Poll

How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?

Very satisfied (really happy with the profile results!)
- 14 (53.8%)
Pretty satisfied (good for the price, but not as good as more expensive colorimeter/spectro)
- 8 (30.8%)
Average (just average, nothing great or terrible)
- 2 (7.7%)
Somewhat dissatisfied (wish it could've been better, might not have bought it if given a second chance)
- 1 (3.8%)
Big mistake!
- 1 (3.8%)

Total Members Voted: 26


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Author Topic: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?  (Read 21558 times)

shinew

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Hello, I just ordered a Colormunki Photo to replace my eye-one display 2 because I've upgraded my main monitor to a 30" wide gamut display. However, upon reading this article from drycreekphoto.com, I have less confident in producing accurate profiles using the Colormunki. http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/MonitorCalibrationHardware.html

I was planning to use Colormunki + ArcyllCMS, dispcalgui for display calibration because of the limited option from the bundled software. But if the hardware itself is inaccurate, there is really not much can be done on the software side...

So I would appreciate any Colormunki Photo/Design users to share your opinion, specifically whether you're happy with the profiles it has created or not. It's not too late for me to cancel the order yet!

thanks you!
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PhilipCummins

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2011, 08:49:11 am »

I've got a Colormunki Photo and use it for display calibrations, haven't noticed any issues with it really. Note that there was only 1 tested in that review so bit hard to draw conclusions from that 1 sample. Bang for buck it's the best choice I think for display & printer profiling, if you're just after display profiling the i1 Display Pro would be a better choice due to the low light sensitivity and colorimeter design.
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lmwacctg

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2011, 11:20:05 am »

I've been using this device for display profiling for 2 1/2 years now. It does an excellent job for me.

Don
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digitaldog

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2011, 11:45:32 am »

I've been using this device for display profiling for 2 1/2 years now. It does an excellent job for me.

Ditto, nothing I can find wrong with the hardware.
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langier

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2011, 12:06:55 pm »

My Monki has paid for itself countless times for the past several years, especially when I've got to run on a new material out here in the sticks. I tried PrintFix Pro (I think that's what it was) and all I did was run profiles and tests and never got anything to work well. The Monki is almost always dead-on.

The only issue I've had is the color scum conflict of Version 4.x profiles on Mac OS-X 10.6.x. The simple solution is to make the canvas the same size as the final untrimmed print since i haven't had time to re-profile and save as Version 2.x profiles.

It's fast, does a very reasonable profiles and is fairly inexpensive for both monitor and output profiling.
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digitaldog

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2011, 12:08:53 pm »

Just don’t build V4 profiles, they bring nothing (as yet) to the party. Some of this is bugs in the profile software, some in other app’s. Best thing, stick with V2.
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VitOne

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #6 on: September 04, 2011, 08:00:43 pm »

Maybe you could find this post interesting: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=50214.0

My 2 cents: I think that the CM Photo is a good instrument, but you could find better instruments if you need a display-only hardware. I did some more tests using a Discus and other hardware (I don't have direct access to a "serious" spectro, but I have the i1Pro and the Spectrolino) and I found the CM Photo to be the worst performer. I noticed some improvements using ArgyllCMS and some of its dispcal commands like -V and -Ibw (adaptive measurements and drifting).

The fact is that using it for display calibration I never noticed something really "bad", but, depending on the display that you are using (for example all my spectros gave me bad results in the shadows using display with a BP below 0.5cd/mq) you could have some limits with it.

I don't know what monitor you are going to calibrate/create a profile for; I can tell you that if I had to buy a monitor-only hardware today I would choose the new i1Display or the ColorMunki Display: http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/instruments.html#i1d3
« Last Edit: September 04, 2011, 08:02:43 pm by VitOne »
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shinew

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #7 on: September 05, 2011, 02:06:52 pm »

Thank you for you feedbacks, they're helpful! Seems that most people are happy with the Colormunki, and after weighing the pros/cons from those devices, I think it's worth it for me at least to test out the Colormunki before deciding whether to return/sell or keep it.

