Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: D Fosse on October 13, 2013, 05:04:58 am

Title: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on October 13, 2013, 05:04:58 am
I'm ready to order a NEC P232W for home use, but I'm a bit unclear on the Spectraview situation here in Europe. The European Spectraview Profiler software will only allow software calibration to the video card. What I want is the US Spectraview II software, which hardware calibrates to the monitor's internal 14-bit LUT.

I have confirmation (on TFT central (http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/nec_p232w.htm)) that Spectraview II does support and will work on a European P232W unit. And I already have supported sensors. But Spectraview II isn't available here.

So my question is - what happens if I try to purchase it for download from the US NEC website? Will I just be redirected to a European site and effectively shut off (a la Adobe)? Anyone done this?

(Yes, I could get the Spectraview edition of the monitor, but it's almost twice the price here in Europe and if I have to spend that much I'd rather go Eizo CS).
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on October 13, 2013, 04:45:24 pm
On closer look it seems the Spectraview Profiler has an even better option than hardware calibration: no calibration at all, profiling only.

I believe the P232W should be well-behaved enough so that calibration isn't really necessary (and this is an option I've missed with the Eizo). I use color managed software for everything anyway, and all I need for that is a good monitor profile. I don't really care how it looks without color management.

I'm still interested in whether I can get Spectraview II in Europe, but it doesn't seem quite so pressing anymore...
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: Frans Waterlander on October 13, 2013, 05:39:22 pm
Make sure you can live with the low LED backlighting pulse width modulation frequency (180Hz) of the P232W, mentioned in the tftcentral review. Some people may see the flicker or get eye strain, headaches or even worse. Buyer beware.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on October 13, 2013, 05:50:19 pm
Yes, I noticed that discussion... ;D

I'm not too worried. By all accounts this looks like a fine little monitor. I've already pushed the button, I promise to come back here if I have any problems.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: Frans Waterlander on October 13, 2013, 11:46:09 pm
I'm not too worried. By all accounts this looks like a fine little monitor. I've already pushed the button, I promise to come back here if I have any problems.
You may not be too worried, but I hope for your sake that you can return the monitor if you experience any problems for a full refund. Otherwise you may be in for an unpleasant surprise.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: Czornyj on October 14, 2013, 03:45:56 am
Hi,

You can't buy SVII software license from NEC US site unless you're US resident. You can buy the box version from B&H, but it's not a cheap solution.

Solutions are:
1) Free NEC Multiprofiler software for hardware calibration without sensor (works surprisingly good)
2) Free GammaComp MD http://www.necdisplay.com/support-and-services/gamma-comp/downloads PC only, and not as convenient as SVII, but it works with most popular sensors
3) SpectraView Profiler a.k.a. basICColor display 5 (99 Euro)- in theory it won't support full hardware calibration in MultiSync series, in practice it doesn't really matter.

I'm ready to order a NEC P232W for home use, but I'm a bit unclear on the Spectraview situation here in Europe. The European Spectraview Profiler software will only allow software calibration to the video card. What I want is the US Spectraview II software, which hardware calibrates to the monitor's internal 14-bit LUT.

I have confirmation (on TFT central (http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/nec_p232w.htm)) that Spectraview II does support and will work on a European P232W unit. And I already have supported sensors. But Spectraview II isn't available here.

So my question is - what happens if I try to purchase it for download from the US NEC website? Will I just be redirected to a European site and effectively shut off (a la Adobe)? Anyone done this?

(Yes, I could get the Spectraview edition of the monitor, but it's almost twice the price here in Europe and if I have to spend that much I'd rather go Eizo CS).
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on October 14, 2013, 03:55:08 am
Hi,

You can't buy SVII software license from NEC US site unless you're US resident. You can buy the box version from B&H, but it's not a cheap solution.


That's what I wanted to know. Thank you. I'll get the Spectraview Profiler then.

Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on October 14, 2013, 03:56:52 am
you may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

The reason I don't worry is that I have another LED monitor in the house (Eizo Flexscan EV2335, inexpensive and made for office use, but with an IPS panel. Good second monitor). Here I can actually see the flicker as the unit goes on, so the PWM has to be really low there. But after it warms up for a minute or so it's no problem.

