# How to use the 'more color detail' settings on panasonic ST60?



## jacare

I'm trying to finish up a calibration on a Panasonic ST60 plasma and I'm not sure where these setting adjustments come in to play during calibration. I have the WB, tint, color, skin tones, all spot on, but am not familiar with those extra settings and the reason I ask is because while everything else looks good, the blues have a purple hue to them and I'm thinking this is where it gets fixed? 

Objects that are supposed to be blue look more purple than blue (think the blue skin in avatar movie or the mouth glow of the Pacific rim movies creatures or the blue hud inside the jeagers in Pacific rim also - all purple tinged.) How do I get blues to be blue and not purple and still keep the other calibration results? Is it the blue hue settings in the 'more color detail' setting? 

I'm using calman and a one eye display 2 colorimeter. 

Any help or advice would be appreciated!


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## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> I'm trying to finish up a calibration on a Panasonic ST60 plasma and I'm not sure where these setting adjustments come in to play during calibration. I have the WB, tint, color, skin tones, all spot on, but am not familiar with those extra settings and the reason I ask is because while everything else looks good, the blues have a purple hue to them and I'm thinking this is where it gets fixed?
> 
> Objects that are supposed to be blue look more purple than blue (think the blue skin in avatar movie or the mouth glow of the Pacific rim movies creatures or the blue hud inside the jeagers in Pacific rim also - all purple tinged.) How do I get blues to be blue and not purple and still keep the other calibration results? Is it the blue hue settings in the 'more color detail' setting?
> 
> I'm using calman and a one eye display 2 colorimeter.
> 
> Any help or advice would be appreciated!


Hi jacare,

I'm not familiar with the "More Color Detail" setting, but if it's anything like on-the-fly conversion to YCbCr 4:2:2 or 4:4:4, 36-bit deep color, etc., I'd stay far away from it. I spent several months playing around with such "color enhancements" and IMO they all do more harm than good. Does the ST60 have manual CMS controls available either in the regular User Menu or hidden in the Service Menu? If so, I imagine that'd be the place to start.

Yours,

David


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> I'm not familiar with the "More Color Detail" setting, but if it's anything like on-the-fly conversion to YCbCr 4:2:2 or 4:4:4, 36-bit deep color, etc., I'd stay far away from it. I spent several months playing around with such "color enhancements" and IMO they all do more harm than good. Does the ST60 have manual CMS controls available either in the regular User Menu or hidden in the Service Menu? If so, I imagine that'd be the place to start.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


Hi David, 

No I don't believe so, these settings are inside the color settings under the pro adjustment settings on the unit. 

These settings use saturation, luminance, and hue for each primary color and my guess is they are for critical tweaking and also my guess that if these settings would be the final touches on a calibration. I could be totally wrong though.


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## tonyvdb

Unless you have the proper equipment to set the advance settings I would not touch them, you can try applying these settings as they are for the Panasonic st60 
here


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## jacare

tonyvdb said:


> Unless you have the proper equipment to set the advance settings I would not touch them, you can try applying these settings as they are for the Panasonic st60
> here


The link points to accessories 4 less Marantz receiver? 

I initially used d'nice's settings (from controlcal forums) and saw that there was a heavy red hue in the blacks so I decided to put his settings into Calman. Come to find out the white balance was way off and I wanted to fix it and get the red hue out. It's basically just a fixing of his settings. I can reset them to default and see how it looks but seeing as they are there to use, I'd like to at least try to get the picture looking as best as it can.


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## tonyvdb

jacare said:


> The link points to accessories 4 less Marantz receiver?


Oops, try this here


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## jacare

tonyvdb said:


> Oops, try this here


Thanks, I've seen those settings before and have stuck with d'nice's settings from controlcal as they were the best user posted settings I could find. I just wanted to tweak them a bit once I saw how off they were in calman.


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## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> I initially used d'nice's settings (from controlcal forums) and saw that there was a heavy red hue in the blacks so I decided to put his settings into Calman. Come to find out the white balance was way off and I wanted to fix it and get the red hue out. It's basically just a fixing of his settings. I can reset them to default and see how it looks but seeing as they are there to use, I'd like to at least try to get the picture looking as best as it can.


Hi jacare,

I think I see the situation now.

A red hue in the blacks should be just a simple matter of lowering the red offsets in your white balance. Have you already tried sticking with D-Nice's settings for everything else and then just tweaking the gains and offsets per your CalMan readings? That'd be my strategy.

Also, when you say blue look a bit purple, are we talking on 75% and/or 100% blue screens on a calibration disc, or only in certain regular content? If the latter, then I'm guessing it's just down to more tweaking in the grayscale. If the former, then I suspect you'll need CMS access to really fix it.

Yours,

David


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## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> These settings use saturation, luminance, and hue for each primary color and my guess is they are for critical tweaking and also my guess that if these settings would be the final touches on a calibration. I could be totally wrong though.


Oops...I just saw this a re-read it.

When you say it has S, L, and H settings for each color, do you mean separate ones for each of the three primaries and each of the three secondaries? Because if so, those are your CMS controls right there and, assuming you've studied up on using a CMS, you totally can go to town. If it's only for each of the three primaries, then you have a basic CMS, but still should be able to fix blue on your CIE charts with it.

Yours,

David


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> I think I see the situation now.
> 
> A red hue in the blacks should be just a simple matter of lowering the red offsets in your white balance. Have you already tried sticking with D-Nice's settings for everything else and then just tweaking the gains and offsets per your CalMan readings? That'd be my strategy.
> 
> Also, when you say blue look a bit purple, are we talking on 75% and/or 100% blue screens on a calibration disc, or only in certain regular content? If the latter, then I'm guessing it's just down to more tweaking in the grayscale. If the former, then I suspect you'll need CMS access to really fix it.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David



That would have been ideal but unfortunately it turned into a full blown recalibration as fixing the white balance tweaked the color balance so I had to go back and work on that 

I do believe I got the blue /purple problem figured out, finally. I had to tweak the blues a bit. It's still not perfect to me but its much better. I ran out of time for now to continue tweaking. Definitely a hue problem for sure.

Oh and I'm using the AVS709 DVD and the slides are the 75% screens.


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Oops...I just saw this a re-read it.
> 
> When you say it has S, L, and H settings for each color, do you mean separate ones for each of the three primaries and each of the three secondaries? Because if so, those are your CMS controls right there and, assuming you've studied up on using a CMS, you totally can go to town. If it's only for each of the three primaries, then you have a basic CMS, but still should be able to fix blue on your CIE charts with it.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


Unfortunately not, all I have is the primaries, no secondary adjustments. The more color detail settings for each primary color has saturation, hue, and luminosity so I'm guessing that is for tweaking the secondaries?


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## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> Unfortunately not, all I have is the primaries, no secondary adjustments. The more color detail settings for each primary color has saturation, hue, and luminosity so I'm guessing that is for tweaking the secondaries?


Hi jacare,

Okay, that's fine; no, those settings are for your primaries only. Apparently you have no independent CMS controls for the secondaries (which happens in some TV models). This means you have no independent way to calibrate those secondaries, so you'll just have to do it by striking a balance between fixing the primaries and fixing the secondaries. What I mean is, as you increase or decrease the saturation in green, for instance, that's going to affect the position of yellow, so getting the best compromise between the two will be your overriding goal.

Now, you say tweaking the white balance tweaked your color balance; do you mean it changed the values of the primaries (red and/or blue, presumably) in your CIE charts?? That'd be a bit a curious one, as I've rarely seen a white balance change make much difference on the primaries. I've had them goose my secondaries, but not my primaries (but it's been quite a while since I've done this stuff, so who knows?). No matter--just try to get your primaries and secondaries at their best, most accurate compromise positions, and then move over to the grayscale. After fixing the grayscale, then go back and re-check the primaries and secondaries to see what fine tuning they need, if any. Repeat these steps until you've got everything balanced out to your satisfaction. Or, if you prefer, you can do the grayscale first, then the CMS, and then go back and re-check your grayscale. Either approach should work in the end.