Here are the main reasons I decide to give it a shot:
1) It's one flexible device that is capable of calibrating a number of applications. Although I will mainly use it for display calibration, it's nice to be able to do print/scanner calibration as well.
2) Since it's a spectrophotometer, it's more resistant to display technology changes in the future because it measures/calculates colors in a more basic form than a colorimeter. So I might not need to upgrade it with future displays coming out equipped with new technology that's not supported by the current colorimeters. I'm not very fond of buying a new calibration device every few years on top of new displays.
3) I already own an eye-one display 2 and the hardware itself is solid, I can use the Colormunki to create a CCMX to get good shadow details off newer "unsupported" displays with i1d2
4) If I were to edit/print myself, perhaps it's more important to have consistent input/display/output profile created by one device(assuming it's accurate to itself) than its absolute accuracy?
5) It's value is high for how much it costs, especially when paired with more powerful software such as the argyll. I'm hoping more 3rd party softwares(for mac) will support it with more intuitive user interface.

Anyway, above are my reasoning. I appreciate any opinion or faults you could see in them. thanks!
« Last Edit: September 05, 2011, 02:16:31 pm by shinew »
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shinew

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #8 on: September 05, 2011, 03:21:24 pm »

VitOne, it's probably expected that the i1Pro & Colormunki will show different results, not only because the i1Pro is supposed to have tighter error tolerance, the Colormunki also conforms to the new XRGA standard and i1Pro does not.
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VitOne

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #9 on: September 06, 2011, 05:49:17 am »

I think that if you need a monitor only device the new X-Rite devices can do a better job. I suggest you to read page 6 and 7 of this discussion: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=53825.0 if you haven’t done it already.

 (I try to use your points to answer you):

1) Spectro of course is more versatile, but are you sure that you need a device for printer calibration? If not, at the moment I think that there are better solution for display profiling, as I already wrote.

2) Recent colorimeter from X-Rite http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/instruments.html#i1d3 seem to have all the features needed to last long.

3) This is a very good point.

4) If you work only with devices that you have “color adjusted” with the CM Photo this is true, but the fact is that X-Rite, for what I know, never gave official documentation about CM behavior. I remember that doing some small tests I had differences between different reads.

5) I used to be a huge fan of the CM and I also wrote this: http://www.photoactivity.com/Pagine/Articoli/053Profili_Stampa_Argyll/Profili_StampaRGB_ArgyllCMS.asp (sorry, only in Italian, but you could try Google Translate). But after I tried the Discus, the Spectrolino and the i1Pro rev D I used the CM for comparative tests and I only found that it wasn’t excellent. I don’t think that other software except ArgyllCMS and the X-Rite dedicated one will support the CM, but I would be happy to be denied.

Regarding the different results I am not a color expert and I am here to learn and share my experiences, but I can tell you that i1Pro, Discus, Spectrolino (re-certificated recently) show very similar behavior and the CM is always a little bit “far” from all this other instrument that I use. I did a similar comparison to the one linked in my previous post between the i1Pro and the Discus. The “only” difference where in the black and dark patches, where there was a DeltaE2000 greater than 3 in some tests, but the behavior was too far.

If you go on message number 13 in this discussion: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=57433.0 you will find some more words about this i1Pro rev D/Discus comparison.

My conclusion is that the CM has the best for price/value if you need a complete device for monitor and printer but I would go for something better if I needed something for the display alone (saving also some $). I updated from the CM to other device after I tried them.
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shinew

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #10 on: September 06, 2011, 01:39:55 pm »

thanks for the detailed replies & links. I've read some of them and will read your Colormunki & ArgyIICMS article.

I agree the new colorimiters like i1d pro, DISCUS & even Spyder3 are future prove enough for me since they cover all the display type in the foreseeable future.

