# Calibration issues with calMAN v.4 (lengthy)



## jacare

Hey all,

I'm trying to get a calibration going with calMAN v.4. that a friend let me borrow, I guess its the professional version. He said its an easy walkthrough and I'd be done in less than an hour. Five and a half hrs later, I'm stumped.

My tv is a sony bravia KDL-46v5100 and a eye one display 2 meter, but its an older one, sold by Pantone, and has 'greytag mcbeth' on the front of it. The TV is hooked up to the HDMI 1, PC hooked up to HDMI 4. Blu ray player is BDP-S360. Everything is hooked up through my Denon AVR.

I dont have a laptop so I installed it onto my win 7 box and hooked it up to the tv using an HDMI cable and got a display on the tv from the pc. Went through the introduction. It showed a simulated meter at first but in the dropdown menu my meter is there but is colored red but allows me to choose it.
Next I go to the source settings and choose AVS calibration blu ray disk 1.3 but I have v. 2.1 and choose sony blu ray players for source. Next is meter menu, it says no initialisation is required for this meter.

So i clicked the green 'standard_dcc' workflow. In my profile it goes back to generic meter and I have to pick my meter again only now its not red, its just normal white text. and AVS calibration blu ray is chosen as source.

So I do the read on RGB, thats done, when I get to the brighness settings/contrast screens it says to click the lower right to bring up patterns but it never does on either screen. If I select 'prompt for pattern change' it prompts to bring up a 70% greyscale from the blu ray disc but I have to switch inputs on the TV to get one. Getting to the luminance screen, it says to adjust the backlight while reading to see where to set but it never changes, just stays at 29.xxx. Its supposed to be between 30-40L for movie viewing.

I got to gamma point, that works, *but the strange part is AT NO TIME during this calibration do I use the meter I have.* Granted my TV is not the newest or most advanced but every video i've seen on youtube shows a meter placed on the screen doing its thing, and also *how am I supposed to get the patterns up from the blu ray player when its connected to another HDMI input? * Basically what I'm doing is calibrating the HDMI 4 input, not the HDMI 1 input used by the TV.

Is it strange for it to NOT use my meter? This is very confusing!


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## donnymac

Your post is a little confusing and you seem to be lost but let me see if I can help.
1. Your PC does not need to be hooked up to your tv or are you using the tv as the PC monior? YOu need to have Calman on a separate monitor than the one you are calibrating.
2. Switch the display your are calibrating to the input that the BR test signals are coming in on. 
3. Put your meter on the display screen.
4. For source you should select "optical Player". I don't see where there is a selection for sony blue ray player. Now you manually select each pattern that you want. Unless you have the uirt in which case it will be automatic for pattern changes. 

If you didn't have the meter on the screen you never took any readings. Try these few suggestions and see what happens.


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## jacare

Ah, I think that's where I'm messing up. I'm not sure how to hook it up and get started. My friend didn't fill me in, he just said install it and it's so easy a caveman can do it...lol. 
I'll have to call him and get more info or just use HCFR I guess.


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## donnymac

Plug the usb cable of your meter into your PC.
Switch the input of your tv to HDMI(your BR player).
Run your calibration software on your pc and view it on your pc monitor not the display you are calibrating.
Start calibrating.


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## jacare

donnymac said:


> Plug the usb cable of your meter into your PC.
> Switch the input of your tv to HDMI(your BR player).
> Run your calibration software on your pc and view it on your pc monitor not the display you are calibrating.
> Start calibrating.


Wow. I feel like a dunce. So am I not hooking up my pc to the tv at all, correct?
So is there anything I am hooking up to the tv at all other than the HDMI cable?


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## lcaillo

The PC runs the software to control the meter, capture the data from the meter, and do the analysis and data presentation. Unless you are using the PC to generate test signals it does not need to connect to the display. Your Blu Ray player will provide the test signals.


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## mechman

Have you looked over the guide here at all? There's even a pdf version attached so you can download it and print it out if need be. 

Maybe I should cover more of the basic set up part of video calibration. onder:


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## jacare

mechman said:


> Have you looked over the guide here at all? There's even a pdf version attached so you can download it and print it out if need be.
> 
> Maybe I should cover more of the basic set up part of video calibration. onder:


I think thats where I'm getting stuck is the basic hookup of everything.

