ACES output for various devices

Discussions - Using ACES Post (DI, Edit, Mastering)
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I’m grading a feature film and its first time I’m using the ACES workflow.
The features needs to be delivered for various platforms like OTT as well as theatrical release .
I’m color grading the feature in REC 709 ODT ,so when I need to deliver the DCP for theatres do I just change the ODT to P3 and render it out or will I have to do some more tweaks.
Please help me out as this is my first experience with the ACES workflow.

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While doing that would produce a valid P3 deliverable, it would not be advisable to just deliver that sight unseen.

You should, at the very least watch that through in a DI suite with P3 projection, and you may well find you want to make some slight adjustments to the grade. The change of output transform gives you a start point, but because some things you couldn’t see in Rec. 709 may become visible in P3, and also because of the differences in the way you perceive an image on a large screen in a dark room, you may want to make slightly different grading choices.

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Thanks Nick very much for the answer .
One more thing I’m planning to buy a rather low budget monitor from Dell (700 USD) and it has 100% sRGB and REC 709 and 97% DCI P3 color ,so if it looks good on that would it be enough or should I specifically need to see on a P3 projector?

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Hi @prateeksrivastav10,

Unfortunately, a display, even if good would not be enough, you really do want the environment to make sure that the viewing conditions (surround) are good and ideally a large projection surface, hence a projector.

Cheers,

Thomas

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If you really have no way to trim the DCI P3 ODT in a proper theatrical environment you have two choices I can think of.

  1. My recommendation is to make the theatrical master (DCP) from the 709 master. It will of course need converting, but all the 709 colors and tones are inside the DCI P3 gamut, so it can look identical to the way you graded it - note the the ACES ODT is not a straight transform from the 709 - it uses more scene referred information for a potentially better result. As Thomas mentioned though - you may still need to trim it to take into account the different viewing environment and screen size. This you have to do from memory old school style - its the way lab timers worked.
  2. You go ahead and use the ACES DCI P3 ODT and do the same thing, preview it and make adjustments where needed. If your grade is not too contrasty and not too colorful it is likely there will be few problems.
    Good luck