Anyway, there's a 14-day return policy if I need it.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: Czornyj on October 14, 2013, 03:57:21 am
Make sure you can live with the low LED backlighting pulse width modulation frequency (180Hz) of the P232W

:D ...and be aware that - according to Dr. Celia Sánchez-Ramos, of Complutense University in Madrid - W-LED can cause blindness, as its spectrum contains an energy peak in blue-violet region, which may be harmful for retina:
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/led-zone/4419340/Do-LEDs-cause-blindness-
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: digitaldog on October 14, 2013, 12:24:35 pm
:D ...and be aware that - according to Dr. Celia Sánchez-Ramos, of Complutense University in Madrid - W-LED can cause blindness, as its spectrum contains an energy peak in blue-violet region, which may be harmful for retina:
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/led-zone/4419340/Do-LEDs-cause-blindness-
Oh boy, another windmill Frans can now tilt at. :D
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: digitaldog on October 14, 2013, 12:28:26 pm
I'll get the Spectraview Profiler then.
Might want to try Multiprofiler first. Can't beat the price, works quite well. Certainly the first option to try before you send more money for something that may provide added control over calibration.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on October 14, 2013, 01:00:34 pm
Thanks, will do. I don't mind paying for a good calibration/profiling solution, that's half the job. But simple is often better, and SV II appeals to me for that reason.

The plan was to get a workable white point and luminance by, well, whatever means, and then use SV Profiler just to create the profile (the "no calibration" option). I have a couple of calibrators/sensors already and between all these options I'm sure I'll find something that works. Thanks again both of you.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: Czornyj on October 14, 2013, 01:07:50 pm
Oh boy, another windmill Frans can now tilt at. :D
Yep, the anti-PWM crusade began to be boring ::)

Thanks, will do. I don't mind paying for a good calibration/profiling solution, that's half the job. But simple is often better, and SV II appeals to me for that reason.

The plan was to get a workable white point and luminance by, well, whatever means, and then use SV Profiler just to create the profile (the "no calibration" option). I have a couple of calibrators/sensors already and between all these options I'm sure I'll find something that works. Thanks again both of you.

There's a 14 days free trial for SpectraView Profiler / basICColor Profiler, so you can compare the results with MultiProfiler. You can also use MultiProfiler + ArgyllCMS + dispcalGUI to calibrate the display and create the profile.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on October 14, 2013, 02:59:26 pm
This is what makes display purchase fun, even when you're on a strict budget as I am this time: Small screen, no bells and whistles - but basic high quality. Luckily such displays exist. Then there's usually some money left that are well spent on calibration and profiling to get the most out of it.

I could have had a wide gamut Dell U2413, or even U2713, all calibrated and ready to go, for what I'm paying for this. But I know I'd regret it (I have an...er, unhappy history with Dell).
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on October 16, 2013, 04:12:13 am
The P232W arrived and I've just hooked it up and kicked the tires, so to speak.

It's a beauty. It's absolutely uniform from corner to corner, and I haven't even turned on the uniformity correction. With a gray desktop it's like looking at a solid slab of gray paint. Impressive. Now to look at the best ways to get it properly calibrated and profiled.

Oh, BTW, no headaches yet. Or actually I already had one, but for wholly unrelated reasons.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: digitaldog on October 16, 2013, 10:25:10 am
Oh, BTW, no headaches yet. Or actually I already had one, but for wholly unrelated reasons.
Me too and I don't even own that display <g>. Glad it worked out. Let us know how the calibrations process goes.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on October 16, 2013, 11:01:59 am
I think I'll just go with a standard i1 Display Pro calibration for now. Looks OK. I have the Spectraview Profiler on 14-day trial, but got some funny-looking profiles out of it, using both the i1 and Spyder3 sensors. Haven't time to figure out what the problem is.

i1 Display Pro and Spyder3/ColorEyes Display Pro give consistent and similar results.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: digitaldog on October 16, 2013, 11:03:44 am
I think I'll just go with a standard i1 Display Pro calibration for now. Looks OK. I have the Spectraview Profiler on 14-day trial, but got some funny-looking profiles out of it, using both the i1 and Spyder3 sensors. Haven't time to figure out what the problem is.
The profiles look odd or the results of the calibration and profiling?
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on October 16, 2013, 02:18:54 pm
No, the result. Distinct red cast.

There's a lot of options in this BasICColor software, including a "hybrid" hard- and software calibration. I have to look into it in more detail. Problem is I'm bringing lots of work home the next few days and it'll just have to wait until later, as long as I have a workable i1 calibration.

But I did notice one peculiarity with the display itself. There is a distinct off-axis purple glow in the blacks, but only when viewed from the left side at about 45 degrees angle and more. Viewed from the right, at exactly the same angle, it's pure black as it should be. Weirdest thing.

I think I can live with it, it's no big deal in practice. But weird. In any case I've returned enough displays in my time and I'm just not doing it this time.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: digitaldog on October 16, 2013, 02:20:53 pm
No, the result. Distinct red cast.
Sounds like the software. Might try MultiProfiler to see if that really is the case.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on October 17, 2013, 04:48:27 am
I'm skipping the Spectraview Profiler (BasICColor), no need for it. What I've done now is to use Multiprofiler to set white point (temp and luminance), and gamma 2.2.

