Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: SteveAlley on March 16, 2010, 12:17:47 am
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So I bought a new ddc-ci compatiblemonitor, and it turns out that my video card is not ddc-enabled. ANy suggestions for a ddc-enabled video card for a windows xp system, for photoshop, etc only, that won't break the bank?
I have a geforce 9500 gt based card now.
Thanks!
Steve
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Purely out of curiosity... Is the new monitor a Dell?
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The other variable in this business is the software package you are using for calibrating and profiling your display. Depending on what software you are using, get in touch with the software developer and ask them whether they know which of the video cards and displays of interest to you play well with their sottware in respect of utilizing DDC.
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Not a dell, got a screaming deal on a lacie 324 w/blue eye pro...
...and they're (predictably) not real quick to answer...
Steve
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I have a very old pdf (2006) listing the known DDC compatible video cards from then. There are several earlier GeForce cards before the 9500 that are compatible. If you think that would help, send me an email at Chromix and I will send you the pdf.
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I have a very old pdf (2006) listing the known DDC compatible video cards from then. There are several earlier GeForce cards before the 9500 that are compatible. If you think that would help, send me an email at Chromix and I will send you the pdf.
Thanks for your help. I've about come to the conclusion that any newer card should do it, although not because I've gotten any good info from any reasonably expected source.
LaCie--and I would consider this before you buy one--told me that they cannot recommend any card to use due to liability concerns. Same with chipsets, etc, etc. They suggested I check with the card manufacturers. You would think that they would be interested in enhancing my user experience, but not so much ...
ATI and Nvidia support both responded that they didn't know what DDC is...and then proceeded to tell me that they could not find an answer for me. Sapphire (a card manufacturer) had the same resonse. Google? Spent hours trying to track down a current suggestion and did manage to confirm anecdotally that the 9500GT I have now won't work, but no joy on help for a replacement.
All suggested that since it is a modern standard, "most modern video cards with a DVI out should work."
Thanks, guys , not the best help I've ever had. For a bunch of folks who are happy to take my money, I'm not getting much support here.
I ordered an ATI 4670 based card to try; I wil post here with results since I've had so much trouble finding info anywhere else. The Nvidia 9500GT card I have now does not work with DDI.
Thanks for all your help, this is a harder question than I suspected.
Steve
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Steve, I went through the same frustrating searches and inquiries as you and came up with the same (absence of) information. By sheer coincidence, I also have a 9500 GT card on my Win XP system. The reason I asked whether your new monitor is a Dell is because I learned that Dell's implementation of DDC/CI on many models is not compatible with any software I know of.
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Steve, it is a very hard question, because this whole issue of DDC support is a jungle. There are so many video cards and displays on the market; the fact that LaCie won't say anything about their Blue Eye is really bad news - it does indeed mean that if one considers DDC compliance important, not to buy their product unless one knows in advance whether DDC is supported in one's hardware environment, or what needs to change to make it so.
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Steve, it is a very hard question, because this whole issue of DDC support is a jungle. There are so many video cards and displays on the market; the fact that LaCie won't say anything about their Blue Eye is really bad news - it does indeed mean that if one considers DDC compliance important, not to buy their product unless one knows in advance whether DDC is supported in one's hardware environment, or what needs to change to make it so.
Yeah, I found it VERY frustrating that they acknowledged that I needed a card that would work with the monitor but refused to point me in even a general direction, citing liability issues. How can ensuring that I have a good experience with their product be a bad thing?!?
I was looking at a range of similar monitors when I found this one, which was a victim of the economy, being closed out. I would happily have bought a NEC or EIZO had I known that I'd get ZERO support from LaCie. They did give me some good advice re: KVM switches and using a good cable, but since they include one, that was no issue. As far as the help I was asking for, I got nuthin.
I'll be shopping for another monitor in this class in the next few months; it WON'T be a LaCie.
Steve
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In case anyone else is looking, the ATI 4670 card I bought works fine with Blue Eye Pro and my LaCie 324, as well as detecting the other older CRT I'm using as a second monitor via DDC as well. I'd feel pretty safe buying higher-range ATI cards than that as well, but don't spend your money based on my speculation...
Hope this helps someone else.
Steve
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Good to know.
I'm thinking it may be useful to start a thread on DDC-compatible video cards, where people simply post what combinations of hardware and software are working for them, so others can benefit from the information. If enough people do it, this would help fill a wide gaping hole in the industry just now.
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Good to know.
I'm thinking it may be useful to start a thread on DDC-compatible video cards, where people simply post what combinations of hardware and software are working for them, so others can benefit from the information. If enough people do it, this would help fill a wide gaping hole in the industry just now.
+1 on that. I searched high and low and got pretty much....nuthin.
