Looks like we needed a good, centralized thread to share helpful tips, tricks, and settings related to calibrating the Ruby. I'll start by posting some of my findings and some questions.

[Mods - please leave this thread in this forum rather than moving it to the calibration forum - as most Ruby owners will not find it there (a previous thread on calibrating Ruby dynamic iris got no action there and quickly sank despite many attempts to keep it going...)]
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I've calibrated two different Ruby's at this point (using ColorFacts 6.0 and the EyeOne sensor) - one was a demo unit and the other was mine. The pjs were connected via DVI to a Bravo D1 outputting 1080i using patterns from both VE and DVE.

I thought you may find it interesting to know that out of the box both were quite warm on the color temp from 20-100 IRE, particuarly below 50 IRE. For example both units ranged from 5800 - 6250, generally starting around 5800 and moving up toward 6250 as the IRE increased. The demo unit had about 125 hours; mine had just a couple at the time.

I did all my calibration in the auto iris mode. I found it worked best to calibrate using window patterns. If you calibrated for the windows and then later tried with the full fields, it was pretty close at the full field. However the same was not true in reverse (calibrated to full fields resulted in widely off #s when measuing against windows).

One thing I did not try that I'm interested in would have been calibrating at the window, then going to full fields and tweaking at the full fields, then checking again on the windows. Basically the full fields were close enough, and I didn't want to spend hours on this as I know I'll need to recalibrate it soon as I only had a few hours on the bulb.

Nonetheless, if anyone knows of the best approach to find the right balance between APLs when it comes to calibrating auto iris please post it here, as I am still a bit unclear on the process despite pretty good results from my attempts.

If anyone is interseted in my calibration #s from the Ruby with just a couple hours on it, let me know and I'll post them here. Assuming some similarity between units/lamps, using these numbers may be a good starting point for those without calibration equipment.

On another note, I was quite surprised that I had to set my Color control to 57 and Tint to 48 to get the Split Color Bars pattern to look correct. Anyone else notice this? I find that the grayscale I set via the Bravo works great on my Comcast STB as well. However I wonder if the same color/tint setting is applicable on there as sometimes colors may look over saturated.

I set my Contrast at 69 based solely on how 10 step IRE bars looked. At the default of 80 the 100 IRE bar looked kinda "mushed" into the 90 IRE bar. As I stepped it down toward 69 the seperation between the 100 and 90 IRE bars became much more defined. I stopped at 69 which was the point at which there was no more definition between the 100 IRE and 90 IRE bar compared to higher settings. Was this the result of brightness compression?

Normally you have to back the contrast down on these projectors because you run out of the limiting color at the default contrast setting. With the Ruby however I had plenty of blue (limiting color in its Xenon lamp) to spare at 100 IRE. So it was a shame to back the Contrast down to 69 but seeing the 10 step pattern made it pretty clear that this was a necessity. Perhaps when the bulb ages and light output drops, I may opt to bring the contrast back up to get the increased brightness at the expense of the upper end. So in a way it is good this flexibility is there.

One tough spot for me as usual is that unfortunately the EyeOne will not generate a valid CIE graph. I had this same issue with the Sharp 10K. It shows Red right on but blue and green are way short of their rec 709 coords so I know this is wrong. Therefore I cannot use the RCP to gauge how to dial in proper rec 709 coords.

I have my Ruby in Nomal color space. Can someone please recommend any tweaks/settings to the RCP to dial in the colors a bit more accurately as Greg mentioned doing in his review?

Please chime in with your questions, tips and tricks related to calibrating your Ruby.

This is great, Ric! Just what the doctor ordered. I got off the phone with Greg Rogers a short while ago (I ordered his Accupel generator :D ), so I will be calibrating my new Ruby (arrived this afternoon :D ) soon. I would love to see what others are using for initial settings, as well as what info they find out about out of box calibration. I figured that since I am getting more serious about my projectors, I should also get more serious about the tools I use to calibrate them.

One thing that Greg cautioned about is the use of 3 color filter type (trichromat) sensors due to the use of a Xenon lamp. I'll let Greg give you the particulars, as I don't want the info to lose anything in the translation. I will be using the Gretag MacBeth EyeOne Pro Beamer, a unit which Greg gave the nod to as being suitable for Ruby calibration.

This is great, Ric! Just what the doctor ordered. I got off the phone with Greg Rogers a short while ago (I ordered his Accupel generator :D ), so I will be calibrating my new Ruby (arrived this afternoon :D ) soon. I would love to see what others are using for initial settings, as well as what info they find out about out of box calibration. I figured that since I am getting more serious about my projectors, I should also get more serious about the tools I use to calibrate them.

One thing that Greg cautioned about is the use of 3 color filter type (trichromat) sensors due to the use of a Xenon lamp. I'll let Greg give you the particulars, as I don't want the info to lose anything in the translation. I will be using the Gretag MacBeth EyeOne Pro Beamer, a unit which Greg gave the nod to as being suitable for Ruby calibration.

I use the EyeOne Beamer. I'm not sure if that's different than the EyeOne Pro or they're just the same thing. One thing's for sure is that I've always struggled to get too readings from the primaries with this sensor. Its frustrating because I'd love to dial in right to rec 709, but due to the inability to get good readings in this regard its not possible via calibration - I have to do it more like guesswork.

I'll post my calibration settings a little later tonight when I have the numbers in front of me.

I calibrated my Ruby using the AccuPel 3000, CF, and the trichromat sensor, all of which JimmyR was very kind to loan me. I haven't posted my experience with this because this was more of a learning experience for me and I'm sure there are things I should have done differently. In any case, I'll be very interested in reading the posts to this thread. I would be interested in hearing more about the problems with the trichromat with ruby. Are all my results garbage?

I have a couple really basic questions but I don't want to derail this thread so feel free to just ignore me. I decided to calibrate with Iris Off even though I normally view with the Auto mode on. The results I was getting in auto mode were bizarre and I visually see why as the iris changed with changing gray fields. I'll be interested in hearing how people are dealing with that.

I only had a DVD cable for the AccuPel so that's the only input I calibrated. The RGB gain/cut values I ended up with were fairly extreme. With green locked and set to 0 on Ruby, I ended up with the R and B being reduced near the extreme end of the range for gain but being boosted more than 50% for cut. Is this to be expected? The results looked fine, though, both visually and on the graphs (at least to the extent that I understand them). I certainly looks neutral gray to me from 0 to 100 IRE, both at 10 IRE increments and the finer increment (pushing the two Accupel buttons in). DVI inputs from my PC also look very good.

Unfortunately, these were extremely poor settings for my other inputs which is what I use most and are, surprise, way too green at brighter levels and way too lacking in green in dark areas. Is it to be expected that some inputs (or source devices) would vary so much?

Wouldn't it be wise to calibrate after it's gone through its initial wear-in pattern?

Given that Alan reported visible light loss at 50 hours wouldn't it be prudent to wait until this point (or later?)

What difference did you measure at the 125 hour mark versus your newer lamp?

Wouldn't it be wise to calibrate after it's gone through its initial wear-in pattern?

Given that Alan reported visible light loss at 50 hours wouldn't it be prudent to wait until this point (or later?)

Yes, if I was paying for calibration I'd certainly wait until I had about 150-200 hours on the bulb. However since I do this myself and I can redo it at any time I might as well calibrate it now. For instance instead of 5800-6200 from 20-100 IRE I now am at D65 +/- 150 degrees or so. I do not know how to calculate delta E. Any one know the formula for this?


What difference did you measure at the 125 hour mark versus your newer lamp?

Well, let's see. Here are my numbers for my Ruby with 24 hours on the bulb at the time:

Gain:
R: 113 (112)
G: 123 (121)
B: 140 (128)

Offset:
R: 127 (129)
G: 125 (127)
B: 125 (128)

The number listed first is my calibrated setting. The number in parens is the default value in the projector for the middle color temperature. As you can see, they are almost identical except that the blue gain was way short. This explains why I found the default setting to be too warm (5800-6200).

So with the exception of blue the pj was pretty much calibrated on target. I arrived at all these numbers on my own and it wasn't until the end that I noticed how close there were to the default. This gave me some extra confidence that I had calibrated things correctly without messing things up.

Here are the numbers for the calibration on the demo Ruby, which had about 125 hours at the time:

Gain:
R: 101
G: 120
B: 129

Offset:
R: 134
G: 122
B: 128

All these settings were taken with Contrast at 69 and Brightness at 52.

As you can see, the additional 100 hours on the demo Ruby changed the calibration considerably. Then again, it could just be slightly different characteristics of the lamp in that unit so who knows.

As an interesting side note, post calibration, I measured 22.8 cd/m2 on a 100 IRE full field pattern on my Ruby with 24 hours, and 19.2 cd/m2 on the Ruby with 125 hours. Now, these numbers are obviously wrong. And I don't know why they are reading so low. For instance I should be getting upwards of 65-75 cd/m2 (20 cd/m2 on my FH is only 5.7 fL - I think NOT). However all that being said, in an apples to apples comparison, that would be about a 15% drop from 24 to 125 hours. Then again, this may mean nothing, since some lamps may be naturally brighter than others. The real test is in measuring the same bulb x hours later. But at any rate I wanted to pass this along.

If anyone knows why my cd/m2 readings are incorrect please let me know. I am reading this via EyeOne from CF 6.0 directly off the screen with the meter about 18 inches from the dead center of the screen.

EyeOne has various versions. Which one has the most accurated results? EyeOne Pro Beamer is the same as EyeOne Pro?

How much is Accupel Generator? Any suggestion of good and cheap generator?

Lovingdvd,

What testing patterns did you use for REC709 Primary measurement? I found Eyeone Beamer can do proper NTSC Primary measurement.

Lovingdvd,

What testing patterns did you use for REC709 Primary measurement? I found Eyeone Beamer can do proper NTSC Primary measurement.

That's encouraging to hear. I've never had any luck with it. As a source in this case I used the 75% RGBCMY full fields from DVE. Could this be the cause? I think I've also tried it with the 100% full field versions.

I have my Ruby in Nomal color space. Can someone please recommend any tweaks/settings to the RCP to dial in the colors a bit more accurately as Greg mentioned doing in his review?
There isn't much you can do with the RCP function to improve the color. I wrote quite a bit about that in my review. Unlike the much better color management systems in the Yamaha DPX-1300 and Sharp XV-Z12000, the Sony RCP color function has very little effect on the color saturation of the primary or complementary colors, or the hue of the primary colors. (A color’s saturation is proportional to its distance on the CIE diagram from the D65 reference white. A color’s hue is approximately the angle at which the color lies in a circle around the D65 reference.) It does adjust the hue of the complementary colors and that was moderately useful to correct the hue of the yellow complementary color, which was shifted just slightly toward green only in the Normal Color Space mode. Other than that, the hue accuracy of the complementary colors is excellent and doesn't require any significant correction. The green and blue primaries could use some hue correction, but the RCP doesn't help there.

The more important color errors are in the saturation of the primary colors, which are each over-saturated relative to the Rec. 709 high-definition primaries, and even more over-saturated relative to the SMPTE-C (Rec. 601) standard-definition primaries. Unfortunately, the RCP function does virtually nothing to help that problem, because the RCP Color function affects the intensity (brightness) of the individual primary and complementary colors and not their saturation. If you want more accurate color you can reduce the Color (saturation) control but that doesn't give you individual control over the saturation of each primary.

Another odd effect of the RCP function is that it significantly shifted the grayscale when it was turned on, so that I had to calibrate a separate grayscale for its use.

The Ruby's Wide vs Normal color spaces appear to also use the same functions as the RCP control because they do not actually change the saturation (i.e. color gamut) of the primaries either. Instead, the Normal mode just reduces the intensity (brightness) of the primary colors (red the most, blue some, and green very little). The Wide mode actually has the correct primary brightness, although the Normal mode may look better on some sources when just the reds are oversaturated, but reducing the Color (saturation) control is probably better in most cases.

The Qualia 004 Wide/Normal Color Space worked much better and actually changed the saturation (i.e. color gamut) of the primaries to more closely match the Rec. 709 (HD) primaries. But it also had no way to match the more important Rec. 601 (SMPTE-C) primaries, leaving the user with only the more general Color (saturation) control to provide some correction.

I think for REC709 primary measurement, you should use Signal Generator or DVHS tape as the 709 source. I doubt if it is accurated to use DVD disc as the 709 source. Although the DVD player will map 601 to 709 color space when you set it to ouput HDTV 1080i/720P, errors may occur during such mapping processing.

I did all my calibration in the auto iris mode. I found it worked best to calibrate using window patterns. If you calibrated for the windows and then later tried with the full fields, it was pretty close at the full field. However the same was not true in reverse (calibrated to full fields resulted in widely off #s when measuing against windows).

One thing I did not try that I'm interested in would have been calibrating at the window, then going to full fields and tweaking at the full fields, then checking again on the windows.
I would start by calibrating the Iris Off grayscale and the Iris On grayscale using normal window patterns. But then you must calibrate the Auto Iris grayscale using both full fields and window patterns. (You should calibrate using Contrast 80, Brightness 50 for all modes using standard 16-235 video signals.) You can start by first copying the calibrated Iris Off grayscale calibration settings to the Auto Iris mode as a starting point. The iris aperture will be open on 100 IRE and 75 IRE full fields, so you must ensure that the grayscale is corrected for those patterns. I would shoot for near 0 dE error at 75 IRE full field and 3 dE or less at 100 IRE full field. But then you must check the full range of 10-100 IRE window patterns and make sure the low end of the grayscale is calibrated on a 10 IRE window pattern. I would also check below 10 IRE window patterns and a 1-10 IRE 10-step pattern if you have them to make sure the grayscale doesn't become significantly green or red below 10 IRE. Then check a 10-step 10-100 IRE grayscale pattern (which will partially close down the iris aperture) and make sure there is no visible grayscale variation on those steps. You should also make sure that 0% APL, 25% APL, and 50% APL black-level PLUGE patterns have the correct black level, and a 50% APL white-level PLUGE pattern (such as a 98 IRE stripe against a 100 IRE half-frame background) is just visible (which ensures there is no white level clipping).

All of that is an iterative process, so repeat until it is all simultaneously correct.

It is quite a bit of work to get the Auto Iris grayscale correct, but you should end up with good results.

I think for REC709 primary measurement, you should use Signal Generator or DVHS tape as the 709 source. I doubt if it is accurated to use DVD disc as the 709 source. Although the DVD player will map 601 to 709 color space when you set it to ouput HDTV 1080i/720P, errors may occur during such mapping processing.
Of course I agree you should use a video signal generator. :)

Seriously, some upconverting DVD players do not transcode the native Rec. 601 YCbCr encoding to Rec. 709 YCbCr encoding when outputting 1080i or 720p signals. That is why it is important for a projector to have manually selectable Rec. 601/Rec. 709 YCbCr matrix decoding.

Greg,

You mean we need to use 601 color space for some dvdplayers even it outputs 1080i/720P. If the projector has no selectable 601/709, it means it will auto detect. If it detects wrong, what effect it will happen. Abnormal color shift?

I would like to know if Accupel 3000 has the testing pattern to verify 1:1 mapping issue.

what's a ruby?

Greg,

You mean we need to use 601 color space for some dvdplayers even it outputs 1080i/720P. If the projector has no selectable 601/709, it means it will auto detect. If it detects wrong, what effect it will happen. Abnormal color shift?

I would like to know if Accupel 3000 has the testing pattern to verify 1:1 mapping issue.
One of the DVD players that I reviewed did not change the HDMI YCbCr encoding from the Rec 601 standard to the Rec 709 standard when it upconverted to 720p or 1080i. Therefore, if a projector automatically selects Rec 709 YCbCr decoding (as most do) it would decode the signals with the wrong matrix and the colors would be quite visibly wrong (shifted in hue, saturation, and brightness). I believe some other players with the same problem have been discussed on the forum. If a player has that problem, then it can be fixed by manually selecting the Rec 601 decoding matrix even though the signals are 720p or 1080i. However, only a few projectors have that ability to manually select the YCbCr decoding matrix.

There have also been players that upconvert to 1080i or 720p, internally decode the YCbCr signals with the wrong (Rec. 709) matrix, and then output RGB DVI signals. There are no projectors that I am aware of that can compensate for that error (which requires a special RGB to RGB matrix transform in the projector).

BTW, keep in mind that this is a completely different issue than the color space and calibration of the projector's primary and complementary colors, which I discussed earlier. This is about the signal encoding/decoding matrix to convert YCbCr signals into RGB signals for the projector.

On your other question, yes, I designed several of the AccuPel HDG-3000 patterns to determine if there is a 1:1 "pixel perfect" mapping of source pixels to display pixels, and to determine if there is any edge enhancement added in the projector.

...It does adjust the hue of the complementary colors and that was moderately useful to correct the hue of the yellow complementary color, which was shifted just slightly toward green only in the Normal Color Space mode. Other than that, the hue accuracy of the complementary colors is excellent and doesn't require any significant correction. The green and blue primaries could use some hue correction, but the RCP doesn't help there...


Seems odd that Sony would create such and advanced pj yet leave out such important control over the primaries.

Do you recall what RCP changes you made to improve on the yellow?

Regarding overall Color control to reduce saturation, do you recall approximately what you lowered the Color control to from the default of 50? Would this same setting apply generally or would it also be a function of the source (say a STB)?

Thanks for all the great feedback Greg.

I would start by calibrating the Iris Off grayscale and the Iris On grayscale using normal window patterns.

Just curious - does it matter if you skip calibrating Iris On mode if you never plan to use that mode?


But then you must calibrate the Auto Iris grayscale using both full fields and window patterns.


Which pattern should get precedence, the full field or window? For instance if 80 IRE can only be dialed in correctly on either the full field OR window pattern (but not both) which should be used?


(You should calibrate using Contrast 80, Brightness 50 for all modes using standard 16-235 video signals.)


I think in your review you mentioned Contrast in the 60s. Others are reporting they are using settings in the 60s as well. Based on your recommendation of calibrating on 80, and my current setting of 69, I am wondering if I am selling myself short on brightness...?

