EP050: Multiple vs. Single Display Color Suites

01:00:00:01 - 01:00:17:07
Robbie
Hey there and welcome back to another episode of The Offset Podcast. And today we're exploring sort of a classic subject, the idea of using multiple displays in a room or a single reference display in a room. Stay tuned.

01:00:17:09 - 01:00:36:20
Joey
Support for this episode comes from Flanders Scientific and the XMP 270 and XMP 310. The accessible, lightweight and versatile monitors helping to bring HDR monitoring on set while also being very well suited to post-production work. Learn more at FlandersScientific.com.

01:00:36:22 - 01:00:45:06
Robbie
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Offset Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Robbie Carman. And with me, as always, is Joey D’Anna. Hey, Joey. How are you, buddy?

01:00:45:08 - 01:00:46:15
Joey
Hey, everyone.

01:00:46:17 - 01:00:57:22
Robbie
Hey, Joey. Got exciting news, man. This is number 50. This is our 50th episode of The Offset Podcast, man. Can you believe that's crazy? I can't believe that. It's our little project we've gotten to to 50 of these things.

01:00:58:00 - 01:01:04:12
Joey
Awesome. Yeah. Thanks, everybody, for listening. And, yeah, we're excited. 50 is is a big number.

01:01:04:14 - 01:01:21:21
Robbie
Yeah. Well, next up is, I guess, you know, next big one and send me 75, then 100. Yeah. We'll keep we'll keep on rolling. As you said, huge thanks. Huge thanks to the audience for, for, for, the encouragement for listening to the episodes, the comments of course. Every little like and follow that you do, is great.

01:01:22:02 - 01:01:41:00
Robbie
Sharing it with your friends and colleagues is great. In case you missed it last week, we actually forgot to do a, sort of a shout out, but, we have a new sponsor of The Offset Podcast that is Conformed.Tools. And, the previous episode was their first week sponsoring, a warm, warm welcome to those guys.

01:01:41:02 - 01:02:04:03
Robbie
And they're doing yeoman's work in terms of helping to try to make, the conform process specifically from Premiere over to Resolve, much, much easier. So we encourage you to go over to, Conform.Tools and check out, their offerings. They're going to be making a big push around, April and NAB, rolling out the, rolling out the platform, but go over there, check it out.

01:02:04:09 - 01:02:26:11
Robbie
Sign up for more information, including when to be notified when the full rollout has taken place. And, of course, as always, a, huge thanks to our OG sponsor, Flanders Scientific, who is going to, dig this episode I think because we're talking about something right in their wheelhouse, which is monitors today in multiple rooms, set up and perceptual matching and all that kind of fun stuff, as we know.

01:02:26:16 - 01:02:43:19
Robbie
If you've never checked it out, go back and check out the couple episodes we've done with Bram. Bram Desmet from FSI, as well as we did an episode or two with Dave Abrams from Avical slash Portrait Displays, as well as, as well as Nate from Dolby, where we talked about some of this stuff around the edges.

01:02:43:19 - 01:03:03:07
Robbie
But today I think we're going to go a little deeper. Some preference stuff, some things to consider about, multi-monitor or single monitor setups and the things to pay attention there as well. Of course, you can always follow us on social media. Just search for the offset podcasts on Instagram and Facebook. You can follow us on YouTube. And just a reminder, wherever you find the show, give us a like and subscribe.

01:03:03:09 - 01:03:19:10
Robbie
Every little bit goes a long way. Aliright, my man, well, I want to talk a little bit about this issue. This actually came up for me this past week. I was talking to a colleague, and we were talking about, you know, the client monitor, reference monitor, lines of sight. And as these things tend to go, sometimes people have, you know, opinions.

01:03:19:15 - 01:03:41:13
Robbie
And I'm an opinionated person. And we got into a little bit and it was just funny to me, like thinking back about how many times over the years I've had this conversation about rooms set up and monitoring. I'm sure you've had similar cause, conversations ad nauseum, but I wanted to just revisit it because we're at a weird time, I think, for monitors.

01:03:41:13 - 01:04:07:05
Robbie
Right. Like it used to be, that you could pretty much make the choice of like, oh, you do a lot of video TV work. Well, that means you're going to have a, you know, 24 to 32 inch reference monitor sitting on your desk, and then somewhere out by the couches, you're going to have, you know, 50, 60, whatever, you know, 70 inch, you know, client monitor, which is oftentimes more of a consumer TV these days.

01:04:07:05 - 01:04:25:15
Robbie
That's not really the only choice to be had. Right. And I thought it'd be worthwhile to explore that particular subject, single versus multiple, but then also dive a little bit on some of this layout stuff and also this idea of perceptual matching. As you guys will hear it a little bit, there's some strong opinions either way.

01:04:25:15 - 01:04:42:23
Robbie
I'm in one camp. Joey's like, lean in different camp. The colleague that I mentioned, he's in a different camp, so we want to explore that as well. But Joey, let's start out talking a little bit about that traditional that traditional setup. Right. Explain it to us. What do you see as that traditional setup where it's advantages. What are the downsides?

01:04:43:01 - 01:05:13:01
Joey
Yeah, I think a lot of growing rooms, you know, in the very beginning in TV world, right. We had one master CRT reference monitor. Right. And that had the advantage of, you know, everybody could look at it. Everyone would essentially perceive it the same way. Viewing angle wasn't really an issue because CRT had excellent viewing angles, but there was a lot of downsides to that, too, because even the biggest CRT were only 32 to 31in.

01:05:13:03 - 01:05:38:15
Joey
Right? So you did you end up having either clients sitting right next to you or clients relying on a really low quality consumer display where they were sitting, which was fine for like edit rooms or online rooms, but for color really wasn't appropriate. So as the consumer displays started to get better and as we kind of moved away from CRT is to the next generation of reference displays.

01:05:38:18 - 01:06:14:20
Joey
And this also kind of coincided with the transition to HD, although we did have some very excellent HD CRT back in the day. But, you know, the HD CRT did not last long, right? We moved towards LCD based or other flat, flat panel technologies. For both our reference monitors and our consumer monitors exceptionally quickly. And what that looked like in most color rooms was a smaller reference monitor, 24in ish or more, or a little bit less, depending on which manufacturer you went with.

01:06:15:01 - 01:06:43:04
Joey
That was your gold standard calibrated reference monitor, and then usually a consumer based television that we calibrated as close to reference as we possibly could. Initially those were Panasonic plasmas or pioneer plasmas. They were really calibrated and really high quality. But they kind of lacked in resolution and conductivity. So it was always a little bit of a hassle to get them working in a sweet.

01:06:43:05 - 01:07:10:06
Joey
And then as consumer LCDs got better, sometimes those were utilized, but it was pretty tough to calibrate them. But really, the gold standard for using consumer monitors as what we're calling client monitors came with the advent of the OLED displays from LG. They were very calibrated for SDR, very good, almost out of the box like you could even in a pinch.