Steve
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As you are all finding out, this is a train wreck. Not only do card manufacturers not tell you what you need to know but monitor manufacturers seldom use the standard protocol either. So each little variant becomes a technical failure. In our effort to wade through LaCie issues we spoke with them directly and their response was they did not have time to deal with third party software. That we should sell our customers LaCie Blue eye software. And yet there was a period of time when LaCie support was a piece of cake. Dell is another great example of how screwed up this is. They say their monitors are ddc compliant. I spent about a month with a large Dell corporate customer plumbing the depths of Dell engineering and not only did I not find anyone who even knew what ddc was but at one point they told me Dell monitors were not designed for high end color applications. When I mentioned Photoshop there was a loud gasp. Here in lies the wisdom of Eizo. Routing the control commands through a usb connection avoiding the video card and other os issues was a good decision. This is nothing new. We did this a long time ago with the Lacie crt and it worked very well.
That being said we are beginning to see Eizo issues a bit as well. I suspect that the ever increasing complexity of all these interacting systems is only going to make this worse.
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Jack, you and I (and I'm sure I'm not alone) have been discussing this issue on and off for the better part of several years now, and as a third party provider of display profiling solutions, your frustration with it is totally understandable. And as you say, it doesn't appear to be getting any better.
Under the circumstances, what consumers really need is a data base indicating what combinations of stuff work with your software and which don't. At one time some years ago you did have such a page on your website, but I can't find it any longer. Of course, there is a very large universe of displays, graphics cards and OS system versions out there, so no-one can seriously expect that you yourselves would have the means and resources to test it all - impossible - and then there are potential liability issues involved depending on what you claim or don't claim. But there is a way of doing this that gets around both issues: create a page on yourt website which simply collects and displays users' experience in a retrievable format. It would be a four-column table: (1) O/S version, (2) Display Model, (3) Graphics Card and (4) Result (DDC works or doesn't). Each line of the table would be filled by a user who has tried their combination of stuff and found it works or doesn't work. You publish it taking no liability for what people send for posting there - its their opinions based on their outcomes. This would serve two purposes: (i) it would pre-advise people what they should consider buying or not buying if they hope to get DDC compliance with your software, and (ii) it would create pressure on display and card manufacturers to achieve compliance by providing you with the necessary SDKs. Not only you, but other profiling solution vendors such as BasicColor should do likewise. Consumers need some way of wading through this "train wreck" and finding the survivors, if I can borrow from your apt analogy.
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Good points, both of you.
Jack, the fact that LaCie would recommend that you simply sell customers the Blue Eye Pro package as a solution shows just how far out of the loop they really are; as you know, my search for compatible hardware was driven by my desire to make the BLUE EYE PRO SOFTWARE talk to the monitor and thus be able to address the monitor LUT!
Eye-onematch worked fine without needing to address the internal monitor LUT, but of course the reason you'd spend the extra money on a monitor with a 10-bit LUT is so that you can use that lut to calibrate the monitor!
As an aside, after all that work, the BEP test and report function reports that the I-one match profile is a much better profile in terms of matching the target whitepoint, meeting the target luminance, a lower black point, than the BEP-generated profile. Better dE across theboard as well. It matches my prints better as well. Ah, well.
Steve
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Good points, both of you.
Jack, the fact that LaCie would recommend that you simply sell customers the Blue Eye Pro package as a solution shows just how far out of the loop they really are;
Steve
Also worth keeping in mind that LaCie is essentially a repackager/embellisher and rebrander of other manufacturers' under-the-hood equipment.
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Also worth keeping in mind that LaCie is essentially a repackager/embellisher and rebrander of other manufacturers' under-the-hood equipment.
You'll get no argument from me. I'dve bought a NEC but found this, as noted, for far less than retail. It's not a bad monitor, and much better than the smoking (literally) CRT it replaced....
S
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I agree - their stuff is very useable. I too have a LaCie - a 321 (original version). It too has an unresolved DDC compliance issue. I only made the point to bring out perhaps another reason for their possible detachment from this issue - they don't really control it themselves.
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Also worth keeping in mind that LaCie is essentially a repackager/embellisher and rebrander of other manufacturers' under-the-hood equipment.
True indeed. But I think Steve’s point that a fully integrated solution; display, software and supported measuring device is often the best approach and, not anywhere as expensive as they used to be (in the old Barco/PressView days).
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Just to clarify--my ddc compliance issue is in fact now resolved--I purchased a new video card (79.00 shipped) and that did in fact resolve the communications issue. I had to guess what to buy, though, which would have been kinda scary had I wanted to buy a gaming-level card at $2-300 bucks....I guess tht's the upside to not having any time to play...
Thanks again for all of the help and commiseration here!
Steve
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Good; this just underscores the potential usefulness of my suggestion to have a database somewhere of what works.
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Hi Steve,
Just wondering what make/model video card did you buy please?
I have recently purchased a Dell U2410 monitor and wish to see if my video card will work with DDC. Operating system is XPPro.
Thanks, Malcolm McIntosh