I did read up a little on the ST60 after reading your posts last night, and you have full 10-point grayscale/gamma controls in there, which is wonderful. You should be able to use those to get a very nice, flat, accurate gamma and white balance. Just remember to alter green in the white balance only when and where needed in order to raise or lower the gamma value at any given IRE, as green is the color most closely tied to overall luminance in the grayscale. If your gamma is nice and flat at 50 IRE, then only change blue and red to match wherever green is. If you have to add a lot of blue and red, that will tweak your gamma a bit, and you'll have to lower all three colors just a touch to get it in line, but that's only if you're adding or subtracting a boatload of R and/or B.

Also, I have one more piece of advice from painful personal experience: set 100 IRE in your grayscale first, then go down to 10 IRE, then back up to 90, and then down each lower one. 100 IRE determines your peak luminance in the Y value, so the gamma values of all other IREs will be given relative to _whatever 100 IRE is_, not by any absolute value. Change 100 IRE whatsoever mid-stream, and you change everything and have to start the whole grayscale all over. It's not fun.

Best of luck, and keep us apprised of your progress!

Yours,

David


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> Okay, that's fine; no, those settings are for your primaries only. Apparently you have no independent CMS controls for the secondaries (which happens in some TV models). This means you have no independent way to calibrate those secondaries, so you'll just have to do it by striking a balance between fixing the primaries and fixing the secondaries. What I mean is, as you increase or decrease the saturation in green, for instance, that's going to affect the position of yellow, so getting the best compromise between the two will be your overriding goal.
> 
> Now, you say tweaking the white balance tweaked your color balance; do you mean it changed the values of the primaries (red and/or blue, presumably) in your CIE charts?? That'd be a bit a curious one, as I've rarely seen a white balance change make much difference on the primaries. I've had them goose my secondaries, but not my primaries (but it's been quite a while since I've done this stuff, so who knows?). No matter--just try to get your primaries and secondaries at their best, most accurate compromise positions, and then move over to the grayscale. After fixing the grayscale, then go back and re-check the primaries and secondaries to see what fine tuning they need, if any. Repeat these steps until you've got everything balanced out to your satisfaction. Or, if you prefer, you can do the grayscale first, then the CMS, and then go back and re-check your grayscale. Either approach should work in the end.
> 
> I did read up a little on the ST60 after reading your posts last night, and you have full 10-point grayscale/gamma controls in there, which is wonderful. You should be able to use those to get a very nice, flat, accurate gamma and white balance. Just remember to alter green in the white balance only when and where needed in order to raise or lower the gamma value at any given IRE, as green is the color most closely tied to overall luminance in the grayscale. If your gamma is nice and flat at 50 IRE, then only change blue and red to match wherever green is. If you have to add a lot of blue and red, that will tweak your gamma a bit, and you'll have to lower all three colors just a touch to get it in line, but that's only if you're adding or subtracting a boatload of R and/or B.
> 
> Also, I have one more piece of advice from painful personal experience: set 100 IRE in your grayscale first, then go down to 10 IRE, then back up to 90, and then down each lower one. 100 IRE determines your peak luminance in the Y value, so the gamma values of all other IREs will be given relative to _whatever 100 IRE is_, not by any absolute value. Change 100 IRE whatsoever mid-stream, and you change everything and have to start the whole grayscale all over. It's not fun.
> 
> Best of luck, and keep us apprised of your progress!
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


Ok, thanks for clearing that up, that helped a lot. Yeah I meant the secondaries got a llittle funky when I had to correct the white balance. 

Question, to my knowledge we are not supposed to touch the green luminance on any setting, and are supposed to get the primaries under deltaL 3 but green primary is just bouncing over and under deltaL 5 and I cant get it below 3 unless I drop the luminance a couple notches. 

So even though it's in error can it still not be touched or does that just apply to white balance settings only?

I noticed in D'nice's settings green luminance was never touched anywhere.


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## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> Ok, thanks for clearing that up, that helped a lot. Yeah I meant the secondaries got a llittle funky when I had to correct the white balance.


Hi jacare,

Ahhhh...that makes perfect sense now.



jacare said:


> Question, to my knowledge *we are not supposed to touch the green luminance on any setting*, and are supposed to get the primaries under deltaL 3 but green primary is just bouncing over and under deltaL 5 and I cant get it below 3 unless I drop the luminance a couple notches.


Absolutely you can tweak the green luminance; if it's too high, then by all means lower it until it comes into line. There is nothing sacrosanct about green, be it in the CMS or in the white balance.



jacare said:


> So even though it's in error can it still not be touched or does that just apply to white balance settings only?


Bah. Even in the white balance I say go ahead and change the green luminance at various IREs if that's what's needed to get a flat gamma. When your only grayscale controls are gains and offsets, _then_ it's almost never wise to mess with green, but when you have full 10-point controls, I say _go for it!_ I mean, the goal is a flat gamma, right? So flatten it. Figure out how many foot lamberts you want for your peak output (I usually shoot for anywhere between 33 and 40, depending on how much ambient light I expect to fight with), get a good RGB balance at 100, then do the same at 0 IRE and 10 IRE (that's trickier, of course), then go back up to 90 and go all the way down the scale like a zipper. Always double check your results when finished, too, as changes at 30 tend to goose things a reasonable bit at both 20 and 40. Also, changes you make on the low end will ripple out more profoundly than they do at the high end; it's just in the nature of the animal.

What's your gamma target anyway? Is this going to be in a fully light-controlled home theater room, or will there be a little ambient light? If the latter, don't go crazy with one of those steep gammas like 2.5. Start out normally, with a gamma somewhere between 2.20 and 2.25. See how you like it under all your normal light conditions. If it feels washed out, _then_ go on to darken it with something like 2.3 or 2.4. The most important thing, though, is to make sure your gamma value is the same at each and every IRE. If it won't behave well at the low end with a 2.22 target (my own perferred value), then try another target. Let the TV tell you where it likes to be.

Yours,

David


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> Ahhhh...that makes perfect sense now.
> 
> 
> Absolutely you can tweak the green luminance; if it's too high, then by all means lower it until it comes into line. There is nothing sacrosanct about green, be it in the CMS or in the white balance.
> 
> 
> Bah. Even in the white balance I say go ahead and change the green luminance at various IREs if that's what's needed to get a flat gamma. When your only grayscale controls are gains and offsets, _then_ it's almost never wise to mess with green, but when you have full 10-point controls, I say _go for it!_ I mean, the goal is a flat gamma, right? So flatten it. Figure out how many foot lamberts you want for your peak output (I usually shoot for anywhere between 33 and 40, depending on how much ambient light I expect to fight with), get a good RGB balance at 100, then do the same at 0 IRE and 10 IRE (that's trickier, of course), then go back up to 90 and go all the way down the scale like a zipper. Always double check your results when finished, too, as changes at 30 tend to goose things a reasonable bit at both 20 and 40. Also, changes you make on the low end will ripple out more profoundly than they do at the high end; it's just in the nature of the animal.
> 
> What's your gamma target anyway? Is this going to be in a fully light-controlled home theater room, or will there be a little ambient light? If the latter, don't go crazy with one of those steep gammas like 2.5. Start out normally, with a gamma somewhere between 2.20 and 2.25. See how you like it under all your normal light conditions. If it feels washed out, _then_ go on to darken it with something like 2.3 or 2.4. The most important thing, though, is to make sure your gamma value is the same at each and every IRE. If it won't behave well at the low end with a 2.22 target (my own perferred value), then try another target. Let the TV tell you where it likes to be.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David



Ok thanks, the initial WB measurement graph is quite zigzag like and I always read to leave green alone and try to match the reds and blues to green. It'still quite zigzag like but red and blue are about as matched with green as can be. 

