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COLOR CALIBRATION www.postmagazine.com 26 POST SEPTEMBER 2015 The company does a lot of remote color grading with partners and clients around the country, with an identical calibration process to New York. At Optimus in Chicago and Volt Studios in Minneapolis, which both have resi- dent Nice Shoes colorists, and at other partner locations with remote connec- tions — Republic in Dallas, Engine Room in Boston, Vapor Post in Miami and Foundation Edit in Austin — Sony OLEDs are calibrated to match New York's monitors before they ship out, with an engineer confirming the settings at each location during the installation. "We work with our partners to recreate the envi- ronment we have here, which is an ideal viewing environment for these settings," Mastrandrea explains. The Nice Shoes team believes "the future is OLED" display technology. It boasts better viewing angles, deeper blacks, and a higher contrast ratio," says Mastrandrea. He admits that the company is "struggling to find larger OLEDs with an even balance — something that meets our professional standards. With the larger, almost consumer monitors, there's always something that's not up to spec. The big- gest issue for us is purity: the difference in color temperature's in the corners." The Nice Shoes team will be continu- ing the hunt at the next NAB — and they won't be alone. "Our technicians are al- ways researching emerging technologies, but everyone in our industry will be there as well to look for the best new monitors and displays," Mastrandrea predicts. CINELICIOUS At Cinelicious (www.cinelicious.tv), color grading film and digitally-acquired proj- ects is the core business, and broadcast color suites are outfitted with Sony PVM Series and TVLogic XVM Series refer- ence monitors and Panasonic Series 12 plasmas, the latter with HD-SDI input cards and HD-SDI LUT boxes. Displays are calibrated to Rec. 709 color space. Cinelicious also has Barco C-series 4K and 2K projectors for theatrical color timing in one of the first 4K DI theaters in Los Angeles. "We calibrate the Sony and TVLogic monitors on a monthly basis and the plasmas every two weeks," says Cinelicious founder and CEO, Paul Korver. In-house engineering performs the calibration, using a Photo Research PR-670 SpectraScan spectroradiometer. "It's still our flagship tool," he reports. "It's really the fastest and most accurate tool that can measure both reflective dis- plays for theatrical and emissive displays for broadcast." Cinelicious recently began to utilize SpectraCal's CalMAN Studio calibra- tion software in conjunction with the PR-670. "It tweaks the LUT for the LUT boxes," he explains. "It takes longer to set up but then it adjusts the LUT for you; what used to be a manual pro- cess is now much more interactive and automated. It's very cool that SpectaCal made their software available for a com- petitive product." Korver notes that talk of Rec. 2020, with its broader dynamic range and wider color space, hasn't progressed too far beyond where it was last year. "We are on the verge of Rec. 2020, which will take into account the broader color gam- ut and deeper blacks displayed by newer display technologies," he says. "We're watching it, but there's not enough pen- etration in the consumer marketplace to invest in it yet." MTI FILM Los Angeles's MTI Film (www.mtifilm. com) provides dailies, editorial, VFX, color correction and assembly for film, television and commercial projects in HD and 4K. Its China facility performs digital film restoration, and its Providence, RI, office handles development. Each of the six color and finishing bays in Los Angeles features a 50-inch Panasonic Viera TH-50PF11 plasma monitor for both the artist and customer, plus either a Cine-tal Davio LUT box or Pandora International Pluto color man- agement system. "We haven't invested in Sony OLEDs. The 30-inch displays work for colorists but clients want bigger displays, so we've decided that until we find a solution that's satisfactory to our clients, we'll stick with the plasmas," says director of engineering, John Stevens. "We've got- ten this far with the plasmas by careful maintenance and adding 3D LUTs. All of our monitors are calibrated identically to deliver the same end-user experience." Calibration is done by in-house engi- neering using a Klein K10-A colorimeter probe with CalMAN software or a Photo Research PR-655 SpectraScan spectro- radiometer. "Every week we go through and make sure the monitors are where we want them to be," says Stevens. "We keep records to calculate any drift. Over the five years we've been in business, the monitors have been pretty stable: They go four to six weeks before we see any measurable drift." He explains that when he helped build the facility, he put a mute monitor function on every AMX touchscreen in the finishing and color bays. "That doesn't turn off the monitor, but it disables the image so it doesn't burn in. I think that's the reason for our monitor longevity and stability." Cinelicious uses both Sony and Panasonic displays, which are calibrated to the Rec. 709 spec. Nice Shoes' five color suites all have Sony OLED displays.