my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Ground Level   » GIF issues in LED sign?

Author Topic: GIF issues in LED sign? Sean Falk Film Handler Posts: 9 From: Atchison, Kansas, USA Registered: Aug 2019 posted 10-26-2019 09:04 PM                     I'm trying to add a gif to this big LED street-side sign to show off our theaters logo, but I'm getting issues with the coloring. The blacks in the gif are much lighter/faded than the jpg slides I use for the rest of the display so it's a little jarring. Anyone know anything I can do to fix this or is the compression for gifs just always gonna be an issue, and I should just try to make a a video format version instead? Additional info if it helps: The sign is pretty low resolution especially for how big it is 360x180 px I run the media to the sign through SM Infinity The gif in in question was made in Photoshop  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-27-2019 12:36 AM                     What color space did you use to create the GIF? What color space is your display expecting? (What is it set to?) Some people might use a color setting like "Adobe RGB" when they make images with Photoshop but, if the sign is expecting another color space such as "sRGB", the colors you produce with Photoshop won't look right when displayed. Photoshop might be set to some flavor of RGB but the sign might be expecting, CMYK. That would make your colors come out looking bad. Bottom line: The color settings of the application you use to create the image and the color space of the display device have to match exactly or else your colors could come out looking wrong.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 10-27-2019 02:47 AM                     I don't even know if a GIF supports CMYK, GIF is a format that was created for on-line usage and is very limited in its capabilities. It only supports 256 colors via a custom color palette that, AFAIK is limited to 24 bits RGB color space. Instead of using the archaic GIF format, isn't there a way to use PNG?  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-27-2019 05:45 AM                     I'm not completely sure what color spaces GIF does or doesn't support, either, but the first thing I check when colors don't come out right is the color settings. I would have used PNG, if possible, as well.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 10-27-2019 08:55 AM                     quote: Sean Falk The blacks in the gif are much lighter/faded than the jpg slides I use for the rest of the display so it's a little jarring. Then why not use JPEG for that logo as well? Color space for both should be sRGB, though. However, with the paletted GIF, there may be other issues. You may need to look up the palette to find out which real colors it contains. Maybe the paletted black is not black but grey. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Sean Falk Film Handler Posts: 9 From: Atchison, Kansas, USA Registered: Aug 2019 posted 10-27-2019 06:23 PM                     quote: Carsten Kurz Then why not use JPEG for that logo as well? I'm using jpgs now, but the web app doesn't allow slides less than a second long. So I just took those slides and turned it into a gif to make it shorter and smoother. Honestly I'd rather use AE or Premier, but I only have Photoshop at work quote: Randy Stankey What color space did you use to create the GIF? What color space is your display expecting? (What is it set to?) I used the 128 dithered preset in Ps, but changed the colors to 256, I believe that preset converts it to sRBG. I'm not sure about what the sign is expecting, but I'll change that and see if it helps  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 10-28-2019 12:18 AM                     Ugh, indexed color via old-fashioned animated GIF images is not the way to go for displaying animated content on LED-based electronic variable message signs. You need to be using something that displays the full RGB color spectrum (if the display will allow it). Most LED displays sold by reputable manufacturers these days will support the full RGB color spectrum. And they have insanely fast refresh rates too. What is the brand and model type of this LED sign? I'm not familiar with SM Infinity software of whatever kind of sign this software controls. At my worksplace we primarily sell Daktronics products. They're American-made, high quality and very dependable. But they do tend to cost more than the foreign-made stuff, especially "OEM" stuff that comes from China. We'll sell LED displays from Watchfire (also American made) and some other lower cost operations, but we will not support the "OEM" crap. Aside from that, will the SM Infinity software support video formats like AVI or MP4? You'll get full color with either of those options. Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects can output animations with custom resolutions like 360px by 180px in either format. You might look into Animated PNG as well. However GIF just sucks. And it really sucks in a resolution-challenged environment like LED signs. 360 X 180 is actually a pretty decent resolution for a LED sign. If the imagery is using a full RGB color space the detail in the imagery won't seen quite so coarse. It also helps if you're making good use of any pixel-based fonts in the message creation software. Or if you're custom making type and logos in other graphics applications you need to make some edges of lettering (like the baseline and cap height lines) match up with the pixel grid. That's best done using a vector-drawing app like Illustrator in conjunction with Adobe Photoshop. It seems anal-retentive, but it makes a big difference in image quality and legibility. Also, less is way more with LED signs. Don't cram too much info into one slide. Make messages big and simple. Divide a more complex message along a series of slides with quick transitions. Do that either in the SM Infinity software or create more sophisticated presentations in Photoshop or After Effects.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 10-28-2019 05:44 AM                     I've checked it and GIF is purely 24-bit RGB, which should be mapped to sRGB by all modern rendering engines. If you use the animation features of GIF, then a standard PNG is of no use. But like Bobby mentioned, making a proper video is most likely better. An alternative would be APNG or animated PNG. Most browsers support them and many of those narrowcasting solutions use a web-browser to display the content. APNGs can be created using the "APNG Assembler" if you're using Photoshop. (Or maybe the latest releases of Photoshop finally let you natively export to APNG, I haven't checked on that for a while.)  |  IP: Logged Buck Wilson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 894 From: St. Joseph MO, USA Registered: Sep 2010 posted 10-28-2019 06:33 PM                     Oh hey! The Royal! I need to come visit sometime, haven't seen it yet.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 10-29-2019 09:07 AM                     quote: Marcel Birgelen I've checked it and GIF is purely 24-bit RGB, which should be mapped to sRGB by all modern rendering engines. The problem with GIF is users tend to default to the old, outdated "web-safe" palette, which is the opposite anyone needs to do with LED-based "jumbotron" signs. Full RGB is the way to go. Any indexed color palette is literally going to kill detail in the image. As I said before, I haven't used SM Infinity software before so I don't know its limitations. But I have yet to see an application that drives LED signs which has support for APNG (static, non-animated PNG images usually work however). Most of these applications can accept animated content saved as AVI or MP4 video files.  |  IP: Logged Sean Falk Film Handler Posts: 9 From: Atchison, Kansas, USA Registered: Aug 2019 posted 10-30-2019 06:39 PM                     quote: Buck Wilson Oh hey! The Royal! I need to come visit sometime, haven't seen it yet. We're the Fox Theatre now, but yes please do! The theater is SO much nicer than it used to be Yeah I tried exporting it differently and that didn't help. I'm just going to give up on using a gif, our sign supports a few different video formats, I just didn't want to have to do this at home.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.