The gamma is set to 2.6 on the TV, anything other than that and the gamma becomes way off. 

So am I to understand that the goal is to get the gamma curve as straight as possible even if it means tweaking the greens in the 10-100 IRE gamma settings?


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## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> The gamma is set to 2.6 on the TV, anything other than that and the gamma becomes way off.


Whoa. That is really dark. I'd try aiming lower with the new information you have.



jacare said:


> So am I to understand that the goal is to get the gamma curve as straight as possible even if it means tweaking the greens in the 10-100 IRE gamma settings?


That's exactly right. Suppose you set your target at 2.25 in CalMAN. In that case you'll want a gamma reading of 2.25 at every point all the way from 10 to 100 IRE. Where achieving that requires lowering green, do it. Where it requires raising it, do it. (The rule is, raising green lowers gamma and lowering green raises it.) A gamma curve needs to be flat in order to be good. Along with real world contrast ratio, a flat gamma is what gives you that very lifelike, 3-dimensional image. It makes an enormous difference to your picture quality.

Fair warning: most of your hardest work on this will be down at 0-30 IRE. The higher values are comparatively easy to bring into line.

Yours,

David


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## davidjschenk

FOLLOW UP:

Wow. I just checked on CNET, and it turns out you have separate controls in there for gamma vs. RGB balance, which is..._"convenient."_ (Awesome, in other words.) In this case, you likely won't need to mess with green much in the white balance settings; just do it in the separate gamma settings for convenience.

Boy, that's...really nice. Now I'm doubly bitter that Panasonic left the plasma business.

Yours,

David


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> FOLLOW UP:
> 
> Wow. I just checked on CNET, and it turns out you have separate controls in there for gamma vs. RGB balance, which is..._"convenient."_ (Awesome, in other words.) In this case, you likely won't need to mess with green much in the white balance settings; just do it in the separate gamma settings for convenience.
> 
> Boy, that's...really nice. Now I'm doubly bitter that Panasonic left the plasma business.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


OK good because I haven't touched them in the white balance settings...I'm not sure how to get a flat curve for the gamma point, you know when your tv takes a gamma reading and tells you which works best (in my case 2.6), you said to shoot for 2.2 which I agree on, but when selecting a gamma point the flattest line was easily 2.6. If I select 2.2, the line drops way to the bottom. I haven't touched D'Nice's gamma settings there as I felt no need to after seeing such a flat line, but that is 2.6, is there a way to get a flat line using 2.2 gamma selection? I'd love to get a flat line at 2.2.

So where is altering the green ok? The only real problem is getting the luminance down, even just a notch or 2 should get it below DeltaL 3 I would hope, but doesn't that screw everything else up?


One other thing, the initial post initial RGB screen looked like this:


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## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> OK good because I haven't touched them in the white balance settings...I'm not sure how to get a flat curve for the gamma point, you know when your tv takes a gamma reading and tells you which works best (in my case 2.6), you said to shoot for 2.2 which I agree on, but when selecting a gamma point the flattest line was easily 2.6. If I select 2.2, the line drops way to the bottom. I haven't touched D'Nice's gamma settings there as I felt no need to after seeing such a flat line, is there a way to get a flat line using 2.2 gamma selection?


Hi jacare,

With those controls you should be able to get a flat gamma at any chosen value.

Which line drops way to the bottom? I'm not sure I follow what you're describing. Here's how I've done it: first, set 100 IRE to whatever your ideal foot lamberts is. Next, choose your gamma target in CalMAN. This lets the software calculate how quickly or slowly the set needs to come out of black (relative to where you've put 100 IRE) in order to hit your target. Then go all the way down to 10 IRE and set gamma so you hit or very nearly hit that target. Then fine tune it by tweaking R, G, and B as needed at 10 IRE. Then go all the way up to 90 IRE and do the same there. Then down to 80, and so on. When you reach 10 IRE again, you'll almost certainly need to reset it because 20 will have moved it, but it'll be much closer than before, so your balancing act between 10 and 20 IRE won't be nearly so tricky.

You see how this goes? If you do all of that correctly, there should be no sharp drop or rise in your gamma anywhere; your gamma should be almost ruler-flat and your white balance should be similarly flat. On my UNB8500, using a DVDO iScan Duo, I was able to get a near-perfect 2.22 gamma all the way across and white balance delta errors that never even reached 1 at any point. I mean, that thing is _flat_. You should be able to achieve no worse.

So which line is it on the chart that you say drops to the bottom if you go below a 2.6 target? Can you post some screenshots or .pdfs to help me see what you're referring to? Thanks.

Yours,

David


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> With those controls you should be able to get a flat gamma at any chosen value.
> 
> Which line drops way to the bottom? I'm not sure I follow what you're describing. Here's how I've done it: first, set 100 IRE to whatever your ideal foot lamberts is. Next, choose your gamma target in CalMAN. This lets the software calculate how quickly or slowly the set needs to come out of black (relative to where you've put 100 IRE) in order to hit your target. Then go all the way down to 10 IRE and set gamma so you hit or very nearly hit that target. Then fine tune it by tweaking R, G, and B as needed at 10 IRE. Then go all the way up to 90 IRE and do the same there. Then down to 80, and so on. When you reach 10 IRE again, you'll almost certainly need to reset it because 20 will have moved it, but it'll be much closer than before, so your balancing act between 10 and 20 IRE won't be nearly so tricky.
> 
> You see how this goes? If you do all of that correctly, there should be no sharp drop or rise in your gamma anywhere; your gamma should be almost ruler-flat and your white balance should be similarly flat. On my UNB8500, using a DVDO iScan Duo, I was able to get a near-perfect 2.22 gamma all the way across and white balance delta errors that never even reached 1 at any point. I mean, that thing is _flat_. You should be able to achieve no worse.
> 
> So which line is it on the chart that you say drops to the bottom if you go below a 2.6 target? Can you post some screenshots or .pdfs to help me see what you're referring to? Thanks.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


Its on the Select the "Display's Gamma Setting" step of calman

This isnt an actual screenshot but its on this page that if i select 2.6 gamma it'll line up exactly at 2.2, I know its weird but if I select 2.2 in the tv, the line will drop down to 1.5 or so. I'll try to get an actual screenshot of the line but that might take a little bit but this is the page I'm referring to (first pic).

This is what I ended up with in the second pic, you can see the green in the bar is a little high on some of those in the 50+ range.

Third pic, WB settings, I just want to reiterate that this is not the page where its ok to tweak the green and get the flat RGB line? Is it a goal to even out the colors to try to get to zero with all the primaries or is the zigzag RGB white balance ok like it is? Like for example, 60 shows at or around zero for red and green, do I have to raise the other numbers up to zero also? Like a flat line of the gamma chart but only with the 3 primaries from 10-100.


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## davidjschenk

Hi jacare,

Sorry about that--I mis-read your last post and so gave advice some of which was redundant.

Okay, how comfortable are you with the CalMAN software? Have you already played around with making a customized workflow and charts? If so, you can go that route and include a ten-point gamma chart along with the ten-point RGB chart when you're correcting the white balance; that's the way I've done it (on an earlier version of the software, though). Alternatively, you can see where your TV's gamma sits relative to your target on the RGB chart you already have in step four. You notice that in the pre-cal chart it reads all three colors and then tells you where they are _relative to your target?_ Well, what you want then is to get each color at IRE as close to "0" as the controls will let you get. At the moment you have blue rather weak down at 20 and 30 IRE, which needs to be fixed. Getting both a flat gamma and an even RGB balance at the darkest IREs is essential to PQ.

