# I am confused



## dschlic1 (Mar 15, 2013)

I have a situation about which I am totally confused. About a year ago I calibrated my home TV using an X-Rite i1Display Pro and a notebook computer running ColorHCFR. The notebook computer I was using did not have a HDMI port so I used the AVSHD 709 disk and my Sony PS3 as a calibration video source.

About two weeks ago I decided to check and update the calibration of the TV. My current notebook computer has a HDMI port. I am also running ColorHCFR on it. I started out using the same AVSHD 709 disk that I had been using. Then just for grins, I decided to try and using the built-in images in ColorHCFR. Much to my surprise while the red and green levels were normal, the blue level was way high across the board by 50 to 100% high. The computer is a Dell M6700 and is still under warranty. So I started a dialog with Dell tech support about this issue. The high blue levels also showed up on the internal screen and also on the VGA port using a separate monitor. Dell decided that the video card was bad and Friday they changed it out.

Unfortunately that did not solve the problem. I then had an idea. . I have at home a Samsung MultiSync monitor which has a HDMI port. Using a third computer as a tester, I performed measurements using that monitor with the M6700, my home computer and also my blue ray player. I also tested the tester computer (Dell M6300). My home computer tested normal, the M6700 and the Blu-Ray player both showed high blue levels. The tester computer showed normal. I am now totally confused.

At this point I do not know if I have a problem with my i1Display Pro colorimeter, or have issues with the M6700 and my PS3. Can someone way in on this and make some suggestions?


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## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

I would trust the PS3 and the colorimeter over the video card in a laptop. What is the laptop's output set to? RGB?


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## dschlic1 (Mar 15, 2013)

Thank you for your quick reply. As far as the notebook settings I do not know. The current video chip is a NVIDA Quardo K5000M. I do not see where I can set the type of output and the black and white bit number level. On the old ATI video card there was a setting and the output range was set to 17 to 235.


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## dschlic1 (Mar 15, 2013)

I have discovered what was causing my issues. On the M6700 notebook computer I am running VMware Workstation. It appears that when a virtual machine is started, it hoses the color balance of both the host and guest operating systems. This distortion persists until the computer is re-booted.


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Good find.
That would have never crossed my mind.


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## KeithL (Oct 22, 2013)

That actually does make sense. On a computer, the color profile is loaded based on what monitor is detected as being connected. Odds are the VMWare virtual machine doesn't "see" or report the correct monitor, so the correct profile isn't being loaded when it is running.



dschlic1 said:


> I have discovered what was causing my issues. On the M6700 notebook computer I am running VMware Workstation. It appears that when a virtual machine is started, it hoses the color balance of both the host and guest operating systems. This distortion persists until the computer is re-booted.


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## dschlic1 (Mar 15, 2013)

That is a possibility, however I do not have any profiles loaded or even present on either the host or the guest OS.


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## KeithL (Oct 22, 2013)

I may be the one who's confused here.

Normally, when you calibrate a computer monitor, after the measurements are made, the calibration software creates a profile for the monitor (as a file) and saves it on the computer; it then installs a small program in your startup group that automatically loads that profile into the LUT (lookup table) for the graphics card in the computer to apply that calibration AT THE GRAPHICS CARD. When the computer sees that monitor hooked up to it, it loads the correct profile into the LUT. The profiles are loaded at startup - and usually can be manually loaded later.

This is independent of any controls or settings on the monitor (actually, those should be set initially, and then NOT changed afterwards since the computer cannot know they were changed.)

This applied profile will affect any video output by the computer, but obviously not video played from a disc (unless you're playing the disc on the computer). The computer SHOULD be smart enough to load the correct profile for a particular display (external monitor vs internal screen), but sometimes gets it wrong. (It might apply the profile for the internal screen to the HDMI output by mistake.) I was assuming that the computer was doing this, and possibly not doing it because VMWare might be "confusing" it.



dschlic1 said:


> That is a possibility, however I do not have any profiles loaded or even present on either the host or the guest OS.


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## dschlic1 (Mar 15, 2013)

Yes that is the normal procedure with a computer and monitor. However I am using a computer to calibrate a TV. And when I found that the blue level was extremely high, I started checking other display devices.


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