01:07:10:08 - 01:07:28:07
Joey
Basically, I match it to your reference monitor with the internal controls and have it be 95% of the way there because they came out of the box. If you just set them to the right settings. I believe it's still to this day on the LG monitors, warm to and and the defaults on like saturation and stuff like that.

01:07:28:09 - 01:07:29:03
Joey
You know, if you set.

01:07:29:08 - 01:07:30:13
Robbie
The mood right. Yeah, yeah.

01:07:30:13 - 01:08:14:20
Joey
Set the filmmaker mode expert whatever. Turn off all the nonsense. It's almost dead on right out of the box. So that became how I think most rooms were built. Expensive reference monitor from a Flanders scientific or Sony that the colorist looks at consumer TV. That in general, a client or group of clients look at. Because with modern LCD reference monitors or, some of the other technology that was out there, like the CLS, things like that, that 24 inch reference monitor now has a lot more viewing angle issues, and it's a lot harder to build a room around multiple people looking at it.

01:08:14:20 - 01:08:33:18
Joey
So you needed a client monitor. And that introduces the biggest problem that we've ever had as colorists with clients in the room, which is the dreaded phrase what monitor do I look at? Or this one looks different than that one. And that'll be where layout becomes really important.

01:08:33:20 - 01:08:53:09
Robbie
Yeah. Now before we go into that, I just want to express some nostalgia and a little bit of just warm reminiscence feelings for the old Sony BVM. D 32 e1 u and yes, I do have to look up the for model number gets a good number down the top man that is the mythical.

01:08:53:09 - 01:08:59:09
Joey
Had one in the tube. Died. If I still had it I could. Oh man. Retro gaming enthusiast for like $10,000.

01:08:59:15 - 01:09:21:04
Robbie
Yeah. So that was the first like legit reference monitor that I had on my own that I bought with my own money. I bought it used and it was still really expensive. And if you've never seen this thing in person, not only is it. Well, I mean, I'd have to estimate it's probably 300 pounds, maybe something like that, 200 pounds, 200 pounds.

01:09:21:06 - 01:09:51:07
Robbie
And it's probably it's at least as deep as, like a modern like, you know, rack server. It's probably, you know, 25 to 28in depth. And I was the first place that I rented the first office that I ever rented was a walk up. Right. And I was on like the third floor of this walk up. And I just remember to this day, like my wife and like, I don't know, we have some friends with us, like, like four of us struggling to carry this thing that we were also worried about dropping up the steps to make it into the room.

01:09:51:12 - 01:09:52:07
Robbie
But I at least.

01:09:52:07 - 01:09:54:08
Joey
Sony was nice enough to put handles on them.

01:09:54:13 - 01:10:11:05
Robbie
Yeah, that that is true. There was some handles on the side, but I have some warm feelings for that matter. So I think you're right around that set that around that time that, OLEDs came to, you know, LEDs and sort of some sort of, you know, on the desk, 24 to 32 inch monitor became the norm everywhere else.

01:10:11:07 - 01:10:38:01
Robbie
Don't forget, for a long time before that, you know, the grading theater was also a thing, right? This, of course, our projection setups, you know, most commonly around DLP cinema style projectors from, you know, Christy, a Barco, maybe a Sony thrown in here or there. But, you know, these are pretty much the norm out in, you know, big markets like Hollywood and Bollywood etc., where, you know, the name of the game was theatrical grading, right?

01:10:38:01 - 01:11:07:01
Robbie
You want to mimic, the, the black box theatrical setup as much as you can, because that's where those eyeballs are going to see it. And so a lot of those facilities set up these very big, very expensive, but very performant, grading theaters, using that. And people think the only one thing I want to point out about them is what the kind of the setup generally was with those where it's kind of like, you know, you see some wall you can look it up on, on Google or whatever as well, where you'll see an operator's desk sort of at the back in the middle of the room, generally speaking, you know, panels

01:11:07:01 - 01:11:28:06
Robbie
in the middle, UI monitors spread off to the left, but it's a dead ahead. No, a no obstructions. Straight view to the big projection screen right in front of them. Right now, occasionally you would still see those rooms set up, sometimes with, you know, either a rolling client monitor, like, you know, like a big, you know, 65 or 70, you know, inch monitor.

01:11:28:08 - 01:11:36:14
Robbie
They'd all do the same thing with the on the desk reference monitor because, you know, you have this big, expensive gradient theater. You want to just let it sit when you're not doing, you know, non theatrical work. So they were yeah.

01:11:36:17 - 01:11:46:11
Joey
I think it's important to recognize too, that a theatrical grading suite is not really an appropriate place to grade television. Right. That's just not the appropriate place to grade a TV commercial.

01:11:46:13 - 01:12:14:04
Robbie
Right. And you would also see for the same reasons that we'll talk about in a second. You know, sometimes colors did prefer, you know, even if they're grading on a projector, they would still want something close up to evaluate things like grain patterns, noise, etc., because it was closer and not all that far away with them. So, you know, there's a whole bunch of rigamarole and perceptual matching on that side of things to where it's not even about, you know, sort of, you know, client monitor versus it's more of a projection screen to what's on my desk.

01:12:14:08 - 01:12:41:06
Robbie
And people will do all sorts of wacky things. And surprisingly, in those situations, it wasn't always necessarily even the best of the best, video reference monitor that they paired to the projection screen. Oftentimes it was like a pretty mid-level generic LCD screen because it matched the black level performance of the projector much better. So from a contrast point of view, they they just felt more on, even if it wasn't maybe necessarily as accurate as the big projection screen.

01:12:41:06 - 01:12:58:09
Robbie
But my point is, in those rooms, the big unobstructed view straight ahead to the big monitor was the thing. And I bring that up because there's we'll talk about it in just a minute. That in terms of a room layout thing, is something that I've really gravitated towards in the past couple of years, but not obviously using a projection screen.

01:12:58:09 - 01:13:21:07
Robbie
So we'll we'll talk about there. Now that's kind of a the two different sort of main setups, right. The, the multiple monitor room, whatever the grading theater. And I would argue the hybrid now is sort of the single monitor video room, which we'll talk about in more depth. But the idea of using one larger format reference monitor, like those ones that are available from Flanders and others, as a single monitor in the room?

01:13:21:11 - 01:13:53:04
Robbie
Well, not I can't say is popular. I think it's gaining traction. Right. Because really, that's never this is sort of in the past 4 or 5 years really the our first opportunity to do that with confidence. Sure. People were taking consumer, LG's and consumer monitors all sorts and just putting that oh it's calibrated. I'm going to I would never suggest that I'm I want to be clear what I'm talking about is a single large format grade one reference monitor being used in the room as the only monitor.

01:13:53:04 - 01:13:57:11
Robbie
I'm not talking about going to Best Buy, calibrating the monitor and throwing that up there.