So down in your chart for step four, you have your 10-100 IRE RGB readings. Notice that 10-50 IRE are very low relative to your target ("0"). You need to bring those up so that all across the graph all three colors sit right at 0, the way they currently do at 80, 90, and 100. Try this with a target gamma of 2.2 or, if you use a darkened room for viewing, 2.25 and let me know how it goes. With the controls you have I guarantee you your TV can deliver that.

Yours,

David

P.S.: Sorry about all the editing--I need to slow down and read more carefully in the mornings.


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> Sorry about that--I mis-read your last post and so gave advice some of which was redundant.
> 
> Okay, how comfortable are you with the CalMAN software? Have you already played around with making a customized workflow and charts? If so, you can go that route and include a ten-point gamma chart along with the ten-point RGB chart when you're correcting the white balance; that's the way I've done it (on an earlier version of the software, though). Alternatively, you can see where your TV's gamma sits relative to your target on the RGB chart you already have in step four. You notice that in the pre-cal chart it reads all three colors and then tells you where they are _relative to your target?_ Well, what you want then is to get each color at IRE as close to "0" as the controls will let you get. At the moment you have blue rather weak down at 20 and 30 IRE, which needs to be fixed. Getting both a flat gamma and an even RGB balance at the darkest IREs is essential to PQ.
> 
> So down in your chart for step four, you have your 10-100 IRE RGB readings. Notice that 10-50 IRE are very low relative to your target ("0"). You need to bring those up so that all across the graph all three colors sit right at 0, the way they currently do at 80, 90, and 100. Try this with a target gamma of 2.2 or, if you use a darkened room for viewing, 2.25 and let me know how it goes. With the controls you have I guarantee you your TV can deliver that.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David
> 
> P.S.: Sorry about all the editing--I need to slow down and read more carefully in the mornings.



I'm pretty familiar with it, but not so much as creating workflows and such, mainly just the tweaking part of it. 

So if I'm understanding all of this correctly, use the 10 point to get RGB on the white balance (greyscale tracking) step as flat a line as possible with zero in step 4, obviously bringing up all colors to do so....I would bring up the green first and line it up to match zero from 10-100 IRE and then bring red/blue up to match green as much as possible and even if green didn't match up perfectly even to zero, then it would still be the target to match up red and blue with?

And If I'm understanding this right also (on the "Display's Gamma Setting" step), set a gamma of 2.2 on the TV, use the gamma detail settings to bring it back UP to 2.2 (because as I said the line will drop down between the 1.5 and 2 lines after the initial point reading) and THEN set the RGB balance in step 4 or would it be the other way around or does it matter? I would think set gamma point first THEN tweak the white balance? I'm also guessing there will be a fair bit of bouncing back and forth between those 2 steps to get them perfected?

I'd put up more screens, but I have my 3 yr old with me for the next couple days and what I essentially have to do is disassemble my PC and drag it out to where the tv is as I dont have a laptop, and she likes to interfere :crying: so maybe when she goes to bed later I can tweak for a couple hours and see what I can get.


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> I'm pretty familiar with it, but not so much as creating workflows and such, mainly just the tweaking part of it.
> 
> So if I'm understanding all of this correctly, use the 10 point to get RGB on the white balance (greyscale tracking) step as flat a line as possible with zero in step 4, obviously bringing up all colors to do so....I would bring up the green first and line it up to match zero from 10-100 IRE and then bring red/blue up to match green as much as possible and even if green didn't match up perfectly even to zero, then it would still be the target to match up red and blue with?


Hi again jacare,

Yes, though you can use the Gamma control on the TV to bring all three up or down together, which is a lot more convenient until you're close to the target.



jacare said:


> And If I'm understanding this right also (on the "Display's Gamma Setting" step), set a gamma of 2.2 on the TV, use the gamma detail settings to bring it back UP to 2.2 (because as I said the line will drop down between the 1.5 and 2 lines after the initial point reading) and THEN set the RGB balance in step 4 or would it be the other way around or does it matter? I would think set gamma point first THEN tweak the white balance? I'm also guessing there will be a fair bit of bouncing back and forth between those 2 steps to get them perfected?


I think there's some confusion here. Set the TV's gamma setting wherever brings you closest to an actual 2.2 measured result. If the TV has a setting that says "2.6," but that's the one that, during actual measurement, brings you closest to the target you've chosen in the software, then go with that. Whichever TV gamma setting brings you closest to your goal is the one to start with before all the 10-point tweaking, and it matters not what name or number Panasonic has given it. You use the software to choose your target gamma, then you use the TV's various settings options to find the initial setting that gets you closest to your target. Then you use the 10-point controls to get the TV's performance the rest of the way to your target. Does this make sense?

When you tweak the RGB balance all the way from 10-100, that right there does also tweak the gamma from 10-100; there is a direct relationship between the two, most strongly governed by how much green one adds or subtracts at any IRE. You see?



jacare said:


> I'd put up more screens, but I have my 3 yr old with me for the next couple days and what I essentially have to do is disassemble my PC and drag it out to where the tv is as I dont have a laptop, and she likes to interfere :crying: so maybe when she goes to bed later I can tweak for a couple hours and see what I can get.


Eminently reasonable, especially since calibration cannot work well in lit rooms. You want to work in total darkness if at all possible; during actual measurements even the glow from your computer screen should be blocked if you can do it.

Yours,

David


----------



## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi again jacare,
> 
> Yes, though you can use the Gamma control on the TV to bring all three up or down together, which is a lot more convenient until you're close to the target.
> 
> 
> I think there's some confusion here. Set the TV's gamma setting wherever brings you closest to an actual 2.2 measured result. If the TV has a setting that says "2.6," but that's the one that, during actual measurement, brings you closest to the target you've chosen in the software, then go with that. Whichever TV gamma setting brings you closest to your goal is the one to start with before all the 10-point tweaking, and it matters not what name or number Panasonic has given it. You use the software to choose your target gamma, then you use the TV's various settings options to find the initial setting that gets you closest to your target. Then you use the 10-point controls to get the TV's performance the rest of the way to your target. Does this make sense?
> 
> When you tweak the RGB balance all the way from 10-100, that right there does also tweak the gamma from 10-100; there is a direct relationship between the two, most strongly governed by how much green one adds or subtracts at any IRE. You see?
> 
> 
> Eminently reasonable, especially since calibration cannot work well in lit rooms. You want to work in total darkness if at all possible; during actual measurements even the glow from your computer screen should be blocked if you can do it.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


OK, I see now...that clears things up, I think 2.2 is really 2.6 listed on the tv then, because the 2.6 setting is practically flat-lined on the 2.2 target line from 10-100. So, there's nothing to change here then, if that's the case? It does happen to be the darkest of the 3 options, with 2.2 being the lightest, and 2.4 in the middle.

I don't calibrate until later usually anyway, sometimes i wont even get started until 1030 at night and tweaking is time consuming :T

Oh, BTW, this is for a normal living room, usually a moderately lit room, but for movies at night I turn the lights off. It's just a small apartment.

Another question...when setting the gamut luminance, isn't the goal to get the colors lowered as close to zero as possible?

Also, there's the high green in the DeltaL chart


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> OK, I see now...that clears things up, I think 2.2 is really 2.6 listed on the tv then, because the 2.6 setting is practically flat-lined on the 2.2 target line from 10-100. *So, there's nothing to change here then, if that's the case?* It does happen to be the darkest of the 3 options, with 2.2 being the lightest, and 2.4 in the middle.


Yes, that's right. If your gamma is right at 2.2 across the board, you're set there. Then just clean up the R and B values to maximize color balance, and then go to work on the CMS.



jacare said:


> Another question...when setting the gamut luminance, isn't the goal to get the colors lowered as close to zero as possible?


