SpectraView II matrices for wide gamut monitors?

[artobest]

OK, I was afraid you'd ask that!  

I was getting strong colour shifts - red and green banding - in 16-bit grayscale stepwedges in Photoshop. I was calibrating my Spectraview Reference 2690 using the supplied Spectraview-branded version of BasICColor and an HP-branded i1D2 that came with my printer.

Nothing I changed in my target settings seemed to improve matters (Generally I use 5800K, 2.2, min neutral black or 100cd/m2 and 400:1 contrast ratio), although the profiles I made validated very well in Spectraview.

In the end I set the stepwedge as my desktop to see whether the problem was at a system level or an application level. To my surprise, the wedge appeared neutral (or as near as dammit) on my desktop, so the problem seemed to lie with Photoshop. I went into my PS colour settings and changed the conversion engine from Adobe ACE to Microsoft ICM. Voila, problem solved.

The engineer at BasICColor said something about how the Microsoft ICM didn't use Black Point Compensation, which could account for the difference. I don't know whether this is a priceless gem of information or whether he was just trying to get rid of me.

Either way, the upshot is that, though I don't understand why (and I don't know why, for example, I see colour microbanding in a 16-bit grayscale gradient viewed at 600% - anybody care to explain?), I currently have passably neutral greys and very good colours, all with a non-NEC i1D2.

[Steve Weldon]

Time to take a single bite of crow and see how well it goes down..   Not the whole crow mind you.. just the beak and claws.. yuk..

Weeelllll....   It came in today. (SVII Puck)  And I highly suspect I received a new upgraded model because 4 places I know of (and tried to order from when they listed them in stock) pulled them off the shelf at the same time.. and then mine shipped directly from NEC (via Amazon)..

Before (old puck).. lets say my target was 6506.. I'd get 6454.. or 6580..  each monitor would be on the different end therefore requiring the visual white point difference.  Never did get the 500 point differences some were talking about.

With the new puck.. I'm getting 6508 on one monitor and 6503 on the other (target 6506 (just talking about one profile, but it holds across all of them).. again, opposed.. but very close.. no visual white point adjustment needed.

I think for a single monitor in a closed system there would be absolutely no difference.  In an open system sent to others.. the differences are small enough it wouldn't be an issue either..   BUT with dual monitors side by side.. I'm really glad I bought this SVII puck.  I'm anal about them looking the same and this is a great comfort factor even if there is no real practical difference image quality wise.

Other small differences.. like the way if you have a thumbnail showing in explorer on monitor 2.. Win7 would show the thumbnail as too saturated or whatever it may be.. but if you opened it up in Windows Photo Gallery or some other color managed browser.. then it would be right.  Open a test target and zoom in so the face takes half the screen.. and slide it between monitor 1 and monitor 2.. it would be right when 100% on either monitor.. but there was a mid-point where that oversaturated/wrong look would be a factor.  Now this is no longer an issue.

So.. imo.. if you have a single monitor.. the 1di2 puck will serve you well.  If you run dual monitors the SVII puck will serve you better.

[WombatHorror]

"QUESTION: Can I use the new MDSVSENSOR2 color sensor included in the new SVII-PRO-KIT with other 3rd party calibration applications?

ANSWER: Yes, however the custom calibration for NEC wide color gamut displays will not be available. Only the standard calibration is available."

It seems odd to me this is in the NEC faq and yet if I do try to use it on my other (standard gamut) displays using other software it gives pretty different results from either DTP94b probe.

Interestingly though measuring things on a NEC PA241W an i1Pro (ColorimetreHCFR) and the NEC puck (using SVII) and for sRGB primaries and white point the biggest difference between those two combos was .002 in terms of xy values and many measurements were only .000 or .001 'apart'/apart.

But NEC puck vs i1pro vs DTP94b original stock vs DTP94b new stock on an sRGB monitor using ColorimetreHCFR or CEDP had all three giving rather different results with the NEC puck being wayyyyyyyy out there. The two DTP units had the closest match.


