[Tig] ASC Non-Theatrical Display Subcommittee Report

[Bob Kertesz]

I finally had the time to read this. Wow. 

So grading suites should have a consumer set in the room? What a novel idea
that was when it was first implemented almost 40 years ago.

How much time and money was spent coming up with this report, which brings
stating the obvious to new levels?


Bob Kertesz
BlueScreen LLC
Hollywood, California
bob at bluescreen.com

The Ultimate in ULTIMATTE® compositing.  
For details, visit http://www.bluescreen.com

>Non-Theatrical Display Subcommittee - ASC
>Chair: Don Eklund, Don_Eklund at spe.sony.com
>
>It was recognized several years ago that digital cinema screens placed new
>demands on film mastering, but offered new opportunities to display content
>without many of the problems typical of theatrical presentation. The digital
>projector has in fact, become a standard and indispensable tool for film
>mastering.
>
>In the last few years, high quality digital display products have become readily
>available to consumers at affordable prices. Consumer displays and set-ups
>emphasize a different set of characteristics than displays and set-ups used in
>professional mastering of motion pictures or high definition video releases.
>Usually operated far out of professional specifications, the high brightness, high
>contrast, and high frequency response of the newest breed of consumer digital
>displays can reveal image qualities in the source signal that are not visible on
>industry standard professional CRT based displays. Under typical home viewing
>conditions, a growing number of consumers now have a day-to-day display that
>provides a more critical view of HD sources than what is in popular use in the
>facilities that master these sources.
>
>Film makers also have new tools available in the form of digital cinematography,
>new film stocks, and all the devices and systems that comprise the digital
>intermediate process. It is natural to assume that better displays and better
>production tools will lead to better consumer experiences. And in fact, often this
>is the case, but not always

>
>While VHS made an acceptable consumer picture and was satisfactory for more
>than 15 years, DVD created a more discriminating consumer. The audio and
>video presentation on DVD is sometimes criticized for characteristics that, while
>sometimes intended, can often be traced to the master. Move forward 10 years
>from the first release on DVD and we can now deliver 6 times more picture
>information to the consumer in a packaged media format such as Blu-ray or HDDVD.
>HD packaged media has the power to literally bring the film closer to the
>viewer. The best consumer displays, properly calibrated, at an optimum viewing
>distance (the same viewing angle as in the theater), and in an appropriate
>viewing environment can provide an enveloping experience that fully realizes the
>potential of high definition. When viewed in HD, some of the objections to
>characteristics of an aforementioned DVD can now be recognized for what they
>are, a decision by the film maker to use the medium in a particular way to tell a
>story. On the other hand, characteristics are also revealed in HD that are not
>intended and take the viewer’s attention away from the story and into a technical
>detail.
>
>As we watch films made today, rich with special effects and with all the benefits
>of the technologies mentioned above, it can be demonstrated that technical and
>production properties of films have become somewhat less consistent in recent
>years. We have found that traditional film making and video transfer continue to
>give good results, while films that benefit from all the newest technology and
>tools occasionally have shot-to-shot or scene-to-scene variability that can
>momentarily surprise the viewer.
>
>It can be argued that quality consumer displays, or professional displays that can
>duplicate consumer display characteristics, have a place in the color correction
>and post-production quality control process and should be considered a viable
>tool. Raising awareness of potential issues through the use of such displays and
>taking into consideration how issues translate to consumer products is a worthy
>pursuit given the growing importance of the home viewing market.
>A number of post production facilities have already begun to test consumer
>displays for evaluating HD masters.
>
>There are several complications in using consumer based products in
>professional environments:
>     • Model year changes mean that it is not practical to standardize on a
>             brand and model of device for any length of time
>     • Consumer devices rarely are provisioned for professional signal formats
>     • Products are not built to professional criteria and may have variable
>             performance, even within a particular model
>
>The benefit in accepting the complexity of adopting non-professional devices for
>picture evaluation are clear; the consumption of content in the home is an
>important economic factor in entertainment and creating an exceptional HD
>experience is a technologically achievable goal.