Maxine Gervais & Josh Pines Talk HDR

Evolution of Tech & HDR, a segment from the YouTube series ‘Color Masterclass with Joshua Pines and Maxine Gervais’ produced by Portrait Displays, coincided with Netflix’s release of The Brothers Sun, which was graded by Maxine Gervais. Joshua Pines claims that when HDR was in its infancy, all studios endeavored to make the brightest grades...

The Brothers Sun: The Worst Cinematography Of 2024?

“I like 20Ks and T12s pounding through windows.” DP C. Kim Miles "The show is one of the first important TV releases of the year 2024 on Netflix after its launch on January 4, 2024. The Brothers Sun received a score of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes..." - The Economic Times After reading interviews with cinematographer C....

Create Textural Depth Redux

From time to time, we go back and see if we can't improve upon some of the color grading techniques in the Monster Guide. This is an easier way to create textural depth. During an appearance on Cullen Kelly’s Grade School, the brilliant colorist Jill Bogdanowicz revealed a secret to accentuating texture without it looking...

High Brightness: The Fly In The Ointment

There’s one crucial aspect that researchers who conducted the viewer brightness preference studies we’ve shared overlooked, and that is 24p motion judder. We doubt that participants in the studies would have preferred 4,000 nits over 1,000 nits had they been shown clips of actors walking in front of bright windows, as students do in the...

Is Shadow Detail Really HDR’s Greatest Advantage?

“HDR's consumer appeal is based upon image elements that are considerably brighter than the portrayal of diffuse white, having as much as three or five times higher luminance.” Charles Poynton “[O]ne essential part of HDR is to render highlights, such as specular reflections, in images above the diffuse white level.” Kenichiro Masaoka, Principal Research Engineer...

Perceptually Matching Displays In Post Production

https://youtu.be/aQ2jK13-P5U?si=ymgPsB_3_8eRCNIO David Abrams, along with colorist Josh Petok, demonstrates how to correct for observer metamarism. The shots they’re looking at are from “Meridian” (2016), a 4K 60p HDR test video with a peak brightness level of 4,000 nits created for Netflix in partnership with Sony, Dolby and RED Studios. The video includes old, grainy footage...

Study Finds Substantial Preference For 4,000 Nits Over 1,000 Nits

Subjective Quality Evaluation of High Dynamic Range Video and Display for Future TV by Philippe Hanhart, Touradj Ebrahimi, Pavel Korshunov and Yvonne Thomas. SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal, May 2015 The following excerpts are from a study carried out at the European Broadcasting Union and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 2015. Why 100, 400, 1000 and...

Dolby Vision Analysis Tuning Feature in Resolve Studio 18.6

This feature introduces a new and improved analysis algorithm that allows colorists to select the strength of highlight retention and the amount of mapping applied. Users can now choose from a predefined set of spatial filters. Selecting the "Legacy CM4 L1" option matches the analysis of the original CMv4 algorithm. Older projects from software versions...

No, Josh. Not Right.

"Every year there's some new technological thing that's going to change the world, like you know, when sound entered or color; so you know it's like, 'Oh, digital cameras!' Like yeah, right. Or you know, digital projection, 3D stereoscopic, uh you know and some of them have legs and stay and some of them are Smell-O-Vision:...

Josh Pines and Maxine Gervais Talk HDR

https://youtu.be/jIw0RNIJJX0?si=PCcu-SrozX-hzjHM&t=165 “One of the problems is, they [SDR and HDR] look different, so if you’re doing a movie or episodic, can you simultaneously think about making two things that look different? Usually there’s a vision, there’s a creative intent, that you want preserved across all the things… so what we wound up having to do...

Canadian Media Engineer Confirms That LG Has Not Rolled Out FW Update To Disable G3 Auto-Dimming Beyond USA

“Hi, my names Rich and I'm a media engineer for Animal Logic in Vancouver, Canada. One of our DI colorists told me about your website and forums [liftgammagain], so I thought I'd share what we've been doing in order to try and turn off the fabled dimming on the LG G3. We got a Canadian...

Hollywood Colorists: TV Marketing Is Wrong. With HDR The Important Thing Is Not Brightness

Panasonic, which has been partnering with Company3 CEO Stefan Sonnenfeld since 2017, invited reviewers to visit the post-production house to promote their TVs. Paolo Centofanti of the Italian tech website DDay.it writes: "According to the colorists of Company 3, the company responsible for the post-production of 80% of Hollywood series and movies, you don't need...

How Ads Limit Dynamic Range

At the close of episode 3 of the Korean zombie series All of Us Are Dead, the beam of a helicopter searchlight gradually grows larger as the chopper approaches the high school where undead are feasting on classmates until the entire screen is engulfed by blinding white light, and we were eager to see what...

2025 The Year Of Blue PHOLED

Whether you’re a colorist or videophile; whether purchasing your very first display or replacing an older one: if a new reference monitor or TV is not a top priority in 2024, you might be better off waiting until next year, when many analysts expect manufacturers to rush blue PHOLED, which should enter mass production this...

Flanders Scientific Announces 32” QD-OLED Reference Monitor

The XMP310 is a 31.5" UHD resolution HDR and SDR reference monitor built around the same industry leading QD-OLED panel technology as our HPA Award Winning 55" XMP550. With 1,000nits peak luminance, 1.5Million:1 contrast, and an exceptionally wide color gamut the XMP310 is ready to handle your most demanding HDR and SDR monitoring needs. The...

YouTuber Makes Preposterous Claims Following Sony’s New MiniLED Event

A popular YouTuber, discussing Sony’s remarkable new 4,000-nit miniLED TV, makes the following outlandish claims: 1. Sony says that OLED isn’t good enough 2. Sony’s 4,000-nit miniLED TV has completely destroyed Korea’s OLED TV industry 3. Sony Pictures could dictate that colorists grade peak highlights to 4,000 nits 4. Netflix and Amazon could charge an...

Bloom In HDR Grades Often Not A Stylistic Choice

We only watched I Came By on Netflix because DIT Alix Milan and Kit Fraser (DoP) were two of the expert panelists at an HDR demo sponsored by Dolby at the BSC Expo earlier last year. As it happens, the entire picture came off like an advert for Scatter, an app highly recommended over at the colorist forum...

Money Heist Producer Has Nothing But Disdain For 4K HDR Yet His Sky Rojo Is Among The Most Impactful Examples Of HDR We’ve Seen

During an interview  four years ago, Jesús Colmenar, the executive director and producer of Money Heist, didn’t think that UHD HDR would be accepted by viewers. What follows is an excerpt from that interview. And I guess “Money Heist” is being prepared for 8K. Migue Amoedo: We are shooting in 7K with an 8K sensor, but as...

MicroLED Industry Association White Paper: Mass Production Still Years Away

The MicroLED Industry Association (MIA) has published MicroLEDs 2023: State of the industry and future roadmap, a non-member summary of the full document, which paints a bleak picture for those of us who were hoping to snatch a 77” microLED TV before being dispatched to an assisted living residence. MicroLED Market and Industry Landscape Mass...

Run Calman On Mac: How To Install Fusion 13.5

Calman announced on back on Oct. 5, 2023, “While there are Apple Silicon specific versions of VMWare Fusion and Parallels, they rely on an ARM-specific build of Windows that lacks comprehensive driver support, impacting several devices Calman interfaces with. At this time Calman must be used on Windows-based PC.” VMWare Fusion 13.5, released just weeks after...