Do I really need a 1k+ rig to color correct?

E

eivashchenko

I've wanted to get a large LCD TV to plug into my Macbook Pro, so that I could edit a little easier. After some research, I kept reading is that it's suicide to try and color correct on it. And that even using my laptop screen or an Apple Cinema Display was still not good enough (even if I were to end up spending several hundred on a matrox mx02 mini).

Long story short, suddenly I shouldn't be color correcting unless I spend thousands on a broadcast quality monitor or something of the sort.

So two questions:

1) Is this a case of big-budget production reasoning, where you can afford to split hairs? Or is this crucial to anybody working with video?

2) Even if you monitor isn't true to color, can't you just CC off of the waveform monitors, etc?

Thanks for any help!
 
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Well it depends on if you're trying to grade, or correct. Correcting you can (should) use the scopes and check by eye. Grading's a different ballgame. I know few colourists but those I do work at labs and work with either an HD broadcast production CRT and a plasme, or a 4k projection theatre.
 
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I think it can depend on where your video will be seen. If you're color correcting or grading for internet videos, it might be to your advantage to do it on your Mac laptop considering that's the way most of your viewers will be seeing it as well.

You can always check your work on multiple monitors to get an idea of how others might see it before you send out the final version.

Whenever I do a music mix on professional audio monitors, I always try playing it in my car stereo and even my laptop speakers to see what the worst case senario sounds like.
 
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moonshieldmedia said:
I think it can depend on where your video will be seen. If you're color correcting or grading for internet videos, it might be to your advantage to do it on your Mac laptop considering that's the way most of your viewers will be seeing it as well.

You can always check your work on multiple monitors to get an idea of how others might see it before you send out the final version.

Whenever I do a music mix on professional audio monitors, I always try playing it in my car stereo and even my laptop speakers to see what the worst case senario sounds like.
Click to expand...

Or you could use Avantone mix cubes *cough cough*
 
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You can pick up a used or Refurbished Dell Ultrasharp 24" for under $400. They're very color accurate.

But yeah, go with what you got if needed. Look at it on a few screens before it's published and make sure it's ok on all and go to town.
 
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I think that if there was one thing to hate on the Internet is what you're mentioning : People telling you you can't do it without spending.

Luckily, there's a shitload of other people who's gonna tell you to fuck that and go with what you have. A a laptop should be ore than enough to produce something pleasant for your audience.
 
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