Multi Media Discussion

nah, too tall. more like the aliens in "this island earth".

ddt

Well, I'm a graphic designer and always have my monitors calibrated because I've seen what a difference it can make in our work when someone else working on a project hasn't got their monitors calibrated and set up properly. Having said that we recently bought a 40" Samsung (LA40M81BD) and I haven't even attempted to adjust the colour on it yet. When we had a tube tv I would always fiddle with the colour balance when the skin tones looked too red, but haven't felt the need too on this TV.

Didn't the article make the point that the calibration consultant had a whole bunch of questions for the owner of the TV set before touching anything? That there was no 'default' setting that was better than the factory setting?

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tliet
Didn't the article make the point that the calibration consultant had a whole bunch of questions for the owner of the TV set before touching anything? That there was no 'default' setting that was better than the factory setting?

The consultant could have asked questions for 4 hours, but that still wouldn't mean the consultant did his job better than any schmo I picked off the street to calibrate it. I bet if people came to my apartment, I could tell them that a consultant came in to calibrate it, and it would have the same affect on how people perceived the quality of the picture as if they had been in the room when the calibration was happening.

ddt,

Definitely do the THX thing that comes on a Pixar DVD. Better yet, have somebody else do it, and see if you can tell the difference.

They linked to the Sencore device in the article. We have those things at work, but are switching our color-sensitive monitors to TV Logic and using their (frikkin awesome) automatic adjustment thing which actually interfaces back with the TV and changes the settings for you, taking out the guess work.
http://www.tvlogic.co.kr/eng/products/mf_lcd/ml_index.php

Dunno if they mentioned things like sharpness, overscan, etc in the article. But you have to set those too, but I think the Sencore pattern generators have that too.

I have taken the same XBR series monitor they mention and calibrated it both for work (non-critical uses) and my home one... Um, but never mind signal quality? That Sencore machine won't help you one bit if the signal from your DirecTV or whatever is out of whack. Where's the video scopes to analyze that, Best Buy? :P Haha... They mention that the TV was "using too much power" - well, there is even a standard for brightness level in film - very low by LCD standards, something like 300 cd/m2. This corresponds with about the lowest LCD backlight setting on that XBR. Oh, right by the way film standards are different from HDTV standards in all aspects, so make sure to set it up for each input, depending on what is connected.

Color correction is obviously a big deal for post production. In real color calibration, there's not many questions to be had in the process, it's just matching the output on the monitor to some measurements in various published papers and tweaking the room so you don't get reflections or whatever.


But seriously, 300 bucks? I'll borrow the machines from work and do it for $200, and my settings will be way more legit. >_>


Obviously I'm leaning towards the technical standards and "director's intent," that is, what they saw when making it. Muck with a LCD's color settings, and NOBODY WILL EVER say the standards look the "best" on their LCD, but that is not the point...

I Am Legend: awful.

I Am Legend alternate ending: worse.

I *really* liked Matheson's book, and I liked Omega man. The sad thing is that I thought Will Smith did a great job, but wow, everything else was just bad.

will smith, really? i was conned into seeing "i, robot" and realized he does the same damn three or four things in every movie. i will not see another will smith flick.

ddt

Yeah Will Smith. He did a great job in this flick. He should have been up for an award--probably would have if the writing and effects teams didn't let him down.

I was entertained by i robot and I am legend. Not a LOT, but enough. He'd make a good rapper.

I liked I Am Legend. It owed very little to the book, but I thought the deserted New York scenes were well done. I thought Will Smith was good, and I didn't find the effects lacking. I thought the plot had a lot of holes, but I was prepared to let that slide for an adventure movie. The alternate ending DID suck. I guess that's why it was alternate. Omega Man will always be classic (I got it on Blu-Ray!).

I enjoyed the movie, but I thought the vampires sucked in execution. I guess they wanted to give them super-human speed and such, but I think using real actors would have helped for the close ups. The other CG was excellent.

I guess I shouldn't call it awful. I did give it three on my Netflix rating. I guess the ending soured me overall, so it's the last thing I remember. I actually wasn't too bothered with the plot holes, but I think they tried to get too artistic in the flashback scenes.

Will Smith was actually ok in I am Legend, much better than I, Robot. However, the ending wasn't really an ending -- it felt like half a good movie. Another fine example of what happens to Hollywood scriptwriters when they run out of blow halfway through writing the script.

Saw Cloverfield a few days back. See my comments above.

I am legend was ok for me, saw it on the flight to India and I found it entertaining enough, as John said, the scenes of an abandoned Manhattan were quite nicely done.

Hey, I don't fly much, especially flights that last long. But do they show that on screens that everyone can see? I would NOT want my young kids to see I am legend.

Depending on what airline you are on, they edit it for airlines. On US Airlines, they cut it to something equivalent to what you see on cable. If you are traveling on a European airline, you might have to tell your kids about the birds and bees before you fly.

And I just saw Ratatouille. Really like that movie. So many moments when I was just laughing out loud. I rate it up there with the Incredibles when it comes to Pixar movies.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2008 06:13AM by Mokers.

I think that on long haul flights every airline offers separate screens with user selectable programming. The Air France flights offer about 6 Hollywood movies, 6 French movies (crappy ones with endless talking) and some TV shows and news shows.

Ratatouille is great indeed. Makes Cars completely forgettable.

Yeah, but we are going to get a cars 2, but Brad Bird isn't on the docket for any of the next few years worth of Pixar movies.
But, yeah, I loved Ratatouille. But the I'm a bit of a foodie.

I'm yet to see either Cars or Ratatouille. What sort of fanboy am I?

I liked Cars better than Ratatouille.

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