Hdr setup

It isn't designed as a workflow as such. It is designed as a way of doing the lessons without having an hdr monitor.

Its true, sometimes people who want to dip their feet in here do get chastised a bit.

as I mentioned few posts back, you can use a HDR TV if you want to get your feet wet, it is doable.

and SDR for HDR? it's BS (and i like Kevin...)

and SDR for HDR? it's BS (and i like Kevin...)

i'm not gonna to pay to find out what that's all about.. but yea....first thought on that is BS as well....

i have a cleint who tried to set the timeline to 2020_p3d65/1000n and use dolby to tonemap to SDR, then graded the PQ, bring the project into my suite for "quick HDR trim pass"

that trim pass was anything but quick

Grade as "normal" SDR and then do "quick HDR" would be probably as quick, so no idea what they were trying to gain.
Tone mapping is too complex and too "undefined" to be useful here. You can have 1000s of tone map algorithms which is the key problem here.

If you do HDR on 600 peak monitor which tracks PQ accurately (let it clip, but use scopes to fill 1000nits) then you may be able to finish it "quickly" on 1000nits. You could argue that those 600-1000nits are not that "important" and used just for highlights.

You may actually grade without any TV- just use scopes

Btw, if you are looking for a smaller LG TV set, LG just came out with a 42" OLED.

Now that sounds interesting!

This seems to be also based on EVO panel, so this brighter one.

HDR is a minefield at the moment - I have been grading and onlining for UK broadcast in SDR for years and I find HDR, ACES etc. very confusing too, whereas I am entirely at home with SDR. One day it will settle as to how we work with HDR but that seems far off at the moment. Everything, as Marc said, is so much cheaper now - I remember paying £25K for an Avid Adrenaline BOB, without the HD card years ago alone. The only thing that is not cheaper are colour critical grading monitors. My 17" HD only monitor at home cost nearly £4K and I can not justify yet, or afford £20K+ for the work I still mainly do.

All very valid points.

You can use something like the LG 32EP950 for HDR up to 550 nits... but you still have to calibrate it for SDR and HDR. You also play the "panel lottery" with non-mastering displays like this, so it might take a few tries to get one that's decent. The 32EP950's price has recently gone down from $4000 (what we paid) down to $3000.

hmm I dunno, I haven't seen anything come close enough to a HX310 for 1000nit work. The LG C2s are ok but once things get over ~200 nits and those whites kick in things get pretty off. SDR they can match pretty well (with LUT or just though CMS) but I would not be confident grading anything on them for 1000nit delivery.

Interested to hear other opinions though.

We use the Sony consumer OLEDs along the x310 in our color rooms. The Sony TV matched really well all the way up to 600 nits.

No colorist expects the consumer to perform as well as the $32k. But that is not the goal. The TV is there to provide another rendering that is closer to what someone would see in their living room. And also see what the 1000 nit would look like tone mapped to 600 nit.

We use the Sony consumer OLEDs along the x310 in our color rooms. The Sony TV matched really well all the way up to 600 nits.

No colorist expects the consumer to perform as well as the $32k. But that is not the goal. The TV is there to provide another rendering that is closer to what someone would see in their living room. And also see what the 1000 nit would look like tone mapped to 600 nit.

yeah that's fair, but in terms of using it as the grading monitor for HDR? Would you trust it? I dunno I'd probably just prefer to grade something really nice in 709 knowing the calibration is good than HDR and second guessing things.

All depends on the project level.
Most important is calibration (and maybe match to ref display).
If it’s calibrated and fairly well meets all parameters then you can trust it.
In case of LG problem is lack of 1000 nits and desaturation at higher nits.
You could do 90% work and if you really have high class project finish on rented monitor.
If you grade to LG then it’s not going to be perfect, but if it’s calibrated it’s not going to be bad either compared to better screen. You grading decisions will be slight off, but picture should not be ‘bad’.
If you have uncalibrated monitor which can’t keep parameters then of course your master will be ‘bad’ and way different than one graded to good screen.

LG graded master may be bit oversaturated, but you could probably even correct this with extra calibration step or simply get a feel where you need to dial saturation down (after comparing to ‘perfect’ screen). Then you left with lack of 1000nits, but this is not a deal breaker. Again, either leave at 800 or if project is important finish on ref screen.
Problem is- how different grading would look when done on ref screen compared to one done on LG? I think difference will be small enough, so many projects can easily be done on LG. Besides, once grading is done you treat it as reference. If you graded SDR on Dolby PRM and Sony X300 would they look the same? No way! Pure tech differences will cause grading decisions to be slightly different. Of course LG vs. ref is different case ( specially lack of 1000nits) but desaturation itself is just technology limitation ( same as worse blacks/contrast on Dolby).
As I said - leave 30K screens for Hollywood. For many LG and similar should be enough, specially if people say that visually they match ref screens.