01:13:57:13 - 01:14:33:21
Joey
And that's the biggest change we've seen recently, is that now it's possible. Right. And we've seen I know we're going to get emails. We're going to get comments by LG is the perfect LG. It's been calibrated. I can use as a single as a single monitor room. And yes, for some stuff that does work, but I am never comfortable using a consumer monitor as my only point of reference because as we've talked about in the past, that can lead you down roots of trying to chase problems that aren't problems, that are monitoring issues and that can affect your grades.

01:14:33:21 - 01:15:05:06
Joey
So the advent of large format QHD, OLED, reference quality monitors that can actually be you know, 55 inch, 65in or more and fill the the room size requirement for a single monitor room is really new. And I think a lot of colors are having to kind of rework their brains because we think 24 to 31 inch reference 55 to 65 inch quote client monitors with the current batch of technology, not necessarily the case.

01:15:05:08 - 01:15:26:03
Robbie
Yeah. And I think part of this comes up too with the idea. And I think it's always been a thing in the world of color is the idea of sort of mimicking the, the living room experience. Right. And I think that presents a lot of challenges, because I think in a lot of the dual set up rooms, it's sort of true, but not fully true.

01:15:26:03 - 01:15:44:13
Robbie
Right. So you people work. Oh, we got nice, comfortable couches. We got the coffee table. We got the plants. Oh, and look, we got the TV. But that's like kind of like one room. And then you have like the operators version of that room, which is not that. Right. It's very technical. It's got all the computer stuff, the control surfaces.

01:15:44:18 - 01:16:11:13
Robbie
Oh. And then it's got this smallish, you know, 24 to 32 inch monitor on the desk. It it's always seemed to me to be a little divorced from the idea of trying to mimic what people are viewing things. I'm like, I so here are the pros for doing that. That that kind of setup is it's proximity. Pixel peepers of the world loved see oh look see I can look I can see every pixel on the screen because it's three inches from my face.

01:16:11:13 - 01:16:40:01
Robbie
Okay. It makes sense. Green noise, whatever. I totally get that. I would make the argument too, that one of the big, restrictions or reasons people haven't gravitated more towards the single, reference monitor in the room, is because it's just what they know and feel comfortable with. Just like, you know, you feel comfortable with a Wacom versus a mouse, or you like, you know, your scopes on the left and your UI on the right or whatever.

01:16:40:02 - 01:16:56:12
Robbie
Like we just get into these sort of inflection patterns. So every person I've met who have said, have you tried the single display thing? And they go, no, no, no, I would never do that, blah blah blah. And every reason they give me is mostly just because of what they, they're used to. Right. And what they've done and they're, they're nervous to try it out.

01:16:56:14 - 01:17:25:20
Robbie
I also think that the other thing that's that's a factor here is that, the door, sort of the single room that's kind of split into two halves does make a little bit of sense, just because it's less room that you have to worry about, you know, ideal lighting conditions, backlight, you know, biased lighting, etc.. And when you have the whole room acting as sort of a living room, it can be a little more challenging for the operator sometimes, too, you know, if people are turning lights on or whatever, there's issues there.

01:17:25:22 - 01:17:48:04
Robbie
But let us jump to something else that we've talked about before. I think if anybody wants to go, I think probably the best explanation of this and I'll put this in the show notes, is years ago from Desmond, again, from a friend of ours and sponsor of the show. They did a video on what is metamerism and it's it's a pretty must watch as far as I'm concerned.

01:17:48:06 - 01:18:16:20
Robbie
If you're interested any in any of this kind of stuff. Support for this episode comes from Conform Tools. Conform.Tools allows you to translate timelines between Premiere and Resolve and other NLEs, while automatically solving common issues that normally need to be fixed by hand. Avoid time consuming trim and transfer issues, and securely send large media files to collaborators at a fraction of the size and in minutes instead of hours.

01:18:16:22 - 01:18:46:09
Robbie
With a growing toolbox of features, let Conform.Tools handle the tedious stuff so you can focus on the creative, built by post professionals, Conform.Tools, help editors, colorists and conform artists, move faster and finish stronger. Learn more at Conform.Tools. The issue when you get to the dual monitor setup is that almost always in those situations, you're mixing display technologies, right?

01:18:46:09 - 01:19:10:11
Robbie
Yes. Right. Like it hasn't really been a thing until really recently that you could have, say, a small format and a large format of the same day, the display technology for whatever it's been. Oh, look, our small format monitor is one technology, the large format is another technology, and you work your ass off to calibrate those and people can.

01:19:10:11 - 01:19:18:09
Robbie
So again, they look they look a little different. Right. So what is metamerism? In like a high 50,000ft view of it.

01:19:18:11 - 01:19:52:10
Joey
Yeah. So, you know, like you said, in multi-monitor rooms, you're almost always mixing and matching display technology, whether that's I have to tell, it can be as simple as I have two LCDs with different backlight technologies, one with a Kffl, one with an LED right. Or it can be I have a like in my room. I've got an OLED client monitor and a active dimming LED backlight, LCD reference monitor or, you know, go back a few years when the small RGB, OLED, the 25 inch Sony panels were very common.

01:19:52:12 - 01:20:24:18
Joey
You'd have the 25 inch Sony panel, which was an RGB, OLED, or the Sony X300, which was an RGB OLED and something like a w OLED as a client monitor. Very different technologies, but they all do essentially the same thing, right? They make red, green and blue light, and they combine those in different levels to make colors. Now when we calibrate, we measure the ratio of actual red, green and blue light together and added up to a color value essentially.

01:20:24:23 - 01:20:50:23
Joey
And we check that against the reference standard. And that's how we calibrate the display. Well this is where my hammer ism comes into play. Metamerism is how the human visual system, the combination of our eyes optically and our brain that does the interpretation of the data coming in from our eyes actually perceives color. And as it turns out, this is not the same for everyone.

01:20:51:00 - 01:21:11:02
Joey
And it's not the same for every display technology. What I mean by that is, let's say you have an LCD and an OLED right next to each other. They could read the exact same values on a colorimeter of this much red, this one screen, this much blue, and calibrate exactly the same, come with the same delta e values.

01:21:11:04 - 01:21:36:10
Joey
On paper they look exactly the same, but because internal to those kind of red, green and blue subcategories, the actual wavelengths of light, what we call the spectral power distribution. If you look at, you know, light as a visible light as a range of wavelengths, the makeup of how you get to that red, green and blue with different wavelengths of light is slightly different for every display technology.

01:21:36:10 - 01:22:13:20
Joey
And some have, you know, more spiky distributions where the red, green and blue are very narrow wavelengths. Some are much, much, much wider, with more or less fall off. So you can have two monitors that calibrate identically. But to any viewer might appear slightly more red or slightly more green, or perceive it with a slightly different white balance, and the weird and difficult thing about this is these trend, these, these metamerism changes or differences trend pretty similar among observers or viewers.

