Autocue T-series monitor, day 1

I’ve been looking to replace an old Panasonic LCD I’ve been borrowing for a year now. The blacks are blue and milky – far past due date. Something has to be done.

A cry for help and tips on whether I should go FSI or OLED on Twitter got me in touch with Paddy at Autocue, and that’s where it all started. I’m not here to fill you in with deep technical insight. I leave that to others. However, I will tell you about my experience so far.

Thursday this week I got the demo unit safe and sound all the way from England to Norway. I was either happy about it finally arriving after hours of constant refreshing the ‘Delivery status’ app on my iPad – or the monitor isn’t at all as heavy as the tracking info said. 15kg? Felt like a feather compared to the 26″ Panasonic I currently use.

I put it next to the Panasonic BT-LH2600W. Only a black signal was going through the cables.

The blacks were phenomenal in comparison! Yes, there is some backlight on the Autocue, but nowhere near as gross. I have yet to test the OLED (the reseller haven’t responded to further requests except: it’s coming, we don’t know when).

Blacks, Panasonic 0 – Autocue 1

It scared me to see what I’ve been grading on for the past 12 months, yet I chuckled as I was booting Resolve.

Project opened, both monitors showing picture, but I didn’t like what I saw on the Autocue.
“What? This can’t be right?!” I was a bit bummed that the Autocue looked dull, and had no punch in the picture as I been expecting. Could it be I was blinded by the Panasonic standing next to it, in all its saturated and well exposed glory?

I went through the menus and found all kinds of settings. And I must say, the menu is tidy, and easy to use. Tons of possibilities.

Impressive list, huh?

Color settings

Everything looked OK on the Autocue. So I poked around in the menu on the Panasonic, and I was shocked. It’s REC.601 only. I had completely forgot about it! I switched the Autocue over to match, with the PAL/EBU3213 color space. Yeah, a bit better, but still no cigar.

Since the show in fact is broadcasted in PAL, that didn’t mean much. My initial goal was to make them look similar when showing a picture. They were both looking good using a color bar and ‘blue only’. If I adjusted the contrast, the video image would burn out and clip the whites.

Loads of input possibilities

Enlightening answer

I contaced Paddy on Twitter and told him about my problem. He said I should talk to Russel, and a few moments after, Russel called me. Even though I’ve been grading for six years, his obvious statement made me feel like a rookie.

He was of course correct about the backlight. I set it to the value he suggested, around 90-95 (out of 100). And guess what, black is still black.

He also told me a way to navigate even faster through the menus.Using the volume knob to scroll up and down, pushing it to activate menu items. Way faster than using the four buttons I used previously. Handy feature indeed.

If there’s anything, just call”. Such great service, and the incredible masses of knowledge coming from a guy hundreds of miles away. Ah, the phone technology these days..

Satisfied

Grading a little more, and I like what I see a lot. Switching everything to specs as Russel told me to, this is very, very close to what the experience in a black box with Christie CP2200 will produce.

Testing Alexa footage in ProRes 4444 with ACES in Resolve and D-Cine color space on the monitor

The past 24 hours I’ve taken it through different material I had left from past projects. I like what I see. No doubt. As I said earlier, I haven’t seen the OLED up close, but Autocue says “it’s just as good”. Without knowing any better – I believe them. In fact, if the OLED doesn’t have D-cine workspace, I think I got a winner right here.

On Screen Display

Oh, and did you notice the time code in the photos? Turns out, it can read the time code in the SDI signal (only tested in Resolve so far – no go in FCP). Handy when grading and the client have notes timecodes instead of shots. Only thing missing is a way to use the numeric panel on the JL Cooper to jump directly to a timecode. But that’s for another day.

You can also show guides, with presets such as 4:3, 16:9 and 2,35:1

There’s also an audio meter. I switched it off quickly because I don’t need it for grading, but it did the job as expected. It will show you a bar from green to yellow to peaking red.

Missing feature

So far, only one request. I’d like to save my settings as presets and quickly load them through one of the function keys. Switching between DCI and REC709 with all the parameters last used such as color space, gamma and input (4:2:2 or 4:4:4) with the press of a button would be nothing but a great in a busy day when you go from one project to the next, working with delivery to different kinds.

UPDATED! Turns out it’s possbile to save and recall up to three presets.

It magically blends nicely into my setup

Next week

I will try to bring Leo with me and hook the system directly to the Christie CP2200 in the machine room for a theatre we have access to. It would be the ultimate test to see if the monitor really can simulate grading in such an environment. Whether we get time to do it or not, I’ll at least try to answer any questions you might have.

Use my contact form or ask me on Twitter!