Pro Display XDR as grading monitor

Finally some language from BMD on Video Clean Feed. It's on page 86 of the newly release Reference Manual for 16.1.2.

I think this has been in the manual since October, so there was no new manual for 16.1.2. It is true that "Full Screen Viewer for Secondary Monitor" is in the manual on page 87.

Is there really an 18% grey paint or did I miss seeing a smiley? I just turn out all my lights when assessing colour.

Google is your friend. (if you turn up the brightness, you might be able to make out the smiley)

Adam, as I’m also considering the ASUS as a dual GUI-Display, could you please post your impressions about the fan-Noise of this devices? That‘s what I am very concerned of...THANKS!

Hi Daniel,
I haven't heard any reports of noise issues but I will let you know for sure!

Just FYI: i found a german in-depth review where the reviewer states that the fan-noise is very audible and annoying. it´s a high-frequent-noise and even from a distance of 3m noticeable.
The bad-thing: the fans are "always-on", independent of temperature, brightness etc.
the good-thing: this could , hopefully , change via firmware-update.

https://www.prad.de/testberichte/test-a ... sgeraeusch

i think I'm going to order a device for testing - as noise is a very subjective thing.
If it´s too annoying for me, i´ll send it back and maybe go for Eizo (CG319X) or XDR...

Screen shots of blooming on the Asus PA32UCX HLG HDR

https://daejeonchronicles.com/2019/12/2 ... -blooming/

There is a paint Friend,

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1344714-REG

Is there really an 18% grey paint or did I miss seeing a smiley? I just turn out all my lights when assessing colour.

Yes, you can buy it here:

https://www.rpimaging.com/munsell-neutr ... TmEALw_wcB

I have my room painted to N5 but some prefer it lighter, N7 for example. FSI has a paint formula you can take to Home Depot to make your own but I found it to be a bit cool. Ideally you should have a 6500°K backlight behind your monitor rather than a completely dark room, set at about 10% of screen brightness if I recall correctly. I would look that one up though.

Thanks, Adam. I have a single fluorescent bulb directly behind my monitor (built-in my office desk where I edit video). I should enquire if there’s a 6500K coloured fluorescent tube that fits a standard fixture.

Finally some language from BMD on Video Clean Feed. It's on page 86 of the newly release Reference Manual for 16.1.2.

I think this has been in the manual since October, so there was no new manual for 16.1.2. It is true that "Full Screen Viewer for Secondary Monitor" is in the manual on page 87.

The 16.1.2 manual was published one week ago. It contains the first mention of “Video Clean Feed” which is what it’s been called since 16.1 I think? I think they are they same thing but I don’t know for sure. The question is how is the signal being routed. There was some speculation (by me, lol) that it would output a broadcast video signal over TB3 bypassing the SDI workflow given what was being said when the XDR was announced. But I don’t think that’s accurate. I hope to find out soon.

Thanks, Adam. I have a single fluorescent bulb directly behind my monitor (built-in my office desk where I edit video). I should enquire if there’s a 6500K coloured fluorescent tube that fits a standard fixture.

Cool. Depending on the size you can probably find one. It should be dimmable to get the right level more or less. If not, Media Light makes a fairly inexpensive LED string that attaches to the back of the monitor that’s dimmable and has a CRI of 95 or above.

As Phil Crawley put it nicely in a linkedin post...

Is there an HDR mastering display that costs less than £20k? Not yet.
On paper the new Apple monitor looks like it might be usable for HDR film/TV work, but like the ASUS PA32U (which looked excellent in the spec sheet) I can only comment when I've pointed a probe at it a profiled it using LightSpace. The things that seem amiss from the outset are;

1. It’s the wrong resolution; 4096 x 2160 is what’s needed, not 6k – remember how bad SD on HD looked when you split pixels across pixels?
2. It only supports SMPTE-2084 HDR natively; the website suggests that HLG may come as a software emulation, but as it’s only a 10-bit monitor this will not be acceptable; the PQ curve skirts close to the Barton-ramp as it is, putting a 3D LUT in line to emulate HLG will cause banding, no doubt,
3. No SDi or HDMI input – I know BMD have an external box coming but that’s a bit how-ya-doing!
4. It has P3 primaries (which is fine) but you really need a bit more than P3 as should you put a LUT in line you will have less than P3 and that ain’t going to fly; Eizo & Sony are typ. 84% of rec.2020; would be interested to see what proportion of rec.2020 this guy does?
More here; https://lnkd.in/guYayv8

The 16.1.2 manual was published one week ago. It contains the first mention of “Video Clean Feed” which is what it’s been called since 16.1 I think?