Or perhaps you are saying to calibrate with it at 80, but then post calibration lower it? When I run at 80 contrast the 100 and 90 IRE bars tend to mush together which is why I backed it off from 80 to 69. Am I making a mistake here?


You can start by first copying the calibrated Iris Off grayscale calibration settings to the Auto Iris mode as a starting point. The iris aperture will be open on 100 IRE and 75 IRE full fields, so you must ensure that the grayscale is corrected for those patterns.


So top priority is making sure 75 and 100 IRE full fields are dialed in very good, even if it means that this shifts when you put up a 75 or 100 IRE window (which it definately does shift away from D65 in doing this if its calibrated to the full field...)?


I would shoot for near 0 dE error at 75 IRE full field and 3 dE or less at 100 IRE full field. But then you must check the full range of 10-100 IRE window patterns and make sure the low end of the grayscale is calibrated on a 10 IRE window pattern.


That is where I get confused. It can't both ways, can it? Its either calibrated for window or full fields, so which gets priority?


I would also check below 10 IRE window patterns and a 1-10 IRE 10-step pattern if you have them to make sure the grayscale doesn't become significantly green or red below 10 IRE. Then check a 10-step 10-100 IRE grayscale pattern (which will partially close down the iris aperture) and make sure there is no visible grayscale variation on those steps. You should also make sure that 0% APL, 25% APL, and 50% APL black-level PLUGE patterns have the correct black level, and a 50% APL white-level PLUGE pattern (such as a 98 IRE stripe against a 100 IRE half-frame background) is just visible (which ensures there is no white level clipping).

All of that is an iterative process, so repeat until it is all simultaneously correct.

It is quite a bit of work to get the Auto Iris grayscale correct, but you should end up with good results.

Thanks so much Greg. This is very useful info indeed.

Just curious - does it matter if you skip calibrating Iris On mode if you never plan to use that mode?
No, the settings in the service menu are saved separately depending on what iris mode you are in.

Which pattern should get precedence, the full field or window? For instance if 80 IRE can only be dialed in correctly on either the full field OR window pattern (but not both) which should be used?
Well, ultimately it's up to what you think looks best. But I would get a 70 or 75 IRE full field as close to D65 as possible while still achieving a dE of 3 or less on a 100 IRE field, 70 or 75 IRE window, and everywhere else down to about a 10 IRE window. It's an iterative process.


I think in your review you mentioned Contrast in the 60s. Others are reporting they are using settings in the 60s as well. Based on your recommendation of calibrating on 80, and my current setting of 69, I am wondering if I am selling myself short on brightness...?

Or perhaps you are saying to calibrate with it at 80, but then post calibration lower it? When I run at 80 contrast the 100 and 90 IRE bars tend to mush together which is why I backed it off from 80 to 69. Am I making a mistake here?
I don't recall mentioning 60 in the review, but I may have mentioned it in answer to a question here on the forum. What I said in the review was that you can "modestly reduce brightness compression by lowering the Contrast control setting, which of course also reduces picture brightness and image contrast." I would do your best grayscale calibration at 80 and then experiment with the Contrast to see if you want to tradeoff a lot of brightness and contrast for a little improvement in brightness compression. If so, you can go back and re-optimize the grayscale after you are sure you have a contrast setting that you really want to use. Because after that you can't increase the contrast again without creating actual clipping.



So top priority is making sure 75 and 100 IRE full fields are dialed in very good, even if it means that this shifts when you put up a 75 or 100 IRE window (which it definately does shift away from D65 in doing this if its calibrated to the full field...)?

It's going to shift some because you are then operating at different point in the gamma range (new gamma curve) at a different iris aperture. But if you do a careful calibration you can keep the dE error at about 3 or less for most conditions. For most observers, a dE of 3 or less is hardly noticeable on real world video.

Greg,

Thanks for your reply. Any plan to include 1080P and 576i@50Hz in the upcoming firmware for AccuPel?

@lovingdvd,

I have my Ruby in Nomal color space. Can someone please recommend any tweaks/settings to the RCP to dial in the colors a bit more accurately as Greg mentioned doing in his review?

I posted my experiences regarding the correction of primaries and secondaries via RCP and Color-controls in another thread here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=605212&page=16&pp=30 in posting #462 - #464.

Thomas

Greg, would you please repeat the information you told me yesterday regarding the use of filter based trichromat sensors? A lot of people here use those types of instruments.

i know this is a thread about calibration, but.
what about not formally calibrating?
can one have a great experience by working with user settings and things like avia and thx optimizer?
i have had two pj calibrated to isf standards. very early on, when i did not know there may be someone locally i had a well known person, calibrator, come cross country to do an isf calibration. really looked very nice, but it also looked nice prior to that. i was never sure if my eye was not the better. similar outcome with the second pj.
so are there any tips for user calibration?
(edit) how can we quickly get up and running with a good picture while we wait for 50 - 100 hrs?

Well, ultimately it's up to what you think looks best. But I would get a 70 or 75 IRE full field as close to D65 as possible while still achieving a dE of 3 or less on a 100 IRE field, 70 or 75 IRE window, and everywhere else down to about a 10 IRE window. It's an iterative process.


What is the formula for calculating dE? What inputs do we need? I assume they are numbers that I'd get from the "Raw Data" window of ColorFacts which includes little/big x and y? For example, if with CF I measure 6300 with 101% R, 98% G, and 101% B, what is my dE? Knowing this formula will enable me to target your recommendations. I did a google search on calculating dE but couldn't come up with anything.


I don't recall mentioning 60 in the review, but I may have mentioned it in answer to a question here on the forum. What I said in the review was that you can "modestly reduce brightness compression by lowering the Contrast control setting, which of course also reduces picture brightness and image contrast." I would do your best grayscale calibration at 80 and then experiment with the Contrast to see if you want to tradeoff a lot of brightness and contrast for a little improvement in brightness compression. If so, you can go back and re-optimize the grayscale after you are sure you have a contrast setting that you really want to use. Because after that you can't increase the contrast again without creating actual clipping.


I'm happy to get additional brightness and contrast in exchange for a bit more brightness compression (which I never notice anyway). So after reading this I want to go back and recalibrate at 80 Contrast. Or at least I'll do so in another user setting so I can go back and forth between a grayscale based on 69 contrast and one based on 80.

I'd like your opinion on the basis I used to chose 69 in the first place. The reason I did this was because, post calibration with Contrast of 80, when I put up a IRE steps pattern. It had 4 quandants full of a bunch of small 10 vertical step bars that ran from 0-100 (I think). Anyway the brightest bar was mushing/bleeding into the second brightest bar on this pattern, post calibration. As I lowered Contrast from 80 toward 69 I could see the definition in each of these bars come back (the mush/bleed was gone completely at about 69 and lowering any further made no difference).

Was this effect caused by BC? Was this adequate justification for using 69, or just adequate justification if eliminating/minimiing BC is a priority over brightness/contrast (which it is not for me)?

Also in case folks are wondering, on the pj with 125 hours, post calibration, I measured a full field 100 IRE pattern at 20 cd/m2 with Contrast at 69, versus 24 cd/m2 with Contrast at 80. That's 20% brighter with Contrast of 80, which obviously is quite significant.

@lovingdvd,



I posted my experiences regarding the correction of primaries and secondaries via RCP and Color-controls in another thread here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=605212&page=16&pp=30 in posting #462 - #464.

Thomas

Thanks Thomas. Can you post your Color and Tint control settings, and the numbers you customized in the RCP? I have my Color control at 57 based on results from the split color bars pattern and I'm realizing that this is oversatured (based on Greg's and your reports).

Also Thomas - what are you using for the source of the color fields that you are measuring primaries? Is this over DVI/HDMI?

It is encouraging to hear you are getting similar CIE graphs on the factory defaults as GregR using the EyeOne. All these years I thought it was my EyeOne. However I am starting to become convinced that the problem is in my SOURCE and not the EyeOne.

For instance I am using the Bravo D1 outputting 1080i over DVI. Posts earlier suggest it could be an issue with the color decoding/matrix in the Bravo.

As a test I am going to try measuring the CIE using a) the Bravo set to 480p over DVI, and b) another DVD player using component output. I think this could be very enlighting. If either of those tests result in readings greater than the default gamma for the ntsc color space, then I think I can assume this issue is in the Bravo. What do you guys think about this testing approach?

EyeOne Pro Beamer is the same as EyeOne Pro?

The EyeOne Pro is the sensor itself - "Beamer" is a software/accessory package that is bundled with the EyeOne Pro sensor. I also bought the "Beamer" package, as it includes a tripod mount and more importantly, a diffuser for taking readings directly from the light source. You can not buy the diffuser separately.

Greg, would you please repeat the information you told me yesterday regarding the use of filter based trichromat sensors? A lot of people here use those types of instruments.
Bob,

As you recall I didn't mention any particular color analysis products by name. My point was simply that a Xenon lamp produces quite a bit different spectral distribution for the red, green, and blue primaries than a UHP lamp. Therefore, a tri-stimulus (fixed filter) based color analyzer may have filter response deviations that correspond to spectral content not usually present with the UHP lamp, which may result in larger errors with a Xenon lamp than UHP lamps. The spectroradiometer based instruments tend to have more uniformly distributed spectral response errors making them somewhat less sensitive to the spectral variations of sources. Any specific tri-stimulus color analyzer would need to be tested to see if this is a significant factor with the Ruby.

I'm the real newbie of the bunch here as I just got my Ruby yesterday and haven't had more than about 15 minutes to play with it so far. :( At this point, I am not sure how to handle even basic calibrations like brightness and contrast in the auto iris mode. Normally I use a set of reversing ramps that display BTB and WTW (below digital 16 and above 235) to get a quick evaluation of the overall grayscale and also to set contrast and brightness. Should I use this pattern with auto iris mode or will the presence of the extreme ends of the grayscale make the adjustments invalid? If so, what patterns should I use instead? Just looking at the reversing ramps with the default values, both the blacks and the whites looked crushed, and if I were to adjust contrast and brightness based on that one pattern, I would need to raise brightness and lower contrast - both drastically, in order to see a smooth set of ramps from 0% to 100%. It just seems unnatural to have to reduce the dynamic range so drastically, so I assume that I need to make my adjustments using more appropriate patterns.

Thanks, Greg, that is how I understood it, but it probably wouldn't have come out right if I had said it...:)

Wow, this thing is really going to take some work. After about 2 hours of playing with the Ruby tonight, I am very unimpressed. The picture looks flat and lifeless, no 3D quality at all - colors are not accurate (reds are orangy, fleshtones pinkish - even in normal mode) - both DVD and HD look noisy. Other than the better black level, so far I prefer the picture my InFocus 7210 and Optoma H-79 put out, as those two have more solid looking images with better instaneous contrast and much more accurate and vibrant colors.

I hope there is some magic bullet to make this Ruby shine, because so far it is a huge disappointment. :(

Bob,

Interesting comment about the reds. I don't think I've ever seen redder reds. I came from orange reds from a Barco CRT and I'm a little surprised you think the reds are organgy.

Andy, I am assuming that my unit is just very badly in need of calibration. It's not just the reds...the pinkish faces disturb me considerably more. Right now I am pretty disgusted, so maybe after a good night's sleep and a fresh start tomorrow I will see things differently.

If anyone has a unit that they feel looks incredibly good, maybe he would be kind enough to post his settings. Maybe I am overlooking some basic setting in a menu somewhere that is wreaking havoc with my picture.

BTW, I am currently using a 100" wide Firehawk, as the lamp is new and quite bright on that screen/size combination. I tried it on a High Power of the same size, and though it helped the colors look more vivid (naturally - they were brighter, but still not accurate), the black level was elevated much too high for such a new lamp.

The EyeOne Pro is the sensor itself - "Beamer" is a software/accessory package that is bundled with the EyeOne Pro sensor. I also bought the "Beamer" package, as it includes a tripod mount and more importantly, a diffuser for taking readings directly from the light source. You can not buy the diffuser separately.

I've checked GretagMacbeth website. EyeOne Beamer is a package of software plus EyeOne Pro sensor. There are only two types of sensors called EyeOne Display2 and EyeOne Pro. I've compared the specification between GretagMacbeth and Colorfacts. Both are same. It means the sensor bundling with existing Colorfacts is Eyeone Pro (even Colorfacts call it as Eyeone Beamer).

I own a old Eyeone sensor bundling with Colorfact 3.x version. My Eyeone sensor is named Eyeone Monitor whose part number is different from Eyeone Pro. So I guess Eyeone Pro is a upgraded version of Eyeone Monitor.

Do you guys find it is named as Eyeone Pro in the label on the sensor?

lovingdvd,

I think it is not worth to lower the contrast so as to minimise the BC. I think a better way to do so is tweaking its iris mode with factory mode or customising the gamma curve.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=609204&page=3&pp=30

I used 75 contrast at Auto Iris which has accurate D65 tracking and higher on/off contrast than Sony's specification.

Andy, I am assuming that my unit is just very badly in need of calibration. It's not just the reds...the pinkish faces disturb me considerably more. Right now I am pretty disgusted, so maybe after a good night's sleep and a fresh start tomorrow I will see things differently.

If anyone has a unit that they feel looks incredibly good, maybe he would be kind enough to post his settings. Maybe I am overlooking some basic setting in a menu somewhere that is wreaking havoc with my picture.

BTW, I am currently using a 100" wide Firehawk, as the lamp is new and quite bright on that screen/size combination. I tried it on a High Power of the same size, and though it helped the colors look more vivid (naturally - they were brighter, but still not accurate), the black level was elevated much too high for such a new lamp.

Bob,

My comment I guess was more directed at myself. Meaning I'm a rookie at all this and hadn't realized my Barco was orange until I read it on the fourms. Then I started to compare and notice it. Now with the Ruby I'm thinking that I'm seeing very nice reds but it could be that ignorance is bliss.

I'm hoping William Phelps comes up with some tricks for the Ruby and get everything calibrated at that time. I'm interested in reading what your final evaluation of the Ruby is. BTW, what are you feeding the Ruby?

Hi Greg,

I calibrated a Ruby last week and found the DI sure does complicate a Grayscale calibration and gamma measurements. I was planning on calling you with what I found, but thought that this thread might serve just as well.

I had a different experience with the RCP. I was able to target the primaries and secondaries using the RCP. I had to make adjustments in each color's "targeting" (this might not be the exact word used in the Sony menu) and "range" before the hue and saturation controls worked as expected. Even at that, they did not respond in a strictly linear fashion as one would wish. However, I was able to move all six colors to coincide with the rec 709 standards (at least according to an Eye-One Pro spectrophotometer).

I had the same experience as you in setting the colorspace from "Wide" to the "Normal" setting. It moved their positions a very small amount in color space, not enough to see movement in their positions in a CIE chart.

I sent the Ruby's HDMI input a 480i YCbCr signal with the Accupel and with an HDMI DVD player. I didn't have an HDMI cable so I used a DVI cable with HDMI adapters on both ends. In both cases, the Ruby saw the signal as RGB and didn't apply color decoding. I saw no way to force the Ruby to do so. So far every PJ I have tried this with has responded the same way when set to Auto (decoding matrix). (The Infocus SP7200 allows one to specify the decoding matrix and this PJ could be forced to properly decode YCbCr over DVI.) I believe your review said that your Ruby accepted YCbCr over HDMI. I wasn't able to make this work. I am returning with a true HDMI cable to try again, but I doubt that it will make a difference. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks for your input on this forum. Your expertise is very appreciated.

Glenn

Few questions (not familiar with the Ruby at all, but just out of general interest):

1. Is the actual calibration done on screen, or are you using software supplied by Sony?

2. Given the problems people are getting with calibration with dynamic iris, why not use full field gray patterns (instead of window patterns)?

3. How do you calibrate gamma using dyanmic iris? Isn't the whole point of dynamic iris contrast stretching (i.e., gamma is a solluable concept)?

i'm not in this business.
but it is 2006 and technology is everywhere.
pj should not be calibrated at the factory and end users should not have to do all the complex work you all are posting about.
they sould self calibrate when set-up and continuously re-calibrate whenever they are turned on. i'm sure this would be an inexpensive peice of cake to engineer with 2006 technology, maybe fifty bucks. this is especially true of Toshiba, Sony and Canon projectors. they are huge and have other real world displays. i use imaging all day, everyday in my work. i know the technology is there to have displays perform to certain conventions. this whole calibration thing is nothing but an operator dependent blast from the past. however, like everyone else, i'll have to get it done.

maybe the insiders can start working to update the industry.

After reading the advice from Greg posted earlier in this thread, I decided to recalibrate with Contrast at 80 and Brightness at 50. Previously I had used Contrast of 69 to try and be proactive about brightness compression, but it wasn't worth the tradeoff in contrast ratio and brightness IMO - especially because I've yet to notice any brightness compression issues.

First I will list my settings, and then I will cover the process I used.

Contrast 80, Brightness 50, Lamp at 40 hours

____IRIS ON | OFF | AUTO

Gain R: _96 | _90 | _90
Gain G: 100 | 101 | 100
Gain B: 116 | 112 | 114

Bias R: 131 | 128 | 137
Bias G: 129 | 129 | 130
Bias B: 133 | 134 | 136


RESULTS
======
The above resulted in D65 from 30-100 with 0 or 1 dE for most IREs and dE of 2 or 3 (but no more than 3) at a few IREs. This was also the case with the Iris AUTO mode when measuring windows or full fields.

Overall I only had to give up about 15% of light output compared to the default settings to calculate to D65, which I thought was pretty good (56 cd/m2 prior Vs 46 cd/m2 post).

Note that I say 30-100 IRE and not 0-100 or 20-100. This is because I have a problem with ColorFacts/EyeOne reading at 20 IRE. It just goes bonkers. For example, at 30 IRE I get a good reading say D65 dE 0. But at 20 it'll read a dE of 15 with 115% red. Then I lower red bias by 1 click and remeasure and then red is 95% - just from lowering the red bias by a single click! This is obviously a meter issue as the EyeOne is said to not perform well from 20 and below. Anyone else experience this as well? So for 20 and below I just look at how the gray ramps, steps and windows look compared to 30.

PROCEDURE
========
First I calibrated with Iris OFF using window patterns, which produced the same results against full fields as expected.