01:22:13:20 - 01:22:36:21
Joey
Right. Like for example, with the Sony RGB, OLED versus the OLED, most people see the Sony is a little bit more green. And the there's a little bit more red. But how far that goes and you know how much difference there is in the actual perception. One is very difficult to quantify because I can't see what you see.

01:22:36:23 - 01:22:44:02
Joey
And two seems to very pretty drastically from viewer to viewer. So age.

01:22:44:02 - 01:22:45:21
Robbie
And sex really.

01:22:45:23 - 01:22:46:22
Joey
Tricky. Yeah.

01:22:47:00 - 01:23:19:09
Robbie
Yeah yeah. No. So I think that's a great explanation. I think about it sort of to two things about what you just said. That I that on to one. I think of, materialism as being sort of a different path to the same result. As you said, you could have two monitors that are, you know, they're x, y, y values that they're reading on any given patch are identical, but they still seem the same or whatever when you take it on aggregate because, you know, you can, you know, two plus one is three, but also four minus one is three, right?

01:23:19:09 - 01:23:24:13
Robbie
Like you can still get to the same result with just a different formula to get there. And I also.

01:23:24:14 - 01:23:35:06
Joey
Really only see what the this what we call metameric failure. If you have them next to each other right right. In isolation. They don't look wrong per se.

01:23:35:11 - 01:23:51:19
Robbie
We'll get back to that part in just one second cause it's really important. The other thing, the way I like. Well, if you know, you look at in speed, speedy, you know, sort of graph, it always reminds me of, like, mountain ranges. Right. And so it's like, yeah, you have two mountain ranges. They are mountains, but they are different ranges.

01:23:51:19 - 01:23:58:14
Robbie
Right. And so like it's the different spiking this whatever. They're both mountains but slightly different the way where their peaks and valleys are.

01:23:58:14 - 01:23:59:22
Joey
And that's typology.

01:24:00:00 - 01:24:23:01
Robbie
Right. The topology of it. That's a good way of saying it. And you know there's a lot of the hard hard core image science that goes into some of this stuff explaining, metamerism, metamerism failure, anomalous viewers, why this one guy always thinks everything is purple or whatever. Like there's a lot of really intense visual science about that.

01:24:23:01 - 01:24:45:09
Robbie
But where I think it matters for this discussion is particularly in the idea of a multi-room, our multi display room where you let off the show going, hey, which one do I look at? That is a question that we get all the time. And you talk to some callers like my colleague who I talked about earlier at the top of the show, he goes, I just shut that down and be like, that's right for you.

01:24:45:09 - 01:25:06:04
Robbie
This is right for me. And a lot of people do a lot of work in rooms set up, for example, to minimize the ability for a person to do that easily. Because you're right, our brains are very good when they're comparing two things side by side. You have, you know, reference moderate reference monitor B, you're looking at the same image.

01:25:06:04 - 01:25:20:20
Robbie
Then by side by side you go, oh that one feels more red. This one feels more green. Our brains don't really work that way. If you're looking at a single display, like if you looked at a single display and looked at it for a couple of minutes, visual adaptation comes into play and all of a sudden your brain goes, yeah, that just looks normal, right?

01:25:21:00 - 01:25:49:15
Robbie
You walk into another room, it might be totally crazily different calibration, and you look at it and with a matter of a few minutes, you go, yeah, that looks normal and that looks fine, right? I get that and I understand how it works. My issue with this is that it used to be, it used to be that everybody was making decisions in a calibrated environment with displays that had gotten, some care towards them.

01:25:49:15 - 01:26:25:04
Robbie
So metamerism while always an issue in those rooms really actually sort of mattered less. Right. Because if there was ever really a question about it. Right. Hey, why don't you come around and look at my, you know, colorist reference monitor and see it's not really like and the, the fears and the problems would be, you know, just put put to bed right now in the world where we live with asynchronous reviews, streaming reviews, people watching on their iPhones, on their back deck in the middle of the day, making, you know, critical decisions, these problems sort of amplify themselves.

01:26:25:04 - 01:26:48:08
Robbie
Right. And so I, you know, the pushback I always get about, like, it doesn't matter if it's calibrated, why worry about perceptual matching. And you have this logic to why worry about perceptual matching. Why worry about metamerism It doesn't matter. It's there. Correct. And like people make the argument all the time that like, hey, even if somebody's TV is a little off, it's there, they're off.

01:26:48:08 - 01:27:27:15
Robbie
Right? They're used to looking at it that way. So even though it might not be the technically the right color or the right white, it doesn't matter because of the way our brains work. And I get that, man, I really do. I'm not I'm having a hard time articulating this to people. But I do think if we are working towards reference and we are trying to make decisions based on what the actual truth is, is that in a single room, when you have monitors that look different to most people, right, that there should be some work that goes in to eliminate that difference as much as possible.

01:27:27:15 - 01:27:48:14
Robbie
Now I I'm fully understanding it is impossible without using the exact same display technology, maybe even the exact same monitor from the exact same batch. Right? It's going to be difficult to get them 100% perfect on begin with. But my point about, this next thing we're gonna talk about perceptual matching is that's important to see. Like I don't want to display.

01:27:48:14 - 01:28:13:11
Robbie
It's to look different. I want them to look as close as possible, even if that means air quotes messing up one of them to match whatever the hero display is a little bit, because I do think that it does cause problems for confidence. I think it causes problems at the worst. If it's a really, really out of whack right there could potentially be made incorrect decisions made right.

01:28:13:13 - 01:28:28:19
Robbie
So we'll talk about this in a second. But why don't you why don't we begin with telling you telling us what is perceptual matching. Like what is what is what does it do for us when we talk about multiple monitors? And also add to that why you're not a fan.

01:28:28:21 - 01:28:48:19
Joey
Yeah. And it's funny because, you know, we put out a little while ago and it's still actually there and we're still hoping for a couple more responses. We put out a kind of a viewer listener survey. And it's funny, one of the things that we got as feedback was you guys agree too much. You should argue more.

01:28:48:21 - 01:29:11:11
Joey
We should disagree more. This is one that I think. I think, you and I differ on pretty clearly, although, you know, we're so in the weeds here, I'm not going to dogmatically be like, you're wrong. Right. Or vice versa. Right. A lot of there's a lot of other factors that go into this, but let's talk about rooms with multiple monitors.

01:29:11:12 - 01:29:49:18
Joey
Like you said, unless they're identical, and that'd be pointless to have multiple monitors that are identical. You're gonna have metamerism differences from display to display. And my mentality on this is that's a room setup problem. I in basically any room that I set up for layout, I might have multiple monitors, but I make almost 1,000,000,000% sure that unless you really try, you can't get two monitors in your same eyeline at the same time, because that's where metameric failure will will rear its ugly head.

01:29:49:18 - 01:30:17:05
Joey
Right? If I'm looking at my LCD and I like stand up to look at my client monitor, that is that direction, but completely out of my direct view. Yes, I can see a little bit of, perceptual difference in the white balance, but I never, ever work like that. And I never have a client who's looking at that OLED client monitor which is calibrated, and very accurate.