A-yup.



jacare said:


> Also, there's the high green in the DeltaL chart


Wow. All three of your primaries strike me as high for luminance. I'd try reining all three of them in, but when doing so do keep a very careful eye on your secondaries (especially cyan, which is quite low in luminance). You are (unless very lucky) going to run into compromises you'll need to strike between fixing H, C, and L in various spots, so after each change you make, carefully note everything that moves around on your CIE charts. The CMS work can get quite tricky at times.

Yours,

David


----------



## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Yes, that's right. If your gamma is right at 2.2 across the board, you're set there. Then just clean up the R and B values to maximize color balance, and then go to work on the CMS.
> 
> OK, right on, but you lost me at "clean up the R and B values to maximize color balance"
> 
> 
> Wow. All three of your primaries strike me as very high for luminance. I'd try reining all three of them in, but when doing so do keep a very careful eye on your secondaries (especially cyan, which is quite low in luminance).
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


Looked high to me too but since I couldn't touch the greens I had to raise red and blues to compensate.
Now I have far more options with knowing about green so that should be fixed soon. I can get them all down close to zero :nerd:

I am intrigued though at the color detail settings, how they can be used if they aren't to tweak the secondaries. I can't find anything on the net referring to it either. I think I'll call panasonic :T


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> OK, right on, but you lost me at "clean up the R and B values to maximize color balance"


Oops--sorry. I just meant tweak R and B to get your ideal white balance--nothing fancy.



jacare said:


> Looked high to me too but since I couldn't touch the greens I had to raise red and green to compensate.
> Now I have far more options with knowing about green so that should be fixed soon. I can get them all down close to zero :nerd:


jacare, please trust me when I tell you _it's worth it._ Once you get that thing truly optimized, all your BluRays and DVDs will feel new again, and watching the really well-mastered ones like LoTR and the Dark Knight will be a special kind of fun.



jacare said:


> I am intrigued though at the color detail settings, how they can be used if they aren't to tweak the secondaries. I can't find anything on the net referring to it either. *I think I'll call panasonic* :T


Ten bucks says they can answer every question you've got about that.

Yours,

David


----------



## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Oops--sorry. I just meant tweak R and B to get your ideal white balance--nothing fancy.
> 
> 
> jacare, please trust me when I tell you _it's worth it._ Once you get that thing truly optimized, all your BluRays and DVDs will feel new again, and watching the really well-mastered ones like LoTR and the Dark Knight will be a special kind of fun.
> 
> 
> Ten bucks says they can answer every question you've got about that.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


Well I spent a few hours last night tweaking, and I can't get the RGB lined up in a straight line even adjusting the green. it's a little better but not as straight as I was hoping...it doesn't start to straighten out until IRE 30, but 20 even with the green maxed out is still a ways lower. I'll have to tweak with it again sunday after work. What's killing me is the constantly drifting meter. I'll calibrate, think I gave good settings on the luminance, etc, do a final run to see where everything is at get 2 different readings. I'd really like to get a better one but I don't do this enough to warrant putting the $$ into it, but I just may consider it if I can get a meter that will give me a straight answer. :rant:

I'll try to get some screenshots later or tomorrow, I think the calibration came out ok, just the huge swings on the WB greens got me wondering if that's how its supposed to be to try to get a straight line.


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> Well I spent a few hours last night tweaking, and I can't get the RGB lined up in a straight line even adjusting the green. it's a little better but not as straight as I was hoping...it doesn't start to straighten out until IRE 30, but 20 even with the green maxed out is still a ways lower. I'll have to tweak with it again sunday after work. What's killing me is the constantly drifting meter. I'll calibrate, think I gave good settings on the luminance, etc, do a final run to see where everything is at get 2 different readings. I'd really like to get a better one but I don't do this enough to warrant putting the $$ into it, but I just may consider it if I can get a meter that will give me a straight answer. :rant:
> 
> I'll try to get some screenshots later or tomorrow, I think the calibration came out ok, just the huge swings on the WB greens got me wondering if that's how its supposed to be to try to get a straight line.


Hi jacare,

Yeah, I certainly know that feeling. I started off with a Display2 myself, but then soon decided to put down a little extra for a Chroma 5 (which performs very well and consistently at low light--you have my word on that). You don't have to spend more money on this, though; now that you've got your basic calibration done, you can go to the step and gradient gray ramps and see by eyeball which of your low-luminance measurements are closest to accurate, and that should suffice to get you a pretty solid picture. If you want real accuracy down at 10 and 20 IRE, though, the Chroma probes are great for that, and I'm told these newer ones that came out just a year or two ago--the Display 3s _et al_--positively excel. Please understand, though, that that's just hearsay; I've not had a chance to play around with any of those newer models for myself.

Here's the real test of your results: how's the picture look?

Yours,

David


----------



## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> Yeah, I certainly know that feeling. I started off with a Display2 myself, but then soon decided to put down a little extra for a Chroma 5 (which performs very well and consistently at low light--you have my word on that). You don't have to spend more money on this, though; now that you've got your basic calibration done, you can go to the step and gradient gray ramps and see by eyeball which of your low-luminance measurements are closest to accurate, and that should suffice to get you a pretty solid picture. If you want real accuracy down at 10 and 20 IRE, though, the Chroma probes are great for that, and I'm told these newer ones that came out just a year or two ago--the Display 3s _et al_--positively excel. Please understand, though, that that's just hearsay; I've not had a chance to play around with any of those newer models for myself.
> 
> Here's the real test of your results: how's the picture look?
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


I was thinking about getting a ipro 3 but then there's meter issues with calman that I might run into. 

As far as the picture looks, it's not that far off from what I had it before (post d'nice's setting) but I'm still not sold on the blues just yet... When I tweak the blue hue, it makes yellow line up a lot better but then blues look toward the purple side and there has to be a fix in those color detail settings where blue remains blue and I can get yellow lined up also. Really, it's like that for all the secondaries. A slightly out of whack RGB lines up the secondaries, and a lined up RGB throws them slightly off. 

Is that normal?


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> I was thinking about getting a ipro 3 but then there's meter issues with calman that I might run into.
> 
> As far as the picture looks, it's not that far off from what I had it before (post d'nice's setting) but I'm still not sold on the blues just yet... When I tweak the blue hue, it makes yellow line up a lot better but then blues look toward the purple side and there has to be a fix in those color detail settings where blue remains blue and I can get yellow lined up also. Really, it's like that for all the secondaries. A slightly out of whack RGB lines up the secondaries, and a lined up RGB throws them slightly off.
> 
> Is that normal?


Hi jacare,

No, "normal" these days is to have a full CMS wherein the secondaries are independent of the primaries, but unfortunately that is not the Panasonic way. I suspect you're going to be stuck balancing the primaries and secondaries against each other to find your best overall compromise. One thing you _could_ try, I suppose, is to fiddle with "Tint" in the basic settings and see if that can't help you simulatneously bring the primaries and secondaries more closely into line. Apart from that, I don't know what else one might do.

Yours,

David


----------



## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> No, "normal" these days is to have a full CMS wherein the secondaries are independent of the primaries, but unfortunately that is not the Panasonic way. I suspect you're going to be stuck balancing the primaries and secondaries against each other to find your best overall compromise. One thing you _could_ try, I suppose, is to fiddle with "Tint" in the basic settings and see if that can't help you simulatneously bring the primaries and secondaries more closely into line. Apart from that, I don't know what else one might do.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


Yeah that's what it sounds like to me also. That's a thought, but in every website calibration I've seen yet, no one has had to, so I'm kind of skeptical. I did call Panasonic today, and they told me that they could not help me with the settings, that I would have to talk to a calibrator.

I might tweak a little more tonite, I must get a hold of my calibration binges!

