Calibrating current bleeding edge monitors (Dell 24" 4K)

[feppe]

I'm considering buying Dell's UP2414Q, a 24" 4K monitor which covers 99% of AdobeRGB.

One of the accessories offered is X-Rite i1Display Pro. X-Rite's product line has changed quite a bit over the years, and I'm not up-to-date. I recall reading that some older models couldn't properly calibrate some monitors with a LED backlight, but I imagine that's not the case anymore.

I believe the current i1Display Pro has the same hardware as the current ColorMunki. The only difference is firmware/software -limited calibration speed, and some crippled features on ColorMunki. I don't care about speed. But are there any features I would likely be missing if I opt for ColorMunki? I'd be calibrating the 4K monitor for photo editing using the native calibration software, and my projector for movie viewing using HCFR.

Also, are ICC profiles compatible between different OSs? I would prefer to calibrate in Windows where I do photo editing (until GIMP comes with 16-bit editing in the upcoming 2.10 update), and everything else in Linux Mint. If they are compatible, I could just use the ICC profile generated in Windows with Linux.

full disclosure: I work for Dell

[digitaldog]

That's the newest and best colorimeter from X-rite.
Yes, the profiles are cross platform.

[feppe]

Yes, the profiles are cross platform.

Great to hear, thanks!

Any killer features in i1Display I'd be likely to miss if I opt for ColorMunki?

[digitaldog]

Lot's of control over calibration targets (White Point, etc). The software is key here if you hope to produce a visual match to something else. Preset's don't cut it.

[ThDo]

Unless Dell has a very special agreement with X-Rite you will not be able to use the Colormunki Display with the Dell software.
X-Rite does not allow any 3rd party software vendor to support the Colormunki Display.

[feppe]

Unless Dell has a very special agreement with X-Rite you will not be able to use the Colormunki Display with the Dell software.
X-Rite does not allow any 3rd party software vendor to support the Colormunki Display.

Not sure what you mean. I'd be calibrating the Dell monitor with ColorMunki, no Dell software comes to play here. I'm positive X-Rite's calibrator and software are hardware agnostic, as long as they don't use technologies unsupported by the puck.

[digitaldog]

Not sure what you mean. I'd be calibrating the Dell monitor with ColorMunki, no Dell software comes to play here. I'm positive X-Rite's calibrator and software are hardware agnostic, as long as they don't use technologies unsupported by the puck.

Correct. But again, if budget premits, I'd skip that software (hardware is almost identical) and go i1display-Pro.
Now some 3rd parties (NEC) have their own X-rite branded i1's that will only work with their host software. If you get the X-rite solution as is, it should work on any display system.

[digitaldog]

I went with ColorMunki. I don't care for ambient light calibration available on i1Display (too variable at my workstation), and I calibrate my projector with HCFR which doesn't support i1Display AFAIK.

The ambient light stuff is crap, unnecessary. What's important is having control over the target calibrations. If you're lucky, the preset's will get you what you need. But often one has to apply settings (especially for white point) that don't fall among the presets. Otherwise your hardware is 99.9% the same as the more expensive package. Which is a shame you can't even pay to upgrade to better software. X-rite's marketing here is both confusing and inflexible.

[feppe]

aww, crap, accidentally deleted the wrong post, but Andrew quoted my full post.

The ambient light stuff is crap, unnecessary. What's important is having control over the target calibrations. If you're lucky, the preset's will get you what you need. But often one has to apply settings (especially for white point) that don't fall among the presets. Otherwise your hardware is 99.9% the same as the more expensive package. Which is a shame you can't even pay to upgrade to better software. X-rite's marketing here is both confusing and inflexible.

It's not only marketing which is confusing and inflexible, it's also their product line and support of past generations (or lack thereof).

Anyway, if I don't get good results from the ColorMunki software, I will use HCFR for monitor calibration as well. HCFR is the only software that does saturation calibration - or at least it was last time I checked a few years ago - which offers a huge improvement on image quality, at least on my projectors.

[digitaldog]

HCFR is the only software that does saturation calibration.

What's that supposed to do?

[feppe]

What's that supposed to do?