Next I copied these settings to Iris AUTO as a starting point. I then calibrated using window patterns. Next I checked these settings against the 20,40,75, and 100 full fields on the original VE. This was great because the full fields on VE do not fill up the screen because it is 4:3.

So this essentially provided another window pattern that was much larger than the regular window pattern, yet had a lower APL than a full field. In other words this was a good step in between windows and real full fields. So I then had to tweak the calibration (in auto iris mode) to adjust for the changes made by the auto iris.

Next I then used the 20/40/60/80/100 full fields from DVE. Again I had to tweak the grayscale to get this back to D65 within a dE of 3. Then I went back and checked against the windows. I can't recall exactly but it was either perfect at that point, or I had to make just a tiny tweak (maybe change a setting or two by 1).

At that point I had D65 within dE of 3 in auto iris mode for both window patterns and full fields - sweet! All in all it only took a little over an hour (not including set up time).

CAUTION: During your calibration do not switch input resolution without first saving your changes to memory (assuming you are happy with what you have so far). Otherwise your work will be lost. For instance, I switched my Bravo from 1080i to 720p and it dropped all my changes. This was after I had everything tweaked perfectly. Fortunately I had written the settings down so it was easy to get back where I was.

[Note that I made these changes directly in the service mode in Custom 1 and set my color temp in the user menu to Custom 1. This is important to note because if you make these changes in the user menu instead - IIRC - I think it applies these changes to the preset color temp. So in other words the preset changes things to X, then you are changing X by your custom gain/bias numbers. This result could be significantly different than having the #s in the user menu still at 0 and changing things in the service menu... Do not however make changes in the service menu unless you first write all default #s down and you know what you are doing.]

If you guys try these settings please post back how they look on your Ruby and how many hours you have on the lamp. I am curious how transferrable these numbers are to other units with similar hours on the bulb. If you do not have calibration equipment you can get a feel for whether these numbers are on target by looking at grey steps, ramps and people's faces and to see whether white looks pure or is too cool (blue) or warm (red).

The one issue I continue to struggle with is that I cannot get good readings of the primaries. This prevents me from tweaking my colors because I cannot get an accurate gamut to see where my coords are vs. rec 709.

Others say they use the EyeOne and ColorFacts to do this, so I should be able to do the same. I thought maybe the issue was with my Bravo. So I hooked up a different DVD player via component, changed my color space from HDTV to NTSC, and measured the primaries off of that device. They were coming up incorrectly and just like I saw on the Bravo.

I don't know if this is enough evidence to rule out my source as the problem or not, but based on this it certainly seems that it's less likely. Here I am 3 years later and still struggling with this same issue just on a different pj... Man I really would like to resolve this once and for all.

If anyone has some ideas on things I can try to get accurate primary readings so I can tweak my colors, please let me know. In the meantime if someone can please post the exact changes they've made to color/RCP controls to dial in the colors I'd greatly appreciate it.

Note that I say 30-100 IRE and not 0-100 or 20-100. This is because I have a problem with ColorFacts/EyeOne reading at 20 IRE. It just goes bonkers. For example, at 30 IRE I get a good reading say D65 dE 0. But at 20 it'll read a dE of 15 with 115% red. Then I lower red bias by 1 click and remeasure and then red is 95% - just from lowering the red bias by a single click! This is obviously a meter issue as the EyeOne is said to not perform well from 20 and below. Anyone else experience this as well? So for 20 and below I just look at how the gray ramps, steps and windows look compared to 30.I think you have been bitten by the 'wandering' eye-one problem.

I have both the eye-one and a trichromat sensor with Colorfacts 6 Pro. After putting up with the behavior of the eye-one for months, I retired it. Perhaps it's just this one, but I don't think so. The behavior is this: Within less than ten minutes of a Dark Reading, the low IRE readings (below 40) of the eye-one would start drifting. Do a read at 30 IRE, then do the same one again and get an entirely different result. It gets more extreme as the IRE level you're trying to read gets lower, and it affects red readings the most. The only way to reset it for 5-10 more minutes is with another dark reading. Since that low IRE range is the most difficult to get right, I found myself spending more time doing dark readings to keep the results stable than actually getting calibration done. Switched to the trichromat and problem solved (for CRT calibrations).

I sent numerous problem reports to Milori and got only side-stepping responses. When I started hearing about this from other users, I gave up. So keep this in mind while you're taking low readings and see if there is any similarity.

--Bill

The one issue I continue to struggle with is that I cannot get good readings of the primaries. This prevents me from tweaking my colors because I cannot get an accurate gamut to see where my coords are vs. rec 709.

Others say they use the EyeOne and ColorFacts to do this, so I should be able to do the same. I thought maybe the issue was with my Bravo. So I hooked up a different DVD player via component, changed my color space from HDTV to NTSC, and measured the primaries off of that device. They were coming up incorrectly and just like I saw on the Bravo.

I don't know if this is enough evidence to rule out my source as the problem or not, but based on this it certainly seems that it's less likely. Here I am 3 years later and still struggling with this same issue just on a different pj... Man I really would like to resolve this once and for all.

If anyone has some ideas on things I can try to get accurate primary readings so I can tweak my colors, please let me know. In the meantime if someone can please post the exact changes they've made to color/RCP controls to dial in the colors I'd greatly appreciate it. I don't think I'd ever use a DVD player to calibrate a projector, only to check and normalize a DVD player to a calibrated projector. Why are you doing it this way?

I've always used Colorfacts on my HTPC or my Sony portable to generate the signals used by the projector, and then read by Colorfacts. Primaries readings work just fine that way. You don't even need to use the same sweep rate if your computer can't generate your target rate.

Using Colorfacts as your signal source also gives you stability and reproducible results independent of anything external to the projector.

--Bill

I think you have been bitten by the 'wandering' eye-one problem.

Yes, this is problem using this sensor to read emmissively (pointed at the screen). The eye-one pro now comes with a cosign corrector that allows one to point it at the lens of the PJ. By mounting the sensor 1.5' from the lens the intensity of light is vastly greater and the eye-one can read with extreme linearity from 100 IRE to 10 IRE (max deviation in x or y = .0007 from my measurements). This was reading a PJ at 2.2 gamma.

It still needs dark level readings every 10 mins. to maintain that accuracy.

Glenn

I think you have been bitten by the 'wandering' eye-one problem.

I have both the eye-one and a trichromat sensor with Colorfacts 6 Pro. After putting up with the behavior of the eye-one for months, I retired it. Perhaps it's just this one, but I don't think so. The behavior is this: Within less than ten minutes of a Dark Reading, the low IRE readings (below 40) of the eye-one would start drifting. Do a read at 30 IRE, then do the same one again and get an entirely different result. It gets more extreme as the IRE level you're trying to read gets lower, and it affects red readings the most. The only way to reset it for 5-10 more minutes is with another dark reading. Since that low IRE range is the most difficult to get right, I found myself spending more time doing dark readings to keep the results stable than actually getting calibration done. Switched to the trichromat and problem solved (for CRT calibrations).

I sent numerous problem reports to Milori and got only side-stepping responses. When I started hearing about this from other users, I gave up. So keep this in mind while you're taking low readings and see if there is any similarity.

--Bill

Thanks guys for the details about the EyeOne and trichromat. Have you tried the trichromat with the Ruby and compared it to the EyeOne at higher levels? I ask because earlier in this thread there is talk about perhaps trichromat sensors potentially having issue with SXRD technology. I'm curious if you've done any A/B tests between the meters to verify the trichromat is ok on SXRD.

I have the option of getting the Spyder 2 trichromat meter for $200. Do you think that would do the trick or perhaps its not worth it? I have to figure that at 20 IRE things look very similar to 30 IRE so perhaps going off of 30 IRE is good enough for the low measurement?

Also there is some sort of Train Meter option that I think allows you to get the best of both worlds between the EyeOne and trichromat. Have you guys tried this and if so how is it done?

Yes, this is problem using this sensor to read emmissively (pointed at the screen). The eye-one pro now comes with a cosign corrector that allows one to point it at the lens of the PJ. By mounting the sensor 1.5' from the lens the intensity of light is vastly greater and the eye-one can read with extreme linearity from 100 IRE to 10 IRE (max deviation in x or y = .0007 from my measurements). This was reading a PJ at 2.2 gamma.

It still needs dark level readings every 10 mins. to maintain that accuracy.

Glenn

My pj is ceiling mounted so it would be terribly difficult to take measurements 1.5" from the lens without taking the unit down (which starts to become too much of a PITA with the mount and all).

I don't think I'd ever use a DVD player to calibrate a projector, only to check and normalize a DVD player to a calibrated projector. Why are you doing it this way?

I've always used Colorfacts on my HTPC or my Sony portable to generate the signals used by the projector, and then read by Colorfacts. Primaries readings work just fine that way. You don't even need to use the same sweep rate if your computer can't generate your target rate.

Using Colorfacts as your signal source also gives you stability and reproducible results independent of anything external to the projector.

--Bill

Does your portable do DVI output nativetly?

Yes it looks like for $125 or so I can add a GeForce card that will give me 1920x1080 output via DVI. I think that would be better.

Does ColorFacts allow you to take measurements with complete full fields or only the color window (any way to make the color window full screen)?

What do you use for the source of patterns from your HTPC? Just ColorFacts or one of the DVDs (DVE etc)?

When you set up a DVI output with a new graphics card in a PC is everything neutral or do these cards add some sort of gamma or brightness/contrast changes? Also how do you then account for the fact that you are sending PC level signals via DVI to do a calibration when normally its Video level signals (16-235) for real material?

Having EyeOne stability issues ?:)
Try storing your EyeOne in the refridgerator (in a sealed plastic bag) a few hours before using it. When you see it's much more stable go to the next step and wrap it in double plastic bags filled with crushed ice for longer cal runs.

Hi Greg,

....

I had a different experience with the RCP. I was able to target the primaries and secondaries using the RCP. I had to make adjustments in each color's "targeting" (this might not be the exact word used in the Sony menu) and "range" before the hue and saturation controls worked as expected. Even at that, they did not respond in a strictly linear fashion as one would wish. However, I was able to move all six colors to coincide with the rec 709 standards (at least according to an Eye-One Pro spectrophotometer).

I had the same experience as you in setting the colorspace from "Wide" to the "Normal" setting. It moved their positions a very small amount in color space, not enough to see movement in their positions in a CIE chart.

I sent the Ruby's HDMI input a 480i YCbCr signal with the Accupel and with an HDMI DVD player. I didn't have an HDMI cable so I used a DVI cable with HDMI adapters on both ends. In both cases, the Ruby saw the signal as RGB and didn't apply color decoding. I saw no way to force the Ruby to do so. So far every PJ I have tried this with has responded the same way when set to Auto (decoding matrix). (The Infocus SP7200 allows one to specify the decoding matrix and this PJ could be forced to properly decode YCbCr over DVI.) I believe your review said that your Ruby accepted YCbCr over HDMI. I wasn't able to make this work. I am returning with a true HDMI cable to try again, but I doubt that it will make a difference. Do you have any suggestions?

Interesting results with the RCP. I tried all of the RCP controls in various combinations (Position, Range, RCP Color, RCP Hue) and could only make small changes to saturation. Moreover if I remember correctly, the RCP Color control, which had a small effect on saturation had a much larger effect on the intensity (brightness) of the specific color. So even when I moved the saturation a little, it screwed up the intensity of the color making it better to the leave the RCP Color control at its default positions. Remember, that this is really a 3-dimensional issue. You have to get the x,y (or u'v') positions of the colors correct, but the intensity of the colors must also be correct at those positions. Ordinarily when you are working with native primaries only, you get the intensity correct when you set the grayscale to D65. But with these color management systems you usually have to adjust the intensity of the primary and complementary colors independent of the grayscale adjustment.

Anyway, I don't know why this worked for you in a production unit and not for me in a pre-production unit. The fact that the Wide/Normal mode worked the same for you and me, basically changing only the intensity of the primary colors and not their (x,y) positions, makes it even more mysterious. If Sony had "fixed some problem" (quotes since I don't know how they actually intended it to function) that now allows the saturation to be changed independent of intensity, then why wouldn't they be using that to move the primary chromaticity around in the Wide/Normal function, since that is what you really want and that is the way it works in the Qualia 004?

I'll probably take another look at this entire RCP/Wide/Normal functionality in a production Ruby someday, and then report what I find.

With regard to RGB vs YCbCr formats over DVI/HDMI, I wrote in the review,

"The DVI input only accepts digital RGB signals. There is no user selectable YCbCr mode for the DVI or HDMI inputs, although the HDMI input will accept YCbCr signals automatically when connected to an HDMI source."

So there is no way to use YCbCr digital signals with the Ruby unless you have an HDMI source, which will automatically tell the Ruby that it is sending YCbCr signals. That is a silly limitation of the Ruby. As you mentioned, most projectors allow you to manually select YCbCr or RGB signal processing for the HDMI (and possibly the DVI) input. If you don't have an HDMI source, the Auto mode on all projectors should default to RGB (which is what you have seen). It makes no difference if the cable is DVI (with HDMI adapters) or HDMI. They have the same physical (electrical) signals. It is the HDMI communications protocol that carries the information that tells the projector what type of signal is being sent in the Auto mode.

My pj is ceiling mounted so it would be terribly difficult to take measurements 1.5" from the lens without taking the unit down (which starts to become too much of a PITA with the mount and all).

For around $20 you can buy camera light tripods on Ebay that can reach up to about 100" or more. It sure makes direct light readings a whole lot easier for ceiling mounted projectors...;)

Bob,

Does your Ruby have good convergence?

Convergence is almost perfect in the center, and 2 of the four corners are within 1/2 pixel, and the other 2 corners are within 1 pixel. Though not perfect, it is good enough for me. :)

Good for you, Bob. :)

Steve, what did you end up doing with yours? Did you get another one, or are your images visibly good enough that you are ok with keeping it?

Yes, this is problem using this sensor to read emmissively (pointed at the screen). The eye-one pro now comes with a cosign corrector that allows one to point it at the lens of the PJ. By mounting the sensor 1.5' from the lens the intensity of light is vastly greater and the eye-one can read with extreme linearity from 100 IRE to 10 IRE (max deviation in x or y = .0007 from my measurements). This was reading a PJ at 2.2 gamma.

It still needs dark level readings every 10 mins. to maintain that accuracy.

Glenn

This sounds good. Pointing the lens instead of the screen can solve the inaccurate luminance measurement by EyeOne. Now it is more accurate to measure on/off contrast and gamma. Has it included the pointing device which can let the user know where the sensor is pointing. My old Eyeone sensor doesn't have a cosign corrector nor pointing device.

Have you compared the gamma between pointing to a screen and lens?

Does the RCP or some other function in the Ruby enable you to adjust the lightness of each color?

Here's what the service manual says about white balance adjustments.

--Bill

White Balance (http://nada.netoldies.com/ruby-white-bal.pdf)

Having EyeOne stability issues ?:)
Try storing your EyeOne in the refridgerator (in a sealed plastic bag) a few hours before using it. When you see it's much more stable go to the next step and wrap it in double plastic bags filled with crushed ice for longer cal runs.Been there on both counts. But at least on mine, it is only a minimal improvement (meaning short term).

And every ten minute dark readings? I think not.

Sure hope the Milori branded Trichromat works adequately for this PJ.

--Bill

Does your portable do DVI output nativetly?No, but the HTPC does. But the color tracking adjustments are global, not per-input so as long as you have the colorspace correct (1-255 or 16-235) the net results should be the same.

Does ColorFacts allow you to take measurements with complete full fields or only the color window (any way to make the color window full screen)?Your choice.

What do you use for the source of patterns from your HTPC? Just ColorFacts or one of the DVDs (DVE etc)?everything needed to do complete calibrations is generated by Colorfacts.

When you set up a DVI output with a new graphics card in a PC is everything neutral or do these cards add some sort of gamma or brightness/contrast changes? Also how do you then account for the fact that you are sending PC level signals via DVI to do a calibration when normally its Video level signals (16-235) for real material?Most popular and decent cards (Matrox, NVidia, ATI) with late drivers will default without any optimizations, gamma curves, or other things like that.

The colorspace used is determined by the type of signal you have defined for a given input. Normally, the auto mode for each input will figure out what's feeding it and adjust accordingly. It's pretty easy to notice if colorspace is wrong.

--Bill

I'm new to this forum and to front projectors in general. Iwill be purchasing a vpl-vw100 in the next few days. With all this talk about different calibration settings does anyone have a reccomendation on a qualified person in the Chicago area to initialy calibrate my projector until I can learn more and be able to adjust on my own?

Yes, this is problem using this sensor to read emmissively (pointed at the screen). The eye-one pro now comes with a cosign corrector that allows one to point it at the lens of the PJ. By mounting the sensor 1.5' from the lens the intensity of light is vastly greater and the eye-one can read with extreme linearity from 100 IRE to 10 IRE (max deviation in x or y = .0007 from my measurements). This was reading a PJ at 2.2 gamma.

It still needs dark level readings every 10 mins. to maintain that accuracy.

Glenn
I have the eye one. I have noticed it's poor dark level performance and the required dark reading repeats. Do you need a new eye one in order to get the cosign corrector? or is it software related?
I have been using my older Philips analyzer to check the lower end of the spectrum. It probably needs to be recalibrated though. $800. It is way more sensitive at dark levels than the eye one.

I've posted this elsewhere, but just so that we can gather important calibration information into a single thread, here is a great source of HD test patterns, all in .ts format, free for the downloading from one of our very generous members, dr1394:

http://www.w6rz.net/

If you want the entire package of files (highly recommended :) ), just download the single "all patterns" zip file at the top of the page.

moehawk, isn't this truly ridicules, this whole thing.
i have my ticket to denver, but could someone tell me which foot paths to follow and how many months it'll take to walk? oh, this guy is a mountain man( calibrator) and he knows some really good short cuts. if you are lucky he will tell you how to get there two days sooner.

the next generation of $10,000 display machines have got to do all of this automatic. this needs to become a mantra

...The colorspace used is determined by the type of signal you have defined for a given input. Normally, the auto mode for each input will figure out what's feeding it and adjust accordingly. It's pretty easy to notice if colorspace is wrong.
--Bill

What does ColorFacts use in its pattern, 16-235 or 0-255? Does it matter which as long as the input type is selected correctly? In other words if it outputs 0-255 and I have the Ruby set to PC DVI input (I assume you can set this manually on the Ruby, haven't looked) and calibrate this way, is it then calibrated correctly when you send in 16-235? You say its easy to notice if the colorpsace is worng - how? What is a good way to tell?

