Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: kbellis on February 01, 2014, 02:10:24 pm

Title: Hands Down Successor to the LCD2690
Post by: kbellis on February 01, 2014, 02:10:24 pm
A Little Background
After suspecting the NEC LCD2690WUXi was on its way out (failed achieving target intensity during calibration) I phoned NEC tech support. I was pleasantly surprised that even though the unit was well past its warranty period, I got to talk with Aaron, a Level 2 Tech. Over the course of about 30 minutes we proceeded to run the monitor and the color sensor through a series of performance tests. The conclusion was certain; the back light was failing.  The  LCD2690WUXi has been a great monitor for the past 6 years and over 12,000 hours of actual use, but it was time to retire it.

The PA272 was one of the options Aaron and I talked about, but then so was the discounted PA271 and even replacing the back light in the LCD2690WUXi. One of the compelling reasons for getting the PA272 was Aaron's endorsement of it – not in any way as a sales guy, but as a nerdy tech guy, my kind of guy! In more tangible terms; however, the PA272's back light is likely not going to fail nearly as soon since it's LED (start looking up the word 'metamerism').

Setting it up
I love B&H, but I was less than happy with them when the User's Manual was in Cyrillic! And of course it was Friday noon when the UPS guy drove off. Minor issue, almost not worth mentioning – at least the pdf from NEC's website was in English.

The added USB ports are always welcomed, something the LCD2690WUX lacked, and the next noted refinement was the stand. The height adjustment lock in the lowest position makes it much safer moving this beast around and the cable caddy thing on the LCD2690WUX which would easily fall off has been replaced with a vertically sliding shield that's not removable. The other improvement made on the stand of the PA272 is the way the swivel left-right works. All kind of minor points but all pluses.

No DVD disk comes with the monitor, but one isn't needed for the PA272, so don't sweat that. Figuring out what the mini DisplayPort cable is really going to accomplish, I still have no idea, but I connected it anyway along with the DVI-D, USB and power.

Powering UP
Windows found the new hardware and installed the generic USB hub drivers first and then fetched and installed PA272 drivers. After that successful run, the NVIDIA drivers and SpectraView II software were installed without issue.

Calibration
The same calibration sensor that came with the LCD2690WUX (NEC iOne Display v2) and the updated SpectraView II (v1.1.16.02) proceeded to do their thing smoothly... until it was finished. Whoa! That color is way way off! Later, my wife called it: 'sea foam' green when I asked here what color the screen looked like to her. For about 4 hours I combed through articles and reports searching how to fix this ugly green thing.

Many thanks and kudos to Marcin Kałuża (aka Czornyj) for his quick reply (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=86793.msg705305#msg705305) to my call for help on the Luminous Landscape forum and the easy solution: MultiProfiler, NEC's free software and a check in the box for Metamerism correction – hope that you looked up that word by now ;)

(http://panocea.us/images/metamerism.PNG)
Complaints
They are minor, but like the pluses, worth mentioning. The happy fix of being rid of the green cast through the MultiProfiler is short-lived and must be redone after each calibration. Why this little check box isn't 1) in SpectraView II to begin with and 2) on by default upon completion of the calibration process is something that escapes reason... maybe NEC will take note?

Bottom line
This is a fantastic display device and is definitely the hands down successor to the LCD2690WUX.

Title: Re: Hands Down Successor to the LCD2690
Post by: jrsforums on February 01, 2014, 04:53:53 pm
So....what is the story of 'metamerism' on LED lit displays?