Saturation calibration guide for Epson projectors I've been using for years. Essentially it is to ensure that each 25% (or 10% if you really want) saturation level is actually 25%. Most people who use projectors only calibrate using 75% brightness, and don't check other brightness levels (25%, 50%, 100%), let alone saturation levels. I was shocked how big of an improvement saturation calibration made with my projector. It's a rather big investment in time, though, and you need to use spreadsheets.

I don't know if X-Rite's software does that automatically, as it doesn't say what it's doing under the hood. I believe Calman software was coming up with saturation calibration, so things might have improved since last time I checked a few years ago.

I used to have a Spyder and didn't use the native software for projector calibration, since it didn't really work well with AVS HD calibration disk using PS3 (now PS4). Using HCFR one can check delta-Es, compare brightness and saturation levels of each color (CMY or RGB) against REC 709 on every brightness/saturation step, track bulb performance as it ages, etc. etc.

[ThDo]

Not sure what you mean. I'd be calibrating the Dell monitor with ColorMunki, no Dell software comes to play here. I'm positive X-Rite's calibrator and software are hardware agnostic, as long as they don't use technologies unsupported by the puck.

You can really use this device: http://www.xrite.com/colormunki-display with the "Dell UltraSharp Color Calibration Solution software" to calibrate the monitor?
Than this is a novum and good to know.
Till now no other software except X-Rites iProfiler and argyll with his custom driver and hacked access code can use the Colormunki Display.

[D Fosse]

HCFR is the only software that does saturation calibration

That sounds like a hack. The display profile normally takes care of that part, by specifying the position of each primary. But since we're talking about projectors a full display profile may be overshooting the target.

[D Fosse]

You can really use this device: http://www.xrite.com/colormunki-display with the "Dell UltraSharp Color Calibration Solution software" to calibrate the monitor?

That's not what I heard, I believe it's locked to the i1 Display Pro and the Munki won't work. Of course you can use the Munki software - but the whole point of the Dell software is that it's calibrating at hardware level, accessing the high-bit monitor LUT directly. The Munki software can only do a low-bit video card calibration.

[digitaldog]

Saturation calibration guide for Epson projectors I've been using for years.

Right off the bat they write:Even though I mention some Epson projectors specifically, this method can be applied just as effectively to all projectors.
I'd expect the technology to make a huge difference (well when comparing DLP's which suck to LCD's). The Color Light Output of the two technologies (and the saturation?) should be huge.
http://www.colorlightoutput.com/what-is-color-light-output.php
But interesting, I've never heard of this Saturation 'control' when calibrating.

[feppe]

You can really use this device: http://www.xrite.com/colormunki-display with the "Dell UltraSharp Color Calibration Solution software" to calibrate the monitor?
Than this is a novum and good to know.
Till now no other software except X-Rites iProfiler and argyll with his custom driver and hacked access code can use the Colormunki Display.

Don't know if ColorMunki works with the software you refer to, but the puck comes with its own software made by X-Rite, which can be used to calibrate an UltraSharp monitor, and pretty much any other monitor out there.

That sounds like a hack. The display profile normally takes care of that part, by specifying the position of each primary. But since we're talking about projectors a full display profile may be overshooting the target.

I haven't used HCFR with a monitor because it is much faster to use the native software that came with Spyder, and just came with my new ColorMunki. Projector calibration is different, since you can't hook up a Playstation (Bluray watching) to a computer to do all the heavy lifting. There are ways to do it semi-automatically, but I don't mind getting my hands dirty, as it means I actually understand better what's happening.

That's not what I heard, I believe it's locked to the i1 Display Pro and the Munki won't work. Of course you can use the Munki software - but the whole point of the Dell software is that it's calibrating at hardware level, accessing the high-bit monitor LUT directly. The Munki software can only do a low-bit video card calibration.

Does that mean it won't matter which puck you're using if you run your 10-bit monitor in 8-bit mode? That's what I'd be running the UP2414Q in. But if there's a real benefit from using i1Display as opposed to ColorMunki (other than speed), I'd be inclined to exhange the ColorMunki to i1Display.

