How digital negative actually works

I was reading about The Other Boleyn Girl (Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johnasson) which was shot on a Panavision Genesis. They shot using the "digital negative" technique, but used a lookup table to preview the shots on set. In other words, an ugly RAW version was captured digitally, but the on-set playback video was treated to look normal. So that would address the concerns I had earlier about shooting digital negative. Of course, this still remains hypothetical for us no-budgeters who can't even afford an on-set monitor.