I've posted this elsewhere, but just so that we can gather important calibration information into a single thread, here is a great source of HD test patterns, all in .ts format, free for the downloading from one of our very generous members, dr1394:

http://www.w6rz.net/

If you want the entire package of files (highly recommended :) ), just download the single "all patterns" zip file at the top of the page.

Thanks Bob. Is it easy to create your own test patterns for use from the HTPC? For instance I want to create a 1-10 IRE bar pattern. I know how to create the image via PhotoShop but not sure about putting on DVD? Or perhaps I just display the image on the PC full screen?

Creating static images is easy, but creating MPEG2 video is much more difficult, as levels can get screwed up in the encoding process. I would recommend consulting dr1394 (Ron) if you are interested in learning more about it, as he is our resident expert. You can find more information here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=570937&highlight=dr1394

In other words if it outputs 0-255 and I have the Ruby set to PC DVI input (I assume you can set this manually on the Ruby, haven't looked) and calibrate this way, is it then calibrated correctly when you send in 16-235?
The Ruby does not have a user selection for PC vs Video DVI/HDMI levels.

The Ruby does not have a user selection for PC vs Video DVI/HDMI levels.

If I then use a HTPC and ColorFacts or other test patterns to calibrate over DVI, will the fact that I'm using PC level video (I assume that's what it will be 0-255) affect the calibration when sources use 16-235?

I'm not sure I understand,

Any qualified/experianced Ruby calibrators in the Chicago area?

moehawk

Welcome to the forum.

Your Ruby will look plenty good enough out of the box to get you buy until you put at least 100 hours or more on the bulb. You will lose brightness during this time period while the bulb settles. Spending money on a pro calibration right out of the box will go to waist. Put some hours on her first.

Interesting results with the RCP.

So there is no way to use YCbCr digital signals with the Ruby unless you have an HDMI source,

Greg,

Regarding RCP:

I saw that there was no apparent way to adjust Lightness. I didn't take measurements after I finished because I ran out of time. So I don't know if the Intensity was incorrect or not. I am going back to work on this further. I didn't even have time to evaluate the PQ results when done with RCP and left the display with RCP turned off. I will post more after I experiment some more. I am under the impression that if the greyscale is unchanged by the corrections in RCP that the Lightness is correct, and that I can save myself the time of taking measurements and doing the calculations. Is this assumption correct?

Initially, I could not affect the Saturation of the Primary colors either. It took widening the Range of each particular primary's control, and adjusting the Position of the control for that primary to target it (place it in the middle of the displayed range). Changing the Primaries affected the position of the Secondaries and visa versa, probably because I had widened the range of each control so much. It took two or three iterations to get all six colors on their marks.

At this point this is largely academic, because I achieved what appeared to me to be acceptable Color Sat results by merely reducing the Saturation control a bit. Green is probably still oversaturated, but that is so hard to detect in actual images due to a lack of suitable references in them for Green.

Regarding YCbCr over HDMI:

As I understand it, the HDMI input on the Ruby senses that the DVI input on the Accupel is not HDMI, and thus won't recognize YCbCr from it. Is that Correct?

On the other hand, the DVD player, a top of the line Meridian dvd player, is an HDMI player that was set to output YCbCr. The Ruby saw the signal as RGB instead of YCbCr. I was using a DVI cable with HDMI adapters on both ends. From your post, its clear that there is no way for a source or display to detect that the cable is DVI with adapters versus a true HDMI cable (I thought this was the case and is the reason that I used this combo in the first place). If so, then it looks like I am facing either an equipment incompatibility of some sort, or a defect in source or display. Would you agree? If you don't mind, what source did you use when your Ruby successfully recognized a YCbCr source over HDMI?

Thanks,
Glenn

Do you need a new eye one in order to get the cosign corrector? or is it software related? .

The new Eye-One Pro comes with the cosign corrector and the calibration to match that individual cosign corrector. It is my impression that the cosign corrector is not available as an add on for the older detectors because they were not built with the ability to hold that second calibration. However, a call to Gretag Macbeth Tech support would answer that question definitively.

You also need software that can use that mode to calibrate by. I use and highly recommend a package written by forum member, UMR. You can find links to his website if you browse around in the Calibration forum for one of his posts.

The cheapest way to buy the Eye-One Pro is by purchasing the Eye-One Pro Display package. Currently $750 at BHPhoto.com

Glenn

You also need software that can use that mode to calibrate by. I use and highly recommend a package written by forum member, UMR. You can find links to his website if you browse around in the Calibration forum for one of his posts.


Can you explain what type of calibration you are referring to related to this and why its necessary?



The cheapest way to buy the Eye-One Pro is by purchasing the Eye-One Pro Display package. Currently $750 at BHPhoto.com

Glenn

Their web site says something about a trade up program, if you have the original Eye One. May be worth checking out.

The Ruby does not have a user selection for PC vs Video DVI/HDMI levels.If I then use a HTPC and ColorFacts or other test patterns to calibrate over DVI, will the fact that I'm using PC level video (I assume that's what it will be 0-255) affect the calibration when sources use 16-235?Greg is right. I overstated the case, thinking more of the analog inputs than digitals.

The DVI output of a PC video card is always going to be 0-255, since it's really designed to drive a monitor. DVI outputs of just about all home entertainment gear will be 16-235. Unless the target projector has selectable input ranges on the DVI port (Ruby does not), the PC DVI output is of no use.

--Bill

What does ColorFacts use in its pattern, 16-235 or 0-255?The software itself always considers the output to be 0-255, but the actual output might be different if brightness, contrast or gamma settings of the video card's drivers have been moved from their default position. Also, if their happens to be any PC video cards that do component output (I've never seen any, but you never know) the outputs would be mapped from Colorfacts' 0-255 to a real 16-235.

Does it matter which as long as the input type is selected correctly? In other words if it outputs 0-255 and I have the Ruby set to PC DVI input (I assume you can set this manually on the Ruby, haven't looked) and calibrate this way, is it then calibrated correctly when you send in 16-235?No, the formats have to match. Normally, you'd use RGBHV between the computer and Ruby's Input-A set to computer. Both ends would be relative to 0-255 and will calibrate correctly.

You say its easy to notice if the colorpsace is worng - how? What is a good way to tell?By how the video looks. If you take a 16-235 signal fed to a 0-255 input, you'll have a high black level and low overall screen brightness. You'd need to lower Ruby's brightness and raise contrast several numbers to obtain a normal looking picture.

The opposite is also true. Taking a 0-255 signal fed to a 16-235 input, the black level will appear to be too low, and contrast much higher than normal. There will usually be some white crushing (not compression) going on at the top few white levels. This is readily visible if you were to feed the Ruby's DVI port with DVI output from a PC video card.

I find this Colorfacts test pattern program quite useful for general evaluation, especially at the extreme low and extreme high IRE levels when driving the pj from your computer.

http://www.colorvision.com/downloads/upgrades/ColorFacts_testPatterns.zip

--Bill

...The DVI output of a PC video card is always going to be 0-255, since it's really designed to drive a monitor. DVI outputs of just about all home entertainment gear will be 16-235. Unless the target projector has selectable input ranges on the DVI port (Ruby does not), the PC DVI output is of no use.

--Bill

I hooked up the DVI from my PC at 1920x1080@60hz last night. I displayed the brightness pattern - the one that has square blocks numbers 1-16 and then goes 20, 24, 28 or something like that.

Anyway the results from this pattern looked correct on the Ruby. For instance all the black boxes between 0-16 were invisible - they blended perfectly with the background black as I'd expect. The 20 level box (which is the next box that comes after the 16) was clearly visible and above black, which was correct. Had the boxes in the 1-16 range been visible then I think that would have indicated a problem.

So is it then correct to conclude that it is then safe to use ColorFacts over DVI to calibrate the Ruby and that these calibrated levels will then be correct for video 16-235 sources?

Anyway the results from this pattern looked correct on the Ruby. For instance all the black boxes between 0-16 were invisible - they blended perfectly with the background black as I'd expect. The 20 level box (which is the next box that comes after the 16) was clearly visible and above black, which was correct. Had the boxes in the 1-16 range been visible then I think that would have indicated a problem.

So is it then correct to conclude that it is then safe to use ColorFacts over DVI to calibrate the Ruby and that these calibrated levels will then be correct for video 16-235 sources?No. You didn't check both ends of the brightness range!

Adjust brightness so that boxes in the range of 2-4 are visible. Then go to the contrast level panel in the test program. You'll see that at least 4 of the highest level white boxes are crushed. The way you initially saw the blacks was due to a coincidental mis-adjustment of brightness on the pj.

As a further test, connect HTPC to Ruby via a VGA cable, with Input-A set to computer input mode, and compare the differences in the black/white extremes.

--Bill

Can you explain what type of calibration you are referring to related to this and why its necessary?

The Sensor has to be calibrated at the factory with the cosign corrector installed, just as it has to be calibrated at the factory in Emmisive Mode.

Typically this is done by a factory by calibrating a "Golden Monitor" with a "Golden Sensor" (Golden refering to a device that is "known" to be accurately calibrated). Each sensor would then be adusted until it accurately reads back the known calibration state of the Golden Monitor.

Glenn

The Sensor has to be calibrated at the factory with the cosign corrector installed, just as it has to be calibrated at the factory in Emmisive Mode.

Typically this is done by a factory by calibrating a "Golden Monitor" with a "Golden Sensor" (Golden refering to a device that is "known" to be accurately calibrated). Each sensor would then be adusted until it accurately reads back the known calibration state of the Golden Monitor.

Glenn
I wonder what the Milori would charge to set up my eye one to use the new cosign corrector and golden monitor etc?

I assume the new EyeOne can be used without the cosign corrector to read directly off the screen still?

The Sensor has to be calibrated at the factory with the cosign corrector installed, just as it has to be calibrated at the factory in Emmisive Mode.

Typically this is done by a factory by calibrating a "Golden Monitor" with a "Golden Sensor" (Golden refering to a device that is "known" to be accurately calibrated). Each sensor would then be adusted until it accurately reads back the known calibration state of the Golden Monitor.

Glenn

I doubt that is how they calibrate a spectroradiometer. I expect it to follow something closer to what is found in this.

http://www.olinet.com/pdfs/A14_SPECTRORADIOMETRY-METHODS.pdf

GregR

"The DVI input only accepts digital RGB signals. There is no user selectable YCbCr mode for the DVI or HDMI inputs, although the HDMI input will accept YCbCr signals automatically when connected to an HDMI source."

So there is no way to use YCbCr digital signals with the Ruby unless you have an HDMI source, which will automatically tell the Ruby that it is sending YCbCr signals. That is a silly limitation of the Ruby. As you mentioned, most projectors allow you to manually select YCbCr or RGB signal processing for the HDMI (and possibly the DVI) input. If you don't have an HDMI source, the Auto mode on all projectors should default to RGB (which is what you have seen). It makes no difference if the cable is DVI (with HDMI adapters) or HDMI. They have the same physical (electrical) signals. It is the HDMI communications protocol that carries the information that tells the projector what type of signal is being sent in the Auto mode.[/QUOTE]


Does this mean that a DVI will only work with a computer signal and not a DVI-D cable from the Samsung SIR-T165 set-top box?

GregR

....

Does this mean that a DVI will only work with a computer signal and not a DVI-D cable from the Samsung SIR-T165 set-top box?
No, it will work with the Samsung or any other video device that outputs a DVI signal. All DVI outputs produce digital RGB by default. Only a few devices provide YCbCr signals via DVI, but many devices with HDMI outputs produce YCbCr or RGB signals.

Greg,

What is the difference between the VW100 DVI "Computer" input and the DVI "Video GBR" input modes? Do they both expect 0-100 levels? When the DVI input mode is set to "Auto" it figures out which one it is so there's some difference to the VW100.

This is from another topic but is quite relevant now:
Yes, the signals are likely treated differently by the projector. If you read up on calibration in the HTPC forum, you will probably figure it out. But it is somewhat confusing, so I'll try to clarify.

Digital video signals have a range from 0 to 255.

A computer monitor interprets 0 as black and 255 as white.

A video device (TV) interprets 16 as black and 235 as white. And there is "important" information encoded below 16 and above 235 that should be sent to the display. To understand the details, read the calibration thread in the HTPC forum.

So when you set the Ruby to "computer", the Ruby is expecting a signal where 0 is black. If your computer is using Overlay to render the video signal, in my system the computer automatically converts the video black (16) to computer black (0), and video white (235) to computer white (255). In this case, the video should display properly because the graphics card changed the signal to display properly on a computer monitor (which is what you created by setting the Ruby to "computer"). Ironically, this is not the best scenario because the projector is not receiving the "blacker-than-black" and "whiter-than-white" information. It is lost when the computer does the conversion.

Now, take the same case, except this time the computer is using VMR9 for the video rendering. In this case (which is likely your situation), the computer does not convert video black (16) to computer black (0). So with the Ruby set to "computer", the projector is expecting a level of 0 to correspond to black, when actually the computer wants 16 to be black. This is the "mismatch" that MarcusInMD was referring to. As a result, the projector displays 16 as gray. That's why your image likely looks washed out. Blacks are gray, whites are gray. The fix for this would be to re-calibrate the display, but why bother, just use the other projector setting (read next paragraph).

So, assuming that you're using VMR9, conversions are not being made. If you set the Ruby to "Video GRB", the Ruby is now expecting Black to be 16, and white to be 235, exactly what your computer is outputting. Bingo, correct picture. No re-calibration necessary. Plus, the display is receiving the blacker-than-black and whiter-than-white information, as it should. (Note: in this configuration, when your computer is displaying normal "computer stuff", the brightness/contrast will not be correct. But who cares, the video is what we're interested in. For gaming, it might be necessary to change the Ruby to the "computer" setting).

Bottom line, if you are using Overlay on the HTPC, chances are that "computer" setting on the Ruby will give you the correct video. If you are using VMR9 on the HTPC, the "video GRB" setting should give you the correct video.

This is how it works on my HTPC. YMMV

Hope this is not confusing, and hope it helps.
PhilThis underscored a problem I have been wrestling with and now I think I have the answer. The signal type for a given input type is specific to preset modes in the Ruby.

On the DVI input connector, a Video GBR signal type is valid for presets 3-8,10 and 13. This signal type will accept both 1080i and 1080p (50 and 60Hz) formats.

A Computer signal type is valid for presets 21-42,44,45,47,50,55-57 which includes *only* 1080p/60.

For the computer desktop we're not using overlays or VMR7/9 and the output colorspace is always 0-100.

On the computer, the Sony is identified as a plug and play monitor and the valid scan rates information provided by the projector to the computer (EDID) is different depending on which input mode you have selected (Thanks Vern!). AUTO should not be used in this case. You need to have the Ruby pre-set to the correct mode either before the HTPC is booted, or just before doing an 'identify monitors' in the screen resolution menu of the NVidia drivers.

It can be a little catch-22 since the Ruby is also your monitor for the HTPC at the time!

So for general desktop use, the HTPC is always outputting in the 0-100 colorspace and the Ruby must be set to Computer mode at 1920x1080p to accept that signal correctly to be used with Colorfacts or any other software based calibration software.

Once the Computer-type 1080p configuration is set, you should be able to switch DVI input modes to Video RGB to use a 16-235 colorspace corresponding to (typical) DVD playback.

--Bill

I assume the new EyeOne can be used without the cosign corrector to read directly off the screen still?
I contacted Milori. They do not sell or supply the eye one with cosine correction or whatever. They recommended contacting Gretag. Milori indicated they will however support it? I left a message with Gretag earlier today. Hopefully some answers will be forthcoming. Pricing etc.

I contacted Milori. They do not sell or supply the eye one with cosine correction or whatever. They recommended contacting Gretag. Milori indicated they will however support it? I left a message with Gretag earlier today. Hopefully some answers will be forthcoming. Pricing etc.

IIRC last week I read something on their web site about a trade in program for older Eye One sensors to upgrade to the EyeOne Pro. Basically I'd be interested in upgrading just to get the new sensor - don't need any of their hardware. if anyone gets pricing for this and trade in credit info please post it.

IIRC last week I read something on their web site about a trade in program for older Eye One sensors to upgrade to the EyeOne Pro. Basically I'd be interested in upgrading just to get the new sensor - don't need any of their hardware. if anyone gets pricing for this and trade in credit info please post it.colorhq.com lists two Eye-one Pro upgrade packages:

Eye-One Pro Customer Appreciation UPGRADE For Products Ordered Between 1/1/01-12/31/02
List Price: $995.00, Your Price: $696.50

Eye-One Pro Customer Appreciation UPGRADE For Products Ordered Between 1/1/02-12/31/03
List Price: $995.00, Your Price: $597.00

I'd sure be looking for better prices than those. Mine was purchased early 2003.

--Bill

So for general desktop use, the HTPC is always outputting in the 0-100 colorspace and the Ruby must be set to Computer mode at 1920x1080p to accept that signal correctly to be used with Colorfacts or any other software based calibration software.

Once the Computer-type 1080p configuration is set, you should be able to switch DVI input modes to Video RGB to use a 16-235 colorspace corresponding to (typical) DVD playback.I wanted to follow up and confirm that the above is exactly the case. You can clearly see the differences in colorspace by watching the Colorfacts (or another) brightness/contrast blocks as you switch input modes.

Unfortunately the input AUTO mode cannot be used except as a switch-back default, as it will always prefer the Video GBR setting. Fortunately, the input mode is directly addressible by RS232 or TCP/IP commands to select accordingly based on preference.