For kicks I used CEDP + i1Pro to software calibrate the hardware sRGB mode calibration I had already done. It seemed to shift the gamma a bit off and it made the gray-scale get some green tones in the darker shades and things looked way better not building a fancy software LUT and just simply using the probe to give it a white point and perhaps primaries and letting the monitor do the rest itself.

[WombatHorror]

Time to take a single bite of crow and see how well it goes down..   Not the whole crow mind you.. just the beak and claws.. yuk..

Weeelllll....   It came in today. (SVII Puck)  And I highly suspect I received a new upgraded model because 4 places I know of (and tried to order from when they listed them in stock) pulled them off the shelf at the same time.. and then mine shipped directly from NEC (via Amazon)..

Before (old puck).. lets say my target was 6506.. I'd get 6454.. or 6580..  each monitor would be on the different end therefore requiring the visual white point difference.  Never did get the 500 point differences some were talking about.

With the new puck.. I'm getting 6508 on one monitor and 6503 on the other (target 6506 (just talking about one profile, but it holds across all of them).. again, opposed.. but very close.. no visual white point adjustment needed.

I think for a single monitor in a closed system there would be absolutely no difference.  In an open system sent to others.. the differences are small enough it wouldn't be an issue either..   BUT with dual monitors side by side.. I'm really glad I bought this SVII puck.  I'm anal about them looking the same and this is a great comfort factor even if there is no real practical difference image quality wise.

Other small differences.. like the way if you have a thumbnail showing in explorer on monitor 2.. Win7 would show the thumbnail as too saturated or whatever it may be.. but if you opened it up in Windows Photo Gallery or some other color managed browser.. then it would be right.  Open a test target and zoom in so the face takes half the screen.. and slide it between monitor 1 and monitor 2.. it would be right when 100% on either monitor.. but there was a mid-point where that oversaturated/wrong look would be a factor.  Now this is no longer an issue.

So.. imo.. if you have a single monitor.. the 1di2 puck will serve you well.  If you run dual monitors the SVII puck will serve you better.

are you talking about how evenon the same monitor just changing the target brightness or this or that a little and each time you calibrate it might give you say 6480 one time and 6565 another?

[Steve Weldon]

are you talking about how evenon the same monitor just changing the target brightness or this or that a little and each time you calibrate it might give you say 6480 one time and 6565 another?

I'm not sure I understand the question completely..

If you keep running the calibration on the same monitor the numbers stay close, perhaps if the target is 6500 the variance will be between 6490 and 6410.. this is on both monitors.  But I noticed something that makes sense.. I had turned on a 60 watt reading light right in front of the monitors (over my shoulder) and then the values changes 50-60 points in the negative direction.

A few things which were easier to notice with this SVII than the 1di2.. Warming it up.  A good hour and it stabilizes fully.  30 minutes gets you 50% more variance at the finer end of the measurements.  Ambient light made a big difference.  Laying out the cable without kinks, curves, and as straight as possible and away from other power cables (especially) and signal cables (to a lesser degree) helped the variances become more consistent..

It also 'sticks' to the screen.  My 1di2 didn't do that.  I still have to lean my 'device' (and old back scratcher leaning on the middle with a tv remote anchoring the other end, I imagine we all do something similar) against it to be sure it stays.. but its nice that it seems to adhere on its own.  Running other programs on the other monitor didn't make any difference UNLESS the light output was enough to affect the ambient light levels..

I played with it for a few hours trying to figure out what made it tick.. or tick faster/slower.

I do wish for the $200 it came with some sort of case to keep it clean.  I'll have to come up with something.  Caselogic makes nice inexpensive cases.. if they'd only open a Walmart here in Bangkok..   I'm a big believer in individual cases to keep things clean, coiling the cable in big loops and without kinks, etc..

I am curious if this SVII puck will work optimally with Imatch software (or better than my 1id2) on my laptops.. especially the LED backlit models with a wider gamut.. I was never happy (at all) with the 1id2/Imatch combo with laptops.. some it seemed fine, others it was obviously lacking.. hoping this will cure it.

