Could anybody help me understand the different types of NEC PA monitors sold in the US and EU? I mean, for example PA272. There are two US models, with and without SV software and hardware. The displays are identical, correct? Now, in Europe I noticed three different versions. PA272, priced similarly to the US PA272, SpectraView 272 priced more or less like the highest end EIZO model and SpectraView Reference, even more expensive. How these differ?
EU Spectraview panels come with SpectraView Profiler (a.k.a. basICColor display) license key loaded into the monitor firmware, so that it activates the profiling software that supports full hardware calibration.
Spectraview Reference has additionally 2 years of warranty, 6 month warranty for bad pixels, hood, book and nice, colourful box. There's no sensor included in any version. It also comes with certificate of individual measurement with i1pro sensor, which seems to be a bad joke, as all new PA/SV/SVR xx2 series panels come with individual factory Calibration and Verification Report, where lab grade, 100x more accurate Konica Minolta CA-2000 was used to evaluate the displays uniformity, so I don't have a freaking clue what's the point of making another measurement with i1pro device, which is toy-like by a comparison to CA-2000, specifically designed for display uniformity measurements.
Normal PA can be calibrated with Spectraview Profiler a.k.a. basICColor display with hardware-software process. In the past it was calibrating PA brightness and wtpt colour internally, and then it was linearising display TRC using 8bit LUT of the video card, so it was less precise than full hardware calibration, now it doesn't create any correction, so frankly I don't really know what's the difference (if there's any).
So or so I don't like this software - it calibrates NEC PA/SV/SVR backlight to 160cd/m^2, so if any lower luminance target is selected the display is dimmed with internal LUT, so the CR is unintentionally lowered as a side effect result. It also doesn't work with useful NEC Multiprofiler as well as its US counterpart.
Unfortunately US Spectraview II software is not available in EU. But if you're on Windows, you can use NEC Gamma Comp MD QA as a substitute, it supports full hardware calibration in PA series and it seems to be using Spectraview II DNA.