. And I'm saying this as I spend most of my time as a DP out in the field and significant time in grading suites (including my own); I know my tools well enough to know how far cameras/images can be pushed both on set and in post - but I just wish there was tools on-set (and I'm not talking about bigger monitors) that were more representative of what is actually captured. I imagine this should be important for a lot of people... I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Let me know if there is any specific test or benchmark you want me to check.

You can always get a R4i https://www.promise.com/Products/Pegasus/R4i-J2i?utm_source=homebanner&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=PegasusR4i-J2i-20191210 but I have no idea what performance we are looking at. I don't really need external sharing at the moment so internal would be fine. Looking at the above option including the Sonnet M2 solution it would give me 2TB SSD (Mac Pro) + 8TB SSD (Sonnet) + a RAID5 Promise R4i 24TB. This backed up to an external 36TB storage as well as off-site + cloud. That should do it. I'm open for any and all suggestions of course! What system are you considering @Nicolas Hanson?

Yes, very happy! Just in need for a better monitor (for GUI). I did consider the XDR, but I'm no longer looking at it. Curious about the ASUS ones, tempted by the EIZO CG319x but no clear choices right now. As for storage my older Promise Pegasus is the bottleneck in the system. So considering a Sonnet m2 PCI card for 4x 2TB SSDs from WD paired with an external storage via 10Gbit Ethernet. Not sure here. At the moment the single Vega II 32GB does the job very well. Realtime performance with my 5K R3D footage, very fast renders in pretty much all the work that I do. I would considering adding another card further down the line when I will notice that the system would feel better with a speed bump. Posted some Standard Candle tests earlier: MacPro 20193,2 GHz 16-Core Intel Xeon W48 GB 2933 MHz DDR41x AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB Resolve 16.1.2.026 using the original file attached with the project in a 1080 timeline. (Some people are starting to test this with R3D files as well as in other resolutions, so results may vary, will post this as well later on. 09 Blur Nodes - 24fps (60 @ 60fps)18 Blur Nodes - 24fps (60 @ 60fps)30 Blur Nodes - 24fps (40 @ 60fps)66 Blur Nodes - 18fps (18 @ 60fps)01 TNR Node - 24fps (60 @ 60fps)02 TNR Nodes - 24fps (60 @ 60fps)04 TNR Nodes - 24fps (39 @ 60fps)06 TNR Nodes - 24fps (28 @ 60fps) You can get discounts if you spend (too much) a lot of money on Apple products. 🙂

(I am reposting my post from LGG as it might interest some people that have not yet seen the XDR display). I had a look at the Pro Display XDR in the Apple store in Stockholm. First impression was, wow, this monitor is big! 5" more than the iMac makes a difference. Really liked the way the image appeared on the screen. If an analogy of the past was the impression of the image no longer being behind a glass surface, this was another example of where the image came closer to the viewer. I suppose the closest I can describe it as is: presence. The bezel take very little space, allowing for the image surface to take the stage rather than being framed too much. The stand is very cool. They should definitely have included the stand in the price, even if it meant a higher price tag from start. Switching between colour spaces as presets was simple, go into display settings and click the one you want (I think you can set this to the menu bar as well). Wait 1-2 second before the image comes back on the display. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210435 What I did like is the straightforwardness of the switching. One click stop to swap and getting nits adjustments with that (according to reference modes). It's really nothing new, but I suppose I like the idiot-proofing of these modes. I had 10 minutes with the monitor and it probably triggered more questions than provided answers. The demo material was (needless to say) outdated, running the old FCPx demo project with 4K footage. Nothing that really allowed to take the monitor's full advantage. The staff were not that knowledgable and/or extremely stressed the day before Christmas - when asked about the monitor. Standing about the distance from the screen as you would - having one of these on the desk I couldn't help to notice that the extreme edges of the monitor had a slight brightness drop-off/gradient. I can't confirm the viewing angle for sure, but that was one of the things I noticed. Apple is working with Colorimetry Research to develop a calibration solution, when will this come and how will it work? What kind of accuracy will we be able to get from this monitor? I believe these are the burning questions right now. Don't get me wrong, I think the monitor looks awesome. Somewhere I am hoping it will actually be as awesome as they claim it to be. As much as we have our recognised brands of reference monitors, probes and softwares to calibrate with. And I too have gone that route to learn and better understand how that process works (calibration)). I too have spent money on tools and probes. And I can't help to be a bit excited and also wonder if they (Apple + Colorimetry Research) are going to bring something remotely innovative to the table - that makes the process of calibrating your screen - a bit more straightforward. Those are the things I welcome.

About 8500 Euro ex VAT, with a discount. I have been using a 1080ti for much of the 360/VR-stitching through eGPU's and also saw a nice (albeit temporary) performance boost when working with R3D when Nvidia drivers were working. Right now I'm just looking forward to consolidating all this hardware into one machine and run Bootcamp when that is absolutely needed (applications that only exist under Windows).

With the release of the 2019 Mac Pro, jokes, memes aside; how is everybody looking at this machine? I have since 2009 jumped back and forth between all platforms due to softwares and sometimes hardware constrains but have had a preference for the underlying OS and so this has motivated me to predominantly work with OSX and Macs in general - aside from Elitebooks and HP Workstations when doing a lot of work on SGO Mistika when I was based in London and later on in Sweden. Truth be told, the non-exisiting professional workstation with OSX (not accounting for Hackintoshes) lead me to buy components to build a hybrid PC/Hackintosh but was as quickly abandoned. I did never find the time or energy to actually dive into the procedures, compatibility and other aspects to complete that build. I acknowledge that some people enjoy this process but I guess I have never. With that said I am excited to work with the new machine arriving mid-January (16-core, 48GB RAM, 2TB SSD, 1x Radeon Pro II 32GB). I am also very curious to hear what the community thinks of the Pro Display XDR once it arrives, both in terms of performance, precision, calibration etc. That Apple is working with Colorimetry Research to develop calibration solutions is exciting. What kind of standards (open/closed) this will lead to is also very interesting to see. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks!

