HDTV Forum

Is CinemaQuest Inc. Ideal-Lume the only game in town. Can you use any florecent lighting to achive bias?

DM

Any light, florescent or not, _could_ be used as a bias light. But the best bias lighting has a color temperature of 6500K, which matches the color temperature of a properly calibrated television.

The trick is finding a bulb with the 6500K color temperature. There are companies other than CinemaQuest that offer proper bias lighting, but the ones I've found were all more expensive. Your local high-end a/v store should be able to show you other brands.

Stosh

You can also find plenty of different temperature rated bulbs at your local pet store. As mentioned, just be sure to look for the 6500k rating. Some of the "full daylight" bulbs are not rated at 6500k, but if you can't get a 6500k bulb they might, at least, get you closer than the overly blue florescents or overly yellow incandescents that most of us normally have in the house.

Lenny Zimmermann

I'm unsure what you are talking about when you say bias lighting. Is there some webpage that might explain the theory and how to use it?

Thanks

Chuck

http://www.cinemaquestinc.com/ideal_lume.htm

DM

There is still a significant improvement in color rendition when using 6500K illumination, even if the wall is not perfectly neutral. With incandescent room lighting, there will be a substantial color shift toward orange. This will affect the observer's color perception and certain colors will not appear quite natural. Joe Kane has a collection of spectral graphs on his site that illustrate how dramatically skewed the coloration of light from incandescents is:

http://videoessentials.com/res_facts.php#spectral .

Any type of light behind a TV, if dimmed to less than 10% of its peak white, will help with eye strain, viewer fatique and perception of black level. The reason the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recommend appropriate color temperature backlighting for electronic displays is to preserve accurate color perception.

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
G. Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.

Insist on HDTV!

Richard thought you guys would be interested in the following correspondence I received from one of our professional Ideal-Lume users. We were receiving repeat orders from Jeff and I sent him an e-mail asking him how he was using our product. He works for Image-Entertainment which has been a major producer of prerecorded optical video discs since the laserdisc days.

"Hi Alan,

We are using the Ideal-Lume in each of our edit, compression and QC
rooms with great results. The feedback I'm getting is that eye strain
has been greatly reduced. The rooms also look great since they've been
installed.

We recently moved to a new facility and were able to design the
production department from the ground up. I wanted backlighting with the
proper color temperature for each room and was given your website from a friend of mine over at Fox Studios. Your website and the documentation
that shipped with the units were very informative and well written. The
fact that your product was endorsed by Joe Kane and Perfect Vision also
made my initial purchase decision much easier.

I ordered two more today because I ended up initially forgetting one
room and we are also in the process of installing an additional edit
bay.

Thank you for the inquiry and a well built product.

Sincerely,

Jeff Lewis
Vice President of Production
Image Entertainment"

Jeff has given me permission to use his correspondence in my marketing efforts. I have been accused of using "smoke and mirrors" in promoting viewing environment principles and solutions over the years. Perhaps some of you guys have an explanation for the reluctance in some people to accept the veracity and impact of these issues. The costs of implementing correct solutions are usually inconsequential compared to what consumers invest in their displays, programming and software libraries. From the first day I encountered these principles in Joe Kane's writings, they made complete sense to me. Even imaging industry professionals often don't "get it." I would love to get more feedback from folks on this dilema.

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"