I just downloaded and re-checked 16.1.2, and the manual that comes with it is just the same 16.1 manual from October. No mention of "Video Clean Feed." But in re-checking BMD's website, it looks like there is a (separate) 16.1.2 manual for December that I haven't seen before that's not in the software download package, so you are absolutely right. Almost 200 new pages have been added, so this is a big change -- we're now up to a whopping 3199 pages.

I would agree that there are aspects of the software that are out-of-sync with the manual (and vice-versa), but I have every hope these will be fixed soon.

I just downloaded and re-checked 16.1.2, and the manual that comes with it is just the same 16.1 manual from October. No mention of "Video Clean Feed." But in re-checking BMD's website, it looks like there is a (separate) 16.1.2 manual for December that I haven't seen before that's not in the software download package, so you are absolutely right. Almost 200 new pages have been added, so this is a big change -- we're now up to a whopping 3199 pages.

I would agree that there are aspects of the software that are out-of-sync with the manual (and vice-versa), but I have every hope these will be fixed soon.

this is link for the december manual :

https://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/UserManuals/DaVinci_Resolve_16.1.2_Reference_Manual.pdf?_v=1576656010000

Adam, as I’m also considering the ASUS as a dual GUI-Display, could you please post your impressions about the fan-Noise of this devices? That‘s what I am very concerned of...THANKS!

Here's a recording of the Asus PA32UCX fan noise, along with a comparison to the noise the 2017 iMac makes transcoding footage to HEVC.

https://daejeonchronicles.com/2019/12/2 ... oise-test/

Thanks for the effort, Jon. Certainly lower than a busy iMac! As you mentioned, difficult to distinguish the monitor fan from everything else outside your abode.

Adam, as I’m also considering the ASUS as a dual GUI-Display, could you please post your impressions about the fan-Noise of this devices? That‘s what I am very concerned of...THANKS!

Hey Daniel, I got the PA32UCs in and there is no fan noise as they are passively cooled. There is also a firmware update that gives you a Rec. 709 preset and that allows you to adjust picture settings in the OSD. The sRGB setting in the original F/W locked you out of all picture controls. The update increases the HDR settings to four (originally two) and changes the default sharpness to zero (originally 50). All in all the monitor is quite good, if a bit bright out of the box! Text is crisp, images are sharp with excellent contrast and shadow detail, and colors look natural. There is some blooming of text against black backgrounds, VERY noticeable off axis but barely noticeable straight on and definitely not enough to be an issue for a GUI monitor. It recognizes HDR signals from a video source over HDMI (fed via Apple TV). I have the monitors connected to the Mac Pro over TB3 and haven't messed around with HDR there yet. I will calibrate them today.

Adam, as I’m also considering the ASUS as a dual GUI-Display, could you please post your impressions about the fan-Noise of this devices? That‘s what I am very concerned of...THANKS!

Hey Daniel, I got the PA32UCs in and there is no fan noise as they are passively cooled. There is also a firmware update that gives you a Rec. 709 preset and that allows you to adjust picture settings in the OSD. The sRGB setting in the original F/W locked you out of all picture controls. The update increases the HDR settings to four (originally two) and changes the default sharpness to zero (originally 50). All in all the monitor is quite good, if a bit bright out of the box! Text is crisp, images are sharp with excellent contrast and shadow detail, and colors look natural. There is some blooming of text against black backgrounds, VERY noticeable off axis but barely noticeable straight on and definitely not enough to be an issue for a GUI monitor. It recognizes HDR signals from a video source over HDMI (fed via Apple TV). I have the monitors connected to the Mac Pro over TB3 and haven't messed around with HDR there yet. I will calibrate them today.

