Color correction on a laptop

[DMS Video]

Can real color correction be achieved on a laptop? I have seen calibration software out there (although never used it) but was wondering if it's realistic to expect to have the ability to color correct on a WUXGA laptop?

Thanks

David
DMS

[rone]

You can just about do it. Given that end-user displays now tend to be of the LCD variety, then what's the difference?

A good start would be to calibrate your laptop display with something like a spider which can get the screen to broadcast standards.

But and it's a big but - the video overlay's don't inherit the calibration data from the profiles set by the spyder - so it's a bit of a fudge.

[GrassValley_BH]

Well, not all LCDs are created equally, nor are the internal translations the same.

That said, you can get close, but without a true video output signal, you can't guarantee you're right on the mark.

It's true that most viewers are using LCD, so the content will likely be displayed on an LCD.

But, it's a propagation of error thing. You should still produce content for the "ideal" situation so you don't end up with massive skew at the end.

It'd be like if you're in a business where you FAX all your documents out. If instead of creating a nice clean copy to FAX out, you start making a "FAX-quality" document, because the recipient is going to get it on their FAX anyway. Problem is, now you have a lower-quality source, and your FAX machine is still going to lower the resolution even more. Your transmitted copy is now lower quality than if you had started with a clean copy. Then when your recipient receives it, they have an even lower quality copy since their FAX machine has degraded quality printing it.

Things only get worse down the chain, so the better your source, the better the result.

[DMS Video]

Rone & Brandon,

Thanks for the input. Buying my first laptop is turing into quite the ordeal. So much to consider. I think there isn't any perfect solution so I guess I'll have to manage. I've been editing for a very long time and finally decided to upgrade. My first addition being a laptop. You both made very valid points. Not like I didn't already have enough to think about, lol. Regards.

David
DMS

[harveylexton]

You can colour correct a laptop, the first thing you will need a spyder then you can save the settings after calibration as a colour profile.

Make sure that if you have Adobe Gamma Loader this is switched off in the mscofig menu, then on you desktop right click>properties>advance>monitor and select the profile you have created.


Before you start you really have to make sure that all colour and brilliance/contrast settings for the computer screen are reset to neutral or factory settings.

Calibrate in subdued light and make sure the spyder is sitting correctly on the screen.

Recalibrate every couple opf weeks or so, and also before you start make sure that the computer has been on for at least 20 minutes.

I calibrated and profiled my computer for photo lab printing and for my own in house printers.

For video I use the calibrated screens for editing as well. Another point is that I feel to calibrate for video for the end user might not be so critical as everyone has the tv colour and contrast/brightness to their taste.

You could of course make a test film run it on the laptop then onto a tv or external monitor and see the difference, you may not need to calibrate it.

I use a Sony 17" laptop. I also use 2 other main computers do the editing as well.

This is my opinion others on this forum probably can add to this.

[tingsern]

However, comparing the video as output via Component output to Panansonic BT-LH1700W LCD monitor and the video overlay on the computer LCD, reveals that the video overlay is still NOT as accurate as the broadcast monitor (LH1700W). Even though both are LCD ...

[GrassValley_BH]

Correct - computer monitors are calibrated for RGB gamut, while video monitors are calibrated for YCbCr gamut.

[Jim N]

I also believe there are fundamental differences between LCD TV's and LCD monitors in terms of brightness range. TV doesn't use the full 256 tones between black and white of a computer monitor, but 16 to 239 (or thereabouts) . That means that any tones below 16 should appear black and above 239 should appear white on a TV, but the same image will look flat on a computer monitor. Procoder has a filter to expand colour space when converting video for replay on a computer compared to a TV. GV have lots of cards for PC's that will allow TV out to a monitor off the Edius timeline and this allows very good quality control (together with the built-in vectorscope and waveform monitor). The next best solution is simply to get an ADVC converter ( http://www.canopus.com/products/ADVC55/index.php ) that will allow very inexpensive TV monitoring via firewire out to a monitor. Looking to the future it is not too hard to imagine GV coming out with some sort of laptop card adaptor that will have HDMI output amoungst other I/Os (hopefully).

Jim