01:30:17:07 - 01:30:43:23
Joey
I never have them look at my 30 inch LCD. I just don't do that. They I don't I think for consistency purposes and for sanity purposes, for all the reasons that you, you went over about how having multiple displays can be, can a worms eye engineer the room as much as possible? So two displays are never in the same eyeline.

01:30:44:04 - 01:31:04:10
Joey
So what is perceptual matching? Perceptual matching is let's say you have two displays that are in the same eyeline. Essentially what you do is you pick one hero display, put a white frame on it, and you kind of use your color controls on the secondary display. So you know, for you color.

01:31:04:11 - 01:31:06:09
Robbie
Yeah, you free, you freeze it, freeze one on one to.

01:31:06:10 - 01:31:27:23
Joey
Freeze the signal. And it can be kind of a hassle because sometimes you might need two systems to do this, or you might need some way of freezing the input signal on your hero monitor. But that one never changes. Then you use kind of your game wheel on your color system, and as you perceive it, make the white match on the secondary display to your primary display.

01:31:28:01 - 01:31:46:13
Robbie
So here's the important point. Yeah, here's a really important point. So if you start looking into this you're probably going to eventually find the the phrase of CMF or a color matching function. Right. And this, this is a whole bit of science that we are not prepared to cover in depth because we would get probably 98% of it wrong.

01:31:46:15 - 01:32:08:09
Robbie
But the Cmss generally work with this whole idea of color matching functions. And you've heard of some of these before, like the jet offset that was such an lingo years ago. Truly is a CMF. But Sony, who made it popular, they weren't using the entire Judd CMF. They were just doing a white point adjustment. Right. So what Joe is talking about is not implementing a full CMF.

01:32:08:15 - 01:32:42:14
Robbie
It's literally way white and gray balance of the monitor perceptually matching that to whatever your air quotes hero monitor. Your monitor is right. And you can do that just on a white patch as well as a lot of people do it on a on a gray patch. As well with the idea that you're simply adjusting sort of the white gray point of the monitor, you're not going into the the yellows or the reds or the greens or whatever, and doing a full CMF, to match those, because that's a whole nother area of challenges and issues that really not what we're talking about.

01:32:42:14 - 01:32:43:07
Robbie
Right? Yeah.

01:32:43:11 - 01:32:59:06
Joey
Because of the simplicity of that white balance adjustment in general. The rest of your calibration, basically, you can then take this new white point and make that the white point. You calibrate to when you calibrate the second monitor. Yeah. So so you the calibration will fall into place.

01:32:59:08 - 01:33:22:08
Robbie
Exactly. So after you, after you get that white matching or that white or gray matching, you put a meter on it. You take about, you take a reading of it to get the X, y, y value of it. And you go, oh, okay, here is my new white. So then when you calibrate like in a full, let's say you do a 4000, you know, patch set calibration, you're typing in, not the standard d65 white point as your white point.

01:33:22:14 - 01:33:42:05
Robbie
But whatever you read that matches your hero monitor as your new white point. And as you said, everything else just kind of falls in line. And as I said, Sony did this for a number of years with the RGB OLEDs and the Judd White point of the Judd offset because they were trying to compensate for, oh, most people look at this as being a little it's really green, right?

01:33:42:06 - 01:34:01:07
Robbie
Not the correct white. So we're going to do this thing. So, I admit that this is a little bit of a hack right? Because it's a it's sort of like, hey, I'm going to just try to cheat metamerism a little bit here and get it, get it going. Now, you made your point earlier. That's that's really interesting about this.

01:34:01:09 - 01:34:28:03
Robbie
And it's again some more, image science. So that requires probably a little, deeper dive to explain it fully, but it's the idea that, okay, fine. You think that that white matches the white image. Yep. Yeah. Okay. What about everybody else in the room right there? Can be some variance to that obviously based on age, sex, how much time they've spent sitting in the room before their eyes got adjusted.

01:34:28:03 - 01:35:05:07
Robbie
Whatever. So I think that if you're going to go down the perceptual matching route, it serves you well to have a medium size group help you and form some of these opinions as well. And from a technical point of view, as Joey said, when you're freezing the white on one monitor and then you're sort of grading the white on another monitor, very granular steps of that can be very like, not not yet necessarily using the joy ball in your control panel, but literally going in numerically and going, okay, it's 0.99 now it's 0.98 or whatever, and doing those small steps, but it does.

01:35:05:10 - 01:35:30:14
Robbie
It does bring up a downside of perceptual matching is that that matching you're you're looking through sort of agreement through committee, not necessarily the fact that it's going to be perfect for everybody because it's never going to be perfect for everybody. The way that we do that and that I think is the, the biggest, the the biggest thing that I hear from detractors of perceptual matching is like, well, what's the point of doing it then?

01:35:30:18 - 01:35:49:23
Robbie
Right? Like if you're going to do this and everybody's still going to see it differently? And here's my answer to that, okay? I am not talking about people going, oh, they never it never happens where somebody goes, oh my God, that whole image looks green. And I look at my reference monitor and go, what are you talking about?

01:35:49:23 - 01:36:10:13
Robbie
It doesn't look green, right? That doesn't really happen. What we're talking about more is somebody is looking at the sitting there evaluating something and going, yeah, I don't know, maybe there's just maybe just a hair too much red in their face. And you're looking at the monitor going, I don't I don't see that. So they walk around and look at your monitor.

01:36:10:13 - 01:36:36:09
Robbie
They go, yeah, yeah, no this is better what you have. And I'm talking I'm not talking about these huge global things where it's just obvious that it's bad calibration. I'm talking about perceptual matching as being an assistant. An assistant when we're in that minutia. Right. And because of the metamerism somebody is making a comment or a decision that you are not necessarily seeing yourself.

01:36:36:09 - 01:36:58:07
Robbie
And so what I find myself all the time doing the supervised sessions is doing what you just said you don't do is cheating, is looking up to look at that client monitor going, oh, that's what they're seeing. Oh, I have to compensate for what they're seeing, not for what I'm saying. So like, I get it, part of it's just my fault that I'm breaking the rules.

01:36:58:10 - 01:37:04:02
Robbie
I'm breaking that wall and not looking at the correct monitor. But that's what I worry about.

01:37:04:04 - 01:37:31:05
Joey
So this is why. And this is where this whole episode came out of us kind of having this discussion amongst ourselves because of the issues you ran into, in a review session. This is why I am kind of, again, unless you're in a not ideal situation where both are going to be directly aligned. I am really pretty anti perceptual matching in the color suite for a couple of reasons.

01:37:31:07 - 01:37:43:21
Joey
One I am adamant about that. Don't look at two monitors thing I really am. I feel like that is the best way to have consistency. And I baked that into how the room is built if I can.