Shouldn't you should be using an I/O like the BMD UltraStudio 4K Mini connected to the monitor via HDMI? Won't calibrating via Mac OS mess up the colors?

Shouldn't you should be using an I/O like the BMD UltraStudio 4K Mini connected to the monitor via HDMI? Won't calibrating via Mac OS mess up the colors?

I'm using it as a GUI monitor and for rough grading, nothing reference level. The monitor takes hardware calibration so once its calibrated it should be fairly spot on within the capabilities of the monitor which is roughly average Delta E <2 and taking into account it's not a video signal. For grading I have a DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K feeding a hardware calibrated LG C9 over HDMI and will eventually add a true grading monitor. For now, if I need greater precision, I go to an outside color house.

Shouldn't you should be using an I/O like the BMD UltraStudio 4K Mini connected to the monitor via HDMI? Won't calibrating via Mac OS mess up the colors?

I'm using it as a GUI monitor and for rough grading, nothing reference level. The monitor takes hardware calibration so once its calibrated it should be fairly spot on within the capabilities of the monitor which is roughly average Delta E <2 and taking into account it's not a video signal. For grading I have a DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K feeding a hardware calibrated LG C9 over HDMI and will eventually add a true grading monitor. For now, if I need greater precision, I go to an outside color house.

We'll be interested in hearing how that goes. Regarding Asus's proprietary calibration firmware, prad.de says about the UCX:

"In the first attempt, the target values were reached to some extent after inspection and software information, but then they were not saved in the monitor. Another attempt led to completely wrong values." (sorry, Google translate).

My own attempt at installing the driver on the Asus display failed, the OSD would freeze. And my Mac prevented me from installing Asus's calibration app. Connecting the Asus directly to my Mac via Thunderbolt 3 and using i1Profiler to calibrate the UCX, my values were much worse than those I'm able to obtain when calibrating my iMac with the i1Display Pro. I was about to pull the trigger on the Teranex Mini SDI to HDMI 8K HDR, but several users here are reporting that it's not working for them.

Shouldn't you should be using an I/O like the BMD UltraStudio 4K Mini connected to the monitor via HDMI? Won't calibrating via Mac OS mess up the colors?

I'm using it as a GUI monitor and for rough grading, nothing reference level. The monitor takes hardware calibration so once its calibrated it should be fairly spot on within the capabilities of the monitor which is roughly average Delta E <2 and taking into account it's not a video signal. For grading I have a DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K feeding a hardware calibrated LG C9 over HDMI and will eventually add a true grading monitor. For now, if I need greater precision, I go to an outside color house.

Hi Adam, are you able to confirm that the 4k Mini will enable Dolby Vision and HDR 10 when selecting enable hdr metadata? In the manual it says to use either DeckLink 8K, DeckLink 4K Extreme 12G, or UltraStudio 4K Extreme but I see the new 4k mini has HDMI 2.0 which I believe is required for the metadata. Have you tried this? Thanks!

Shouldn't you should be using an I/O like the BMD UltraStudio 4K Mini connected to the monitor via HDMI? Won't calibrating via Mac OS mess up the colors?

I'm using it as a GUI monitor and for rough grading, nothing reference level. The monitor takes hardware calibration so once its calibrated it should be fairly spot on within the capabilities of the monitor which is roughly average Delta E <2 and taking into account it's not a video signal. For grading I have a DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K feeding a hardware calibrated LG C9 over HDMI and will eventually add a true grading monitor. For now, if I need greater precision, I go to an outside color house.

We'll be interested in hearing how that goes. Regarding Asus's proprietary calibration firmware, prad.de says about the UCX:

"In the first attempt, the target values were reached to some extent after inspection and software information, but then they were not saved in the monitor. Another attempt led to completely wrong values." (sorry, Google translate).

My own attempt at installing the driver on the Asus display failed, the OSD would freeze. And my Mac prevented me from installing Asus's calibration app. Connecting the Asus directly to my Mac via Thunderbolt 3 and using i1Profiler to calibrate the UCX, my values were much worse than those I'm able to obtain when calibrating my iMac with the i1Display Pro. I was about to pull the trigger on the Teranex Mini SDI to HDMI 8K HDR, but several users here are reporting that it's not working for them.