Also, a followup to some incorrect information I posted about Input-A RGB signalling. It appears by the manual's format charts that for 1080i operation into either Input-A or the component inputs, that ONLY the 16-235 colorspace (Video GBR) is possible. There is no Computer mode for 0-100 colorspace for 1080i !! Unless this chart is wrong, there is no way to operate 1920x1080 RGB/RGBHV calibration equipment with a 0-100 colorspace into Input-A or Component! Those inputs support only computer presets 21-39 and 56. Kind of hard to believe.

You don't necessarily have to do gray scale calibrations with external equipment at 1920x1080, though, so that's something. But other external gear with traditional RGBHV outputs expecting the wider colorspace are not going to work right.

I'm at a loss to understand the logic of this.

Is anyone aware of a video processor that is not only excellent, but has controllable colorspace selections for any given input/output?

--Bill

Bill you are confused. :)

Bill you are confused. :)Well, it wouldn't be the first time! Are you going to keep me guessing??

PC levels are 0-255 (RGB), video levels are 16-235 (Component). In computer mode black and white levels are adjusted to compensate for the 0-255 PC levels. If however you use VMR9 it doesn't use PC levels, it uses video levels. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you select computer, auto or video on the Ruby, you still need to use DVE, Avia or whatever to re calibrate the brightness and contrast settings on the Ruby. If you have multiple sources connected to the Ruby you can use different user configs for each as needed.

PC levels are 0-255 (RGB), video levels are 16-235 (Component). In computer mode black and white levels are adjusted to compensate for the 0-255 PC levels.In computer mode you're already in the 0-255 space and there is no reason to compensate for anything. Depending on how accurately your Ruby is set, if the source is really in the same space, very little or no readjustment is necessary.

If however you use VMR9 it doesn't use PC levels, it uses video levels. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you select computer, auto or video on the Ruby, you still need to use DVE, Avia or whatever to re calibrate the brightness and contrast settings on the Ruby. If you have multiple sources connected to the Ruby you can use different user configs for each as needed.Again, once your display device (Ruby) is correctly set for the respective colorspaces via calibration, there is no reason to do anything other than select the right input mode and perhaps a minor touchup based on source content. You'll always know where your true black (brightness) and white (contrast) levels should be for a calibrated display.

Also note that if you feed a source with a 0-255 colorspace into an input with a 16-235 colorspace you are very likely to overdrive a stage into saturation at high levels (white crushing) that will not be compensated for by reducing the contrast.

One of the points of my last post was in specific reference to calibrating the Ruby, and the equipment you would calibrate it with. If you want the projector (any projector) to be calibrated in and of itself, you don't do so with a DVD player. You use a known external source usually (but not always) tied in with computer software. Since you're calibrating you must know your inputs and associated colorspaces of the projector and of your gear. Otherwise you're playing with a rubber yardstick and will not end up with a *correctly* calibrated display.

Nope, I'm not confused about any of that.

--Bill

In computer mode you're already in the 0-255 space and there is no reason to compensate for anything. Depending on how accurately your Ruby is set, if the source is really in the same space, very little or no readjustment is necessary.

Again, once your display device (Ruby) is correctly set for the respective colorspaces via calibration, there is no reason to do anything other than select the right input mode and perhaps a minor touchup based on source content. You'll always know where your true black (brightness) and white (contrast) levels should be for a calibrated display.


I normally feed video 16-235 levels from my STB and DVD player over DVI to the Ruby. Now let's say I hook up my PC to the Ruby via DVI and use ColorFacts to calibrate the display with the internal patterns CF generates. I then calibrate grayscale to D65.

First question: In this scenario is ColorFacts using 0-255 or 16-235? And is the Ruby using 0-255 or 16-235?

Now the calibration is over, so I hook the Ruby back up to my Bravo D1 outputting 720p. Further assume just for discussion purposes that the Bravo is perfectly accurately and doesn't introduce any errors into the equation.

In this above scenario, is my GRAYSCALE part of the calibration still applicable for the Bravo? Or does the fact that I calibrated grayscale with 0-255 and now I'm using 16-235 for my DVD player going to throw off my grayscale.

Also I assume that grayscale aside, I cannot properly calibrate brightness using ColorFacts and the BC for Video sources, since CF presumably will be using 0-255 and my player using 16-235?


One of the points of my last post was in specific reference to calibrating the Ruby, and the equipment you would calibrate it with. If you want the projector (any projector) to be calibrated in and of itself, you don't do so with a DVD player. You use a known external source usually (but not always) tied in with computer software. Since you're calibrating you must know your inputs and associated colorspaces of the projector and of your gear. Otherwise you're playing with a rubber yardstick and will not end up with a *correctly* calibrated display.


I've heard this a lot lately but I do not follow the logic here. Please help me understand this. I understand the point that ideally the pj is calibrated to a spec, and that way it works great as long as the source adheres perfectly to the spec. If I was a pj manufacturer calibrating for D65 out of the factor that is how I would do it.

But to me it makes more sense just to calibrate directly from the DVD player. For instance I use the Bravo D1 to output 720p or 1080i. If I use the Bravo to display the test patterns (instead of CF) and calibrate grayscale off of that, don't I then wind up with a calibration at D65 that is corrected for any errors in my source?

This way if the Bravo has errors I am correcting them to get back to the D65. Now granted this calibration is only applicable for use with my DVD player, but as long as I can use different settings for different sources, logically this seems to me to be the better way to go.

As mentioned previously I am unable to get valid readings for my primaries so I cannot dial them in (or even attempt to) to the rec 709 coords.

Many of you have stated that at least as a first step in adjusting the primaries, you had to reduce the color control. Can you please let me know what you moved it down to from the default setting of 50?

For those of us that cannot dial in rec 709 using instrumentation, would we be at least somewhat more accurate by reducing the control control by this amount?

Currently I am using the Normal colorspace with Color/Tint at 50. I am certain that I have a D65 calibration from 30-100 with 0-3 dE.

However flesh tones do not look entirely accurate to me. They are a bit rosey and perhaps a bit yellow at time. On the contrary, my D65 calibration on the Sharp 10K resulted in much more realistic skin tones.

Do you guys have any suggestions on how to improve flesh tones?

Greg - did you feel that flesh tones looked very accurate on your Ruby review unit?

Well Bill you are confused because you are talking about luma levels yet continue to reference it as colorspace. Just to be clear, 0 - 100 is IRE levels, 16 - 235 is for component luma levels and 16 - 240 is for component chroma levels and 0-255 is for RGB levels.

And yes you still have to calibrate and match the correct levels for each source, this is where a video processor comes in very handy. Not doing so is a complete waste of money for such a hgh end display.

First question: In this scenario is ColorFacts using 0-255 or 16-235?Colorfacts running on the desktop will always be using 0-255.

And is the Ruby using 0-255 or 16-235?It depends. You'd always want it to be in the 0-255 space, but it will only be there in DVI IF you are running 1080p, and IF you have the input mode set to Computer. In fact, once you have the HTPC running 1080p over DVI and the Ruby is set to it, you can freely switch colorspace by changing the input mode between Video GBR (16-235) and Computer (0-255).

Now the calibration is over, so I hook the Ruby back up to my Bravo D1 outputting 720p. Further assume just for discussion purposes that the Bravo is perfectly accurately and doesn't introduce any errors into the equation.

In this above scenario, is my GRAYSCALE part of the calibration still applicable for the Bravo? Or does the fact that I calibrated grayscale with 0-255 and now I'm using 16-235 for my DVD player going to throw off my grayscale.Grayscale is really another term for color balance, color tracking, etc., and is a global setting (as far as inputs are concerned) so it would be fine.

As far as colorspace is concerned, and assuming that the projector is properly designed (which it seems to be in this regard) it would make no difference as long as you match colorspace settings on source and projector. So if your Bravo was outputting in the 16-235 space and you were set to a Video GBR mode on your Ruby (which is 16-235) it would track correctly.

Also I assume that grayscale aside, I cannot properly calibrate brightness using ColorFacts and the BC for Video sources, since CF presumably will be using 0-255 and my player using 16-235?If I understand this question correctly, that assumption would be wrong. Remember that in the 16-235 space 16 is black, equivalent to 0-255's 0, and 235 in the 16-235 space is white, just like 255 in the 0-255 space. So as long as your Ruby input colorspace matches the source colorspace your calibrations will stand.

I've heard this a lot lately but I do not follow the logic here. Please help me understand this. I understand the point that ideally the pj is calibrated to a spec, and that way it works great as long as the source adheres perfectly to the spec. If I was a pj manufacturer calibrating for D65 out of the factor that is how I would do it.

But to me it makes more sense just to calibrate directly from the DVD player. For instance I use the Bravo D1 to output 720p or 1080i. If I use the Bravo to display the test patterns (instead of CF) and calibrate grayscale off of that, don't I then wind up with a calibration at D65 that is corrected for any errors in my source?

This way if the Bravo has errors I am correcting them to get back to the D65. Now granted this calibration is only applicable for use with my DVD player, but as long as I can use different settings for different sources, logically this seems to me to be the better way to go.Then how would you calibrate for your HD receiver? See, the whole thing is about standardizing and having a point of reference. It's done this way professionally in both audio and video worlds so you can judge the balance of what you're viewing. In a home environment it's less rigid, of course, but the concept still makes sense there too if you have or plan to have more than one source.

DVD's vary significantly in calibration during production and transfer (mastering), and to a lesser extent, so do HD broadcasts. If your display is calibrated to a standard, you'll find there is much less objectionable deviation between sources. What you'll see more clearly is differences in production style, differences in transfers, obvious faults on the broadcaster's side, etc. If you then choose to fine tune, you can, but you still know where the reference settings are. Without a standard you would be adjusting all the time and never really know how far off or in what manner the source is incorrect.

Does this help any?

--Bill

But to me it makes more sense just to calibrate directly from the DVD player. . .This way if the Bravo has errors I am correcting them to get back to the D65. Now granted this calibration is only applicable for use with my DVD player, but as long as I can use different settings for different sources, logically this seems to me to be the better way to go.

LovingDVD and BBlue,

This is how calibration has been done traditionally, each source on a different display input and each input calibrated individually. It is ideal to include the source component in the video chain for the reasons that LovingDVD mentioned. With analogue sources this nullifies the variances inherent in analogue designs. Each input on the display should automatically store and recall its own calibration settings whenever it is active. Some displays will store multiple calibrations on a single input depending on whether the signal is Interlaced, Progressive, SD, HD, RGB, or YCbCr.

With digital sources, it looked like this variance was no longer going to be a factor. The first DVI sources put out reference levels (either PC or Video). The Bravo D1 puts out reference level digital signals in the Video signal range (16-235). The D1's output with test patterns from DVE matches the output from my Accupel. (Be aware that the Window Patterns in Avia have some color contamination and do not match exactly, but they are close from 100 IRE down to 30 IRE.)

However, there are newer digital DVD players which do not output reference levels at their factory settings. If they are the only source connected to a particular input on a display, then calibrating through the DVD player nullifies the problem and is the easiest way to make the picture accurate. Alternately, the source can be set to output reference levels by adjusting Contrast and Brightness settings in the DVD player (along with other settings too, depending on the particular DVD player) before calibration. In that case one can either calibrate through the source, or one can use a proxy device which also outputs reference levels, such as an Accupel. The results are the same.

If you want two digital sources to share the same input, then they should both be set to output Video reference signal levels. That way the calibration for one will also be accurate for the other. To do this, you need to start out with a device that you know puts out reference levels (I use an Accupel.) You set the controls on the display to match that source. Then you set the controls on your other sources by sending test patterns through them so that they match the display's settings also. Finally, you want to send gray scale test patterns through both sources to insure that they do indeed match the reference signal levels that were put out by your proxy device.

So it seems to me that you are both right. Two different means to the same end.

Glenn

Thanks Bill. So in summary if you use ColorFacts to calibrate to D65 over PC levels, and a DVD player matches standard perfectly, then you will still have D65 when later connecting the DVD player (even those the calibration was done in the 0-255 space and the DVD player will be playing back in the 16-235 space)?

If you want two digital sources to share the same input, then they should both be set to output Video reference signal levels. That way the calibration for one will also be accurate for the other. To do this, you need to start out with a device that you know puts out reference levels (I use an Accupel.) You set the controls on the display to match that source. Then you set the controls on your other sources by sending test patterns through them so that they match the display's settings also. Finally, you want to send gray scale test patterns through both sources to insure that they do indeed match the reference signal levels that were put out by your proxy device.

Great! Thanks, Glenn! That's the way I figured it should be done, but after reading all the posts in this thread, I was beginning to doubt my sanity. My AccuPel arrived today...:D

However, there are newer digital DVD players which do not output reference levels at their factory settings.

That would seem to be the case with my Panny S-97 and MyHD card...:(

Well Bill you are confused because you are talking about luma levels yet continue to reference it as colorspace. Just to be clear, 0 - 100 is IRE levels, 16 - 235 is for component luma levels and 16 - 240 is for component chroma levels and 0-255 is for RGB levels.Ok, Jeff. I'll concede that my use of the term colorspace is not the most accurate. It's more of an encoding/decoding term. But in some circles is used as a general catch-all as I'm using it. I'll try to be more clear in the future.

--Bill

Thanks Bill. So in summary if you use ColorFacts to calibrate to D65 over PC levels, and a DVD player matches standard perfectly, then you will still have D65 when later connecting the DVD player (even those the calibration was done in the 0-255 space and the DVD player will be playing back in the 16-235 space)?Correct.

Except that you're actually talking about two different things. D65 is a color temperature reference, the result of balancing colors, and has (for this conversation) nothing to do with levels. With the levels you're making sure that black output (0% or 0 IRE) is really at black, and white output (100% or 100 IRE) is really at white. That is independent of temperature.

--Bill

I contacted Milori. They do not sell or supply the eye one with cosine correction or whatever. They recommended contacting Gretag. Milori indicated they will however support it? I left a message with Gretag earlier today. Hopefully some answers will be forthcoming. Pricing etc.
Gretag called back. No help really. I either did not explain very well or he did not know much about the product line.Or both.
Although as mentioned earlier in the thread UMR has a website Accucal that sells a software to use with the eye one pro. Starting at $500. The eye one pro is extra. There may be a trade in on your existing unit,but the $750 price is roughly the price of the sensor. Since I own the Colorfacts already I am uneasy about dumping more money into software and sensors. Colorfacts mentioned support for the eye one pro. I guess I will go back to them and see what they can offer. The whole process seems about as clear as mud.

Gretag called back. No help really. I either did not explain very well or he did not know much about the product line.Or both.
Although as mentioned earlier in the thread UMR has a website Accucal that sells a software to use with the eye one pro. Starting at $500. The eye one pro is extra. There may be a trade in on your existing unit,but the $750 price is roughly the price of the sensor. Since I own the Colorfacts already I am uneasy about dumping more money into software and sensors. Colorfacts mentioned support for the eye one pro. I guess I will go back to them and see what they can offer. The whole process seems about as clear as mud.

Ditto that. I spent a few hours today wading around in the same mud. No one seems to know anything about what we are talking about. Gretag didn't know what I was talking about. Diffuser? What diffuser?

They say the new EyeOne "rev b" comes with an "ambient light hood", or something like that. I assume that must be the piece we need to diffuse the light for reading directly from the sensor - mainly because they said it has to be calibrated in conjunction with each EyeOne sensor which someone here earlier said would likely be the case.

Anyway I agree with you completely in that I am very hesitant to dump about $700 into a Gretag product that's not working so great for me in the first place. It may be worth it if it solves both my issues (poor readings below 30 IRE and inability to measure primaries accurately) but who knows if that'll be the case...

The EyeOne Pro is the sensor itself - "Beamer" is a software/accessory package that is bundled with the EyeOne Pro sensor. I also bought the "Beamer" package, as it includes a tripod mount and more importantly, a diffuser for taking readings directly from the light source. You can not buy the diffuser separately.

Bob - Its my understanding that the EyeOne Pro cannot be used on the tripod mount when the ambient light hood (diffuser) is attached to the unit. Is this correct?

All - does anyone know whether ColorFacts 6.0 supports the EyeOne Pro in the ambient light mode so you can do calibrations with the diffuser? See http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=636633 .

Bob - Its my understanding that the EyeOne Pro cannot be used on the tripod mount when the ambient light hood (diffuser) is attached to the unit. Is this correct?

All - does anyone know whether ColorFacts 6.0 supports the EyeOne Pro in the ambient light mode so you can do calibrations with the diffuser? See http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=636633 .

The cosign corrector obstructs the built in mount. I made a cup from ABS plastic pipe which holds the eye-one. There is a nut cemented to the cup for attaching to a standard tripod head.

Glenn

The cosign corrector obstructs the built in mount. I made a cup from ABS plastic pipe which holds the eye-one. There is a nut cemented to the cup for attaching to a standard tripod head.

Glenn

Sounds like a clever design Glenn. Can you post a picture?

I recently became aware that the Lumagen has the ability to calibrate grayscale with R,G,B gain/offset values that can be set independantly in 10 IRE steps.

Am I correct to assume this would be very helpful in getting a perfect D65 with a dE of say 1 or less in the Ruby's auto iris mode?

If I'm understand this correctly, it would be very helpful because you could then easily tweak the high end which gets affected the most with color shift due to the dynamic iris, without affecting the mid to low end. Much less of a balance act required. What do you think?

At any rate I wouldn't see this is mandatory, as I managed to get D65 within dE of 3 or less from 30-100 (couldn't measure below 30 accurately) just by using the Ruby's controls. But nonetheless this sounded like some great flexibility by using the Lumagen...

I recently became aware that the Lumagen has the ability to calibrate grayscale with R,G,B gain/offset values that can be set independantly in 10 IRE steps.

Am I correct to assume this would be very helpful in getting a perfect D65 with a dE of say 1 or less in the Ruby's auto iris mode?

If I'm understand this correctly, it would be very helpful because you could then easily tweak the high end which gets affected the most with color shift due to the dynamic iris, without affecting the mid to low end. Much less of a balance act required. What do you think?

At any rate I wouldn't see this is mandatory, as I managed to get D65 within dE of 3 or less from 30-100 (couldn't measure below 30 accurately) just by using the Ruby's controls. But nonetheless this sounded like some great flexibility by using the Lumagen...

It also has four memories that would work out well for the Ruby. You can also add your own gamma curve instead of using the Sony software.