I did read that link but it never went into exactly how everything is hooked up, just what was needed.

Let me know if this is correct.

I will be using a desktop pc as I dont have a laptop.

At not time is the PC plugged into the TV via HDMI, or VGA input.
Meter plugged into PC that software is on.
Meter is draped over tv to take measurements.
When software is asking to take measurements, I use the blu ray player with the patterns on it.
Calibrate.

Is that it, is there anything else that I would need to do?

Thanks for the help guys, I cant believe something so simple stumped me so easily.


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## mechman

jacare said:


> At not time is the PC plugged into the TV via HDMI, or VGA input.
> Meter plugged into PC that software is on.
> Meter is draped over tv to take measurements.
> When software is asking to take measurements, I use the blu ray player with the patterns on it.
> Calibrate.
> 
> Is that it, is there anything else that I would need to do?
> 
> Thanks for the help guys, I cant believe something so simple stumped me so easily.


This looks correct. :T Make sure you set CalMAN to prompt you for pattern changes.


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## jacare

mechman said:


> This looks correct. :T Make sure you set CalMAN to prompt you for pattern changes.


Ok I got everything hooked up. It's prompting me for a 75% grayscale pattern that I can't find anywhere on the AVSHD blu ray disk. It's v. 2.1 btw, the only option in calman is to choose v. 1.3 for patterns. Now I'm getting hung up here again.

 

Ok I found it 

BUT it's asking to decrease red saturation or luminance, does that mean red in the white balance settings?


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## donnymac

What screen are you on? What have you done so far?


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## donnymac

Go to "settings" in calman. Select source and then select optical player as your source. Don't select avchd 1.3. YOu only use that if you have the uirt which gives calman control to automatically change patterns for you. You are changing patterns manually.


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## jacare

Ok I used the guide in the link and it helped out a great deal:T

Unfortunately I've come to the conclusion that my tv is def entry level and doesn't calibrate well, at least with my meter which I found out is 6 yrs old and my numbers are horrible lol. I guess I'm supposed to have the gamut under delta 3 and at least 2 colors are close or at the 10 range and I have no idea how to get them lower or if I even can. I'll try to list the numbers tomorrow. 

Is it ok to calibrate during the daytime? I'm always waiting until night and find out it takes all night to get a good calibration.


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## jacare

donnymac said:


> What screen are you on? What have you done so far?


I got thru the entire calibration. Looks much better but far from perfect. White balance looks good finally but the yellows are far into the red and the cyan is quite a bit off also along with the green, but the white dot is right where it should be in the CIE gamut. 

The blue filter settings had me put a R8 hue (!!) along with a 48 in color. So in the guide it says if you don't have blue filter glasses to try to get the colors closest to 0 but that wasn't working too well because the HIGHER I pushed the color the closer to zero it got so that was weird unless I was reading something wrong. 

I'll try to post screenshots tomorrow it's 6 am now :dumbcrazy:


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## mechman

Sometimes you get what you get. :huh:


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## jacare

mechman said:


> Sometimes you get what you get. :huh:


Is there a way to get a better adjustment or do you think it's a limitation with the tv?

If I put the hue down to R4 or even to center it helps the yellows quite a bit but then it throws the white off in the center and a little if the reds. Does the color/hue HAVE to match up with the blue glasses? I've been reading that even if it matches up it can be way off. And if I set the hue to zero can the drift be corrected with the white balance? I'm on a mission to get it as accurate as possible whatever it takes. Anyone need a calibration apprentice? :dumbcrazy: lol


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## jacare

Ok I got it all calibrated, I tried it a few times to get it as accurate as possible by following the guide above. 
My question now is I had to adjust the white balance quite a bit in every direction so am I now going back into contrast/settings and bumping them up again because they took quite a hit. I dialed the brightness up a bit but what was a 53 brightness is now a 58 because all the bars above 12 were completely black and the contrast i didn't have to touch. 

I also didn't use the blue filter to adjust color/hue because the yellows were just too red when using them so I used the alternative with the red/cyan settings in the CIE color gamut and got the yellow not so red and the hue down quite a bit. 