I calibrated two monitors using the ASUS ProArt Calibration app and after a bit of a rough start, (and installing the X-Rite driver for the i1 Display Pro) everything went smoothly. I performed the overall calibration as well as the 5x5 uniformity calibration and it took about 45 minutes total per monitor. The target was Rec.709, 6500K, 2.4 gamma, 100 nits. The measured result was 6482K, 2.38 gamma, 99.5 nits and avg. Delta-E of 1.54. Uniformity was good to very good on one monitor, excellent on the other. The measured color gamut was, for all intents and purposes, identical to Rec. 709. I was able to save the profiles into one of the two ASUS' User Modes with no issues.

Did you override the Mac's security settings when attempting to install the calibration app? Every "unregistered" app will be flagged by MacOS and requires you to override the security preferences. For the heck of it I performed a software calibration using i1Profiler (with the monitor in the Rec. 709 factory preset so as to not be on top of the hardware calibration) and it also produced much improved results from the factory settings. I tossed the resultant .icc profile to prevent any confusion down the road.

All in all it's a quite good monitor but not reference grade and not without its faults. It measures well, colors look natural, uniformity is more than acceptable if not stellar, and calibration is fairly straightforward if a bit time consuming. The blooming is pretty much imperceptible post-calibration, even on high contrast titles, viewed off-axis in fairly low ambient light conditions. The biggest thing to watch out for is off axis color shift. Unless you are at least two screen heights away, the field of view is such that the left and right edges are off axis enough to produce some noticeable color shift.

Here are some general settings that should be addressed when calibrating a monitor, connected to a Mac, regardless of the calibration system: https://www.xrite.com/service-support/f ... r_accuracy

Here are Mac issues that may need to be addressed when using the i1 Display Pro.
https://www.xrite.com/service-support/p ... pro_on_mac

I hope that all helps!

Shouldn't you should be using an I/O like the BMD UltraStudio 4K Mini connected to the monitor via HDMI? Won't calibrating via Mac OS mess up the colors?

I'm using it as a GUI monitor and for rough grading, nothing reference level. The monitor takes hardware calibration so once its calibrated it should be fairly spot on within the capabilities of the monitor which is roughly average Delta E <2 and taking into account it's not a video signal. For grading I have a DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K feeding a hardware calibrated LG C9 over HDMI and will eventually add a true grading monitor. For now, if I need greater precision, I go to an outside color house.

Hi Adam, are you able to confirm that the 4k Mini will enable Dolby Vision and HDR 10 when selecting enable hdr metadata? In the manual it says to use either DeckLink 8K, DeckLink 4K Extreme 12G, or UltraStudio 4K Extreme but I see the new 4k mini has HDMI 2.0 which I believe is required for the metadata. Have you tried this? Thanks!

Hey Rob, I will hopefully take a look at this next week though I don't have a Dolby Vision license so I can only test HDR10.

@AdamGoldfine Thanks for the detailed info! Also good to know that blooming actually improved after calibration. And that I should plan on sitting farther away from the display to avoid color shifts. When you say that you calibrated the monitor with the i1Display Pro with Rec. 709 factory preset, are you saying that Color Reset in the Color menu of the OSD actually restores the monitor to factory calibration settings? When doing a hardware calibration on the Asus, is there somewhere in the OSD where you can actually check that it's there? Sorry if that's a dumb question! I couldn't find info on that in the owner's manual. I suppose it's only visible once you've downloaded Asus' calibration firmware. hehe When performing calibration with iProfiler, is the icc just stored on the computer, or is it also installed in the monitor itself? I ask because I wasn't able to install the X-Rite driver on the Asus and when I calibrated using my iMac, I see the icc for the PA32UCX on my Mac and I'm concerned Rec 709 doesn't look right. If it is on the Asus, I'd like to restore it back to factory calibration.