I'll run some of my own tests once my Colormunki Photo arrives and see whether I'm going to keep it or not. If I decide to switch, it's most likely going to be i1D Pro. I have no doubt that DISCUS is the best of the bunch, and it should, but it's simply out of my budget, especially just for a colorimeter!

The keywords for me are "good enough", and that varies based on individual backgrounds and needs. I think it's relatively cheap/easy to get 90-95% perfection, but as it gets close to 100%, the cost/efforts required just increase exponentially, and it almost never ends. I tend to think people who're reading/posting in this forum all have relatively to very high standard for color accuracy. So based on the poll(albeit limited numbers for now), CM is worth a try.

========================

EDIT: btw another question for the Colormunki Photo/Design owners, is the color temperature measurement somewhat accurate? Because my i1d2 seems to be off(on the cold side), and after searching on the web, others seem to have similar problem and the color temp can be off on the i1d2(spyder3 too i think) by as much as 700-1000k! Just wondering if that's a model to model or different technology(colorimeter vs spectrophotometer) issue.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2011, 04:03:35 pm by shinew »
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Czornyj

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #11 on: September 08, 2011, 06:34:34 am »

EDIT: btw another question for the Colormunki Photo/Design owners, is the color temperature measurement somewhat accurate? Because my i1d2 seems to be off(on the cold side), and after searching on the web, others seem to have similar problem and the color temp can be off on the i1d2(spyder3 too i think) by as much as 700-1000k! Just wondering if that's a model to model or different technology(colorimeter vs spectrophotometer) issue.

There's only about 1-2dE difference between my ColorMunki and i1pro in measurement of wide gamut display whitepoint, so it is substantially better than any i1d2. The only concern is the inter-instrumental agreement of various ColorMunki units that may not be as good as i1pro's, so there's a slight chance of buying a lemon.

My bet is that new i1display pro could have better inter-instrumental agreement, as it seems to be spectrally characterized unit-by-unit.
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VitOne

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #12 on: September 08, 2011, 07:13:45 am »

There's only about 1-2dE difference between my ColorMunki and i1pro in measurement of wide gamut display whitepoint, so it is substantially better than any i1d2. The only concern is the inter-instrumental agreement of various ColorMunki units that may not be as good as i1pro's, so there's a slight chance of buying a lemon.

My bet is that new i1display pro could have better inter-instrumental agreement, as it seems to be spectrally characterized unit-by-unit.

I have done more than one test comparing the i1Pro rev D and 2 different models of i1Display2 (one “normal” and the other one branded by NEC). I can tell that units with a proper correction matrix (correct calibration) of the i1Display2 can work better than the i1Pro, because the i1Pro, in my case, is always lacking in dark-area measurements. I also have problems with temperature. If I let worm-up the i1Pro like somebody suggests I get even worst results in the dark areas. And if I need to read a number of patches greater than 50 I will start to get inconsistent results between the first and the last reads (letting the instrument worm up and using it without a worm up, it seems that the temperature will increase more during the readings. In my opinion i1Prois neither very consistent or very precise. As I reported in previous posts I tried i1Pro rev D with more than one software and I found ArgyllCMS to be the most complete, because it allows you to use features like adaptive measurements, drift compensation, high-resolution readings that can be useful to get the best from the instrument, but I was never total satisfied with the results using it. I tried more than one i1Pro rev D and I now own one of the last units with the i1Profiler (i1Publish Pro bundle), so it is not a problem that I noticed in one particular unit.

Trying and testing different spectros and colorimeters, is that colorimeters are usually better for monitor calibration. I am not saying that spectros are not good, simply that they are not the best. The problem of colorimeter is that they need to “perfectly fit” the monitor to give good results. With an i1Display2 and an i1Pro you can use ArgyllCMS to create a correction matrix for the colorimeter using the spectrophotometer. What I noticed using a Nec SpectraView monitor is that the NEC i1Display2 required no matrix (the matrix I got was very close to an identity matrix); using the i1Display2 the matrix was making some “noticeable” corrections, and so the original “calibration” of the i1Dispaly2 was not good for the wide-gamut monitor that I was using, but after the correction matrix the colorimeter showed a good behavior.