Right off the bat they write:Even though I mention some Epson projectors specifically, this method can be applied just as effectively to all projectors.
I'd expect the technology to make a huge difference (well when comparing DLP's which suck to LCD's). The Color Light Output of the two technologies (and the saturation?) should be huge.
http://www.colorlightoutput.com/what-is-color-light-output.php
But interesting, I've never heard of this Saturation 'control' when calibrating.

My Epson is LCD, not sure if Epson makes DLP projectors. And saying DLPs suck compared to LCDs is opening a whole can of worms I'm not going to touch on

If you want to tinker with it, you can check out HCFR (free, as in beer) with AVS HD calibration disk (link in linked post) and using the guide I linked to in my earlier post. It would be great to have feedback from a seasoned pro as yourself on saturation calibration on the thread above!

Other third-party calibration softwares probably can do saturation calibration, and some other calibration DVDs might have the proper calibration targets.

Thanks for the Color Light Output link, that'll come handy next time I'm upgrading my projector!

[Tim Lookingbill]

My Epson is LCD, not sure if Epson makes DLP projectors. And saying DLPs suck compared to LCDs is opening a whole can of worms I'm not going to touch on

That's the first I've seen of issues dealing with Color Brightness measurements of projectors and was at first glad Andrew posted that very informative Intertek Lumita link, so I wasn't sure what you meant by a can of worms until I did some researching on my own and found this YouTube video by EpsonTV...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLiL9fLuXBw

Note Epson uses the same "independent" Intertek Lumita demo images to illustrate their 3LCD technology as better than DLP. CRAP!

What?! These major companies can't come up with their own demo images to explain their technology? Why do I always end up feeling while learning something new about newer technology on the internet I'm really being sold a bill of goods on cult like level?

AARGH!

[digitaldog]

That's the first I've seen of issues dealing with Color Brightness measurements of projectors and was at first glad Andrew posted that very informative Intertek Lumita link, so I wasn't sure what you meant by a can of worms until I did some researching on my own and found this YouTube video by EpsonTV...

Let me be more specific about DLP vs LCD as I wrote that too quickly without proper specifics. DLP technology for images in the business projector market (read that as not expensive home projector market) is crap. I've tested the two technologies side by side with my own images:

The white filter wheel in DLP's wash out the color as can be seen. All to raise a spec's that most feel is important, and a spec that was designed for black text on a white bkgnd. Not colorful images.
The differences are so drastic it's not necessary to label which image above came from which technology. The two projectors here are within the same class, roughly the same price point. One has a much higher Color Brightness rating!

[feppe]

That's the first I've seen of issues dealing with Color Brightness measurements of projectors and was at first glad Andrew posted that very informative Intertek Lumita link, so I wasn't sure what you meant by a can of worms until I did some researching on my own and found this YouTube video by EpsonTV...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLiL9fLuXBw

Note Epson uses the same "independent" Intertek Lumita demo images to illustrate their 3LCD technology as better than DLP. CRAP!

What?! These major companies can't come up with their own demo images to explain their technology? Why do I always end up feeling while learning something new about newer technology on the internet I'm really being sold a bill of goods on cult like level?

AARGH!

It's marketing. 3LCD is nothing but a marketing term for plain old LCD AFAIK. I'm sure DLP projector makers have similarly biased and selective marketing videos.

By can of worms I meant that LCD superiority as home theater projectors (only context I'm familiar with or care about) is not so cut and dry. DLPs have some features which are superior to LCD, and vice versa. I picked LCD mainly due to deathly fear of rainbowing and dithering artifacts of DLPs (I believe mostly fixed these days with very fast color wheels), flexibility in projector placement offered by LCDs, and lack of screen door effect in the particular LCD projectors I've owned (plagued earlier LCD generations, mostly a non-issue these days).

Epson using those particular images from the CLO website is actually not disingenuous in the context: if you take a look at the buyer's guide in Mr Rodney's link, you'll see Epson projectors have the same color light output as brightness output. Many competing projectors at the same price points have huge variation between the two.

[ThDo]

Don't know if ColorMunki works with the software you refer to, but the puck comes with its own software made by X-Rite, which can be used to calibrate an UltraSharp monitor, and pretty much any other monitor out there.

You are really using iProfiler for a monitor which can be hardware calibrated?!
iProfiler does only bend you grafik cards LUT and is not using the internal LUT of your monitor.