@AdamGoldfine Thanks for the detailed info! Also good to know that blooming actually improved after calibration. And that I should plan on sitting farther away from the display to avoid color shifts. When you say that you calibrated the monitor with the i1Display Pro with Rec. 709 factory preset, are you saying that Color Reset in the Color menu of the OSD actually restores the monitor to factory calibration settings? When doing a hardware calibration on the Asus, is there somewhere in the OSD where you can actually check that it's there? Sorry if that's a dumb question! I couldn't find info on that in the owner's manual. I suppose it's only visible once you've downloaded Asus' calibration firmware. hehe When performing calibration with iProfiler, is the icc just stored on the computer, or is it also installed in the monitor itself? I ask because I wasn't able to install the X-Rite driver on the Asus and when I calibrated using my iMac, I see the icc for the PA32UCX on my Mac and I'm concerned Rec 709 doesn't look right. If it is on the Asus, I'd like to restore it back to factory calibration.

You are welcome! The color shift applies to the PA32UC, and may not be an issue on the much more expensive PA32UCX, but I would keep an eye out for it. Yes, the color reset in the ASUS OSD restores the monitor to the factory calibration. But, the factory calibration isn't that great to begin with (at least not on the UC despite the report you get) and it only restores the out of the box settings, color, gamma, sharpness, etc. to the default settings. The factory calibration itself is baked in to the preset, is probably too bright, and too cool. And won't account for any mechanical drift that occurs over time. On the PA32UC only the sRGB and Adobe RGB presets are calibrated. A Rec. 709 preset was added as part of a firmware update so it's not factory calibrated. And again, any factory calibration is going to have a limited lifespan as the monitor ages and drifts.

When you do the hardware calibration it creates a hardware profile that can be stored in either User Mode 1 or User Mode 2. It's basically a LUT that is stored on an IC chip in the monitor, IIRC. This isn't documented but from what I gather, you can save multiple profiles (LUTs) in the ProArt Calibration software. You can then load any of the saved LUTs into one of the two User Modes in the monitor via the "settings" screen in the ProArt calibration software. Even though you can save multiple LUTs, the only way you can use them is to load them into the monitor and access them via the OSD. If you have successfully saved the profile and stored it in one of the two User Modes, you will see a dramatic change in the monitor when you select that User Mode in the OSD. If you don't save the LUT during the calibration process it will be lost. The owner's manual kind of sucks but there is an updated, 12/26/19, hardware calibration procedure on the ASUS web site that is more detailed. It could still be A LOT better.

When you calibrate with iProfiler it creates an .icc profile that is stored in the OS and can be selected by going to display settings in the MacOS System Preferences. (And follow the instructions in the link from the X-Rite website for calibrating Macs. It has some very specific set up requirements to get accurate results.) It doesn't store anything in the monitor. If you want to go back to the true original factory settings you have to both select the default monitor profile in the MacOS and do a color reset in the ASUS OSD. But I wouldn't rely on that for any kind of real color accuracy.

@AdamGoldfine Thanks for the detailed info! Also good to know that blooming actually improved after calibration. And that I should plan on sitting farther away from the display to avoid color shifts. When you say that you calibrated the monitor with the i1Display Pro with Rec. 709 factory preset, are you saying that Color Reset in the Color menu of the OSD actually restores the monitor to factory calibration settings? When doing a hardware calibration on the Asus, is there somewhere in the OSD where you can actually check that it's there? Sorry if that's a dumb question! I couldn't find info on that in the owner's manual. I suppose it's only visible once you've downloaded Asus' calibration firmware. hehe When performing calibration with iProfiler, is the icc just stored on the computer, or is it also installed in the monitor itself? I ask because I wasn't able to install the X-Rite driver on the Asus and when I calibrated using my iMac, I see the icc for the PA32UCX on my Mac and I'm concerned Rec 709 doesn't look right. If it is on the Asus, I'd like to restore it back to factory calibration.

You are welcome! The color shift applies to the PA32UC, and may not be an issue on the much more expensive PA32UCX, but I would keep an eye out for it. Yes, the color reset in the ASUS OSD restores the monitor to the factory calibration. But, the factory calibration isn't that great to begin with (at least not on the UC despite the report you get) and it only restores the out of the box settings, color, gamma, sharpness, etc. to the default settings. The factory calibration itself is baked in to the preset, is probably too bright, and too cool. And won't account for any mechanical drift that occurs over time. On the PA32UC only the sRGB and Adobe RGB presets are calibrated. A Rec. 709 preset was added as part of a firmware update so it's not factory calibrated. And again, any factory calibration is going to have a limited lifespan as the monitor ages and drifts.