Any comments welcome, I'm a work in progress


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## mechman

You always want to go back and double check your brightness and your contrast. Setting those correctly is about 70% of the calibration process.


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## donnymac

jacare said:


> Ok I got it all calibrated, I tried it a few times to get it as accurate as possible by following the guide above.
> My question now is I had to adjust the white balance quite a bit in every direction so am I now going back into contrast/settings and bumping them up again because they took quite a hit. I dialed the brightness up a bit but what was a 53 brightness is now a 58 because all the bars above 12 were completely black and the contrast i didn't have to touch.
> 
> I also didn't use the blue filter to adjust color/hue because the yellows were just too red when using them so I used the alternative with the red/cyan settings in the CIE color gamut and got the yellow not so red and the hue down quite a bit.
> 
> Any comments welcome, I'm a work in progress


How about screenshots of your greyscale and gamut charts. YOu also have to remember that with a meter that old you really don't know what you have. Look at the greyscale ramp pattern for colorization and also the gradient ramp.


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## jacare

mechman said:


> You always want to go back and double check your brightness and your contrast. Setting those correctly is about 70% of the calibration process.


I raised the brightness some like I said and the contrast a tick but when I went back to check the white balance it was completely out of whack again. Is that normal, do I have to re-adjust the greyscale again to compensate?


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## jacare

donnymac said:


> How about screenshots of your greyscale and gamut charts. YOu also have to remember that with a meter that old you really don't know what you have. Look at the greyscale ramp pattern for colorization and also the gradient ramp.


My goal was to get the circle inside the box, so I tried as hard as possible to make that happen. Here are some screenshots, but I'm not sure which greyscale ones you want. I went by the guide and did the 70/30 points. I did try the 80, but they were a little harder to do.

Just a question, is it normal to have to adjust white points that much in the negatives like I had to? That's one of the reasons my bright/contrast went so out of whack. I know that a good picture means high contrast/low brightness but in this case my brightness isn't much lower than the contrast. The screenshots are before altering brightness, which I had to bump up to 58 from 53.

There are 2 different calibrations here, the first using a R2 hue then a R1 hue, which to me helpded the yellows from being so red. That was driving me nuts. Let me know what you guys think or if there's anything I can change. I'm going to go back and calibrate again using the blue filter. I did it before but failed to save the data. I'll post it later after I'm done.

In order,

R2 hue gamut then R1

R2 grey, 30 point
R2 grey, 70 point
R1 grey, 30 point
R1 grey, 70 point


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## donnymac

The charts look pretty good. How does the picture look? The fact that you had to adjust contrast and brightness is ok. It is what it is. Go back and tweak some more if you are off now. Try not to use green. Green is luminance and that is why you need to change the BRight and contr. As you should have seen by raising or lowering one color effects the other colors when doing greyscale. Can you show the gamut charts with the hue, color and luminance charts? Remember that you will not get everything perfect no matter how hard you try. get it as close as you can and that's all you can do. Good luck


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## jacare

donnymac said:


> The charts look pretty good. How does the picture look? The fact that you had to adjust contrast and brightness is ok. It is what it is. Go back and tweak some more if you are off now. Try not to use green. Green is luminance and that is why you need to change the BRight and contr. As you should have seen by raising or lowering one color effects the other colors when doing greyscale. Can you show the gamut charts with the hue, color and luminance charts? Remember that you will not get everything perfect no matter how hard you try. get it as close as you can and that's all you can do. Good luck


Whew.

After another day of calibrating (this is seriously addicting  ), here are the charts. 3 Separate calibrations. The first one is using the blue filter and using the recommended color/hue with the filter (matching up the blinking boxes). Believe it or not, that one has the worst calibration. Look at the yellow, its WAY up there on the delta H chart, and I have no way of correcting it unless I change the hue then that throws everything else off but not that bad as you'll see in the following 2 charts.

In the second and third ones, the colors match up much more evenly, and I was able to get the secondaries under control, for the most part. I think this is as good as it's going to get with this TV. The greens are way out there also, and I can't get them to budge at all.