Then i1 Display Pro set at native white point and native luminance. There's no native gamma setting, so that remains at 2.2. In any case the calibration LUT correction in the video card is minimal, which is what I wanted from the beginning and why I posted in the first place.

The result is great. Black to white gradients in Photoshop are smooth with no visible banding, and good separation end to end. I'm perfectly happy with this. Thanks for the Multiprofiler recommendation, it's a useful little app.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on November 28, 2013, 04:49:27 am
Just wrapping this up with some interesting observations.

In retrospect getting the plain vanilla P232 was a big mistake. I should have put the extra money on the table for the Spectraview (EU) edition. The unit itself is a great little monitor, but calibrating it turned out to be a lot trickier than I had anticipated.

Recalibrating with i1 Profiler turned up the dreaded color banding again and in fact I have not been able to eliminate it entirely since. I've also tried ColorEyes Display Pro, using both the i1 Display sensor and a Spyder 3 sensor. I've tried calibrating at different precision levels, but actually the higher the precision the worse the banding (makes sense since the curves get more quirky). In some cases it has been so pronounced that it would probably show up in images with me trying to "correct" it.

So to all calibrator-makers out there: Leave my videocard alone. If you can't get to the monitor's internal LUT to do a calibration there, don't do it at all. I've been to the ColorEyes forum to ask Jack Bingham about this, could we have a no-calibration/profile-only option, but he didn't believe this could ever be a problem, so no, forget it.

Anyway, I decided to give ArgyllCMS/DispcalGUI a try, because I saw that it does have just such a no calibration/profiling only option. So what I do now is to set the white point luminance, temperature, and black point in the monitor's OSD. Confirm with sensor reading (using any calibrator that has a precalibration function) - or I'm sure you could even do this visually if you're confident and experienced. The main thing is to get that paper white and appropriate black level/contrast.

Then run "Profiling only" in Dispcal, making sure you have individual RGB curves to take care of any color cast. The result is beautiful (at least it is with this monitor). No more banding.

I've tested this pretty extensively by now against my work setup, a hardware calibrated Eizo. I'm simply unable to see any discrepancies. AFAICT everything now displays identically on the two systems, except of course that the Eizo is wide gamut and the NEC not. Certain reds even display more consistently with this setup than they did when running a full i1 calibration/profiling on the NEC.

Obviously this only works as intended with color managed software, and the rest be damned. But that's fine with me. The P232 shines, and proves what a great little monitor this really is. The only thing about it that I'm not too happy with is that the off-angle IPS white glow is pretty pronounced, but in actual practice it's not a problem.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: Czornyj on December 17, 2013, 04:32:12 am
In retrospect getting the plain vanilla P232 was a big mistake. I should have put the extra money on the table for the Spectraview (EU) edition. The unit itself is a great little monitor, but calibrating it turned out to be a lot trickier than I had anticipated.

Spectraview Profiler 5.2 for NEC Spectraview 232 also has an issue - it calibrates the backlight brightness to 160cd/m^2 (no matter what target), then just cuts the luminance down to target value with the display matrix.

However there's an other option, that's basing on Spectraview II DNA (unfortunately only available for Windows):
http://www.necdisplay.com/support-and-services/gamma-comp/download
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on December 17, 2013, 05:52:28 am
Quote
it calibrates the backlight brightness to 160cd/m^2 (no matter what target), then just cuts the luminance down to target value with the display matrix

Could you elaborate that? Not sure I understand how that works.

I did take a look at GammaComp earlier, but it seemed way overkill with all the overhead (networking and so on) - and on top it doesn't build a profile, it just calibrates (or didn't I dig deep enough into the manual?)

But yes, I could use that to calibrate and Dispcal/Argyll to profile, it's a possibility. I might give it a try when I have the time.

At the moment I'm pretty happy. The one significant adjustment I had to make was to adjust the white point along the green/magenta axis. Since that isn't along the Kelvin scale, it means setting x and y values manually in the advanced monitor menu - but it's straightforward with the aid of the precalibration function in Dispcal (or pretty much any calibrator).

Still, at this time I would advise everyone to get the Spectraview edition right away and be done with it...saving money is fine, but the extra time and effort is worth something too.
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: Czornyj on December 17, 2013, 06:18:25 am
Spectraview Profiler simply uses monitor LUT for dimming to a luminance lower than 160cd/m^2, which also lowers the contrast, no matter if Black luminance Min. Neutral or Min. Native priority option is selected. I'm usually working at lower luminance levels, so - speaking euphemistically - I didn't quite like it...

NEC GammaComp MD QA calibrates the monitor internally, then creates an ICC matrix profile, so that should save you some time ;)
Title: Re: European NEC Spectraview software options
Post by: D Fosse on December 17, 2013, 06:55:46 am
I see. No, that doesn't sound good at all.

Thank you!