When you do the hardware calibration it creates a hardware profile that can be stored in either User Mode 1 or User Mode 2. It's basically a LUT that is stored on an IC chip in the monitor, IIRC. This isn't documented but from what I gather, you can save multiple profiles (LUTs) in the ProArt Calibration software. You can then load any of the saved LUTs into one of the two User Modes in the monitor via the "settings" screen in the ProArt calibration software. Even though you can save multiple LUTs, the only way you can use them is to load them into the monitor and access them via the OSD. If you have successfully saved the profile and stored it in one of the two User Modes, you will see a dramatic change in the monitor when you select that User Mode in the OSD. If you don't save the LUT during the calibration process it will be lost. The owner's manual kind of sucks but there is an updated, 12/26/19, hardware calibration procedure on the ASUS web site that is more detailed. It could still be A LOT better.

When you calibrate with iProfiler it creates an .icc profile that is stored in the OS and can be selected by going to display settings in the MacOS System Preferences. (And follow the instructions in the link from the X-Rite website for calibrating Macs. It has some very specific set up requirements to get accurate results.) It doesn't store anything in the monitor. If you want to go back to the true original factory settings you have to both select the default monitor profile in the MacOS and do a color reset in the ASUS OSD. But I wouldn't rely on that for any kind of real color accuracy.

I can’t believe you took the time to answer all my questions. Thanks so much!

I can’t believe you took the time to answer all my questions. Thanks so much!

You're welcome! I hope that helps, let me know how it works out.

Hi guys!!
Thanks for all your input and feedback...!!

I received the ASUS PA32UCX-K today and I will start testing soon.

Juan Salvo posted this piccie at LGG along with this note:

You can see the 311K with the dual panel has pixel perfect blacks. And the 310K with it’s zoned dimming has some slightly lifted blacks and some slight haloing.

But that XDR!!!

seems it's not in the same county much less same ballpark as a real gradeing mon when side by side, so the basic question first asked, is now answered

Re: Pro Display XDR as grading monitor - I'm wondering if there's a way to get an accurate image on the XDR.

it's not a gradeing mon no matter how low one's standards are, so the question of how you get an accurate image into the mon is moot, you will never know if it's an accurate feed if the mon it's self is not accurate

Can you fix photo link please.
Quite interesting fact:
FSI 310K with zones delivering up to 3K nits = 200W max power usage.
FSI 311K with direct backlit 1K nits = 280W.
Somehow even this suggests zoning is a compromise.

Andrew:
should be fixed now i hope
worth going over there to take a peek if i can't get the link to work
it's pretty frightening how bad the XDR is

So dual LCD panel is still the best so far.

Guys, is there a way to force the PA32UCX to go into HDR-mode?
When feeding the display via Displayport or HDMI from the MacPro i can‘t get it into HDR (
all HDR-modes are greyed out in the settings).
tried it from the mac-desktop as well as via DR16.1.2 video-clean-feed and HDR-Meta-Data over HDMI on and off.
Did a factory-reset, re-installed firmware on the display etc. but no luck.

When connecting an AppleTV 4K via HDMI it automaticly switches into HDR (same cables).so
at least this works...

I‘m going to get an Ultrastudio 4K Mini soon...but would like to test around with HDR in the meantime.

Any thougts?

Is there really an 18% grey paint or did I miss seeing a smiley? I just turn out all my lights when assessing colour.

Actually the specification talk of a D65 lights diffused behind the monitor (10nits? I don't remember) on a flat gray surface when grading.

Thanks.

Andrew:
should be fixed now i hope

Hi Dermot.

I am sorry to tell you, that I still can't see your photo link.
But if I copy/paste the image address, do I see it come from:

https://www.liftgammagain.com/forum/ind ... jpeg.7850/

Can it be possible, that you are log in, and we other don't even have an account yet?

Regards Carsten.