John
Title: Re: Hands Down Successor to the LCD2690
Post by: kbellis on February 01, 2014, 09:49:57 pm
Hi John,

Apparently, in so far as it applies to color, it's a pretty intense subject; the stuff from which doctorates are made:
http://oicherman.com/Boris/Science/Boris_Oicherman_Phd_thesis.pdf

Theoretical and scientific discussions not withstanding, the bottom line is how we humans see and process color. You don't have to have a PhD to prove it, but it probably helps in understanding it. The LED back light uncorrected for metamerism is not going to make you very happy (think David Banner) that you just dropped $1300.
Title: Re: Hands Down Successor to the LCD2690
Post by: Doug Fisher on February 02, 2014, 01:56:33 pm
I have never understood why that metamerism check-box was not also included in Spectraview.  When I first got my monitor, I tried to convince myself for a day or so that my eyes must be deceiving me because Spectraview calibration couldn't be that wrong.  I didn't think I needed to install the multiprofiler since that was a free program and surely the pay program had all the basic functions, right?  Fortunately I needed to install the multiprofiler to better manage the profiles for my two monitors and found the metamerism checkbox.  The world became right again ;)

Doug
Title: Re: Hands Down Successor to the LCD2690
Post by: Czornyj on February 02, 2014, 02:46:01 pm
In fact both programs cooperate very nicely and you need to use both to get full potential of P/PA series display, as they don't duplicate its features. Spectraview II calibrates display - Multiprofiler manages it, applies metameric correction and 3DLUT print emulation and so on.
Title: Re: Hands Down Successor to the LCD2690
Post by: jrsforums on February 02, 2014, 03:17:02 pm
How do other LED backlit monitors handle this?

As, when working with an x-rite calibrator?

John
Title: Re: Hands Down Successor to the LCD2690
Post by: Czornyj on February 02, 2014, 04:02:03 pm
In case of EIZO there's an option in ColorNavigator profiler, in case of others there's... eyeballing ;)
Or ArgyllCMS + dispcalGUI and CIE 1964 10° observer measurement option.
Title: Re: Hands Down Successor to the LCD2690
Post by: jrsforums on February 02, 2014, 04:54:28 pm
Quote from: Czornyj on February 02, 2014, 04:02:03 pm
In case of EIZO there's an option in ColorNavigator profiler, in case of others there's... eyeballing ;)
Or ArgyllCMS + dispcalGUI and CIE 1964 10° observer measurement option.

So, xrite will not properly profile a LED monitor?
Title: Re: Hands Down Successor to the LCD2690
Post by: Czornyj on February 02, 2014, 05:10:52 pm
Quote from: jrsforums on February 02, 2014, 04:54:28 pm
So, xrite will not properly profile a LED monitor?

Yes, it will - the problem is that after calibration GBr LED monitor looks a little bit different than a WG CCFL, CCFL or W-LED monitor. So the colours of photos will look ok, but in a direct comparison with other technology display there will be a slight disconnection.
Title: Re: Hands Down Successor to the LCD2690
Post by: jrsforums on February 02, 2014, 05:28:28 pm
Quote from: Czornyj on February 02, 2014, 05:10:52 pm
Yes, it will - the problem is that after calibration GBr LED monitor looks a little bit different than a WG CCFL, CCFL or W-LED monitor. So the colours of photos will look ok, but in a direct comparison with other technology display there will be a slight disconnection.

So...if I understood what you said...and say it differently.....side-by-side you would notice a difference....however, for practical purposes, the display would be properly set up for image adjustments.

Correct?

Edit....I have a WG-CCFL....it is great, but I found two problems with it.  First, I could not trust it until it warmed up...~30 min.....and it looked, on certain images, quite different from  sRGB monitor unless I soft proofed image to sRGB...then they looked quite close.
Title: Re: Hands Down Successor to the LCD2690
Post by: Czornyj on February 03, 2014, 06:07:56 am
The image looks the same, only white and grayscale may look slightly different in direct comparison.

On WG-CCFL you can see more colours than on sRGB-like device, so some colours may look different. In case of PA272W you can limit the colour space to sRGB (or any smaller colour space) using internal 14(16)3DLUT to mimic the look of smaller gamut monitor, and you can turn it on and off quite easily via keyboard shortcut using Multiprofiler. It also has backlight sensor that stabilise the luminance and colour of the backlight, so it's virtually ready to work immediately after switching.