Setting up a new Flanders Scientific DM240

[César Ricardo Alpuche]

Hi!

I'm a new member of the Lowepost family and a young aspiring colorist who saved up to buy a reference grade monitor. However, I am not 100% of how to set up my new DM240 for accurate monitoring. Flanders themselves offer a tutorial generally describing the process of profiling for generation of a monitor LUT, however FS tech support told me no calibration was necessary and didn't mention anything regarding monitoring LUTs. From previous experience, I am led to believe that generating a monitor LUT to be used on Resolve Color Management is absolutely necessary for accurate monitoring, but what I do not know is exactly what settings to tweak in both the monitor and the calibration software, in my case, DisplayCAL since I can't afford FSI's own $550 USD iProfiler/CalMAN bundle. 

Most of my work is for web, seldom any TV work. So should I mess with the monitor's luminance? Should I be using Video or Data as my SDI level? What settings should I tweak when setting up the calibration in DisplayCAL?

I am aware that monitor calibration is no easy subject, but I'm willing to learn and offer any additional information that might help me with my journey as a colorist.

Thank you!

[Jussi Rovanperä]

The FSI monitors are factory calibrated and should be accurate out of the box. 

I think the brightness is set to 100 nits by default, and the monitor expects video levels by default, so just check that the monitor output from your software is set to video levels.

And check that gamma and colorspace in the monitor are what you want to use.

That's all.

I think when I got my FSI, i didn't have to change any settings, just plugged it in and everything was correct for rec709 by default.

Calibration-wise I would just verify the calibration time to time with a puck, and if it starts drifting, send the monitor to FSI for free recalibration (you pay the shipping)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2020 by Jussi Rovanperä

[Keidrych wasley]

On 10/18/2020 at 7:37 AM, César Ricardo Alpuche said:

Hi!

I'm a new member of the Lowepost family and a young aspiring colorist who saved up to buy a reference grade monitor. However, I am not 100% of how to set up my new DM240 for accurate monitoring. Flanders themselves offer a tutorial generally describing the process of profiling for generation of a monitor LUT, however FS tech support told me no calibration was necessary and didn't mention anything regarding monitoring LUTs. From previous experience, I am led to believe that generating a monitor LUT to be used on Resolve Color Management is absolutely necessary for accurate monitoring, but what I do not know is exactly what settings to tweak in both the monitor and the calibration software, in my case, DisplayCAL since I can't afford FSI's own $550 USD iProfiler/CalMAN bundle. 

Most of my work is for web, seldom any TV work. So should I mess with the monitor's luminance? Should I be using Video or Data as my SDI level? What settings should I tweak when setting up the calibration in DisplayCAL?

I am aware that monitor calibration is no easy subject, but I'm willing to learn and offer any additional information that might help me with my journey as a colorist.

Thank you!

If you are working in Resolve leave video levels set to auto, and don’t change the Flanders. Set Resolve colour management to rec709 gamma 2.4. Set your Flanders to rec709 gamma 2.4. 
Do your grade. 
After you have finished if you want the grade to look the same once it is on Vimeo or YouTube and played back on a Mac or iPhone using safari or chrome follow these steps.

Assuming you have exported a prores master file and will create deliverables from the master...

Bring the master file back in to resolve. Add a colour space transform node. Set output gamma to rec709a. In the node key set to 75% (75% of the node effect). Then on the deliver page choose h.265. Set to main 10 (10 bit) and set the gamma tag to rec709a. 
 

Once you upload this to Vimeo / YouTube you should find it looks almost identical to a Flanders when using a fairly modern MacBook / iPhone via chrome or safari. Becuase Firefox is not colour managed it will not look correct. 
 

There can be a slight colour tint when using h.265 that is not there in h.264, if you get this you can add a node before the CST node and dial in a quarter to half point printer light plus or minus magenta.
 

This above method should be used for online deliverable only, not for client review via QuickTime etc.