Hi there. I’m performing at a cinema sometimes and we plug our computer directly to the cinema projector via HDMI.
We have learnt these huge machines use DCP formats for projection, and that what we feed turns to be actually low quality. Resolution is OK, but brightness is much lower than a DCP formatted file.
As we are performing live I wonder if there’s anyone with experience in projecting at cinemas and knows how to take advantage of these big projectors. Is there any setup or anything to send top quality video to a cinema projector?
Best,
Could you share the model and spec of the projector? Some theatrical projectors have settings built into the menu to switch colorspaces and protocols.
DCP is usually in P3-DCI colour space. Your VDMX project is probably outputting REC709 or sRGB.
There are colour differences (P3 can display about 25% more colour), the main issue you are seeing is a gamma shift. P3-DCI has a 2.6 gamma curve while REC-709 has 2.4 gamma curve (sRGB is 2.2). This would account for the brightness shift.
You could try adding a REC709 to P3 LUT to your output. That should correct the gamma.
This discussion might help in understanding the differences:
For the LUT you could try the ones on this site:
https://isaac-molina.com/downloads/
2 Likes
And here is how to add a custom LUT to VDMX:
If it’s a commercial cinema, they will be playing DCPs from an encrypted media block, not using any HDMI connection. So it’s quite possible the HDMI input on the projector is calibrated incorrectly if it’s rarely used.