EDIT

I just read a gem online that may have helped me out quite a bit :


"Delta h is hue délta c is saturation delta l is luminance adjust the controls to get all three as low as possible . Should be able to get all under 2 de"


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> I just read a gem online that may have helped me out quite a bit :
> 
> 
> "Delta h is hue délta c is saturation delta l is luminance adjust the controls to get all three as low as possible . Should be able to get all under 2 de"


That's exactly right, those are the three values your CMS tweaks. Low delta errors across the board is ideal, of course, but when working with a limited control set, remember that CalMAN advises luminance is what matters most for primaries, while hue matters most for secondaries.

Good luck!

-David


----------



## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> That's exactly right, those are the three values your CMS tweaks. Low delta errors across the board is ideal, of course, but when working with a limited control set, remember that CalMAN advises luminance is what matters most for primaries, while hue matters most for secondaries.
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> -David


Hey do you know how to use or have used color hcfr software before? I'm thinking about a new meter x-rite i1display 3 and don't know if I'll be able to use it with the version of calman 4 that I have, I'm thinking I may have to purchase a new meter license? 

And also, something is not right and I'm thinking it may have to do with my meter. How I am complaining about the blues, in order to get the deltaH down I have to crank the hue to the right A LOT and that makes everything purple and for whatever reason I cannot get the errors down for the blues on deltaC. No matter what I try or how much I move the levels on the set the blue in deltaC barely moves and I mean barely. 

I'm really starting to think my meter is why I can't get a stable calibration.


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> Hey do you know how to use or have used color hcfr software before? I'm thinking about a new meter x-rite i1display 3 and don't know if I'll be able to use it with the version of calman 4 that I have, I'm thinking I may have to purchase a new meter license?


Hi jacare,

I have indeed used HCFR quite a bit, and I think the world of it. Its results generally are not _quite_ as precise or as finely grained as those of CalMAN and Chromapure, but the differences I noticed were very small, and it's really hard to beat $free$.

Last time I checked on these things, CalMAN did indeed want extra money for each license for each probe, which I find absurd, but I recall them offering bundles that would allow for multiple probes without any additional fees. You should call or email them to check on it and see. If they want more money from you, I'd say HCFR is an excellent alternative.



jacare said:


> And also, something is not right and I'm thinking it may have to do with my meter. How I am complaining about the blues, in order to get the deltaH down I have to crank the hue to the right A LOT and that makes everything purple and for whatever reason I cannot get the errors down for the blues on deltaC. No matter what I try or how much I move the levels on the set the blue in deltaC barely moves and I mean barely.
> 
> I'm really starting to think my meter is why I can't get a stable calibration.


Hm. Not being there and so not seeing any of what you see, I can't speak to this with reliable authority. Still, from your description it does sound like you might be getting inaccurate readings. How old is the D2? If it's more than a year old, it's out of spec. One really sucky thing about D2s is that they can't (or couldn't, last time I checked) be recalibrated. The C5s and i1Pros can be sent off for periodic recalibration to guarantee their accuracy. I _think_ the same is true of the D3s, but don't quote me on that.

For now, trust your eyes on the blue hue; I'd worry more about getting the right luminance in blue anyway.

Good luck.

Yours,

David

P.S.:


jacare said:


> and for whatever reason I cannot get the errors down for the blues on deltaC. No matter what I try or how much I move the levels on the set the blue in deltaC barely moves and I mean barely.


This is a common, common problem when working with CMSes; it just means there are hard limits on your TV's ability to render blue accurately. Seriously, don't worry about it; almost any consumer-level flat panel TV will have this in at least one primary color. I actually have it to some extent on both blue and red on my UNB8500. This is just part of the nature of the beast.


----------



## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> I have indeed used HCFR quite a bit, and I think the world of it. Its results generally are not _quite_ as precise or as finely grained as those of CalMAN and Chromapure, but the differences I noticed were very small, and it's really hard to beat $free$.
> 
> Last time I checked on these things, CalMAN did indeed want extra money for each license for each probe, which I find absurd, but I recall them offering bundles that would allow for multiple probes without any additional fees. You should call or email them to check on it and see. If they want more money from you, I'd say HCFR is an excellent alternative.
> 
> 
> Hm. Not being there and so not seeing any of what you see, I can't speak to this with reliable authority. Still, from your description it does sound like you might be getting inaccurate readings. How old is the D2? If it's more than a year old, it's out of spec. One really sucky thing about D2s is that they can't (or couldn't, last time I checked) be recalibrated. The C5s and i1Pros can be sent off for periodic recalibration to guarantee their accuracy. I _think_ the same is true of the D3s, but don't quote me on that.
> 
> For now, trust your eyes on the blue hue; I'd worry more about getting the right luminance in blue anyway.
> 
> Good luck.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David
> 
> P.S.:
> This is a common, common problem when working with CMSes; it just means there are hard limits on your TV's ability to render blue accurately. Seriously, don't worry about it; almost any consumer-level flat panel TV will have this in at least one primary color. I actually have it to some extent on both blue and red on my UNB8500. This is just part of the nature of the beast.



Well no wonder I can't get an accurate calibration my meter is 6 or yrs old. Thanks for the tip on the hard limits of the TV, my Sony is like that with greens. Can't budge them no matter what. 


What about the spectracal C3 meter, is that comparable with the idisplay3 meter? 

I'm assuming the C3 should be more compatible with calman software?

And I started from scratch last night and redone the calibration all over. I think It came out pretty well but my meter is definitely the problem. I'll take a reading of the white balance, correct the problems, take another reading and it be quite a bit different that the prior reading. Not is the time to decide which meter, C3 or display3...


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> Well no wonder I can't get an accurate calibration my meter is 6 or yrs old.


Oh, yeah--so long as you have the discretionary funds, it's time for a new meter. One thing I will say from my own experience: it's more than worth it to get a meter that can be sent off for annual recalibration. That really pays off over time when compared against "one and done" meters like the D2.



jacare said:


> What about the spectracal C3 meter, is that comparable with the idisplay3 meter?
> 
> I'm assuming the C3 should be more compatible with calman software?


Here I can't help you much, as I know nothing of the Spectracal meters. The D3s I know to be very highly rated; when they first came out, a lot of guys said they actually got more accurate results at low luminance than the Chroma 5s. If true, that's impressive.

I doubt compatibility will be an issue; CalMAN needs to be compatible with almost any meter in order to stay competitive, so I'd expect it to do fine with whatever meter you choose. Were I the one buying, I'd focus on measurement accuracy, the ability to be recalibrated, and cost (in that order).

Yours,

David


----------



## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Oh, yeah--so long as you have the discretionary funds, it's time for a new meter. One thing I will say from my own experience: it's more than worth it to get a meter that can be sent off for annual recalibration. That really pays off over time when compared against "one and done" meters like the D2.
> 
> 
> Here I can't help you much, as I know nothing of the Spectracal meters. The D3s I know to be very highly rated; when they first came out, a lot of guys said they actually got more accurate results at low luminance than the Chroma 5s. If true, that's impressive.
> 
> I doubt compatibility will be an issue; CalMAN needs to be compatible with almost any meter in order to stay competitive, so I'd expect it to do fine with whatever meter you choose. Were I the one buying, I'd focus on measurement accuracy, the ability to be recalibrated, and cost (in that order).
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


Well I'll take a stab at a new meter, I was going to order it today but have to wait until Friday. I'll have to either look into free software to use also in case my version of calman won't take this meter (I'm guessing no) so if you have any suggestions on free software to use, I'm all ears.


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> Well I'll take a stab at a new meter, I was going to order it today but have to wait until Friday. I'll have to either look into free software to use also in case my version of calman won't take this meter (I'm guessing no) so if you have any suggestions on free software to use, I'm all ears.


HCFR is the one to go to if you need free.

Yours,

David


----------



## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> HCFR is the one to go to if you need free.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


Is there a learning curve to it, is is pretty straight forward or a pain in the rear? I should be getting a meter Fri or a few days after. A x-rite i1display 3 pro.