01:37:43:21 - 01:37:45:07
Robbie
Yeah, I get.

01:37:45:09 - 01:37:57:18
Joey
That's number one. Number two, I feel like when you do a process and this is partially, this is me not having a lot of confidence in my own eyesight. You know, I don't think that I have the greatest eyesight in the world.

01:37:57:18 - 01:38:00:13
Robbie
Don't tell anybody that.

01:38:00:15 - 01:38:26:02
Joey
But the reason why we calibrate to a reference standard is because we don't need to rely exclusively on one person having massively Superman vision, right? So the reason why I don't like the perceptual match is you're essentially baking in your perception of that second monitor at a particular date. And time with a particular person. And like you said, the a better way to do it is to get a couple people in the room.

01:38:26:02 - 01:38:33:00
Joey
And we've done this in our rooms where we've together kind of looked at it'd be like, I feel like one point less green or one.

01:38:33:02 - 01:38:34:02
Robbie
Yeah, yeah.

01:38:34:04 - 01:38:58:11
Joey
You know, dial it in that way. But to me, doing that is kind of baking in some Kentucky windage that you might end up fighting down the road when you're trying to get a great approved with the client. But again, you gotta understand that I am never, ever looking at two monitors at the same time. If I, I have to, like, craned my neck to do it in this room.

01:38:58:14 - 01:39:07:00
Joey
And if I do, I absolutely do see a very slight difference along the red axis on that OLED. And that's my LCD.

01:39:07:02 - 01:39:07:14
Robbie
And that's I.

01:39:07:14 - 01:39:10:22
Joey
Mean, if I walk over to my couch and sit down and hit play, I don't.

01:39:10:22 - 01:39:44:08
Robbie
Since after a few seconds you're used to it. Yeah, you're used to Support for this episode comes from Flanders Scientific and Gaia Color direct connect volumetric auto cal. Calibration of reference displays is critical in our industry, and there's no easier way to calibrate than by using Gaia Color, which is standard on DM, XMP, and XMP C series monitors. Gaia Color calibration allows supported probes to be plugged in directly to the monitor for fast, accurate, and automated calibration.

01:39:44:13 - 01:39:55:15
Robbie
With no computer or operator expertise required. You can learn more about this powerful system at FlandersScientific.com.

01:39:55:17 - 01:40:17:10
Robbie
I guess I, I admittedly, I think I have a little PTSD, especially in that red, that red thing right where it's either most often times it's this feels a little warmer than it need to be. And I'm like, I don't see what you're talking about. Right. So I do think I have some, some PTSD about that. Now, how did I solve this?

01:40:17:12 - 01:40:49:00
Robbie
I look, I made the decision that, okay, even though I believe in perceptual matching as a thing, it has a lot of problems for the ones we've just delineated. Hey, you know what an easy way to fix that is? Just get rid of the second monitor. Right? Like waiting on it honestly. Right. And before that, never felt like a choice because it was like, how am I going to get five people from this ad agency around a 32 inch monitor at my desk?

01:40:49:01 - 01:41:02:16
Robbie
Like we're all going to be, like, holding hands and singing Kumbaya, right? It never worked for a comfort point of view. It never worked for a large group like, fine, you have a DP that you're working with or a director that you're working with, and they roll up a chair to their desk. Great work like that. No problems.

01:41:02:16 - 01:41:18:02
Robbie
Right? On an issue with that. But the idea that, like, you're going to get a whole team of people not going to happen. So what I am now firmly a believer in and have tried and it took I want to be clear about this. This took me the better part of a year to get custom accustomed to it.

01:41:18:02 - 01:41:42:01
Robbie
So I started making small changes at home. I went to a single 55 inch monitor rather than a smaller or smaller or 32 on my desk. So I have right in front of me a 55 inch, qd-oled. Which I love. I'm probably sitting a little too close to it. I occasionally have to back off and make some decisions, but my space, it works more or less fun at the office.

01:41:42:03 - 01:42:02:16
Robbie
And for review sessions. 65 ideally, I really I'm. If you're listening, a 77 would be the jam for me, a 77 or an 80 and studio flat panel. You know, a true reference panel would be where they're never gonna do it. 65 is is about as big as you can get right now in the pro, pro level, you know, reference panels.

01:42:02:18 - 01:42:28:07
Robbie
But the way that I have it set up is creating theater style clients in front of me. I'm looking at the same monitor in the same eyeline that they are looking at, and we are only looking at that one monitor. The benefits is there is no question about which one do I look at? I'm never second guessing myself with any perceptual match or looking here, than looking there, than looking here and breaking all the rules that we've talked about.

01:42:28:09 - 01:42:58:07
Robbie
Clients don't ever say, which one should I be looking at, even if you're really good colorist. So you can break that down and, you know, stop that argument from beginning. It's not even an argument to have because there's only one thing to look at. And then the third thing I would say the only detractor, the only detractor that I have from this, is that it is more difficult to evaluate noise and grain at the proper distance to a 65 or 77 inch kind of monitor.

01:42:58:07 - 01:43:27:06
Robbie
Right? It is one thing that I will admit is potentially an issue. Here's how I've gotten around it. Sort of. Okay, so again, not wanting to introduce metamerism into play, whatever I have as my UI monitor, I have a cutie, oh aces cutie. Oh lead UI monitor. Right. That if I need to, I can go full screen and resolve viewer and look at things there.

01:43:27:08 - 01:43:56:22
Robbie
Right. And then just switch back to my regular UI and keep looking straight ahead. So I do think that for the way that a lot of people are working, you do have to sort of I think the single monitor room works great when it's largely a review space, right? I think there is still something to be said about the on the desk close up monitor, when that space also needs to double as a sort of working gut check evaluation, QC kind of kind of setup.

01:43:57:00 - 01:44:11:10
Robbie
But you know, it's not to say you can't make the single monitor work I do here at home. But that's kind of my, my feeling about it is that, like, cool. Dual monitors have lots of problems. Perceptual monitor, perceptual matching, potential is problem the fix. Just get rid of that second monitor.

01:44:11:12 - 01:44:42:03
Joey
Yeah. And honestly everything that we've said, even where we disagree goes out the window when everybody's looking at the same calibrated reference. And I think that is conceptually absolutely the best possibility. Yeah. Like you mentioned, at the very beginning, traditional grading theaters for cinema were exactly that. But, you know, the question in, you know, in a direct view sense, which is kind of more where we live, right?

01:44:42:05 - 01:45:04:14
Joey
You're right. Grain and detail becomes an issue. But also, you know, one of the things we were talking about is that living room experience and trying to get your perception to be while still in reference standard, more in line with the consumer. And guess what? Maybe 20 years ago, the consumer was looking at something more similar size to my 30 inch or my 31 inch.