I'm tempted to buy a Munki and some other pucks and so a more complete study of this area.  The Munki would make sense, since it makes profiles for scanners, printers, etc.. and seeing the difference between a spectrometer and a colorimeter could be interesting.. but I'm afraid there's no practical reason for the others.

I do plan on adding a P271w, possibly two, to the mix once the first or second generation kinks get worked out (providing there are any).. the wife is already complaining about the arcade look though..

I'd imagine the SVII puck will work better with the Samsung Plasma (this years model) 50" since it seems to have a wider gamut.. we'll see..   I have the Spyder tv puck/software for the dvd/blue-ray inputs.. but for the computer HDMI inputs the SVII should work better..

All kinds of testing I want to fool with  now.  I wonder if Android has an ap to profile it's screen.. ;o)

[WombatHorror]

I'm not sure I understand the question completely..

If you keep running the calibration on the same monitor the numbers stay close, perhaps if the target is 6500 the variance will be between 6490 and 6410.. this is on both monitors.  But I noticed something that makes sense.. I had turned on a 60 watt reading light right in front of the monitors (over my shoulder) and then the values changes 50-60 points in the negative direction.

A few things which were easier to notice with this SVII than the 1di2.. Warming it up.  A good hour and it stabilizes fully.  30 minutes gets you 50% more variance at the finer end of the measurements.  Ambient light made a big difference.  Laying out the cable without kinks, curves, and as straight as possible and away from other power cables (especially) and signal cables (to a lesser degree) helped the variances become more consistent..

It also 'sticks' to the screen.  My 1di2 didn't do that.  I still have to lean my 'device' (and old back scratcher leaning on the middle with a tv remote anchoring the other end, I imagine we all do something similar) against it to be sure it stays.. but its nice that it seems to adhere on its own.  Running other programs on the other monitor didn't make any difference UNLESS the light output was enough to affect the ambient light levels..

I played with it for a few hours trying to figure out what made it tick.. or tick faster/slower.

I do wish for the $200 it came with some sort of case to keep it clean.  I'll have to come up with something.  Caselogic makes nice inexpensive cases.. if they'd only open a Walmart here in Bangkok..   I'm a big believer in individual cases to keep things clean, coiling the cable in big loops and without kinks, etc..

I am curious if this SVII puck will work optimally with Imatch software (or better than my 1id2) on my laptops.. especially the LED backlit models with a wider gamut.. I was never happy (at all) with the 1id2/Imatch combo with laptops.. some it seemed fine, others it was obviously lacking.. hoping this will cure it.

I'm tempted to buy a Munki and some other pucks and so a more complete study of this area.  The Munki would make sense, since it makes profiles for scanners, printers, etc.. and seeing the difference between a spectrometer and a colorimeter could be interesting.. but I'm afraid there's no practical reason for the others.

I do plan on adding a P271w, possibly two, to the mix once the first or second generation kinks get worked out (providing there are any).. the wife is already complaining about the arcade look though..

I'd imagine the SVII puck will work better with the Samsung Plasma (this years model) 50" since it seems to have a wider gamut.. we'll see..   I have the Spyder tv puck/software for the dvd/blue-ray inputs.. but for the computer HDMI inputs the SVII should work better..

All kinds of testing I want to fool with  now.  I wonder if Android has an ap to profile it's screen.. ;o)

I don't think it will help much on the other wide gamut or specialized screens since outside of SVII it does a horrific job on the NEC PA241W (even on the NEC site they say that the meter alone does nothing on wide gamuts unless used with SVII; of course they also said it will still work fine on regular monitors outside of SVII but my results in those cases were nasty so far). I thought it might do better than a stock iD2 on sRGB screens since it has been calibrated to standard unlike an off the shelf part but using CEDP it did a horrible job on the my old sRGB monitor compared to DTP94b or i1Pro.