BTW, the picture looks even better then the calibrations I did yesterday, after I initialized my meter. After I did that I saw how far the white balance was still off so I got that corrected also. They all look good, but using the matching blue filter calibration kills yellows and increases the reds while the other 2 slightly lack that 'daylight' look. The R1 hue naturally looks whiter than the R2 and looks to be the happy medium. Depending on whats on tv, skin tones and colors can look great on any of the charts, but the next show/commercial they can look red and blown out/oversaturated, especially using the first chart.

I got these using the same white balance settings, BTW.

All settings at the same levels, Contrast/brightness 57/85, Cinema setting, warm temp, gamma setting low, sharpness 5, only thing changed is the color/tint.

White balance
Red gain -3
Green gain -10
Blue gain max
Red bias -7
Green Bias -10
Blue bias -13

1st chart is blue filter chart, color 48/R8 hue
2nd chart color 49/R2 hue (the happy medium it looks like)
3rd chart color 50/R1 hue

If you were to choose a chart to go by, which one would you use if you had to hand pick one without seeing the picture, color accuracy wise?


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## donnymac

Go with number 3. Looks good. Your de's are low for primary luminance and secondary hue so it's time to stop. Go watch some tv and movies and give yourself a pat on the back for sticking with it. You came a long way from your first post where you didn't have a clue what you were doing. Enjoy.


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## mechman

I agree with Don. The grayscale charts don't look too bad at all and gamut number 3 gives you the best dE numbers for luminance.


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## jacare

Interesting! Any reason you guys chose the 3rd chart over the others?

I was certain you guys were going to pick number 2, the happy medium 

The color balance seems more even in the 2nd CIE chart, or is it the dE charts I'm supposed to be paying more attention to? I'm not sure what the charts mean to be honest but I'm assuming I have to get everything at least under the green lines, the yellow lines are pushing it and the red is absolutely a no go?

I watched some tv, put a DVD in, and checked everything out. Def the first chart was a no go so it was a tug between the 2nd/3rd charts. The blues seem a little over saturated in the 3rd but the magentas in the 2nd are the same. On the other hand, the 2nd chart has more of a 'daytime' warmness to it as opposed to the 3rd chart which is more 'white' looking. An example would be while watching tv - when someone was on the sun standing outside the 2nd chart looked more natural while the 3rd chart made it look more like they were standing under a lamp. 

I'll bounce back and forth between these 2 settings for the next couple days and see what chart my eyes settle into more. 

Thanks for your input guys. You've pointed me in the right direction so I know what I'm looking for now!


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## donnymac

The difference between 2 and 3 is not huge by any means. However the goal is to get the luminance(L) of the primaries as low as possible and the Hue(H) of the secondaries as low as possible. Chart 3 meets those criteria vs the other two charts. IN the end it is up to you which your eyes prefer.


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## jacare

donnymac said:


> The difference between 2 and 3 is not huge by any means. However the goal is to get the luminance(L) of the primaries as low as possible and the Hue(H) of the secondaries as low as possible. Chart 3 meets those criteria vs the other two charts. IN the end it is up to you which your eyes prefer.


Ah, I see now. I wasn't sure what the charts stood for but had an idea of the goal. What is the middle chart stand for, delta C?


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## mechman

C stands for Chroma. Here's a link that may help you with dE.


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## jacare

mechman said:


> C stands for Chroma. Here's a link that may help you with dE.


Awesome, thanks, that helps a lot. 

After switching it back to 3rd chart settings I've decided to keep it there as the blues weren't so blown up as I thought and the yellows and magenta are much better. What I ran into with the 2nd chart was over saturated magenta, worse than the blues on the 3rd so the 3rd setting it is. 

Thanks for all the help guys!


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## donnymac

That's what these forums are for. To help each other and share information. Glad you e satisfied. Enjoy.


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## hasse_swe

Mm yes..It's very addicting doing calibration ... : )
One thing i learned is that most calibrators lets green bias and gain controls untouched...just use the red and blue to adjust greyscale...just thought you wanna try since you used all.. 
Cheers! /H


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## Sonnie

Sorry guys, but you know we are very strict here and follow the law, as well as the policies of the manufacturer. Sharing of license keys is NOT allowed by this manufacturer and this is a direct violation of their EULA... 

CalMAN V4 EULA

SpectraCal Policies

Please be very cautious about sharing your crime publicly.

We have no choice but to close this thread.


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