I have some interesting news regarding gamma shading.

I just got back my HS-51 from the Sony Laredo site, which had been sent in for a grayscale/white balance uniformity issue. My projector had developed a severe red/blue left/right bias.

They replaced the prism block, which includes the the LCD panels. They recalibrated the LOW, MID & HIIGH color temp values for the new panels. Then they also said they applied special gamma shading.

I called to get more specifics on the repair and they told me a little bit more about the gamma shading utility. They said the utility works on 7 video levels and on up to 256 points on the screen. The utility apparently has versions for the newer HS-51A/60 as well as the VW100.

I'm checking with some other Sony contacts to see if this gamma shading utility is available to third party calibrators, or just as a factory/service tool. I assume it's only the latter, but one can hope.

Incidently, The Sony Laredo site was able to bring my HS-51 back to spec.


Any feel as to what benefits a gamma shading utility might bring to the table? What would something like this be used for? To temper the brightness in Ruby's corners perhaps?

"Any feel as to what benefits a gamma shading utility might bring to the table? What would something like this be used for? "

Ability to help correct for color uniformity issues. Put up a white 100 IRE screen... is it uniformly white? Work your way down 10 IRE at a time and see if you get points with more green/blue/red on certain parts of the screen. If so that is a shading problem. A shading utility can possibly even that out depending upon how much shading control is built into the projector.

Shawn

Has anyone used the gamma adjustment disk that came with the Ruby? Can someone provide instructions for this?

Has anyone used the gamma adjustment disk that came with the Ruby? Can someone provide instructions for this?

I posted a thread several weeks ago to pose the same question but got little or no response. I haven't really pursed it since. I did install the software on my PC and interestingly the docs seem to explain more than I thought they would.

GregR,

The CA-6X analyzer probe which we sell (also used in the OpticOne which we made for Ovation) provides a highly accurate calibration on Lcos displays using either UHP or Xenon lamps. William Phelps can vouch for the accuracy of this device as he has been using this probe for his JVC display optimizations and has found it to be within .002 for xy accuracy relative to his LightSpex spectroradiometer. I doubt that anyone will find issues with this degree of error in a display calibration!

Cliff Plavin
Progressive Labs

GregR,

The CA-6X analyzer probe which we sell (also used in the OpticOne which we made for Ovation) provides a highly accurate calibration on Lcos displays using either UHP or Xenon lamps. William Phelps can vouch for the accuracy of this device as he has been using this probe for his JVC display optimizations and has found it to be within .002 for xy accuracy relative to his LightSpex spectroradiometer. I doubt that anyone will find issues with this degree of error in a display calibration!

Cliff Plavin
Progressive Labs
That's good to know, Cliff. I do appreciate that information. But just so you know, I never said it would have a problem. I just mentioned that Xenon lamps produce a different spectral distribution, so tri-stimulus color analyzers may have larger errors with Xenon lamps than they exhibit with the more common UHP lamps.

I recently got a SpyderTV (STV) meter because of difficulties getting accurate grayscale readings below 30 IRE with my EyeOne and ColorFacts. Also I was hoping that the STV would allow me to finally read primaries accurately - it did not, but that's a story for another day.

The first thing I noticed was that the STV was really struggling to take readings off the screen at lower light levels. This was contrary to my understanding of the meter. According to DataColor the STV for front pjs should be used emissively (read off the screen) and NOT pointed at the pj. It was not working out well for me like this at all.

Other AVS members told me they point their STV directly at the pj, so I decided to give it a try. I was surprised (based on DataColor's advice) to see the STV did extremely well reading directly from the pj. Much better than the EyeOne off the screen, and certainly much better than its own readings off the screen.

With this squared away, I moved on to comparing high IRE grayscale readings with the EyeOne to STV. There was about a 500K difference or so between the two meters. Since it is my understanding that the EyeOne is a higher end device, and that some tri-stimulus meters may potentially not be as accurate on SXRD, I decided to trust the EyeOne as being more accurate.

So with that conclusion, I then used CF 6's Train Meter function to train the STV to the EyeOne. I did this by taking measurements from the EyeOne off the screen, and then from STV pointed directly at the pj. For further accuracy, I also increased the exposure time in CF options to the maximum (8000 ms I believe).

Next I proceeded to recalibrate the Ruby. Last calibration was at 40 hours, and now I am at 80 hours. I was surprised to see just how much things have moved in only 40 hours as the final results of the calibration have much different numbers. This is not a result of using the new meter - I even checked it with the EyeOne.

One thing that was great is that now with the STV I not only could read 20 IRE accurately, but also 10 IRE! Although, in auto-iris mode, I had to move the STV closer to the pj (within about 4 feet) in order to get accurate readings at 10 IRE.

I was very surprised to see just how off my grayscale was from the last calibration at 10 IRE. It was at 7600 with a dE of about 17 I think. 20 IRE on the other hand was near D65 dE 2.

As you may recall, in my previous posts I said I had 30-100 IRE at D65 because I could not measure below 30. Well now that I can I see how off it was at 10 IRE. With a 10 IRE window up this was also obvious by eye, but I hadn't really looked at a 10 IRE window previously because I knew I couldn't read it with the EyeOne.

I've been calibrating for several years now, but this was the first time I could read 10 IRE. What was really surprising to me was just how sensitive the grayscale is down at 10 IRE. For instance there was one exact spot for R,G,B bias that put me near D65 with a dE of 1. Any single click adjustment of any color immediately jumped me to dE of 7+. This was not the STV causing this. Rather you could even see it by eye start to turn color.

Now that I could accurately read 10 IRE, I was determined to have it dialed in correctly. It was very challenging to have 10 IRE dialed in correct AND 20-50 IRE also dialed in correctly.

In fact, it reached a point where it was impossible to dial in D65 0-3 dE from 10-50 IRE. The closest I could get it was dE of 7 at 10 IRE with dE of 1 from 20-50 IRE. It was either that, or have a dE of 1 at 10 IRE with a dE of 4 from 20-50 IRE. I opted for the former. I figured I'd rather have a perfect grayscale from 20-50 with it a little off a 10 IRE, then to have it perfect at 10 IRE and be a little off from 20-50. Question - which would you guys have opted for given those choices? I know a dE of 7 is fairly significant, but at 10 IRE is it noticeable enough to worry about given the alternative is dE of 4 from 20-50 IRE?

It would certainly have been great to be using a processor like the Lumagen which allows you to fine tune grayscale calibration in 10 IRE steps. Using this technique I think I could be at D65 from 10-100, with a dE of 0 from 10-70 and dE of 0-3 from 80-100 IRE (auto iris plays a factor here).

After this experience I'm going to create a pattern to help make any errors at 10 IRE more obvious. I'll create horizontal bands at 25% screen height each to create 4 steps at 0, 10, 20 and 30 IRE. I know there are some pre-existings ramps for this type of testing, but to me those ramp patterns do not make errors on the very low end obvious enough.

Also I found it even more challenging than before to dial in the auto iris mode. I'm not sure, but I think using Darin's factory iris setting tweaks may have made this more difficult than the last calibration when I was using just the factory iris settings at that time. Eventually I got it down to 20-100 IRE with a dE of 0-3, and dE of 7 at 10 IRE (which had nothing to do with the iris). The ironic thing is that the final gains/bais settings between the iris auto and off modes was very minimla (see results at end of this post) compared to the last time. So the numbers were much closer, but it was tougher to get within dE of 3 despite this as slight changes caused too much error one way or the other/

Question: Is it typical in digital displays for things to be great from say 20-100 IRE but things then fall apart at 10 IRE and lower unless you are specifically careful about this and purposely work on it? In other words, do things tend to track nicely from 20-100 but not so much so at 10 IRE and below? Since this was my first experience reading below 20 IRE I have no prior observations to base this on.

BTW, for those of you that watch with this pj in iris OFF mode - here's a quick test. Put up a 10 IRE window (or even a 20) and switch back and forth between iris auto and iris off. The difference in black level is HUGE (much better blacks in auto mode of course). After seeing this you may find yourself switching to the auto iris for your serious viewing.

Here are my final numbers. Note that I did not calibrate the iris ON position this time since I never watch in this mode.

Contrast 80, Brightness 50, Lamp at 85 hours

____IRIS OFF | AUTO

Gain R: _98 | _99
Gain G: 111 | 110
Gain B: 126 | 128

Bias R: 129 | 130
Bias G: 126 | 126
Bias B: 130 | 130


Questions and comments always welcome.

....Question - which would you guys have opted for given those choices? I know a dE of 7 is fairly significant, but at 10 IRE is it noticeable enough to worry about given the alternative is dE of 4 from 20-50 IRE?

....Question: Is it typical in digital displays for things to be great from say 20-100 IRE but things then fall apart at 10 IRE and lower unless you are specifically careful about this and purposely work on it? In other words, do things tend to track nicely from 20-100 but not so much so at 10 IRE and below? Since this was my first experience reading below 20 IRE I have no prior observations to base this on.....

I would answer your first question by saying that calibrating by dE alone is a huge mistake. You must be sure that the color errors are in a direction that is tolerable. A green error is much worse than a blue error. People with too much green in their skin just look wrong. Without looking at some images it is impossible to say what is the correct way to calibrate your projector. This is not to say that I am against using dE. It is a great tool, but only one of several that need to be considered in the calibration process.

With respect to your second question it is common with most displays for things to be reasonable from 20 to 100 IRE and fall apart at 10 IRE and less. As I said before this must be considered in the calibration whether it can be measured with an instrument or not. Once the brighter steps are properly calibrated color shifts are easier to see in the lower levels. Noise will also frequently increase at these lower levels and should be minimized during the calibration if possible.

Hi,

I would answer your first question by saying that calibrating by dE alone is a huge mistake. You must be sure that the color errors are in a direction that is tolerable.

Not only that, but CCT does not provide a definite information about the R,G,B portions, too. One may achieve a certain CCT value by various combinations of R,G,B. Therefore I almost completely ignore the CCT; my reference is a balance of R,G,B, only.

I would not be too surprised that the RGB-levels are not dead-on for the complete range of brightness from 0 to 100 IRE - especially if you tweaked Iris, Gamma, Bias and Gain already. Fine tuning for dedicated IRE steps may be done with the Image Director software - what a pity that this software is so bugged. I wished someone will be able to do a read-out of the save-files so one could "construct" its own Gamma curve values with Excel or a proprietary little piece of software without being bothered with those ugly limitations of the ID 2.30 Software.

If I only had more time for all this...

Thomas

I would answer your first question by saying that calibrating by dE alone is a huge mistake. You must be sure that the color errors are in a direction that is tolerable. A green error is much worse than a blue error. People with too much green in their skin just look wrong. Without looking at some images it is impossible to say what is the correct way to calibrate your projector. This is not to say that I am against using dE. It is a great tool, but only one of several that need to be considered in the calibration process.


Thanks Jeff. That's a great point I hadn't considered. In this case, IIRC, I was fighting back and forth over one click of blue bias. If I raised this from 130 to 131, then I was at dE 1 at 10 IRE but at dE 4 from 20-50 IRE because 20-50 now had a bit too much blue to stay within my dE 3 target.

So with your answer in mind, it sounds like going to dE of 4 from 20-50 because blue is a tad to high, would be tolerable since you said its not as noticeable.

Now I'm trying to recall what things looked like at 10 IRE with dE of 7..So I know for sure it was a bit short on blue (because one click increase in blue got me to dE of 1). I can't recall but it might have just been red and green at about the same level say 101-102% with blue at like 94%. I think the CTT was about 6350K.

So knowing this does that help you make an determination in which way would have been better.

If it makes any difference, I did go back and forth with a 10 IRE pattern with the 1 click of blue back and forth to visually gauge the difference this one click made to the gray at 10 IRE. I remember it looking a tad warm at 130 vs 131 on the blue bias. It was enough to make a difference if you really stared at it and went back and forth serveral times. If anything it was a tad warm at dE 7.


With respect to your second question it is common with most displays for things to be reasonable from 20 to 100 IRE and fall apart at 10 IRE and less. As I said before this must be considered in the calibration whether it can be measured with an instrument or not. Once the brighter steps are properly calibrated color shifts are easier to see in the lower levels. Noise will also frequently increase at these lower levels and should be minimized during the calibration if possible.

Is it also common so the slightest adjustment to make such a significant impact at 10 IRE? In other words, at say 20 or 30 IRE, one click in blue generally only shifts the CTT a little. But it seems like at 10 IRE on click of any color in any direction has a very significant impact on CCT. Is that normal or do you think this is more about the accuracy of the meter reading at 10 IRE? It didn't seem like an accuracy issue though, because you really can see the color shifting a bit by eye as you make a single click. Now that I've seen this I'm very interested in adding 10 IRE step calibration control from the Lumagen.

Hi,



Not only that, but CCT does not provide a definite information about the R,G,B portions, too. One may achieve a certain CCT value by various combinations of R,G,B. Therefore I almost completely ignore the CCT; my reference is a balance of R,G,B, only.


Hi Thomas. I thought that by very definition, if you are at D65 then R,G,B are all at the same level (100%).

When I calibrate I mostly just watch dE and try to target 0, but will accept up to 3. If it becomes impossible to stay below dE of 3 at all levels, I'll now follow Jeff's advice to see how acceptable a dE of 4+ is based on what color its shifted toward.

But the bottom line is that it is correct just to follow this method right? My understanding is that dE of 3 or less is generally not perceivable, so as long as that's there any there's any slight color balance error (say 102%, 101%, 100%) it doesn't really matter as long as its at dE of 0. At least that what it sounds like if I'm following all these principles.

Hi Ric and Jeff,

I would like to calibrate my Ruby using my newly purchased AccuPel, but I am really unsure of the procedure. I have read posts from Greg talking about switching back and fourth between windowed and full field patterns when calibrating the auto iris mode, but I have no idea how to use that information in the calibration process. I assume that because windowed patterns change the APL, it affects how open or closed the iris is, and that in turn would affect the gamma curve and grayscale, but it seems to me that you can only get one set right (windowed or full field) and the other set will be wrong. So how do you use both sets to achieve proper calibration? Besides, I don't think that the Accupel has a complete set of full field gray patterns.

....So knowing this does that help you make an determination in which way would have been better

....Is it also common so the slightest adjustment to make such a significant impact at 10 IRE?

...Now that I've seen this I'm very interested in adding 10 IRE step calibration control from the Lumagen.

I cannot make a determination for you on how to set your gray scale. It requires me to see it. Measurements alone are insufficient. There could be other problems that would impact my choices. I would suggest that blue errors should be favored over red and green. I would then favor a red error over green if I could not go with blue.

It is very common that small changes will strongly effect the color performance from 0-10 IRE. It should be obvious that this would be the case. You are moving a bias which by its very nature is going to effect the results near zero the greatest percentage.

I would not assume that the Lumagen will improve this situation much. You may be better off searching for RGB gamma curves within the Ruby. They are likely to have more resolution.

...
I would not assume that the Lumagen will improve this situation much. You may be better off searching for RGB gamma curves within the Ruby. They are likely to have more resolution.

Thanks for all the input Jeff. Regarding the Lumagen - why would you think it may not improve things? As I understand it, it provides the ability to set R/G/B gain and bias independantly at 10 IRE steps. So for instance, if I have the Lumagen, I could simply have gone with the dE of 1 from 20-50 using the Ruby controls, and then used the lumagen controls specifically at 10 IRE to add a little blue and get me much closer to dE of 0 at 10 IRE without affecting really impacting 20-50, right? Or am I missing something?

Hi Ric and Jeff,

I would like to calibrate my Ruby using my newly purchased AccuPel, but I am really unsure of the procedure. I have read posts from Greg talking about switching back and fourth between windowed and full field patterns when calibrating the auto iris mode, but I have no idea how to use that information in the calibration process. I assume that because windowed patterns change the APL, it affects how open or closed the iris is, and that in turn would affect the gamma curve and grayscale, but it seems to me that you can only get one set right (windowed or full field) and the other set will be wrong. So how do you use both sets to achieve proper calibration? Besides, I don't think that the Accupel has a complete set of full field gray patterns.

Bob - See my post here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6961119&&#post6961119 as I explain in some pretty good detail the approach to calibrating the dynamic iris and provide some good tips and tricks.

I know it sounds crazy, but basically you really can go back and forth between full fields and varying sized windows and have 20-100 within 0-3 dE, maybe with a spot at dE 4 and 10 IRE at say dE 1-7 depending on how you go about it. You will reach a point where you have to sacrifice a little - such as deciding whether you want a dE of 4 on a window vs full field - can't always have it both ways but like I said you can get it very very close. Any questions just post them - I'll be happy to help.

What sensor and software will you be using to calibrate?

Thanks, Ric! I'll go back and read your info...:)
What sensor and software will you be using to calibrate?
I am using an EyeOne Pro, BUT with the diffuser and with UMR's i1 Pro DCS software. Jeff's software can be used in either emmisive or ambient mode, and with the diffuser the hardware can also read both ways. So far the best results I have had were by using the ambient mode with the diffuser at a distance of about 2 feet. This keeps the readings in a higher range where the EyeOne can read accurately down to 10% stimulus. Jeff has an optional AccuPel module that can be purchased for integration with his software, but I am not really sure what extra benefits it provides and at what cost. Jeff?

...and with the diffuser the hardware can also read both ways.
Let me clarify...With the diffuser the EyeOne can read in the ambient mode and without the diffuser it can read in the emmisive mode...:)

I think the problem you had with the STV sensor is that it has a diffuser permanently built onto it, doesn't it? If that is the case, then it wouldn't be suitable for emmisive readings, but would be fine for ambient. It sounds to me as if you got bad info from DataColor. I have never seen or used any of the Spyder products and just going by what I have read here in the forum, so I could have this completely wrong.

... Jeff has an optional AccuPel module that can be purchased for integration with his software, but I am not really sure what extra benefits it provides and at what cost. Jeff?

The Sencore and Accupel generator option adds automated testing and control of the generator over RS-232 for $300 more. I also released a new version today that you may want to download for some new features and additional improvements to low light readings.