I would not say that the i1Pro REV 2 is substantially better than the i1Display2 for monitor calibration. In my tests I found the i1Display2 to behave similarly to the Discus with a proper correction matrix in the darker areas. Anyway I really think that the latest colorimeter units from X-Rite can be substantially better than the i1Pro REV D in monitor calibration, because as you can read in the link that I have already posted, the new colorimeter show very different features, for example the i1Dsiplay3 seems to have an interesting temperature stabilization and other features that you may want to check if you are interested in a monitor-only device.
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shinew

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #13 on: September 08, 2011, 12:59:13 pm »

There's only about 1-2dE difference between my ColorMunki and i1pro in measurement of wide gamut display whitepoint, so it is substantially better than any i1d2.

I have done more than one test comparing the i1Pro rev D and 2 different models of i1Display2 (one “normal” and the other one branded by NEC). I can tell that units with a proper correction matrix (correct calibration) of the i1Display2 can work better than the i1Pro...

Great! And it's good to have someone confirm that i1d2 is still very capable when a proper correction matrix is applied. Do you have a recommended command for ccxxmake? I'm looking at the option flags now and and not entirely sure what to use. Colormunki doesn't support the "-H" option as i1Pro does I assume?

Just saw a post 2009 spyder 3 cheap on ebay($35 bucks), so I bought it too just to test it out. Haven't done any multiple units testing since I sold my i1Pro & Pulse 5-6 years ago... looks like I'm going to have some fun!
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VitOne

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #14 on: September 09, 2011, 09:03:56 am »

As you can read in the very useful ArgyllCMS documentation and also in the article I wrote (and linked to you) the ColorMunki does support the –H mode (High resolution mode). –H mode could give you better results than the standard mode. I strongly suggest you to read all the documentation that you can find on ArgyllCMS site, it can be useful.

In my personal tests, that I have liked, I found the ColorMunki to have good DeltaE average values (less than 2 DeltaE 2000, close to DeltaE 2000 1.5) and not so good maximum DeltaE (in some tests I got 8). My tests are not accurate and not “scientific”, I can say that they confirm my practical experience.
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mshea

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #15 on: September 09, 2011, 09:10:18 am »

All my problems with scum dots disappeared when I reverted to V.2. As for monitor profiling, I have no complaints with my Eizo 223W. But I've had mixed results with printer profiling. Try as I might, I haven't been able to get neutral blacks on Harman/Hahnemuhle gloss baryta. I'm finally paying InkjetMall/Cone to produce one for me.

Merrill
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shinew

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #16 on: September 11, 2011, 12:38:32 am »

I received my ColorMunki yesterday and just would like to report back that so far I'm pretty happy with it in terms of hardware. The software came with it for display calibration is really very super barebone, to the extend that it feels lacking even in terms of basic functionality(missing black level adjustment & custom color temperature), especially when compared with ArgyllCMS(I'm using dispcalgui for the front end). As the result, although the profile created from OEM software looks decent, it suffers a bit in shadow details, and there is no way to calibrate the display's WP to a specific viewing condition besides the standard D65, D50 & native...
The default icc v4 profile also screws up my display, not sure if that's a Mac Snow Leopard problem or theirs, but that's a minor issue.

For now I have my monitor set at native WP, 100lux & 0.25cd/m2 black using profile created by ArgyllCMS using "Single gamma + matrix". When tested it in photoshop, there is no noticeable color cast in gradient and I could detect 0 -> 1 level changes in black details. With OEM software, shadow details are not seen at level 4. This is also confirmed by visiting http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_black.htm

One interesting result I found is that I actually get (slightly)more contrasty profile using my i1 display 2+CCMX correction matrix than just using the ColorMunki. Although visually they're very similar, I do get slightly better contrast ratio from i1d2+ccmx than ColorMunki around 670:1 vs 560:1, and the difference is visible.

