This Dials for Contrast DCP is an experiment – we need your feedback after you play it through a few times.

While one idea is to stress Extended Dynamic Range and 2020 systems, another hope is that we are creating a tool that will help a  non-technical person monitor the stability or degradation of their projection system quality. It is great if you have a radiospectrometer that you can set up every week, but who has the 20 minutes to take a reading of .001 nits?

It starts at the impossible to see blue dial at 1.5% luminance and goes to 0%. If you can see any of that, you have a great system, right? After 5 seconds a set of numbers and marks appears around the outside so you can make a note of where the luminance became impossible to see.

The same thing happens 3 times for blue at 3% to 0%, then 4.5%-0% and finally 6% to 0%. The theory is that even a fumbling xenon system should be able to show some color at 6% and be useful as the bulb fades.

After Blue comes the cycle Red, then Grey, then Green.

Oh, and there is an acoustic piano test that we are working with that is thrown into the different speakers. Composed and Performed by Jeff Mikusky.  We will have a low end section and some strings soon.

We presume that for some systems the 1.5% – 0% dials will be impossible to see, and for some systems the 6% – 0% dials will be so much light that it never disappears – making the dial unusable. First Question: is there a Dial Number that works no matter the system?…which when assembled in a DCP would be a good 40 second test? …is 10 seconds enough time or too much?

Also, would some secondary colors be interesting?

This is a new version. The previous version was created in Final Cut Pro…this one is 16bit/2020 TIFF files straight into the DCP creation tool.

Pass code: QA_b4_QC

The TIFF Files are at: Dials For Contrast TIFFs

We are not certain if this DCP is just pretty with 4 different views of Trumpets, or if they are usable for some unknown reason.

They are just the first of a series that tries to do for exhibition what MTF style pictures do for lenses. You can’t see from this picture, but there are red lines in there too. Therefore they are also part of the series that attempts to present slides and sounds that can be used by humans with no more tools than their vision and sound systems.

Built with 16 bit, 2020 TIFF files, that can be found here:  Trumpets~! [TIFFs]

Comments to CJFlynn at cinematesttools dot com

Passcode, as always is: QA_b4_QC

Return to Technician’s Tool Box DCPs

This DCP is one minute of 4 rows of 4K Grey Boxes. Left to right, each block is 10% less than the previous. Top to bottom, each block is 2.5% less than the one above. These should actually be easy to distinguish on any well tuned digital projector.

What is unique is that within each box is 3 rows of numbers that give the percentage of White in each box. So, the top left box says “100” 3 times. Each instance of 100 is different though. The top is 65353 (16 bits of white) x 1.0(the Box Number) x .9999 [=65,528], the next is 65353 x 1.0 x .999 [=65,469] and the 3rd is 65353 x 1.0 x .99 [=64,480]. The next to the right is the same but substitute the 1.0 for .90 [=58976, 58,923, 58,392], while the one below you substitute .975 instead of 1.0 as the Box Number [=63,890, 63,833, 63,258].

The trick is to see if these numbers show up on a screen. Obviously an experiment and we would appreciate everyone telling us of their experience…with thanks to you.

The new version uploaded on 1 August 2019 exposes one column from the right, until the entire piece is exposed in order to allow people to see without the glare from the whites on the left side. …oh, and it starts with 30 secs of dark so that the eyes can take better advantage of the dark.

The passcode is QA_b4_QC

The TIFF files are at: GreyStepScales TIFFs

These are the numbers that are laid on top of the squares…can your system produce differences for some or most of them?