Color Management - Thunderbolt Vs HDMI

[Hassilistic]

I use like many of you here a MacbookPro.  Mine is a (Retina, 15-inch, 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7) with (NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB) while editing on an external monitor (EIZO 271CX) for proofing, editing, colour corrections, etc. 

I naturally calibrated both, and choose to connect mine via the Thunderbolt cable for almost 2 yrs now until last week, were  for the first time I needed to free up my port and connected to the monitor directly using an HDMI cable, the colors changed dramatically.  It really skewed my results.  Mind you had I started with HDMI i probably be none the wiser.

At first I thought to myself "fine!", I will just re-calibrate for the cable (if there is such a thing) and hopefully it will improve, but there was absolutely nothing I could do to match what I got used to seeing all this time via the Thunderbolt cable without giving it much thought of how great an improvement it is over everything out there currently. 

I am sharing this because I know most people will connect immediately as they have always done using the HDMI port, however, if you have a Thunderbolt port on you laptop or other devices, with a capable external monitor like EIZO or an Apple Studio 5K then by all means do not miss out on the added benefits of witnessing truly what your work actually looks like even more.  And if you don't own one, you need to seriously invest in one, and don't be taken on the 4k ride, as it has yet to mature.

In addition to the above mentioned, please do acknowledge that cables are not created equally, so spend a little more to get something resembling the quality of devices its connected to, and we have always known that about HDMI, but the same is true for Firewire, Power Cables, Surge and voltage regulators , and so on.

one such cable I recently invested in is by a company called Corning: https://www.corning.com/optical-cables-by-corning/worldwide/en/products/thunderbolt-optical-cables.html as well as OWC cables.

Hope this information helps someone.  If you know of a better or alternative solution or set up , please do share.  For instance My brother swears that DVI is the only way to go.

Cheers

[jerome_m]

It is not the cable per se. It is just likely that, on your monitor, one input supports a higher bit depth than the other one.

[Hassilistic]

Quite right Jerome.  mind you I do own an HDMI 2.0 which I use to view on a 4k monitor, however, it is too complicated to calibrate a commercial TV as apposed to EIZO 4k which costs a gizzilian.

Previously I treated Thunderbolt as nothing more than a very quick file transferring tool on my Raid drives and back ups... didn't think much of it, didn't even like it cause Apple keeps coming up with newer ones every couple a years.  And us MF folks like our backward compatibility and legacy systems.

[jerome_m]

us MF folks like our backward compatibility and legacy systems.

Which is the reason why you should like thunderbolt. TB exports a full PCI bus which allows to run legacy hardware cards on modern laptops. This is actually how Apple could come with a firewire adapter for TB.

[Hassilistic]

Two Thumbs Up for TB!
Thanks Jerome