However, using the NEC puck with SVII on a NEC PA241W gave me numbers that were super-incredibly close to what the i1Pro gave me on that monitor which seems reassuring (both for the calibration quality they do on their re-branded pucks and the apparent ability of the i1Pro to measure at least the PA series wide gamuts pretty well despite the potential spectral spikes (the i1Pro has only 5nm resolution and sometimes there are super high and narrow spikes that it can miss and that can throw it off).

It seems to be able to calibrate the NEC screens to which it is specially matched as well as an i1Pro (and surely verifies the darker tones even better).

[Steve Weldon]

I don't think it will help much on the other wide gamut or specialized screens since outside of SVII it does a horrific job on the NEC PA241W (even on the NEC site they say that the meter alone does nothing on wide gamuts unless used with SVII; of course they also said it will still work fine on regular monitors outside of SVII but my results in those cases were nasty so far). I thought it might do better than a stock iD2 on sRGB screens since it has been calibrated to standard unlike an off the shelf part but using CEDP it did a horrible job on the my old sRGB monitor compared to DTP94b or i1Pro.

However, using the NEC puck with SVII on a NEC PA241W gave me numbers that were super-incredibly close to what the i1Pro gave me on that monitor which seems reassuring (both for the calibration quality they do on their re-branded pucks and the apparent ability of the i1Pro to measure at least the PA series wide gamuts pretty well despite the potential spectral spikes (the i1Pro has only 5nm resolution and sometimes there are super high and narrow spikes that it can miss and that can throw it off).

It seems to be able to calibrate the NEC screens to which it is specially matched as well as an i1Pro.

I'll probably confirm what you said. And then the next logical step is the Munki.. it should work with everything..

But yes.. I'm getting the feeling the SVII puck and SVII software and NEC SV series.. like peanut butter and chocolate..

With the dual 2690's side by side.. the way I've always set up my workstations even if they're P271w's.. the visual white point needs to match or it drives me nuts.. regardless of the colors matching (which they do).. and so far it looks like the SVII puck and software is the way to go.

I'm glad there's an easy solution.  Could be worse...

Btw.. this SVII puck came directly from NEC USA via Amazon.. via a shipping agent via USPS, a total of 7 days from the time it left NEC to in my hands in Bangkok.  Not so bad considering the agents and shippers involved.  This credit card fraud stuff is a real issue.. most places in the USA won't ship overseas making these guys necessary..

[WombatHorror]

I'll probably confirm what you said. And then the next logical step is the Munki.. it should work with everything..

But yes.. I'm getting the feeling the SVII puck and SVII software and NEC SV series.. like peanut butter and chocolate..

With the dual 2690's side by side.. the way I've always set up my workstations even if they're P271w's.. the visual white point needs to match or it drives me nuts.. regardless of the colors matching (which they do).. and so far it looks like the SVII puck and software is the way to go.

I'm glad there's an easy solution.  Could be worse...

Btw.. this SVII puck came directly from NEC USA via Amazon.. via a shipping agent via USPS, a total of 7 days from the time it left NEC to in my hands in Bangkok.  Not so bad considering the agents and shippers involved.  This credit card fraud stuff is a real issue.. most places in the USA won't ship overseas making these guys necessary..

Mine came in a box directly from amazon but it had an odd sticker sealing the box saying "Ready To Ship: Fullfilled by Amazon" but the box seemed like someone else, maybe NEC, had packed it up, it also had some sort of non-Amazon bar codes and SV kit codes attached to the box.

Anyway it was reassuring to see that they really do seem to have calibrated their pucks directly to their screens.

[Steve Weldon]

Mine came in a box directly from amazon but it had an odd sticker sealing the box saying "Ready To Ship: Fullfilled by Amazon" but the box seemed like someone else, maybe NEC, had packed it up, it also had some sort of non-Amazon bar codes and SV kit codes attached to the box.

Anyway it was reassuring to see that they really do seem to have calibrated their pucks directly to their screens.

I was recently forced (well not really, but the times forced me.. ) into buying an Android phone.. and it has this nifty bar code scanner.. and you can get any number of scanning aps.. from groceries to products to books.. I should have thought about scanning the little square box plain box it came in.. there was a bar code on it.

