The iPad Pro featuring Apple's Liquid Retina XDR display has become a popular choice amongst many for remote review and approval of color graded SDR & HDR content. Dolby recommends configuring your iPad Pro in accordance with the information below for the most color accurate and consistent viewing experience.

The information in this article applies only to the 12.9-inch (5th generation and newer) iPad Pro running iPadOS 16.0 or newer.

To determine the model and OS version of your iPad Pro, open the Settings app, navigate to the General tab, and look at the Model Name and iPadOS Version fields.

 

Reference Mode

With iPadOS 16.0, Apple introduced Reference Mode, a display mode tailored for color critical content creation workflows. When Reference Mode is enabled, the iPad Pro displays reference color for the following video formats:

SDR:

• BT.709
• BT.601 SMPTE-C
• BT.601 EBU 
• sRGB

HDR:

• HDR10 BT.2100 PQ
• BT.2100 HLG Dolby Vision Profile 8.4
• Dolby Vision Profile 5

Reference Mode will automatically detect the source video format and display the content accordingly with a peak brightness of 100 nits for SDR formats and 1,000 nits for HDR formats. Reference Mode targets a D65 white point and automatically disables dynamic display settings such as True Tone, Auto-Brightness, and Night Shift.

To enable Reference Mode, open the Settings app, navigate to Display & Brightness, scroll down and tap Advanced, and turn on Reference Mode.

 

Calibrating the iPad Pro Display

Even with Reference Mode enabled, it is still recommended you calibrate your iPad Pro display whenever possible with an appropriate device such as a spectroradiometer or colorimeter. To learn more about these devices, refer to our dedicated article Display Calibration: Colorimeters vs. Spectroradiometers.

To perform a basic white point calibration via Apple's Fine-Tune Calibration, navigate to Fine-Tune Calibration under the Advanced Display & Brightness menu.

 

The Fine-Tune calibration menu offers fields for both your measured and target white point (x,y) and luminance (cd/m²) values. When calibrating for any of the supported video formats included in Reference Mode, it's recommended to calibrate your white point to D65 (0.3127, 0.3290). For luminance measurements, because Fine-Tune Calibration only offers a single point adjustment, it's recommend you pick a luminance value that best matches the average light level of your content. In most instances, a 100 nit luminance target was found to be sufficient. Example color and luminance test patterns can be found on Apple's AVFoundation Page under 'Related Resources'.

Once you've chosen your target, display a white patch that matches your target luminance on the iPad. Next, take a reading with your measurement device and input the measured white point and luminance values in the Fine Tune Calibration window. Then, enter the target chromaticity and luminance values into the Target fields and press done. Finally, take another reading to verify that the calibration has been saved (and that your new measured values now better match your target). 

Another calibration option for the iPad is through Portrait Display's new Patterns Mobile application. Patterns Mobile is a color management compliant generator for iOS and iPadOS, supporting both SDR and HDR. Patterns may be used independently, but is best utilized in conjunction with Portrait Display's Calman color calibration software.
 

 

For more information on calibrating the iPad Pro with Patterns, refer to Portrait Display's Video Tutorial or Resource Center .
 

Dolby Vision Playback with Reference Mode

It's important to note that Reference Mode disables all Dolby Vision content mapping when enabled. This may lead to inconsistent results when reviewing Dolby Vision encoded streams or files on the iPad Pro compared against other Dolby Vision-enabled devices like TVs (that are actively performing tone mapping).

If you'd like to review Dolby Vision tone mapping on your iPad Pro, you should disable reference mode. This will re-enable all the dynamic display settings mentioned above (True-Tone, Auto-Brightness, and Night Shift). You can manually disable these by navigating to the Display & Brightness menu.

When reviewing content in a non-reference state, it's recommended to perceptually match the iPad Pro's brightness to the reference display used by the colorist via the Brightness slider. For the most accurate results, it's recommend to perform this adjustment with the colorist in the room. This will help eliminate variations in display backlight technology and screen size, as well as ensuring that the brightness setting on the review device relatively matches the look of the overall project during its creation. It's important to note that the brightness slider on the iPad Pro does not show a concrete numerical percentage and therefore is a fairly subjective adjustment. You can utilize the Shortcuts application to dial in specific numerical brightness settings and some studios have their own recommendations for this process and target values.

For additional information on using Reference Mode and Fine-Tune Calibration on iPad Pro, refer to Apple Support .