Let me clarify...With the diffuser the EyeOne can read in the ambient mode and without the diffuser it can read in the emmisive mode...:)

I think the problem you had with the STV sensor is that it has a diffuser permanently built onto it, doesn't it? If that is the case, then it wouldn't be suitable for emmisive readings, but would be fine for ambient. It sounds to me as if you got bad info from DataColor. I have never seen or used any of the Spyder products and just going by what I have read here in the forum, so I could have this completely wrong.

The diffuser does come off, but then you have to adjust CF to use different coefficients. This is not currently supported by CF but I will try a few things.

Thanks, Ric! I'll go back and read your info...:)

I am using an EyeOne Pro, BUT with the diffuser and with UMR's i1 Pro DCS software. Jeff's software can be used in either emmisive or ambient mode, and with the diffuser the hardware can also read both ways. So far the best results I have had were by using the ambient mode with the diffuser at a distance of about 2 feet. This keeps the readings in a higher range where the EyeOne can read accurately down to 10% stimulus. Jeff has an optional AccuPel module that can be purchased for integration with his software, but I am not really sure what extra benefits it provides and at what cost. Jeff?

Sweet - that is definately the way to go. Jeff's software sounds great and I plan to get it soon. He is doing a great job with all the features. No question you will have great results.

I am VERY interested to hear how well you are able to read the primaries and secondaries. Can you please post your CIE chart PRE and POST calibration? As you may have read I've been trying to get good readings from EyeOne and CF on this for years with no luck. The STV only made it worse. The CIE diagrams I am getting are just so off - I'm talking a measured gamut on all points well within the rec 709 gamut, and somet imes rotated . Eventually I will figure out what is going on with this...

Is it also common so the slightest adjustment to make such a significant impact at 10 IRE?

Yes. What you are seeing is quite common.

Some displays have a flat grayscale down to 10 IRE, but most start to have increasing color error at 10 or 20 IRE and at extinguishment they are quite a bit off, and there is nothing you can do about it. A PJ's color at extinguishment is determined by the physical machine, it isn't adjustable. So typically it is just a matter of where in the lower IRE range that the color inaccuracy starts to predominate, and of course the lower in the IRE range that starts the better. Even if you could make the grayscale flat down to 10 IRE, it is still going to start to deviate below that. At 9 IRE or 8 or 5. Somewhere. So how much should this concern you? Not much, IMO, as I will explain below.

IMO, Color accuracy in the upper IREs is considerably more important than at 10 IRE, where color error is harder to see. At 10 IRE you are more sensitive to changes in intensity than you are at higher IRE's, but you are less sensitive to color changes. The eye's rods, which detect intensity, are much more sensitive at low light levels than the cones, which detect color. This is the reason that you can't see color on a moonlit night, but you can still see.

Color errors that are objectionable at 30 IRE and above may not be detectable at 10 IRE and below where the cones are closer to their limits of sensitivity.

Be careful not to create visible color errors at 50 IRE by attempting to eliminate undetectabel errors (or barely detectable errors) at 10 IRE.

Technically, 10 IRE does not define any particular intensity level. The level at which 10 IRE is displayed will vary from one display to the next. However, with front projection where we typically aim for somewhere near 12 fL at White with a gamma of 2.2 or above the above holds true.

For example, my SP7200 can be calibrated to have a very flat greyscale down to 20 or 10 IRE, but at Black (extinguishment), it is 20%-30% too high in Red compared to D65. This color error at Black is only detectable by meters. It can't be seen on my 122" D 1.3 gain screen.

Ric, have you ever watched a movie on your Ruby after calibration and while seeing a dimly lit scene said to yourself, "The color looks wrong?" I never have with my PJ and I know for a fact that it is too Red below 10 IRE, I just can't see it.

Glenn

Yes. What you are seeing is quite common.

Some displays have a flat grayscale down to 10 IRE, but most start to have increasing color error at 10 or 20 IRE and at extinguishment they are quite a bit off, and there is nothing you can do about it. A PJ's color at extinguishment is determined by the physical machine, it isn't adjustable. So typically it is just a matter of where in the lower IRE range that the color inaccuracy starts to predominate, and of course the lower in the IRE range that starts the better. Even if you could make the grayscale flat down to 10 IRE, it is still going to start to deviate below that. At 9 IRE or 8 or 5. Somewhere. So how much should this concern you? Not much, IMO, as I will explain below.

IMO, Color accuracy in the upper IREs is considerably more important than at 10 IRE, where color error is harder to see. At 10 IRE you are more sensitive to changes in intensity than you are at higher IRE's, but you are less sensitive to color changes. The eye's rods, which detect intensity, are much more sensitive at low light levels than the cones, which detect color. This is the reason that you can't see color on a moonlit night, but you can still see.

Color errors that are objectionable at 30 IRE and above may not be detectable at 10 IRE and below where the cones are closer to their limits of sensitivity.

Be careful not to create visible color errors at 50 IRE by attempting to eliminate undetectabel errors (or barely detectable errors) at 10 IRE.

Technically, 10 IRE does not define any particular intensity level. The level at which 10 IRE is displayed will vary from one display to the next. However, with front projection where we typically aim for somewhere near 12 fL at White with a gamma of 2.2 or above the above holds true.

For example, my SP7200 can be calibrated to have a very flat greyscale down to 20 or 10 IRE, but at Black (extinguishment), it is 20%-30% too high in Red compared to D65. This color error at Black is only detectable by meters. It can't be seen on my 122" D 1.3 gain screen.

Ric, have you ever watched a movie on your Ruby after calibration and while seeing a dimly lit scene said to yourself, "The color looks wrong?" I never have with my PJ and I know for a fact that it is too Red below 10 IRE, I just can't see it.

Glenn

This goes back along way. Around 1980 early big screen manufacturer "Advent" would send trainers out to stores around the country. They suggested setting the bias "rosy" for a balanced gray. I never got it quite right,but a tech I worked worth could get gray really close by eye. He told me a story about working on some of the earliest color sets in the 60s. He would set the bias "blue" for the bright sales floor and then back it down to "rosy" when installing in a customers home.The control for the blue bias was on (as I recall) the front panel just for this "sales" presentation!!

...
Ric, have you ever watched a movie on your Ruby after calibration and while seeing a dimly lit scene said to yourself, "The color looks wrong?" I never have with my PJ and I know for a fact that it is too Red below 10 IRE, I just can't see it.

Glenn

Great post Glenn - thanks for the details.

I did feel that with 10 IRE significantly off, dark scenes on the Ruby sometimes looked off - a bit murky if you will which is unusual for the Ruby with its high CR particularly in auto iris mode.

Likewise if you put up a 10 IRE window and it is significantly off you can certainly see that its too green, red, or what have you. Just by looking at it you know its wrong. At least that was the case when I had 20-100 within a dE of 3 but a dE of 17 at 10 IRE.

I do share your opinion that 10 IRE is much less important for color balance than at higher IREs. This is one of the reasons why I decided to ultimately choose a dE of 7 at 10 IRE in exchange for a dE of 3 or less from 20-50 IRE, Vs. a dE of 1 at 10 IRE with a dE of 4 from 20-50.

Again I don't think its a huge factor. However now that I have the ability to accurately measure 10 IRE, I feel that I'm better off with my dE of 7 at 10 IRE and dE of 3 or less from 20-100 IRE, compared to before where I had about the same dE from 20-100 but a dE of 15+ at 10 IRE. No downside to dialing it in more precisely like this, except for a few more hours on the bulb as a result of going through the process :)

Again I don't think its a huge factor. However now that I have the ability to accurately measure 10 IRE, I feel that I'm better off with my dE of 7 at 10 IRE and dE of 3 or less from 20-100 IRE, compared to before where I had about the same dE from 20-100 but a dE of 15+ at 10 IRE. :)

I agree. A dE of 15 -17 is large and I am not surprised that it was visible. However, I wouldn't expect a dE of 7 at 10 IRE to be visible. Sounds like you settled upon the best compromise.

Glenn

Yes. The main point I wanted to make with this is that Ruby owners should check 10 IRE carefully and keep it on the radar as an important thing to address during your calibration. It is much easier for 10 IRE to go to pieces on this projector while the rest of the grayscale is very good - compared to say the Sharp 10K where it was much more linear.

A professional calibrator knows better, but for hobbyists calibrating like myself its easy to miss this (as I did origninally) - particularly if you do not have instrumentation that can measure 10 IRE. If you don't have instrumentation, you can likely get a feel for whether its off just by looking at a 10 IRE window. The trick then becomes how to adjust it, as just a single click at 10 IRE levels causes a significant shift.

I really need to whip up a quick test pattern to help eye significant errors at 10 IRE. I was thinking to make 4 horizontal strips at 25% height each, with 0, 10, 20 and 30 IRE. The only tough spot is that generally I find I need a bar on each side of an IRE step to get a sense for whether it is off, and there can be no bar on the other side (0 IRE). Humm. Perhaps than bars of 5, 10, 15, and 20 would be better. Well, then again even with 10 IRE dialed in, 5 IRE is likely to be off so that probably wouldn't help much. Thoughts on this?

On a related note, if I am to make such patterns, what is the formula for determining what RGB levels I should use in PhotoShop to create various IREs?

For instance, 0 IRE and 100 IRE are obviously 16 and 235. But what numberic digital value/RGB would you use for say 5 IRE, 10 IRE, etc?

Word has it that the Sony's automated production line for the "Ruby" projector is being run by the recently discontinued "Aibo" robots. The assembly line is the result of Sony’s recent cost cutting efforts and restructured business model under Sir Howard Stringers direction! :D



http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_BrowseCatalog-Start?CategoryName=AIBO&Dept=computers&DCMP=Yahoo_DG&HQS=sony_aibo

Team "Fido" apparently works for titanium "milk-bones" and has a very small benefits package allowing Sony to remain competitive with the Chinese and Korean business models. :)

What are people doing to reduce the visibility of DirecTV MPEG artifacts and compression and upconvert problems? Some of the channels aren't too bad (Discovery HD and HDNet), but Showtime HD was terrible yesterday evening and HBO HD wasn't great.

I've turned sharpness to zero. Should I reduce contrast below 80 and brightness below 50? I'm using a Da-Lite 119" High Power, 18 ft from the screen and sitting at 14 feet.

I've turned sharpness to zero. Should I reduce contrast below 80 and brightness below 50? I'm using a Da-Lite 119" High Power, 18 ft from the screen and sitting at 14 feet.

If you are not bothered by (or do not see) the brightness compression I'd recommend keeping contrast at 80 to maximize your contrast ratio.

How do I get the NVIDIA videovideo card 6800gt AGP to output to 1080p to the Ruby? I am not a PC expert but I selected the 1920 x 1080 HDTV output and it only outputs in 1080i. It has a advanced timing selection but I have no idea what #s to use. Is this what I need to use to get the 1080 output? Any ideas?
HELP

Please keep this thread on topic for calibration specific matters only. There's a great thread from a few weeks ago that covers various timings and feeding 1080p to the Ruby - search for it with "48hz" in the thread subject.

I found some new factory menu adjustments on the HS-51A which might be worth looking into on the Ruby.

DISPLAY ENGINE

25 DE/HPF ON = 1 Turning this to (0) eliminates EE visible around dark letters & lines. You can see an apparent shift to a softer image. Setting this control to (0) should be the same as setting the master sharpness control to OFF.

26 DE/HPF TAP = 1 With Line 25 set to (1), this control expands or contracts the Edge Enhancement around dark letters. The expansion occurs equally to the left and right as the value is increased. Setting to (0) completely narrows the EE, while manitaining a very slight edge detail enhancement. This control appears to be a great way to adjust the aesthetic of the master sharpness control when the master sharpness is set higher than OFF.

Bytehoven

Good stuff, thanks.

how about a thread of just straight forward suggestions and instructions about how to find various options and explain them at the level of a first grader? ie. tips on setting up your ruby or ruby looks good or ruby made ridiculously simple or ruby for dummies or everything you were always afraid to ask about ruby.

some of you guys ideas sound good, but some of us, read me, can't even find the stuff on the menus.

I found some new factory menu adjustments worth looking into.

DISPLAY ENGINE

25 DE/HPF ON = 1 Turning this to (0) eliminates EE visible around dark letters & lines. You can see an apparent shift to a softer image.

26 DE/HPF TAP = 1 With Line 25 set to (1), this control has a range of 0-3. Setting to 3 moves the EE around dark letters to the left. Setting to (0) completely center the EE, while manitaining a very slight edge detail enhancement.

Both of these appear to be High Pass Filter (HPF) controls. Check them out.

Using the default settings in the factory menu, I've done a lot of A/B testing with sharpness of 50 vs. 0. Although a setting of 50 is technically wrong and introduces noise and resolution loss into the picture, I still prefer the perceived sharpness that the setting of 50 offers.

With that said, I'm wondering if there is still any benefit to using these newly discovered controls. For example, perhaps there is some combination that gives me the perception of the additional sharpness but with better implementation of how the sharpness control actually renders itself. Then again it seems like these are opposite forces- sharpness raises EE and the fact settings are designed to remove it. Humm. Thoughts?

I just finished reading this entire thread, very good info. I have yet to get my VW100 professionally calibrated because it still has low hours, but I have gone through all the user adjustable controls for both HDMI and component sources in low, medium, and high modes and in every case I can not get red accurate without pushing blue very blue (as seen from the color bars on the Avia Pro disc). I have settled in with red under saturated and greens and blues accurate until professional calibration.

I have also been using contrast at 68 based on looks but to actually get the white bar to disappear I need to go up into the 80s. Maybe I'll go back to 80 as suggested here until full calibration to give me some contrast back.

Thanks for the input here, I think I will have some good questions for my calibrator when I'm ready!

I definitely prefer sharpness of 0 with DirecTV HD.

What is the difference between using a neutral density filter and just reducing the projector's brightness setting? I have a Da-Lite High Power and the projector bulb is still very new. While I otherwise like the brightness, setting it at 50 makes the DirecTV HD compression artifacts too noticeable at this stage in the bulb life. Hopefully, this will not be a problem with Blu-Ray or proposed new HD VOD services.

Setting 26 DE/HPF TAP = 0 might be the way to go as it completely centers the minor EE, so you are maintaining a hint of the edge detail without it handing out on the left edge.


Thanks for the additional input. Any guesses why Sony would not use the center as the default position for the EE in the first place?

Hmmm.... My 26 DE/HPF TAP defaults to 6. I'm using 1080p HDMI in.

Anyone able to eliminate the orange clay face syndrome. Its the best term I can come up with.
When using auto iris mode it blows out the face detail and paints an overly bright orange contrast color to the faces. I get this on ( limited ) movies and watching Jay leno in HD ( faces looks orange on this show to begin with) you have to turn the iris off or the faces are lite up orange with no detail.

Does grey scale calibration eliminate this. Any fixes. Thanks!!

Anyone able to eliminate the orange clay face syndrome. Its the best term I can come up with.
When using auto iris mode it blows out the face detail and paints an overly bright orange contrast color to the faces. I get this on ( limited ) movies and watching Jay leno in HD ( faces looks orange on this show to begin with) you have to turn the iris off or the faces are lite up orange with no detail.

Does grey scale calibration eliminate this. Any fixes. Thanks!!
Alan, I see this as well on my 004. WmP's magic will take care of it.

Anyone able to eliminate the orange clay face syndrome. Its the best term I can come up with.
When using auto iris mode it blows out the face detail and paints an overly bright orange contrast color to the faces. I get this on ( limited ) movies and watching Jay leno in HD ( faces looks orange on this show to begin with) you have to turn the iris off or the faces are lite up orange with no detail.

Does grey scale calibration eliminate this. Any fixes. Thanks!!
Alan,

The orange color sounds like a grayscale calibration issue in the Auto iris mode. What you describe as loss of detail in the faces would also likely occur if the grayscale were off far enough to make bright facial highlights appear orange. But even after correcting that (which should be simple grayscale calibration) you are still likely to see some brightness compression on Jay Leno under the bright studio lighting using the Auto Iris.

Alan, I see this as well on my 004. WmP's magic will take care of it.

Good to know theres a solution. I would leave the iris in auto all the time but this keeps me flopping back and forth.

I wonder if others have come up with a solution. Theres got to be a work around. Come on guys spill the beans if you solved this. If not then everyone get to work:)

Does anyone use color correction filters on their Ruby? I wonder if that also helps for sources, such as the one mentioned.

I've found that Normal Color mode is better than Wide Mode with HD D*.

Alan,

The orange color sounds like a grayscale calibration issue in the Auto iris mode. What you describe as loss of detail in the faces would also likely occur if the grayscale were off far enough to make bright facial highlights appear orange. But even after correcting that (which should be simple grayscale calibration) you are still likely to see some brightness compression on Jay Leno under the bright studio lighting using the Auto Iris.

Thanks Greg

Ive yet to perform a calibration with the iris in auto mode. I guess its time to get down with the get down. Now Ive got something to do this weekend :)

What is the difference between using a neutral density filter and just reducing the projector's brightness setting?The Brightness setting is basically the black level and the Contrast setting basically the white level. You want the Brightness setting to be at the point that things marked for black cause the Ruby to put out as little light as it can, but things marked just for just above black get a little more light (or very near to that Brightness setting). Lowering the Brightness below this will crush those things that are supposed to be above black and raising it too much will hurt the absolute black level and on/off CR. Leaving the Brightness where it should be and lowering Contrast a lot hurts the contrast ratio. An ND filter basically allows you to dim the whole image while maintaining the correct Brightness and Contrast settings for good CR between white and black and good shadow detail.

--Darin

I found some new factory menu adjustments on the HS-51A which might be worth looking into on the Ruby.

DISPLAY ENGINE

25 DE/HPF ON = 1 Turning this to (0) eliminates EE visible around dark letters & lines. You can see an apparent shift to a softer image. Setting this control to (0) should be the same as setting the master sharpness control to OFF.

26 DE/HPF TAP = 1 With Line 25 set to (1), this control expands or contracts the Edge Enhancement around dark letters. The expansion occurs equally to the left and right as the value is increased. Setting to (0) completely narrows the EE, while manitaining a very slight edge detail enhancement. This control appears to be a great way to adjust the aesthetic of the master sharpness control when the master sharpness is set higher than OFF.