Guys, is there a way to force the PA32UCX to go into HDR-mode?
When feeding the display via Displayport or HDMI from the MacPro i can‘t get it into HDR (
all HDR-modes are greyed out in the settings).
tried it from the mac-desktop as well as via DR16.1.2 video-clean-feed and HDR-Meta-Data over HDMI on and off.

Hi.

I remember what Rohit Gupta from BMD wrote in an another thread:

search.php?keywords=XDR+HDR&terms=all&author=Rohit+Gupta&fid%5B%5D=21&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

So as I read it, will HDR first be available for the new Apple Pro Display XDR. And may be first in a coming release of Resolve.

Regards Carsten.

Actually the specification talk of a D65 lights diffused behind the monitor (10nits? I don't remember) on a flat gray surface when grading.

The relevant SMPTE paper ("Reference Viewing Environment for Evaluation of HDTV Images") says:

"If used, a reflective surround should be a visually neutral surface (preferably gray)."

A lot of the color rooms I've worked in in LA have either gone to 18% gray or at least something fairly neutral. This was probably a little before your time, but I can remember places in the 1980s and 1990s that had some pretty wild color scheme in the rooms, and it was an annoyance. We had a lot of earth tones & brown at Complete Post, and it wasn't fun. They got rid of it once HD came in around 1999, and slowly 65D backlights started getting installed.

Netflix goes a little further and specifies a certain illumination level for the room as well, at least for HDR grading.

I was watching a video about HDR and monitors the other evening in which the presenter says that a 40" 1,000 nit HDR monitor sitting 10 feet away from a white or beige wall bounces back several times the recommended ambient light levels for rec. 2100 of 16 lux, obliterating shadow detail. With many HDR displays, the overwhelming advantage in terms of dynamic range over SDR displays lies in the shadows, which may have as much as double the increase in DR compared to the highlights. So I guess that's a good reason not to paint your walls white. hehe But I imagine it is the colorist sitting in front of the monitor that is in fact reflecting the majority of light bouncing back to the display? I guess it's time to toss away my fluorescent green wardrobe! Also, if you've got something like a snazzy 99 CRI D65 LED strip on the rear of the monitor, it's bouncing light off the wall directly behind the display, which would affect the way you see colors when you're grading if they're not neutral gray.

This provides a pretty clear explanation of why you should use a calibrated paint. It also provides the paint formula from FSI that you can take to Home Depot to produce a neutral gray paint. I tried it but it was too cool (it’s hit or miss with Home Depot) and I ended up repainting with Munsell N5. https://mixinglight.com/color-tutorial/ ... te-design/

Netflix does indeed provide some very specific and thorough requirements, recommendations, and best practices for every facet of the post production workflow. https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/ ... Guidelines

They reference SMPTE ST.2080-3 for viewing environments which you can buy online for $70 or $80 I think.

Guys, is there a way to force the PA32UCX to go into HDR-mode?
When feeding the display via Displayport or HDMI from the MacPro i can‘t get it into HDR (
all HDR-modes are greyed out in the settings).

Unless I’m mistaken (entirely possible) Resolve only transmits HDR through the Video Monitor bus (i.e. DeckLink or UltraStudio or other video output) which makes sense because you wouldn’t want to grade from the GPU output anyway. The monitor switches to HDR with Apple TV because it’s video. Chapter 8 of the 16.1.2 DR reference manual makes for some scintillating reading.

This may change with the XDR so you can accomplish everything over TB3 but there is still a lot to sort out with that monitor not the least of which is that it doesn’t seem to pass muster as a reference monitor which is really too bad.

I was watching a video about HDR and monitors the other evening in which the presenter says that a 40" 1,000 nit HDR monitor sitting 10 feet away from a white or beige wall bounces back several times the recommended ambient light levels for rec. 2100 of 16 lux, obliterating shadow detail.

