New Puck for 2690 & Spectraview: Colormunki or NEC i1D2?

[hoffsta]

I had hoped to be able to carry over my existing Eye-One Display 2 colorimeter when I picked up a new NEC 2690 monitor but unfortunately it seems mine is incompatible with Mac OS X 10.6 (extreme magenta cast with all software choices including Spectraview when selecting any white point other than native).

So, it looks like I'm in the market for a new puck. Can anyone speak the the advantages of the NEC puck versus something a little more advanced like the Colormunki? Please don't recommend i1 Pro as it's out of my budget. I've told myself I could justify the price of the Munki by the fact that I may one day decide to create printer or projector profiles and that as a spectrophotometer it may offer better results but really I just need to be able to calibrate my monitor right now. If either the Colormunki or the NEC puck is going to provide a better profile than the other I'll be getting it. Thanks for your input!

[Alan Goldhammer]

I have both and under Spectraview, I get equivalent results calibrating my NEC P221.

Alan

[Mc]

If you are not familiar with the difference between a spectrophotometer and a colorimeter when it comes to calibrating monitors here is a very good article from Karl Lang which I'm sure will point you into the right direction.

http://www.lumita.com/site_media/work/whitepapers/files/xrite-wp-3a.pdf

If I were you I would go for the NEC i1D2... as far as I know Nec's colorimeters have custom made filters matched to their own LCDs which should make them even more accurate than a spectrometer. Since you have Spectraview I am assuming you live in the USA hence it shouldn't be a problem for you to get Nec's i1.

by the way, have you tried you i1d2 with your older monitor to see if it still works well? my i1D2 just started exhibiting the exact same behavior as your on two laptop monitors which used to be very easy to profile (no magenta cast) . I still haven't had time to figure out (may be I will ask the forum) if it's due to a buggy i1 or just my two monitors getting older at the same time...

Hope this helps.

[hoffsta]

Thanks to both of you-

Regarding the i1D2, I haven't had the time to do a complete scientific elimination of variables but I do know that many others are having the same problem on OS X 10.6. I never had this problem when using leopard but I've never NOT had the problem since upgrading to Snow Leopard. What OS are you using? Eventually I'm going to install a copy of 10.5 on a spare drive to test my hypothesis but I have too much work to do right now.

[hoffsta]

For more discussion see my earlier thread:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=47971.0

[shewhorn]

If you are not familiar with the difference between a spectrophotometer and a colorimeter when it comes to calibrating monitors here is a very good article from Karl Lang which I'm sure will point you into the right direction.

http://www.lumita.com/site_media/work/whitepapers/files/xrite-wp-3a.pdf

If I were you I would go for the NEC i1D2... as far as I know Nec's colorimeters have custom made filters matched to their own LCDs

I don't believe this is true (I own one). I believe the firmware in the device has been modified and those modifications can be taken advantage of when using Spectraview II. According to NEC they are not accessible to 3rd parties.

which should make them even more accurate than a spectrometer.

Due to the nature of the plastic filters used by colorimeters and other technical aspects, by many definitions a colorimeter is not going to be as accurate as a spectrophotometer. The behavior of a colorimeter changes over time as the plastic filters age and the optical qualities change. I own an NEC i1D2, Spyder 3, and DTP94 (I also have an original i1 Display somewhere) as well as an i1 Pro. The colorimeters are useful relative to themselves but if you enter a color temperature of 6500ºK into your profiling software, that is not what you're going to get back with a colorimeter. The DTP94 will produce a result that's about 5600ºK, the Spyder 3 will produce a result that's about 7400ºK and the i1D2 will be at 6300ºK. If I had multiple copies of each colorimeter I guarantee you I would get another 3 different results. They also vary with regards to what they report back for luminance by non-trivial amounts.

BTW, I'm not advocating spectrophotometers over colorimeters, just stating some of the facts. It's also a fact that colorimeters have historically done a better job with shadow detail. Due to the way spectrophotometers work, measurements of emissive blacks tend to be noisier. I'll say that my i1Pro is a Rev D and lately I'be been prefering the results it yield on most of my monitors over the results I get from my colorimeters.

Cheers, Joe

[Mc]

I don't believe this is true (I own one). I believe the firmware in the device has been modified and those modifications can be taken advantage of when using Spectraview II. According to NEC they are not accessible to 3rd parties.

This is an interesting piece of information. Here in Europe, Nec doesn't even sell colorimeters but integrates a calibration matrix stored in the profiling software, just like Eizo for example. I had always been under the impression that the USA approach with spectraview was different... may be rather than custom filters they simply store the calibration matrix in the colorimeter... still, I wouldn't discount the custom filters approach I mentioned. Are you sure about just the firmware being different in your Nec i1?

Also, regarding the filters made out of plastic in colorimeters, I know that to be true for the i1D2 but I thought that the DTP94 had glass filters...

you are also right regarding the different results that one could get with several "identical" colorimeters, the interinstrumental agreement doesn't seem to be their strongest point. However spectrometers loose their calibration too and that's why the i1pro should be sent to the factory for calibration every now and then.

hoffsta, I use a windows machine.

Manny