01:45:04:16 - 01:45:31:09
Joey
But today, 95% of consumers, if we ignore people watching on their phones, but 99% of television consumers are watching on a larger format flat panel display. So I think there's something to think about where you maybe should be judging things like grain and noise on a display like that, because you perceive it differently than when you're right up to a 31 inch hundred percent.

01:45:31:09 - 01:45:58:05
Robbie
And I will say where I've noticed it most is that I, for the first time in my life, colorless life, I have found myself not not overdoing noise reduction throughout an entire show because when I'm looking at something that it's three inches from my face and whatever I'm making very like, you come to realize that, oh, I don't see that at all.

01:45:58:07 - 01:46:02:20
Robbie
That's not an issue to waste my my time, energy, whatever argument for that.

01:46:02:21 - 01:46:06:11
Joey
So sometimes the fix is worse than the issue.

01:46:06:13 - 01:46:26:22
Robbie
Right? Isn't that? I mean, I want to be clear. I am not at all saying that, you know, of course, through this process, you're going to evaluate the image on, you know, iPad screen, laptop screen, wherever you see, I'm not saying that like we're just throwing that out with the bathwater. I'm just saying that the single representative screen, it represents that living room experience a lot better.

01:46:27:00 - 01:46:56:09
Robbie
It gets rid of the problem of metamersim It gets rid of the issues associated with perceptual matching. And for the first time, you know, we have the technology in the panels. Etc. to to really call what's available a grade one reference monitor. Because as I said at the top of the show, I'm not advocating really doing this kind of single monitor, large format set up with, a traditional consumer monitor, because there's too many things that are at play to potentially affect that.

01:46:56:11 - 01:47:21:10
Robbie
So, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with it. And I, you know, listen, it's not for every room and it's not for every setup. Right? I think one of the hard things too, is that there is the, you know, this conversation really weaves its way through preference and technical. Right. And I think some of the technical sometimes gets conflated with preference and vice versa.

01:47:21:12 - 01:47:40:14
Robbie
Right. And I think that from a from a preference point of view, I get all the pushback about the single room not having a single monitor, not having something up close or whatever. But I also universally those people who give pushback about that have straight up said to me, no, I've never worked in a room where it's just a single large format monitor.

01:47:40:14 - 01:48:03:06
Robbie
Right? So yeah, it does take a while to get used to. Right. Like, and when you I mean, let me ask you this because you have you worked day to day in a room that has multiple monitors and you work in a room that has, you know, you know, on the desk right in front of you monitor. How about making that transition to our office when there's a single large format monitor up front, like you've said to me, oh, it's fine.

01:48:03:06 - 01:48:23:05
Robbie
I just don't know if I could work that way all the time. And I think that's a that's an important decision, because I said a few minutes ago, I'm, I can see the issues with the idea of a work suite, you know, where you're making, you know, all these minutia decisions, wanting to see something a little closer up sometimes.

01:48:23:05 - 01:48:28:23
Robbie
But honestly, I've gotten used to it. And, you know, I don't know, man. It's I think it's worth a try.

01:48:29:01 - 01:48:51:04
Joey
Yeah. I'll say this. I have never when I've gone from my setup here with the close monitor to the office where we have the big single monitor. The good news is I've never sat there and hit play and be like, oh, this is totally wrong. This is you know, it's never been a surprise because everything has been calibrated and everything matches and it's it's never been an issue with that.

01:48:51:06 - 01:49:17:01
Joey
I will say I am. And again, like you said, it's a preference and it is a like almost inertia legacy thing. What I'm used to, I feel comfortable with this setup and this viewing distance and screen size relationship, which makes me fast, right? Comfort and not having to to think as much equates to speed in a lot of ways.

01:49:17:02 - 01:49:53:07
Joey
Oh yeah, and productivity. But when we go into review with a client, speed isn't the name of the game, right? And honestly, one thing about that single monitor layout that I love, because we've talked about we've had episodes before and I've talked a lot about kind of room design and different tactics for that. I my general room design and most of the rooms I've been in, I really like their layout, but the downside of their layout, which is usually, like I said, me here client in front with their own monitor, that's not my eyeline is it's not the best for client communication.

01:49:53:09 - 01:49:57:02
Joey
You know, I can't get face to face with them as easily when.

01:49:57:02 - 01:49:57:13
Robbie
You send them.

01:49:57:13 - 01:50:08:17
Joey
One big single monitor room. You're right there in that living room, okay, with the client, which makes communication so much smoother and easier. And I love it for a review.

01:50:08:19 - 01:50:23:18
Robbie
I've even gone this far and you've seen this in the room, but I, you know, we I have a, a little small stream deck setup that's, up front on the coffee table on the couch. Right. And I can hear all the colors, eye rolls here going, oh, my God, what do you you give control to the client?

01:50:23:20 - 01:50:42:16
Robbie
Well, yeah, I mean, so so my client, we allow the clients, if they want, they could drop markers in the timeline with that stream deck. They can control playback because, you know, sometimes they don't want to just. Hey, let's stop here and look at this for a second. But I have gone as far sometimes as, you know, if it's just 1 or 2 people in the room, I've got to sit it on the couch with my stream deck and just watched it as they watch it.

01:50:42:16 - 01:50:50:21
Robbie
And honestly, it's a slightly different experience being a little upfront behind, you know, away from the desk, away from the panels. And I just think, I don't know.

01:50:50:23 - 01:50:59:16
Joey
And I've always done that as a QC step here. I'll watch a film sitting on the couch. Yeah. But again, I'm never looking at both monitors when I do that.

01:50:59:16 - 01:51:24:11
Robbie
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean I think that there's, you know, there's there's different ways to, to skin this cat. But my, my feeling has over the years has progressed from of course, I'm just in the default mode like everybody else, 32 and 27 or 20 4 to 32 inch reference bar on the desk client monitor. I then progressed to, oh, it's really important for my OCD and for these small minutiae for those to match perceptual matching.

01:51:24:17 - 01:51:46:06
Robbie
And where I've progressed to is screw that. I want a grading feeder style single monitor room where none of that becomes an issue right now. The hybrid to that, I think, is where people like you would probably be a little more comfortable. My colleague who I started talking about at the top of the show, after our discussion, he might be a little more comfortable.

01:51:46:08 - 01:52:09:13
Robbie
And that is. Hey, maybe you do what I'm doing. Maybe you have a goofy monitor that is, you know, UI monitor that has also same display technology as that reference monitor. You can flip over. I have an Asus Qd-oled monitor. Works the same way. Just flip it over or, you know, you can even even think about like, you know, you know, they have I have not I'm not try this to be clear, but I'm curious to try it.

01:52:09:15 - 01:52:24:03
Robbie
You know, if you go on Amazon or whatever, you can buy 13 to 15 inch, OLED panels, right? And you could just plop that on a desk next to your panel. Right. And have, like, if you require that little close up.

01:52:24:05 - 01:52:26:10
Joey
Maybe to look at some grain may.