It’s really bit miss guided discussion. You grade to best you can afford. If client is happy then all good. There is no way everyone will use 30K screens ( soon there may be nothing to buy anyway!).
Discussion should be about how to calibrate ( best match to ref screen), what are the weak points of eg. LG and how to deal with them. Where ref screen could be useful is to rent it and have ability to compare your TV with it to see all bad points and learn to work with them.

yeah that's fair, but in terms of using it as the grading monitor for HDR? Would you trust it? I dunno I'd probably just prefer to grade something really nice in 709 knowing the calibration is good than HDR and second guessing things.

For our line of work, of course not. We have to master at 1000 nits. Heck, I would not trust the x310 if we had to master at 2000 nits.

But I wouldn't mind the consumer OLED for weddings, corporate, and YouTube/Vimeo streaming - places where we are not legally obligated to master to 1000 nits.

If you grade to 1000nits it doesn't mean that any highlight have to hit 1000nits.
It can be an artistic decision not to

i also have to deliver @ 1000n, but also have to deliver for 30' and larger screens

useing a 30" screen to grade for a 30' screen is about the same as using a 5" phone to grade for a 55" consumer display

trim passes area a must, so the choices are about the trade offs when doing the creative grade, what get the master the closest, with the least creative intent lost in trim passes, and least time + budget sucked in the process

i've centered on a 55" oled set to 400n/PQ, with a matching custom ODT for 400n, and trim passes for 48n|2.6, 100n|2.4, 1000n|PQ with respective displays, the creative grade is not a deliverable, it's a mezinne to get the deliverables out the door

saves sitting in a gradeing theatre with the creative team and seeing things that were not appearant on an x300 a day before.... useing a 55" saves alot of that needless time suk... enough that i'm thinking to replace it with a 77" but given how many panels i had to return to get a good 55" it's kinda scarry

I created my early HDR videos in 2014 on Resolve 12.0b. The HDR toolset in Resolve was non-existent if not scarce and even before YouTube supported HDR. Sony purchased one of them and played it on XBR's around the globe wherever there was a Magnolia HiFi showroom. I did not have then a calibrated monitor. I learned a long time ago never to listen to people who said what you can't do. Maybe they can't.

You can use something like the LG 32EP950 for HDR up to 550 nits... but you still have to calibrate it for SDR and HDR. You also play the "panel lottery" with non-mastering displays like this, so it might take a few tries to get one that's decent. The 32EP950's price has recently gone down from $4000 (what we paid) down to $3000.

Has anyone measured those panels?
LG is WRGB and looses saturation with high nits.
JOLED panel may be actually worse for accurate preview. It seems to use bigger B pixels (to drive more brightness I assume), so it may not just loose saturation at higher nits, but actually get blue tint, which may be even worse than just lost saturation. Maybe it's all compensated, but this would need a proper measurement.

update: looks like they calibrate very well:
https://liftgammagain.com/forum/index.p ... ost-161561

If you grade to 1000nits it doesn't mean that any highlight have to hit 1000nits.
It can be an artistic decision not to

You don't have to but you still need to see 1000 nit monitor vs tone mapped to x nits monitor.

This is of course always true
You can always grade to 600-800 on OLED and then rest on FALD monitor (those 200 nits will be just highlights). If they are both calibrated and track PQ properly then it may be not bad result. Far from optimal, but ...

Based on the beta tests people are posting, once it ships, Davinci Resolve on the iPad Pro looks like it will be the most affordable way to grade a 1000 nit HDR image in the Resolve GUI. I wouldn't recommend it for a Netflix level deliverable. But for something destined only for YouTube, it looks like it should work fine (though small and fiddly).

Can't you already run iPad Pro as 2nd screen display for Resolve using new reference mode+ side car option?
2nd (better quality option) would be going over NDI, but it may be bit tricky (although possible).

Based on the beta tests people are posting, once it ships, Davinci Resolve on the iPad Pro looks like it will be the most affordable way to grade a 1000 nit HDR image in the Resolve GUI. I wouldn't recommend it for a Netflix level deliverable. But for something destined only for YouTube, it looks like it should work fine (though small and fiddly).

The baseline 2021 14" M1 Pro MacBook Pro with similar XDR screen to the iPad is around the same price, given that it would be very wise to get the 1TB iPad which has 16GB of RAM if intending to use Resolve. The next model down is the 500GB which only has 8GB of RAM. Probably fine for most iPad uses to date but I suspect Resolve will be pretty demanding. There is no option to get 16GB of RAM with the 500GB model.

5th gen 12.9" M1 iPad Pros can run the beta and can be found used for under $800.

I'm not by any means saying that it is the best, most powerful, highest quality solution. Nor am I saying it's a good investment of money versus other gear. Far far from it. But once it ships, Resolve running on a used 12.9" M1 iPad Pro would be the *cheapest* way to grade an image on a reasonably good 1000 nit screen.

For example, take a look here at 21 minutes into the video: