- Posts: 5
- Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2022 9:48 pm
- Real Name: Jared Casper
I have learned that the new M1 Max MacBook Pro 14/16 inch laptops have really nice built in displays. This is a long, multi-part question regarding the feasibility of using the Liquid Retina XDR screen on the new MacBook Pro's to monitor HDR footage.
Question 1: How good is the Liquid Retina XDR display from a technical specification standpoint?
Hypothetically, if you were to rip this screen off of the MacBook and package it as a separate monitor, with the ability to be calibrated and load LUTs like any other professional monitor, would you use this monitor? These Liquid Retina XDR Displays are mini LED panels with many ideal characteristics for color grading:
Question 2: How close can it get us to a workable image vs a clean feed setup?
I understand that the ideal HDR monitoring setup would be to have a computer with the clean feed signal from DaVinci Resolve going through a UltraStudio/Decklink into a calibrated monitor. However, could the MacBook screen get us 70% of the way there, and be a great budget option for those who can not afford a fully calibrated setup?
The built in monitor seems drastically better than what is available in the price range of the laptop. Also, even though the screen is hard to truly calibrate on our own, and it is not possible to circumvent macOS color management, shouldn't we trust that Apple engineers must have done at least some work on their part to make sure the display was color accurate to a certain degree? From the review's I've read so far [2], the factory calibration of the laptop display has a pretty low DeltaE below 2.0. Again, much better than what is available in the under $3000 range.
I know that many people do not like answering this question because "good enough" varies from person to person, so it is easier to answer whether or not something is 100% or 0% of the way there. But I can't be the only person who:
Question 3: Is it better or worse than competing setups in the price range?
This is a continuation of Question 2, with specific budget examples. It looks like many people on this forum use the LG OLED CX/1/2 series as a budget HDR monitoring solution. In this setup, the monitor is usually paired with an UltraStudio or Decklink to get a clean, non-OS color managed output to the monitor (For those unaware, Windows and macOS operating systems apply their own color management to GPU outputs, which cause the output image to not be a "true representation" of what DaVinci is supposed to generate). Lastly, there is usually a budget colorimeter used to calibrate the screen. The cost breakdown of this setup would look something like this:
It's hard to estimate how much a MacBook Pro would cost since there are so many configurations. A moderately well spec'ed machine would be around $3000. Regardless of price and configuration, all 14/16 inch MacBook Pros come with the same great screen. Most editors with the previous setup would have a computer that is at least $1500 to $2000, which would bring the two very similarly in terms of price.
With this in mind:
Question 4: Has anyone considered using the MacBook display solely as a monitor using the UltraStudio 4K Mini?
So far, we know the display on the laptop is not bad. I have not worked out all the points in this solution yet, but I think it's something worth considering. I am wondering how effective it would be to use the MacBook screen as a full screen monitoring solution. Since it supports HDR, and has a higher brightness limit than comparable monitors, why not try it?
Concluding Thoughts
Ultimately, I'm hoping that we can have a discussion around my questions, but also the details in each question, which can hopefully fill in some of the missing gaps in our knowledge. For HDR, I think there is a gap that exists where those that can't afford to do it usually don't have the knowledge, and those that do have the knowledge probably do not need to consider budget constraints on the magnitude of hundreds or thousands of dollars. I think by trying to push the limits of budget hardware, we will acquire fundamental knowledge along the way. I hope this thread can become a great learning opportunity; I usually learn a lot from thread comments!
Links
I'm new so I can't post URLs:
[1] https://www. techspot.com/review/2365-apple-macbook-pro-xdr-display/
[2] https://www. rtings.com/laptop/reviews/apple/macbook-pro-16-2021
[3] https://www. blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudio/techspecs/W-DLUS-11
[4] https://www. blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudio/techspecs/W-DLUS-13
Question 1: How good is the Liquid Retina XDR display from a technical specification standpoint?
Hypothetically, if you were to rip this screen off of the MacBook and package it as a separate monitor, with the ability to be calibrated and load LUTs like any other professional monitor, would you use this monitor? These Liquid Retina XDR Displays are mini LED panels with many ideal characteristics for color grading:
- The display can go up to 1600 nits in brightness. This is pretty nuts because most monitors under $3000 only go up to 1000 nits. Even the popular LG C2 OLED TV can only hit 850 nits peak.
- The display has 10,000 dimming zones. According to this Techspot article [1]: Apple choosing to use 5-10x the zone count massively improves the achievable contrast ratio in tricky situations and I'd say this amount of zones - and the density of zones - is what is required as a minimum for the best HDR experience with an LCD panel. Even Apple's own ridiculously overpriced Pro Display XDR doesn't compare as it has a paltry 576-zone backlight...
Question 2: How close can it get us to a workable image vs a clean feed setup?
I understand that the ideal HDR monitoring setup would be to have a computer with the clean feed signal from DaVinci Resolve going through a UltraStudio/Decklink into a calibrated monitor. However, could the MacBook screen get us 70% of the way there, and be a great budget option for those who can not afford a fully calibrated setup?
The built in monitor seems drastically better than what is available in the price range of the laptop. Also, even though the screen is hard to truly calibrate on our own, and it is not possible to circumvent macOS color management, shouldn't we trust that Apple engineers must have done at least some work on their part to make sure the display was color accurate to a certain degree? From the review's I've read so far [2], the factory calibration of the laptop display has a pretty low DeltaE below 2.0. Again, much better than what is available in the under $3000 range.
I know that many people do not like answering this question because "good enough" varies from person to person, so it is easier to answer whether or not something is 100% or 0% of the way there. But I can't be the only person who:
- Does not have $15,000 to spend on a nice OLED HDR monitor
- Does not work for a Hollywood production, but would still like footage that is graded to look better than the average amateur
- Is always on the lookout for the most budget friendly setup that has an acceptable tradeoff with performance
Question 3: Is it better or worse than competing setups in the price range?
This is a continuation of Question 2, with specific budget examples. It looks like many people on this forum use the LG OLED CX/1/2 series as a budget HDR monitoring solution. In this setup, the monitor is usually paired with an UltraStudio or Decklink to get a clean, non-OS color managed output to the monitor (For those unaware, Windows and macOS operating systems apply their own color management to GPU outputs, which cause the output image to not be a "true representation" of what DaVinci is supposed to generate). Lastly, there is usually a budget colorimeter used to calibrate the screen. The cost breakdown of this setup would look something like this:
- Code: Select all
LG C2 42 inch - 4K OLED HDR TV $1400
Blackmagic Design DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K - PCIE card $200
Datacolor SpyderX Pro Colorimeter $170
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Price: $1770
It's hard to estimate how much a MacBook Pro would cost since there are so many configurations. A moderately well spec'ed machine would be around $3000. Regardless of price and configuration, all 14/16 inch MacBook Pros come with the same great screen. Most editors with the previous setup would have a computer that is at least $1500 to $2000, which would bring the two very similarly in terms of price.
With this in mind:
- Does the more color accurate setup with the LG OLED outweigh the better screen on the MacBook Pro, even though the MacBook can not be truly calibrated to the same level?
- Another way to look at it; is Apple's factory calibration paired with its brighter built-in laptop monitor holistically superior to the LG OLED setup, which has a less bright monitor, but the benefit of being able to calibrate to a higher degree of accuracy (supposedly)?
- In other words: For someone who is constrained on budget near $3000-$5000, which setup would you rather pick when only considering image quality/color fidelity for the purpose of HDR grading?
Question 4: Has anyone considered using the MacBook display solely as a monitor using the UltraStudio 4K Mini?
So far, we know the display on the laptop is not bad. I have not worked out all the points in this solution yet, but I think it's something worth considering. I am wondering how effective it would be to use the MacBook screen as a full screen monitoring solution. Since it supports HDR, and has a higher brightness limit than comparable monitors, why not try it?
- A typical chain in Question 3 would look like this: Desktop Computer > Decklink > LG OLED
- What if we did this instead: Desktop Computer > Decklink > UltraStudio 4K Mini [3] > Thunderbolt 4 port on MacBook Pro
- Why would we do this? Our desktop computers are typically more powerful than MacBooks, but our monitors would cost more than a MacBook if we were to get one that would match the quality of the monitor on the MacBook.
- How would this work? From the Decklink, the host computer is able to output a clean feed of HDR footage. This clean feed is taken in by the UltraStudio 4K Mini, which also will not manipulate the input signal. This signal can also support HDR (I'm curious if the UltraStudio Recorder 3G would work here as well? I didn't see HDR support in the tech specs [4] however.) Thus, we are now able to view our HDR footage on a monitor that supports 1600 nits, but costs way less than $15,000.
- I understand that the one downside is that the the MacBook monitor is hard to calibrate correctly, and is ultimately managed by macOS color management.
- However, based on Question 3, if the conclusion is that the MacBook display is still superior to the LG OLED setup, even when considering the downsides of macOS color management, wouldn't this be a good setup?
Concluding Thoughts
Ultimately, I'm hoping that we can have a discussion around my questions, but also the details in each question, which can hopefully fill in some of the missing gaps in our knowledge. For HDR, I think there is a gap that exists where those that can't afford to do it usually don't have the knowledge, and those that do have the knowledge probably do not need to consider budget constraints on the magnitude of hundreds or thousands of dollars. I think by trying to push the limits of budget hardware, we will acquire fundamental knowledge along the way. I hope this thread can become a great learning opportunity; I usually learn a lot from thread comments!
Links
I'm new so I can't post URLs:
[1] https://www. techspot.com/review/2365-apple-macbook-pro-xdr-display/
[2] https://www. rtings.com/laptop/reviews/apple/macbook-pro-16-2021
[3] https://www. blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudio/techspecs/W-DLUS-11
[4] https://www. blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudio/techspecs/W-DLUS-13