What’s all the Hubbub around the Fujifilm IS-MINI LUT Box?

Color Talk with Tom Parish

If you haven’t heard, lots of folks are talking about a new SDI-based LUT box that sorta breaks the mold with regards to how LUT boxes have worked in the past. Here’s why. The Fujifilm engineers designed a physically small SDI-based LUT box to hold a 3D LUT for display profiling and calibration, but this is not your ordinary single-purpose LUT box. Fujifilm wrote their own PC and Apple display calibration software that can be used to quickly calibrate and install LUTs for a variety of purposes. Think about using DaVinci Resolve to create a test look while on set and installing that LUT into the IS-mini for preview purposes. What about networking a number of LUT boxes together on a big multi-camera shoot to manage LUTs for onsite previewing, monitor matching, and look previewing at a live event? During the interview, we also talk about the Fujifilm IS-10o Processing System that does all this. The key point is the Fujifilm software makes quick work of installing a LUT into the box for preview purposes on set. You can also quickly install a super-accurate 3D camera log conversion (versus 1D) for your Sony F55 camera, which only provides a 1D LUT, for log conversion to Rec.709. What is unique here is that Fujifilm designed the IS-mini with a built-in pattern generator that runs with their included PC and Apple display calibration software, and this combo sells for $1300 retail. You’ll need to add a probe, of course, and they include the X-Rite i1Pro Spectrophotometer as an option (recommended if you don't have a probe). First impressions are that this LUT box and its accompanying software are a combo that is dead simple to use, extremely fast, and amazingly complete for profiling and calibration purposes. Took me just minutes to set it up and create a calibration LUT for a client display I have in the studio. Now I see why this particular LUT box, along with the Fujifilm IS Manager software, is going to be very popular in production environments where time is critical to set up calibrated review monitors and preview raw and log-based video streams.