I will try the workaround as you mentioned @Orash Rahnema Let's see how v16 behaves with the same settings. Will report any findings.

Thank you Orash for the elaborating on what could be the issue. I too found it strange that a normal lut wouldnt work only for monitor output. I have Lightspace but it would be great to see if the issue is caused elsewhere prior to converting luts into aces. Many thanks in advance!

Hi Orash, yes as mentioned the monitor LUT is placed in color management settings for the particular project and not in a node tree. How does a conversion to an ACES LUT look like? What is the recommended workflow there - which also poses another question - does monitor calibration look entirely different when calibrating for an ACES workflow?

Hi all, hope all is well. I was testing a workflow with ACES and everything looks great up until I choose to use a Video Monitor LUT that holds the reference monitor calibration. Like a sudden switch it distorts not only the colors and saturation on the external monitor but also the viewer within the GUI. It only seems the applied LUT is causing this issue and I would like to understand what is causing this. Is there a workaround? Do you have to store your monitor LUT in any different way? Settings used are: Color science: ACEScct ACES Version: ACES 1.1 ACES Input Device Transform: No Input Transform ACES Output Device Transform: Rec. 709 Process Node LUTs in: ACEScc AP1 Timeline Space Lookup tables used: 3D Video Monitor LUT for an Eizo CX271 Many thanks in advance.

Thanks for posting this. Finally a MB with support for TB3 onboard, this paired with a i9 and a Titan card should be a nice machine.

Also following up with Steve at LS to get to the bottom of ehat causes this. Could be an omission somewhere in the process due to certain monitors not being able to hold a 3D LUT. Will keep you posted.

Nice work Margus, looking forward to seeing it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

This one was running LS on the same computer as Resolve (recieving the patches) and the CX271 wired through a Blackmagic I/O. Initial precalibration worked fine with expected results, so did LUT creation (Rec709, Gamma 2.4). But post-calibration is a pain to verify, what possible steps can be taken here? Any and all suggestions are welcome here. (I know that the CX271 is not a listed monitor on either LIghtspace’s site or here but we still use it for some tasks.)

I've had quite varying results in the pasts depending on the size of patches, generally I let it run overnight and do a full 4000 or 9000 patch run. I have always stumbled across issues though with one of the monitors (EIZO CX271 that does not have built-in support for a 3D LUT). Re-profiling it to REC709 just blows it off the charts in LS and is deemed very inaccurate. A bit unsure here how to re-profiling it correctly without the ability to store the 3D LUT in the chain. Can't be that loading the 3D LUT into LS prior to profiling would solve this (as the issue mentioned above). Looking forward to hear your results Orash.

Indeed! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's been said before but 'You Will See Us Do More in the Pro Area' can probably mean anything really. Adding a few USB-c ports and little PRO components/approach to hardware won't do it either. As much as I have been a die hard user of Mac's since '96 I've tried the Hackintosh route and it didn't leave me happy. In the end of the the day it is the creative work that counts. If the machine I can do it on delivers, then I am happy. A no compromise solution. Tim about doing more Pro... Tim Cook about Pro products

It got me pretty excited already when they announced the Micro. Jokes aside, I think it's excellent they have built the Mini panel with a good number of controllers built-in. I think much will be said once I get my hands on trying one out. Having worked some at the advanced panel, it's obviously another league altogether - but I can see muscle memory building up from the Mini in a positive way - and the more you can do tactile work (meaning less keyboard and mouse) the better. Personal preference, sure, but I look forward to take the Mini.. and the Micro for a spin. Having the Tangent's it got me thinking, but as they are extremely good to work with across other softwares too - I don't see the introduction of the new panels as direct competition - just better tools to choose from. Tangent Ripple wasn't that awesome even if it further democratises and make tools accessible for everybody - but in perspective with the BM Mini, it's getting interesting for sure!

Margus, what type of PSU did you go with and GUI monitor?

Hi all, Some of you might have received an email from Assimilate Inc about an offer that include Assimilate VR + a Quadro M6000 card for what seem to be a good price. A question though, how does the Quadro M6000 stand in relation to other GPU contenders such as the GTX1080 and potentially Titan-card? I'm thinking for grading predominantly, but in some respect, VR-post as well. Read more at Assimilate Inc about the offer.

Looking forward to hear how your machine performs Margus.

This is the case I have considered, not so much focus on internal storage apart from OS + work disc, the rest will be external. http://www.coolerkit.se/shop/cooltek-w2-black-4563p.html

Interesting choice. I have looked at the same Asus WS mb as well but also the USB3.1 + TB adapter chip as my external storage runs on a Promise 32TB with Thunderbolt. In a similar way as you describe the M2 (for OS) + potentially Intel's PCI-e storage solution (×2) is something I have considered. No final decision here. Also in my case it is a question of making the machine avialable for most aspects of the post chain and not limited to only grading. I know the conversation has been brought up many times but what is your take between Titan's and/or 1080's? Also, is there a particular CPU that meet your requrements for (enough) cpu lanes/pci-e lanes that match the intended GPU(s) and other PCI-e cards?