Though, since it shipped from NEC directly perhaps they just have different labels for their drop shipping partners.

I noticed Amazon has 4-5 different places shipping this puck, from the Right Price Bros, to Amazon LTD, to NEC, all different prices.   I usually do 4-5 different searches.. I'm sure like me you've discovered the same item can have as many different prices as it does vendors.. and some stuff gets free shipping and no tax.. while the same item from another vendor gets taxed, charges shipping, and is often more expensive.

Now that I have it.. I like it.  Warmed up it is very consistent with very little variance.  For now I'm keeping it in it's bubble wrapped bag in its own drawer.. at least until I find a suitable case..    My 1id2 has been tossed into camera cases, suitcases, and dragged all over the world in a thin nylon bag an old Raptor drive came in..  Seemed pretty tough.. but I'm not taking chances with one that works this well..

[JeffKohn]

I have a question about the SVII software for those of you who are using it. Does it have an option to generate ICC V2 profiles that work with FireFox? That's one thing I hate about EIZO ColorNavigator is that it only generates v4 profiles.

[WombatHorror]

I have a question about the SVII software for those of you who are using it. Does it have an option to generate ICC V2 profiles that work with FireFox? That's one thing I hate about EIZO ColorNavigator is that it only generates v4 profiles.

The ones from SVII appear to be locked into v2 (there is no toggle that I can see) since I just switched into native gamut SV II calibration and loaded up Firefox and this webpage has all the colors looking fine as opposed to radioactive looking. Which is very nice, being locked into v4 would be a shame since Firefox would be ruined then unless you only browsed in sRGB sim mode (although it's probably best of all to browse as much as possible in that mode anyway if you truly get to be a stickler and don't want a gamma 2.2 to sRGB tone curve to have to be applied and rob a couple shades away).

Just did a quick look inside the profiles and both SVII and MultiProfiler make version 2.1 profiles (only AFAICT).

[probep]

I have a question about the SVII software for those of you who are using it. Does it have an option to generate ICC V2 profiles that work with FireFox? That's one thing I hate about EIZO ColorNavigator is that it only generates v4 profiles.

The SpectraView II software generates ICC v.2, matrix-based profiles only.

[eronald]

I think anyone who plans to color manage seriously should get a Munki or an i1 and amortize it over the next 2 displays and desktop printers she buys. The spectros should profile any display that comes on the market within the next 5 years or so, and at the very least, inter-instrument agreement should be better than for Spyder

Edmund

The off the shelf EyeOne-Display will work. As will other Colorimeters not filtered for this kind of unit. The target white point you ask for, and what you get will likely be off. In tests I did, the differences amounted to about CCT 500K. Its not really a huge big deal because the values you ask for are not as important as getting a White Point that produces a visual match to the print next to the display. Yes, the mated colorimeter is preferable! But its not a game changer either.

[probep]

BTW LaCie blue eye pro application has full support for hardware calibration (Monitor LUTs calibration) on NEC 90 series displays.
Does LaCie blue eye pro support NEC PA series displays? Anyone tested?

[Czornyj]

No - it only works with older NEC x90 models that were rebranded by LaCie. It wasn't supporting my 3090WQXi, nor PA's.

[probep]

No - it only works with older NEC x90 models that were rebranded by LaCie. It wasn't supporting my 3090WQXi, nor PA's.

Hm. Did you test Blue eye pro with your 3090WQXi indeed? Very strange.
I've tested it with NEC 2690WUXi2 and NEC 2490WUXi2. It does support these NECs.

[Czornyj]

Hm. Did you test Blue eye pro with your 3090WQXi indeed? Very strange.
I've tested it with NEC 2690WUXi2 and NEC 2490WUXi2. It does support these NECs.

What Blue Eye Pro version are you referring to (I've tried 4.1.3)?

[probep]

What Blue Eye Pro version are you referring to (I've tried 4.1.3)?

LaCie blue eye pro v4.5.1 and LaCie blue eye pro Proof Edition v1.0.2.