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> Is there a learning curve to it, is is pretty straight forward or a pain in the rear? I should be getting a meter Fri or a few days after. A x-rite i1display 3 pro.


Hi jacare,

I suppose it depends on the individual a bit, but for me HCFR was _easier_ to navigate than CalMAN, not harder.

Congratulations on the new meter!

Yours,

David


----------



## jacare

I ordered the iD3 meter today, should be here by same day delivery.

The last time I installed HCFR (a couple years ago) i was lost immediately, so if you found it easier, could you provide a couple of tips?

Do they have a walkthrough type of help file or something?


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> I ordered the iD3 meter today, should be here by same day delivery.
> 
> The last time I installed HCFR (a couple years ago) i was lost immediately, so if you found it easier, could you provide a couple of tips?


Hi jacare,

Oh, man, that was _ages_ ago; I doubt I could be much use now. They do have whole threads devoted to how to use it over on AVS, though. You could try there.



jacare said:


> Do they have a walkthrough type of help file or something?


If memory serves me, yes, they do. I recall it being on their website somewhere. Or maybe it was on AVS.

Yours,

David


----------



## jacare

Ah, that's ok, no problem. I received the meter today, just opened up calMAN to see if it would recognize (just for kicks) and it doesn't, so I'll have to go the HCFR route.

I calibrated my NEC monitor with the new meter to verify that it works correctly, and it's a little more accurate than the iD2 that came with it, and that was with the display and meter not properly warmed up so I can only guess that it'll be more accurate with both of them properly warmed up.

I'll try HCFR tomorrow and report my findings, but now it's time to watch how to train your dragon with my 3 yr old...lol


----------



## jacare

Well so far I got HCFR going and it's not as bad as I was fearing. . A little learning curve but not too bad. 

Is it normal for the gamma point (where you set the gamma initially) to freak out after setting the IRS 10 point gamma settings? 

Hope that made sense!


----------



## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> Well so far I got HCFR going and it's not as bad as I was fearing. . A little learning curve but not too bad.
> 
> Is it normal for the gamma point (where you set the gamma initially) to freak out after setting the IRS 10 point gamma settings?
> 
> *Hope that made sense!*


Hi jacare,

Actually, I'm not following you, there. Do you mean that your target gamma line moves on you?? It definitely shouldn't--not ever. You haven't changed your TV's peak luminance (output at 100 IRE), have you? If you do, that will completely throw everything on your white balance off and you'll have to start it all over. That's why it's important to set your luminance (the Y value) and white balance at 100 before doing anything else; all else in the gamma curve gets measured against that setting.

Does this help, or have I misunderstood your question?

Yours,

David


----------



## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> Actually, I'm not following you, there. Do you mean that your target gamma line moves on you?? It definitely shouldn't--not ever. You haven't changed your TV's peak luminance (output at 100 IRE), have you? If you do, that will completely throw everything on your white balance off and you'll have to start it all over. That's why it's important to set your luminance (the Y value) and white balance at 100 before doing anything else; all else in the gamma curve gets measured against that setting.
> 
> Does this help, or have I misunderstood your question?
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


That would be correct I did change it as it was giving me a delta error of 7. 

I changed it because blue was at 85% and red was at 118% so I corrected it so that they showed as close to100% eeach as possible and that's when I measured it again and saw the huge jump upward. It was the only IRE that was way far off. 

My mistake I guess... I was following the instructions for the HCFR use and it said to adjust 80 & 30 IRE and fine adjust the rest. So I take it not to touch the 100 ire then at all. But what if it is way off like the numbers indicated? Set it and forget it regardless?


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## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> That would be correct I did change it as it was giving me a delta error of 7.
> 
> I changed it because blue was at 85% and red was at 118% so I corrected it so that they showed as close to100% eeach as possible and that's when I measured it again and saw the huge jump upward. It was the only IRE that was way far off.
> 
> My mistake I guess... I was following the instructions for the HCFR use and it said to adjust 80 & 30 IRE and fine adjust the rest. So I take it not to touch the 100 ire then at all. But what if it is way off like the numbers indicated? Set it and forget it regardless?


This is actually very simple and easy to fix. The first thing to do is get your Y value at 100 as close to the target you prefer (the industry standard is 35 foot lamberts, and that's what I use). Then move red and blue at 100 IRE as needed to get the best white balance you can. A delta error of 7 is huge at 100; with your controls you should be able to get it down below 0.25, and you should do so. Next re-check your luminance (Y) level at 100 to make sure all the white balance fiddling didn't throw you too far off from where you started. Realistically, it shouldn't, but if it did, you might need to re-tweak it a tiny bit with your gamma controls; no big deal. Once you have a truly flat white balance at 100 IRE and you also have the overall luminance level you want there, then restart HCFR, have it read at 100 IRE, tell it what gamma target you want, and off you go.

One thing to watch for: each IRE slightly affects its immediate neighbors, so probably you would do well to get 90 IRE and 100 IRE fully under control together before turning to the rest of the scale. It takes a little practice, but it really isn't all that hard.

Good luck!

Yours,

David


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> This is actually very simple and easy to fix. The first thing to do is get your Y value at 100 as close to the target you prefer (the industry standard is 35 foot lamberts, and that's what I use). Then move red and blue at 100 IRE as needed to get the best white balance you can. A delta error of 7 is huge at 100; with your controls you should be able to get it down below 0.25, and you should do so. Next re-check your luminance (Y) level at 100 to make sure all the white balance fiddling didn't throw you too far off from where you started. Realistically, it shouldn't, but if it did, you might need to re-tweak it a tiny bit with your gamma controls; no big deal. Once you have a truly flat white balance at 100 IRE and you also have the overall luminance level you want there, then restart HCFR, have it read at 100 IRE, tell it what gamma target you want, and off you go.
> 
> One thing to watch for: each IRE slightly affects its immediate neighbors, so probably you would do well to get 90 IRE and 100 IRE fully under control together before turning to the rest of the scale. It takes a little practice, but it really isn't all that hard.
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


Hi David, 

I decided to start over from the beginning. I think I got the hang of HCFR now, and the new meter is much more accurate than the iD2. I think so far I got a really good calibration, I just need to go back and make sure everything stayed in place. I'll probably finalize everything tonight, it took a few hours over the last 2 days to tweak the gamma and WB to get them right. Mainly because of the real time adjustments in HCFR but it paid off, as this calibration is *much* better than anything previous with calman but of course that is the fault of the meter and not calman. 

Question, is the ChromaPure software any good? I'm thinking of getting a license for that instead of calman.


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## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> Question, is the ChromaPure software any good? I'm thinking of getting a license for that instead of calman.


Hi jacare,

Chromapure is excellently rated software and Tom Huffman, its creator, is one of the top professional calibrators in the country. I didn't want to suggest you look at Chromapure because you said you needed to save money, but if you do have the funds for it, I think you'll like it very much (and the last time I checked, it was a good bit cheaper than CalMAN). If I were in the market for calibration software right now, I'd take Chromapure in a heartbeat.

Yours,

David


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> Chromapure is excellently rated software and Tom Huffman, its creator, is one of the top professional calibrators in the country. I didn't want to suggest you look at Chromapure because you said you needed to save money, but if you do have the funds for it, I think you'll like it very much (and the last time I checked, it was a good bit cheaper than CalMAN). If I were in the market for calibration software right now, I'd take Chromapure in a heartbeat.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David



OK thanks, I was hoping to hear that, right now chromapure is a 100$ less per license. I'd use HCFR more but the lack of real time updating is going to make me burn a box in my plasma 

I did a final calibration and I figured out how to use the color detail settings on the TV now but only the hue and luminance. The saturation slider is hard to figure out because sliding it hardly made a difference in calman or HCFR (in the numbers or graphs) and I can't find anything that references how it should be used.

