The Simple Story of the Success of the ISF – and Now the Untold Stories

Joel Silver - ISF Founder, accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award from CEDIA in 2018

I started the ISF with a simple but radical idea at the time. I wanted to build a network of professionals that would adjust home TVs to accurately display the intent of creative artists and film directors.
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The initial focus was high-end residential integrators. Our success in that market was the result of meeting business owners with wonderful relationships with affluent clients. They were driven to install systems that would sound better and look better than anything their clients had ever seen before. We met most early ISF dealers through CEDIA and found many like-minded supporters there. Their clients saw vastly superior TV pictures and had the ability to afford them, and we were launched.

We soon discovered volumes of manufacturer’s technical staff that understood what we were doing and would support our efforts. With them we were able to design TVs that could be easily calibrated in the field. That brought ISF features to millions of mainstream TVs. I never thought that could be possible for a radical idea.
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​​Studios were using consumer TVs as “client monitors”, and I soon found volumes of content creation professionals becoming ISF calibrators. That brought the concept full circle. There are now many thousands of professionals whose everyday work is faithful to the intent of artists and directors.

-Joel Silver, Founder of the Imaging Science Foundation

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If you want to be a consumer electronics professional, where is your sphere of influence? Let’s explore the entire process. You will see where you fit in and how critical to the industry your role has become.

The entire artistic process is a series of optical and electronic “Transfer Functions”. Think of a digital signal coming into your TV, and then light comes out. That’s one kind of transfer function.  Let’s follow the steps that deliver the intent of the director to viewers.

1. A very common first transfer function in this creative process is when light enters the lens of a digital camera deployed by artists and an electronic signal comes out. That kind of transfer function begins with optics (called OETF, optical electronic transfer function).
2. That electronic signal from the camera is then plugged into a studio monitor. A second transfer function happens when the electronic signal enters the monitor and light comes out. (That transfer function begins with electronics - it is called EOTF). Those monitors must all be calibrated so they can be reliably used by artists in multiple locations at multiple time slots to edit and create content. Calibrating the monitor is science. Using the monitor to create content is of course an art.
3. That creative content is completed by artists and colorists in post-production using calibrated monitors, and then sent as an electronic signal to multiple markets. It might be shown theatrically, streamed, downloaded, on disc or broadcasted.
4. To be experienced as intended in every market, every display in every market must be calibrated to the same standard as the content was created in.
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​If seen in homes, that is where our consumer electronics ISF professionals come in. They insure the very last transfer function (EOTF) is done properly. The electronic signal only becomes the light the artists and directors intended if home TVs are calibrated! TVs out of the box are not designed to do this accurately – successfully completing the entire creative process in homes is your sphere of influence!

We have accomplished much over the years, and I have personally been recognized, awarded and written about for years - that is certainly not the whole story.  The untold story is the years of hard work of many other ISF instructors who have made this possible. I have not done this alone, and it is time many of them have been given a voice. This is the first of a year long series where you will here from some of the top calibrators working alongside ISF, we hope you enjoy.

This month we will hear from Kevin Miller...

Kevin Miller - ISFTV

I was involved in the creation of the ISF with Joel Silver dating back to the spring of 1993 when working at The Perfect Vision as the Publisher and CEO. The idea that Joel so eloquently described was spawned over cocktails one evening at an InfoComm show in New Orleans. A little over a year later, in February of 1994, Joel launched his company with the first ever ISF seminar at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City. I was at that seminar as a student with my Philips color analyzer in hand.

I started my company, ISFTV, in February of 2001. Later that year, I co-instructed a seminar with Joel that followed the CEDIA show in Indianapolis. Day two of the seminar, as fate would have it, was on 9/11/2001. We had a very large group of nearly 60 students who were all quite shaken by the morning’s events. Our great friend Stu Kobak, who ran a DVD review web site of his own called Filmsondisc.com, got Joel on the phone and encouraged him to have us finish that seminar even in the face of the horrific events of that day. We did persevere and got the class to the finish line.

Following that 2001 seminar, I spent many years co-instructing ISF seminars with Joel all over North America, which was a great learning experience. Joel helped launch my company as he has done for many small businesses all over the world. I am proud to have been a part of the creation of the Imaging Science Foundation, and continue to work closely with Joel and a number of talented technicians all over the country, furthering the goal of delivering the artist’s (Director’s) intent to consumer’s television screens. I have also been heavily involved for many years on the professional side of our industry, now supporting over 60 Post Production facilities with my professional calibration services and technical consulting in the New York Tri-state area. I have also been providing technical and product development consulting to TV and video source manufacturers since 2003.

Kevin Miller
ISFTV
Email: kevin@isftv.com
Web site: www.isftv.com

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