Below are the dE I got when I ran a 51-set profile verification with both CM & i1d2 on the profile created by i1d2 cross checked using CM, then generated the differences between the two:
No of test patches in worst 10% are = 5
No of test patches in best 90% are = 46
Verify results:
  Total errors (CIEDE2000):     peak = 0.854821, avg = 0.487762
  Worst 10% errors (CIEDE2000): peak = 0.854821, avg = 0.817497
  Best  90% errors (CIEDE2000): peak = 0.780339, avg = 0.451922
I assume the result is within the tolerance for this level of instruments?

As for the for Colormunki's hardware accuracy, I'm more optimistic now after reading from more than one source that people have compared the i1pro against CM, and found the differences to be not as large as reported from drycreekphoto.com. One of which is from Graeme, the developer of ArgyllCMS:
Quote
i1 Rev A vs. Munki:
                Total errors:     peak = 0.926322, avg = 0.315342
 i1 Rev D vs. Munki:
                Total errors:     peak = 0.908153, avg = 0.530078

So I'm not seeing much discrepancy between the Eye-One and the ColorMunki
on low level readings.
http://www.freelists.org/post/argyllcms/Display-Calibration-Hardware-Capabilities,9
now I'll just have to worry about the unit to unit differences... :)

So overall I'm quite satisfied with ColorMunki and hope my finding will also be useful for other potential buyers. Maybe because I don't have any high end calibration hardware on hand to play around with, and I'll also have to see how well it matches the prints. I guess for now, ignorance is bliss... ;D
Out of 5/5 stars, without the ArgyllCMS available, I'll give it a 3.5, and 4.5 when combined with ArgyllCMS.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2011, 03:47:01 pm by shinew »
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erichK

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #17 on: January 23, 2012, 04:44:55 pm »

Apologies for reviving an old thread, but it still seems quite relevant.  I am having terrible results with my new CM photo. I use the latest version of Lightroom on mainly a i7 MacBookPro running 10.7.2 also occasionally a six core Windows 7pro pc with a Spectravision NEC 2690Wuxi display and an Epson 3880.  The Spectravision EyeI-2 (or whatever they call the latest version of their cryptically-named products) has generally done a good job of calibrating the display, but I was concerned about better matching of the display with prints.

So far, despite repeated attempts with both the PC and the Mac, the CM produces a sickly green tinge on the monitor and also badly-shifted , but this time to  brownish yellow prints, after carefully profiling such standard papers as Epson Premium Lustre.  These are so poor that simply allowing the printer to manage produv=ces much better results.

I may simply be a newbie getting something basic wrong, but am beginning to wonder whether there is something wrong with the Munki's self-calibration.

erichK
saskatoon, canada
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bill t.

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #18 on: January 23, 2012, 05:06:56 pm »

Sounds like a bad unit.  Have you looked into the sensor port to see if anything's stuck in there?

Screensavers can sometimes subvert color management on monitors, as can "helpful" toolbar items and bootup items that often get auto-installed with updated video drivers.  And there are some basic printing issues such as selecting "No color management" when you print patches or prints.   I assume you have all that sort of stuff under control.

Of course, if you try to make corrections on a wrongfully greenish screen, one might expect the prints to be kinda-sorta magenta-ish or brownish.  So it's also possible just your screen calibration is having problems.
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erichK

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Re: How satisfied are you with Colormunki Photo/Design for display profiling?
« Reply #19 on: January 23, 2012, 09:58:56 pm »

Thanks for your speedy reply, Bill.

I have checked the unit, as far as one can, without physically taking it apart.  Nothing obvious is in the sensor light path. Good point about turning off colour management, which I always do but could have forgotten.  However, that would not affect the sickly-green monitor calibration it produces, when run on both the mac and the PC would it?

I have contacted X-rite's support, but only a acknowledging Email and a promise that someone would be in touch, so far.

erich
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