Also, check out this final calibration, I think I messed up somewhere - look at cyan, its completely borked and I'm not sure how it happened. Furthermore, I was able to practically get the gamma completely flat, its about as close as I can get it.

One thing I like about calman is the real time updating, in just about every facet of the calibration. Does chromapure have real time updating? Move slider on the TV and watch the results happen on screen?

I'll have to break out the PC again and see where I went wrong. Cyan reads a deltaE of *39.9*. WOW.

CIE then gamma chart.


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## davidjschenk

Hi jacare,

Yeah, something is definitely wrong in that cyan reading; no way can its real value be where your software says it is, so I'm guessing you mistakenly measured it at 50% output, or something.

You're right that the ability to get real-time readings is a boon. I suspect you'll be very happy with Chromapure.

Yours,

David

P.S.: Nice work on the gamma!


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Hi jacare,
> 
> Yeah, something is definitely wrong in that cyan reading; no way can its real value be where your software says it is, so I'm guessing you mistakenly measured it at 50% output, or something.
> 
> You're right that the ability to get real-time readings is a boon. I suspect you'll be very happy with Chromapure.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David
> 
> P.S.: Nice work on the gamma!




Back again, I have purchased chromapure and did a few calibrations. I'll say getting the grayscale right on this ST60 set is quite a challenge. I was advised to use the normal temp setting by Tom Huffman and to use the 2.4 gamma. I tried it but didn't like the results. 

One thing I'm hung up on and still just cannot find an answer for (from people or Web) is how hue and saturation of say red and green make up where yellow lands on the CIE chart. Right now on the present calibration I have all the colors are 1.5 dE or lower except yellow which is at 2.6. The picture looks good, even to my very picky self but the yellow is leaning quite a bit towards the red hence the error. I'd like to get it moved over more towards reference while keeping red and green under dE 1.5. 

My issue is lack of knowledge about how adjusting red and green hues make up the direction in which yellow moves. This also applies to the other secondaries. Does my question make sense?


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## lcaillo

Based on that chromaticity diagram your green is off and that is what is shifting yellow to the red. But as David says, that cyan is obviously a bad measurement.


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## jacare

lcaillo said:


> Based on that chromaticity diagram your green is off and that is what is shifting yellow to the red. But as David says, that cyan is obviously a bad measurement.


That's an old chart, I am not using calMAN anymore at this point. I have a chromapure chart I'll put up that I did last night that shows the yellow issue I'm getting. Plus, after every calibration, I'm seeing cyan and magenta both converging towards blue. I can't seem to get away from it or fix it without sending all the primaries into serious dE error.

Here's the chart. I'm sure you're right about the green, but setting the green as it is is the only way to get a 'natural' look to it (grass, trees, etc.) I may be stuck with it as I've been plugging away at it for a week or so now with the same results.


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## mechman

Sometimes you can only do what you can do and accept how it ends up. The only thing I would look into at this point is trying to get the luminance of your primaries/secondaries down a little bit. Don't worry so much about the hue and saturation of each unless they change dramatically with the luminance. 

My gamut on my projector (Epson 3010) and my Sony LED/LCD aren't as good as this.


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## davidjschenk

mechman said:


> Sometimes you can only do what you can do and accept how it ends up. The only thing I would look into at this point is trying to get the luminance of your primaries/secondaries down a little bit. Don't worry so much about the hue and saturation of each unless they change dramatically with the luminance.
> 
> My gamut on my projector (Epson 3010) and my Sony LED/LCD aren't as good as this.


Hi jacare,

I'm afraid mechman is right on the money: with the limited CMS controls you have, there's only some much that you can do. You've already tried letting go of hue accuracy in the primaries in order to bring it into line on the secondaries? If not, do so. Luminance is the biggest thing for primaries, while hue is for the secondaries (really, all three values are important in all colors, but you're stuck making necessary compromises here). Also, did you try fiddling with Tint/Hue in the basic color controls? If not, that's another tool--however clumsy--that you can use.

Yours,

David


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## jacare

Hmm, I don't get it..... I did a final calibration where I was able to match up the settings on my TV to the Reference numbers for red/green/blue and the secondaries for the most part fell right into place. Not exactly but very close but here's the issue - while some skin tones look absolutely excellent in some scenes they look completely odd and stand out as unrealistic in others. I don't know how to get them realistic on a consistent basis. Inconsistent as in overly pink or red, or sometimes lack of ambient occlusion (how skin tones respond to ambient lighting, I. E., facing the sun, lighting conditions in a room, etc) 

When I was using D'nice's settings those produced the most realistically consistent skin tones and colors I've seen yet. But when I put those settings into chromapure aside from red being 1.5, green being 0.8 and blue being 2.1for delta E, all the secondaries areaat least 2.6 dE and above with the colors being NO WHERE near reference on the CIE chart either visually or numerically. My numbers are the complete opposite of his, literally. For example my red hue is upwards in the teens while his is at +2 and my saturation is in the plus 20's while his is - 39. Same with blue, and green hue is identical while my saturation is much lower - and my numbers are literally at reference for primary and close to reference for secondaries. 

Do you guys know if this is a case of meter profiling on my part or just plain good at what he does on his? I don't understand how someone can get a great picture and cinematic look with such crazy dE numbers while I match up everything to reference where it should be technically and get wonky skin tones without that cinematic look to it. I'd take pics to show but it's a plasma and induces a lot of flicker in camera shots so I can really show what I mean. Everything else looks good for my calibration, it's just the skin tones are wildly inconsistent. 

Can someone help me understand what's going on? I was informed that if I profiled my iD3 meter to a spectro meter like an i1 pro that I'd get a better and more accurate calibration. Is this true and is there somewhere I can rent a meter like that for a day to profile it to?


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## jacare

FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY got the skin tones sorted out, the whole picture looks excellent. Will post what worked tomorrow.


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## davidjschenk

jacare said:


> FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY got the skin tones sorted out, the whole picture looks excellent. Will post what worked tomorrow.


Whew!--that's a relief. I just read your immediately prior post, and was about to confess I was at a loss for where things were going wrong on you. It's especially hard to analyze those sorts of problems without being right in front of the TV and the calibration equipment.

I'm glad you got it sorted, and I'm looking forward to your follow-up post.

Yours,

David


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## jacare

davidjschenk said:


> Whew!--that's a relief. I just read your immediately prior post, and was about to confess I was at a loss for where things were going wrong on you. It's especially hard to analyze those sorts of problems without being right in front of the TV and the calibration equipment.
> 
> I'm glad you got it sorted, and I'm looking forward to your follow-up post.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> David


Yeah, it's a huge relief - literally 18 calibrations later. I got a tip from Tom Huffman to use the normal color temp and 2.4 gamma instead of 2.2 gamma and the warm 2 setting on my set that every other calibrator and site reviewer seemed to use when they would post their calibration settings. 

His recommendations did the trick, so far at least. I finished up late last night and only got to test the settings with the movie braveheart but was very pleased with the results. Generally every other aspect of the calibration looked good except skin tones. As I stated, some scenes they just looked off, like some weird color mask was affecting them, like if you saw what I was seeing in a theater you'd think 'it can't be meant to look this way, there is something wrong with this picture' - especially since everything else looked fine. Braveheart is one of those movies where skin tones are key to just about every scene and I thought it looked great. When skin tones are spot on it changes the movie completely, I had to get to bed but it looked so good I didn't want to stop watching! I was literally a calibration away from giving up and selling my meter, no joke. I was getting sick of constantly getting nowhere trying to correct those pesky skin problems to no avail. I'll try another couple movies, the fifth element is a real test, and if that looks as good as braveheart did, that should be the icing on the cake and I should be done for awhile.


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