Well, again: read the SMPTE paper I mentioned above:

SMPTE ST2080-3-2017
Reference Viewing Environment for Evaluation of HDTV Images

and it explains a lot about the nature of what they recommend for room illumination and so on. Rec2100 is now old, and there's actually newer standards that go beyond that -- this is a moving target. Netflix has a bunch of papers and specs on what they'll accept for HDR, and how they believed HDR is best achieved in post, and you can find them here:

https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/ ... ONS-GUIDES

I have a bunch of HDR-related papers that I've archived at this link (though I can't provide the SMPTE papers since those cost money and are copyrighted):

https://spaces.hightail.com/space/nEaXy

The EBU has quite a few tech papers on HDR that are very similar and free:

https://tech.ebu.ch/hdr

I know of some people who use an HDFury box in order to insert the HDR flags necessary to make consumer/prosumer displays kick into the normal HDR mode, so that might be an option for you. AJA also has a box that will do the same thing and it's a bit more professional:

https://www.aja.com/products/hi5-4k-plus

[And my apologies to @Adam Goldfine above, who posted some of this info before I did.]

[And my apologies to @Adam Goldfine above, who posted some of this info before I did.]

No apology necessary! Your knowledge and experience are greatly appreciated!

Hey Rob, I will hopefully take a look at this next week though I don't have a Dolby Vision license so I can only test HDR10.

Thanks Adam. I don't think you need a Dolby Lic though. You only need the Lic if you do trims from what I've seen. You can export full Dolby with a regular studio license just can't tweak the Dolby settings. Thanks!

Hey Rob, I will hopefully take a look at this next week though I don't have a Dolby Vision license so I can only test HDR10.

Thanks Adam. I don't think you need a Dolby Lic though. You only need the Lic if you do trims from what I've seen. You can export full Dolby with a regular studio license just can't tweak the Dolby settings. Thanks!

You should be able to test Dolby as well, you cannot do specific display trims, but you can use the automatic analysis without the license.

Btw, from Rohit:

Rohit Gupta wrote:
Not what you are looking for, but Resolve will support HDR on the new Apple ProDisplay XDR. This is not available on other GUI monitors currently so you have to use a Decklink card to connect to a HDR monitor. There are a lot of other advantages of using a proper I/O card for monitoring, you get perfect frequency of playback, for example the monitor can lock at 24Hz (or a multiple of), hardware buffering so you don’t have a frame drop here and there, perfect audio sync in hardware, multiple outputs at the same etc, timecode output etc etc etc.

Hey Rob, I will hopefully take a look at this next week though I don't have a Dolby Vision license so I can only test HDR10.

Thanks Adam. I don't think you need a Dolby Lic though. You only need the Lic if you do trims from what I've seen. You can export full Dolby with a regular studio license just can't tweak the Dolby settings. Thanks!

You should be able to test Dolby as well, you cannot do specific display trims, but you can use the automatic analysis without the license.

Great to know, thanks! I finally have everything configured and transferred so I will take a look at this soon.

Got my XDR yesterday and it's a nice designed monitor with great blacks but the blooming is very bad. It also has a very strange luminance shift issue. At this point I'm not sure i'm keeping this monitor. See video.

Got my XDR yesterday and it's a nice designed monitor with great blacks but the blooming is very bad. It also has a very strange luminance shift issue. At this point I'm not sure i'm keeping this monitor. See video.

That’s awful.....

If Santa Claus was really Apple, I think there are a lot of people being added to the ‘naughty’ list over the reviews the Pro XDR is getting. Maybe they talk to Pros about what they want, but did they really talk to Pros while it was in development and testing? I’m thinking, “Oops!”

Got my XDR yesterday and it's a nice designed monitor with great blacks but the blooming is very bad. It also has a very strange luminance shift issue. At this point I'm not sure i'm keeping this monitor. See video.

That’s awful.....

Nothing new or special. Old Dolby PRM has the same issue and it is/was called by so many as greatest monitor.
This is just a beauty of zoning technology.
I assume 500ish zones is not that many for 31inch monitor at all so effect is quite strong.

The new ASUS monitor (unreleased) has double the number of zones which may make that an attractive alternative.

[Rohit Gupta]

Got my XDR yesterday and it's a nice designed monitor with great blacks but the blooming is very bad. It also has a very strange luminance shift issue. At this point I'm not sure i'm keeping this monitor. See video.

Are you in the Reference mode, or standard Desktop mode?