01:52:26:11 - 01:52:50:20
Robbie
Yeah, look at some grain, maybe they could be calibrated to be acceptable. And that's just another way of doing it. So I think there's what my point my overarching point is there is no reason to be afraid of the single monitor setup. There are reasons to, to to to juggle the perceptual stuff and to juggle the monitors. And there's just as much on the other end just to not give a crap about it and just go, yep.

01:52:50:23 - 01:52:59:14
Robbie
The numbers say they're both calibrated. Go with God. And we're just going to run the through. I get the whole spectrum, I really do. So I do.

01:52:59:16 - 01:53:27:13
Joey
Two things that I just kind of want to want to close to wrap up on is, is that like we talked about, comfort in your environment is really important. It goes to client confidence. It goes to your own efficiency. It goes to speed. It goes to consistency. So if you can see those two monitors in the room and you need them to be perceptually matched to feel confident, do it.

01:53:27:13 - 01:53:55:20
Joey
Do it. If the amount of changes we're talking about are fractions of percentages, that your comfort and your confidence, I think matters more than a 0.01% push towards green, for example. Right. That's that's the first thing. The second thing is when we're talking about these big single monitor rooms, one thing we haven't mentioned that I think is honestly really critical here is the impact on your equipment budget, right.

01:53:55:20 - 01:54:16:11
Joey
Because it used to be I'm going to buy a super expensive small reference monitor, I'm going to buy a relatively expensive consumer climate monitor and a bunch of other stuff to calibrate that to make it all work. One the price of these qd-oled reference monitors has gone down and down and down. So the barrier to entry for a really good HDR reference monitor is now drastically lower.

01:54:16:11 - 01:54:35:15
Joey
But because these bigger sizes are available, you can get away with only buying one monitor and arranging your room around that. And you can end up building a absolutely premiere calibrated grade one viewing environment for a lot less money than you used to. And yeah, when you when you've really valuable.

01:54:35:17 - 01:54:43:15
Robbie
And when you factor in light boxes, one thing's going to sky one's going to buy. So you need converters like all of that kind of stuff.

01:54:43:18 - 01:54:46:02
Joey
All the problems that that can introduce.

01:54:46:02 - 01:55:05:23
Robbie
Totally, totally it all it all adds up. So like I think I would just wrap on just saying that, like, I, I think I might have this reputation that I'm like anti like I get it like a lot of rooms just need two monitors, right? I just think that if you think about this in, you know, if you're OCD like me, perceptual matching might be your thing.

01:55:06:04 - 01:55:23:21
Robbie
And the way I just got so sick and tired of all of it, I got sick and tired of the questions. I got sick and tired of my my own discipline of not being able to pay attention to one or the other. Right. And looking at Booth and I got sick of, you know, the challenges of perceptual matching and making that work for everybody.

01:55:23:23 - 01:55:39:08
Robbie
The only solution that I ever have that like, not ever. The only solution that I ever, I've ever found that makes me the most comfortable for all of the reasons that you pointed out, is I just got this one thing to look at, and it's the same thing that the clients are looking at, and it just makes me happy.

01:55:39:10 - 01:55:55:17
Robbie
Does it have maybe some potential downsides? Sure. But they seem addressable to me. Right. And so I would just say, you know, before you knock it, try it kind of thing. Right. And I think that, you know, you might find that, oh, this is a different way to work. And it's a little weird at first, but let me give it a shot.

01:55:55:17 - 01:56:13:18
Robbie
And to be clear, the first time I ever set foot in a greeting theater, I thought that was really strange too, because now I'm like, this is really I have this massive image in front of me. What? What do I do not like? It just felt overwhelming in the same way that it just felt a little weird. If you're going from a direct view on the desk to, you know, a bigger monitor.

01:56:13:18 - 01:56:15:19
Robbie
So something to consider.

01:56:15:21 - 01:56:36:07
Joey
Yeah, I mean, I don't want it like like I said early on, I don't want to be massively dogmatic about this. I think it's just important to understand all of the potential issues of different layouts with different display technologies and figure out what works best for you, because when you're in an environment that works best for you, I think you work your best.

01:56:36:07 - 01:56:54:10
Joey
That's that's a generic truth of all kind of artistic endeavors at all. If you're if you're comfortable, you can focus on the creative. And that's what really matters. And all of these factors, I think, go into making you comfortable with your viewing environment, which is really important for what we do well.

01:56:54:10 - 01:57:14:11
Robbie
So all right. Well everybody, thank you for joining us on our 50th show. Hard to believe that the offset podcast has made it to, to 50 episodes. Again, we couldn't have done it without you guys, our audience and all the great support, kind words. It's really I don't know, it's really just been sort of magical to, to to hear everybody's story about it.

01:57:14:11 - 01:57:30:16
Robbie
You know, you're listening to the show in a car on the way to work or, you know, at the end of the day and it you feel like it's like just having to catch up with friends. All of those things just mean, I mean, the world to us. And, we're going to keep going, making shows. We hope you keep listening time and keep checking them out.

01:57:30:18 - 01:57:45:07
Robbie
A huge thanks to our sponsors, FlandersScientific and Conform.Tools for, for making this happen. Especially for, Flanders, who has been with us since, day number one. You guys, support, really just means the world to us. And,

01:57:45:12 - 01:57:48:01
Joey
Honestly, they've taught us so much about these monitoring.

01:57:48:01 - 01:58:10:14
Robbie
subjects.,Totally, totally. Thank you, Bram for the, the midnight phone calls and the, the, talking me off the ledge when I'm. We're talking about, you know, the thousandths place of decimals, in a x, y, Y reading and stuff like that. It means the world. So, for those of you who don't know, you can always, check out the show on YouTube.

01:58:10:16 - 01:58:33:02
Robbie
That's where the video portion of the show is released. We also are on all major podcasting, platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can also head over to offset podcast.com. That's where we have some additional show notes. You can check out our whole library of episodes over there as well. And at the very top of that page, at the very top of offset podcast.com, there is a submission button.

01:58:33:02 - 01:58:47:23
Robbie
So if you have an idea for a show or a subject you want us to tackle or something that's just been on your mind that we could improve on or do better at, you can use that for, for feedback as well. And if you don't mind, heading over to this link on screen here to buy us a cup of virtual coffee.

01:58:48:05 - 01:59:07:18
Robbie
That's one way that you can support the show. And, you know, any, any amount goes a long way. It helps us with, advertising cost per editor, etc.. So we really appreciate that. And then lastly, huge thanks to our editor, Stella, who, makes us, sound intelligible. So that's always a good thing as well. All right, Joe, I think this was a fun one for number 50.

01:59:07:20 - 01:59:20:06
Robbie
I love talking about some of these these technical issues that are near and dear to our hearts. And it's, you know, why we started the show in the first place. But thanks again to everybody for checking out this episode. And until next time, I'm Robbie Carman.

01:59:20:08 - 01:59:22:00
Joey
And I'm Joey D’Anna. Thanks for listening.