Bytehoven

Your find of #25had the most impact on reducing ringing over everything I have tried so far. I turned it off. You can clearly see the ringing go away when toggleing this on and off. No need to play around with #26. Leave #26 set to default and just set #25 to 0.
I now have a perfectly smooth image. Anyone still having issue with EE give this a try. It works:)

Good work B.

Bytehoven

Your find of #25had the most impact on reducing ringing over everything I have tried so far. I turned it off. You can clearly see the ringing go away when toggleing this on and off. No need to play around with #26. Leave #26 set to default and just set #25 to 0.
I now have a perfectly smooth image. Anyone still having issue with EE give this a try. It works:)

Good work B.

Thanks Alan. It works great on the lowly HS-51A too. :D

If nobody minds, I will continue to copy the Ruby thread on interesting HS-51A items I find, as they may continue to have similar functionality on the Ruby.

Thanks Greg

Ive yet to perform a calibration with the iris in auto mode. I guess its time to get down with the get down. Now Ive got something to do this weekend :)

Hi Alan - haven't seen the clay looking faces myself. Regarding your calibration in auto-iris mode - see my posts way earlier in this thread for some useful tips and tricks on accomplishing this.

Also note that you MUST use a combination of windows AND full fields when calibrating the auto-iris especially to get the upper end correct. This is covered in that post. However I wanted to specifically mention this because if you plan to use your Lumagen for the test patterns that will not suffice since it only provides windows, no full fields.

Also note that you MUST use a combination of windows AND full fields when calibrating the auto-iris especially to get the upper end correct.
Yeah, but where do you get full field patterns from an AccuPel? I want to calibrate the input first and then calibrate the chain. I have the patterns I need on DVD, but that won't help in calibrating the input...:(

Your find of #25had the most impact on reducing ringing over everything I have tried so far. I turned it off. You can clearly see the ringing go away when toggleing this on and off. No need to play around with #26. Leave #26 set to default and just set #25 to 0.
I now have a perfectly smooth image. Anyone still having issue with EE give this a try. It works
Alan, did you use just this tweak to eliminate EE or are you using it in combination with your change to I/P #5 that you mentioned earlier?

Hi Alan - haven't seen the clay looking faces myself. Regarding your calibration in auto-iris mode - see my posts way earlier in this thread for some useful tips and tricks on accomplishing this.

Also note that you MUST use a combination of windows AND full fields when calibrating the auto-iris especially to get the upper end correct. This is covered in that post. However I wanted to specifically mention this because if you plan to use your Lumagen for the test patterns that will not suffice since it only provides windows, no full fields.

If you are able to see Jay Leno in HD you will see what I mean. This is the worse case example of brightness compression. I tried everything, turning down the colors, putting color in normal reducing contrast to 60 and nothing works for this show.

Thanks for the heads up on your post. I will use that for reference when performing the calibration. The more you use a projector the better you learn its caricature and for dark movies I prefer auto iris mode but for brighter movies I now prefer iris off. If the calibration rids the BC and clay face effect I prefer to leave it set to one mode and leave it alone.

Thanks for posting your calibration procedure it will come in handy.


Thanks Alan. It works great on the lowly HS-51A too. :D

If nobody minds, I will continue to copy the Ruby thread on interesting HS-51A items I find, as they may continue to have similar functionality on the Ruby.


By all means keep sharing:) You have found some valuable stuff. Much appreciated.


Alan, did you use just this tweak to eliminate EE or are you using it in combination with your change to I/P #5 that you mentioned earlier?


Bob

Im convinced all you need is Bytehoven tweak. It made a clear visual difference where my tweak was very minor.

Yeah, but where do you get full field patterns from an AccuPel? I want to calibrate the input first and then calibrate the chain. I have the patterns I need on DVD, but that won't help in calibrating the input...:(
The 100 IRE, 75 IRE, and 50 IRE full field patterns are plenty sufficient (along with the window patterns). I explained this in some previous post about adjusting the Ruby grayscale. The point of using the full field patterns (which you normally wouldn't use to adjust grayscale without an auto iris) is just to force the iris to open to its maximum aperture setting. You can't do that with the window patterns. So use the 100 IRE, 75 IRE, and 50 IRE full-field patterns for that purpose (the iris won't open fully with the 25 IRE full field pattern). You can probably get the 100 IRE full field within about 3-4 dE, 75 IRE at 0 or 1 dE, while you balance the window patterns within about 2-3 dE over their range.

lovingdvd: The Lumagen can show window and full field test patterns. When you go to the first test pattern press left arrow and you'll find full field. The use down arrow to drop through the levels.

Also the 11 point adjustment is defaulted at 10 uniformly spaced steps but it is actually parametric. If you wanted to adjust at 15,20,25,30,37, 42 etc you could.

Gordon

Thanks, Greg, I think I understand now. Previously I thought that I would need full field patterns to match every windowed pattern that I used, but if all I need are those few, I should be all set. I think I am going to give my Ruby about another 2 weeks before calibrating, as I am losing brightness quickly in these early hours, and I feel quite confident that the lamp is also changing temperature significantly as it dims. The flesh tones actually look better now than they did at first, so I'm not in quite as much of a hurry to screw it up...;)

BTW, taking some measurements, it looks like my system has an excess of red from about 30 IRE on up, and in that same range lacks blue by a lesser amount. Anyone else seeing a similar pattern?

Thanks, Greg, I think I understand now. Previously I thought that I would need full field patterns to match every windowed pattern that I used, but if all I need are those few, I should be all set. I think I am going to give my Ruby about another 2 weeks before calibrating, as I am losing brightness quickly in these early hours, and I feel quite confident that the lamp is also changing temperature significantly as it dims. The flesh tones actually look better now than they did at first, so I'm not in quite as much of a hurry to screw it up...;)

BTW, taking some measurements, it looks like my system has an excess of red from about 30 IRE on up, and in that same range lacks blue by a lesser amount. Anyone else seeing a similar pattern?

Yes I've posted a few times that in two different Ruby's I measured with factory defaults they were considerably lacking blue and hence running quite warm. In particular both ranges from 5800-6200 from about 30-100 IRE (generally moving from 5800 toward 6200 as the IREs increased).

Perhaps this is intentional and set up this way because they expect the bulb to lose more red than blue as it ages - just a guess. Anyway its really a moot point because its quite easy to dial in, even in auto-iris mode, with a little practice.

For those of you following along without instrumentation to perform your own calibrations, I posted much earlier in this thread the bias/gain settings that you can likely use to get much closer to D65 on a new Ruby (less than say 100 hrs) than the factory defaults.

I'll be periodically recalibrating as time permits, and I'll continue to post my updated numbers from calibrations as the bulb ages.

If you are able to see Jay Leno in HD you will see what I mean. This is the worse case example of brightness compression. I tried everything, turning down the colors, putting color in normal reducing contrast to 60 and nothing works for this show.

Alan...

Have you tried alternate GAMMA settings?

Try Gamma 2 or 3.

Could a Ruby owner familiar with the factory menu to try something and report your observations.

Please go into the factory mode and then proceed to the DISPLAY ENGINE

Line: 24 USC On = 1

Try setting this to (0). This turns off all of the RGB gain/bias controls as well as the master contrast, brightness, color & hue.

How does the image change?

Does it shift to extreme blue/green color temp? Or does it remain relatively similar to setting (1), with just a subtle color temp shift?

Go ahead and set it back to (1) and all is back to normal.

Thanks

Alan...

Have you tried alternate GAMMA settings?

Try Gamma 2 or 3.

Yes I did but that did not help:(


Could a Ruby owner familiar with the factory menu to try something and report your observations.

Please go into the factory mode and then proceed to the DISPLAY ENGINE

Line: 18 USC On = 1

Try setting this to (0). This turns off all of the RGB gain/bias controls as well as the master contrast, brightness, color & hue.

How does the image change?

Does it shift to extreme blue/green color temp? Or does it remain relatively similar to setting (1), with just a subtle color temp shift?

Go ahead and set it back to (1) and all is back to normal.

Thanks


Its 1am my time so my big screen viewing is done for the day. I will try this tomorrow :)

Its 1am my time so my big screen viewing is done for the day. I will try this tomorrow :)


Alan... It might be line 24 USC On = 1. Opps <red face>

I think I found something else related to the bright corners issue.

Under the OTHER menu, it involves the IRIS CLOSE REG = ? control near the end of the menu range.

On the HS-51A, as I move the setting lower than 222 , I begin to see bright corners on dark black fields. Increasing the the value to just 225 cause the iris to close down just enough to eliminate the bright corners.

I still see the bright corners when going from a bright scene to a total black out, as the IRIS slowly closes down. I haven't seen an adjustment for controling the speed of the IRIS when closing down. Even setting the IRIS CLOSE REG at a maximum value doesn't affect the speed of the iris.

I also see that turning the IRIS to ON, ends up not being as dark as when in AUTO mode, and the IRIS ON mode will also produce bright corners on a black field. Does anyone know of a control for the IRIS condition when in the ON mode, as it does not seem to be fully closed?

The Brightness setting is basically the black level and the Contrast setting basically the white level. You want the Brightness setting to be at the point that things marked for black cause the Ruby to put out as little light as it can, but things marked just for just above black get a little more light (or very near to that Brightness setting). Lowering the Brightness below this will crush those things that are supposed to be above black and raising it too much will hurt the absolute black level and on/off CR. Leaving the Brightness where it should be and lowering Contrast a lot hurts the contrast ratio. An ND filter basically allows you to dim the whole image while maintaining the correct Brightness and Contrast settings for good CR between white and black and good shadow detail.

--Darin

Thanks for the very clear explanation. You've convinced me to get an ND filter.

Darinp2,

Which gamma setting are you using with your Da-Lite High-Power?

Bytehoven - When I set USC to 0 (line 24 or 25, can't recall) it seems to act exactly as if I put sharpness down to 0. So USC at 0 seems like it just turns the sharpness control off.

In A/B comparisions between having USC at 0 with Sharpness at 0 Vs. Sharpness at 50, it didn't seem to make any difference. Are you seeing something other than this? Currently it looks to me that the effect of USC = 0 is identical to Sharpness = 0.

Yes, I think you are right. Setting this control to (0) does seem the same as leaving it on and setting the sharpness to OFF.

I have decided to leave it set to (1) but I set the next line USC TAP to (1), so when I do want to use some sharpness, it's a little smoother at higher sharpness values.

It is possibel on some projectors, sharpness in the OFF position might be a higher value than OFF, but that is not the case on my unit.

Alan is the EE ninja master and I look forward to his observation and if it is the same as ours.

BTW... Has anyone picked up the Ruby service manual yet? It's only $35 + shipping.
Part # 987277302 and can be ordered from Sony at 1 800 538 7550

:)

BTW... Has anyone picked up the Ruby service manual yet? It's only $35 + shipping.
Part # 987277302 and can be ordered from Sony at 1 800 538 7550

:)


Do you have it in hand yet? Does it explain things, what line items are for what?

No, I don't have the manual yet. I just found out about it yesterday.

These days, Sony manuals are less informative than they used to be. It would be a pleasent surprise if the the Ruby service manual broke the current Sony service manual mold.

I was hoping someone else might be a test subject and report. :p

No, I don't have the manual yet. I just found out about it yesterday.

These days, Sony manuals are less informative than they used to be. It would be a pleasent surprise if the the Ruby service manual broke the current Sony service manual mold.

I was hoping someone else might be a test subject and report. :p
I found a source for the 004 service manual in Japan - it was useless! Mostly HW stuff.
There must be some documentation for the service menu - I've yet to find it.

IIRC someone a while ago posted they had the Ruby service manual and it wasn't very helpful at all regarding the service/factory menu settings and what each is for - so I wouldn't have high hopes for this.

IIRC someone a while ago posted they had the Ruby service manual and it wasn't very helpful at all regarding the service/factory menu settings and what each is for - so I wouldn't have high hopes for this.That was probably me. I have one, and for the issues of what the various registers do, it's completely useless.

Of course, the hardware layouts, schematics and interconnects drawings are excellent (if not a bit hard to follow) and informative, but that's really not what we need.

--Bill

That was probably me. I have one, and for the issues of what the various registers do, it's completely useless.
--Bill


Great, thanks. Now I can use that $35 and buy more Superbit discs :D

I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this or not.

After calibrating color temp, black level and white level, with auto iris on, I noticed that sometimes sunlit backgrounds were washed out. I had set this to user setting 1 so I duplicated the setting for user 2, this time with iris turned on and recalibrated all settings.

The result is, with iris turned on, although the image appears to have lost a bit of brightness and punch, details that were previously washed out, are now clearly visible and overall the image is less noisy.

Next I'll try iris off.

jahummer, what you describe is a known issue with the auto-iris I guess.

see the comments here: http://www.cine4home.de/tests/projektoren/VPL-VW100-Preview/RubySerie.htm

They are talking about a clipping-phenomen in auto-irs which can be significantly improved using the image director-software which comes with the Ruby (without any comromises in brightness and contrast).

It would be interesting though to hear from Ruby-Owners what your experience is to get this issue corrected.

jahummer, what you describe is a known issue with the auto-iris I guess.

see the comments here: http://www.cine4home.de/tests/projektoren/VPL-VW100-Preview/RubySerie.htm

They are talking about a clipping-phenomen in auto-irs which can be significantly improved using the image director-software which comes with the Ruby (without any comromises in brightness and contrast).

It would be interesting though to hear from Ruby-Owners what your experience is to get this issue corrected.


Regardless what Ive done, complete calibration I have yet to be able eliminate this phenomena. I love the blacks using the projector in Auto Iris mode but seeing this effect, I have decided to only use auto iris on dark movies only. When watching tv shows likes like Jay Leno its terrible and MUST be turned off as mention by Greg Rogers.
If the use of this software does indeed eliminate this I will be in heaven but I do not have high hopes unless I see this for myself. Ive talked with Daren who has used this and he still gets the clipping.

Something is seriously wrong with the Ruby auto iris operation.

Attached 2 pictures with a paused DVD image. One with iris OFF and the other in AUTO. All else setting the same.

regards,

Li On

Something is seriously wrong with the Ruby auto iris operation.

Attached 2 pictures with a paused DVD image. One with iris OFF and the other in AUTO. All else setting the same.

regards,

Li On

What you are seeing are the results of "brightness comprssion". There is a ton of information on this topic for the Ruby that you'll find by doing a search.

Something is seriously wrong with the Ruby auto iris operation.

Attached 2 pictures with a paused DVD image. One with iris OFF and the other in AUTO. All else setting the same.

regards,

Li On
I have seen that artifact on a Ruby, where Iris Auto causes highlights to have bluish splotches. You could try lowering the Contrast until the bluish splotches go away, although it would make the image dimmer overall.

I guess so. And it seems no solution for the problem yet. And my capture was from a still image. There is NO way that a simple iris aperture change could cause such difference. Sony MUST add some weird image processing to get the effect of so called 15000:1 on/off contrast in AI. The result looks like some ugly cheat IMO.

regards,

Li On

The result looks like some ugly cheat IMO.


I don't know what you are doing wrong, but did you try to tweak it at least for 2 minutes before taking those shots? My Ruby doesn't do anything like that. What I see now in my room is better then those photos. And those screenshots were taken before doing a full-blown calibration.

http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/501/DSC03600_Medium_.JPG

http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/501/DSC03611_Medium_.JPG

Li On

That is the trade off for using the Iris in Auto mode. Try watching Jay Leno in HD. When I posted this same question about the clipping in faces Greg Rogers mentioned this will happen where there are bright light shining on the face like on the tonight show from the stage lights. Its really bad. For really dark movies the auto iris is great. I turn it off for sports and TV and bright movies.

Turning down the contrast to 60 or 50 will eliminate this but then the picture looks terrible and the punchy contrast is gone. This is why this machine needs a brighter bulb. Then we would have the head room needed to counter this phenomena. There is talk the next Ruby will be better optimized for this and have a bulb twice the wattage.

Calibration? Is DVE BTB/WTW ramp pattern calibrated good for you? RCP Off, Black Adj Off, Gamma Off, Sharpness Min, Contrast 78 (default 80), Brightness 50 (default), Color Temp Middle, HDMI 1080P 1:1 mapping input.

Btw, the HS60 has no such artifact in AI.

regards,

Li On

Li On

You are not doing anything wrong. You will not be able to 100% eliminate this unfortunately. Nature of the beast. Someone mentioned using the gamma software that comes with the Ruby can help improve this but you will have to experiment with different curves.

The Perfect Vision review suggested reducing contrast to upper 60s/low 70s, but the Widescreen Review article seemed to keep it at the default of 80. What are others doing with the contrast setting and does this interact with the gamma setting?

I have a 119" Da-Lite Power and a ruby with a barely used bulb, projector distance of about 18 feet from the screen and I find that I need to turn brightness way down from the default with DirecTV HD to reduce compression artifacts when viewing in a dark room. I had gamma off, but am going to try gamma 3. Have not gotten an ND filter yet, but plan to.

Does the high-gain High Power screen also reduce the brightness compression problem?

Does brightness compression negate the value of the auto-iris, making it better to use the iris on setting in general or only for bright movies or sports with room lights on?

Regardless what Ive done, complete calibration I have yet to be able eliminate this phenomena. I love the blacks using the projector in Auto Iris mode but seeing this effect, I have decided to only use auto iris on dark movies only. When watching tv shows likes like Jay Leno its terrible and MUST be turned off as mention by Greg Rogers.
If the use of this software does indeed eliminate this I will be in heaven but I do not have high hopes unless I see this for myself. Ive talked with Daren who has used this and he still gets the clipping.

It might be that I buy a Ruby from one of the dealers the guys from cine4home are working for and I will ask them for the tweak...

I have 246 hrs on my Ruby. Initially I had Brightness at 46 and Contrast at 75 (usig Avia) for a really gorgeous picture with deep blacks. Seemingly overnight the dvd images (Meridian G98 via Faroudja NRS) became very washed out. Using Avia again my new settings are 23 and 65, respectively. Has anyone else seen anything like this?

Might this have to do with the particular dvd or does this apply to ones you viewed before?

This thread will serve as THE Sony Ruby calibration and tweak thread. A one stop thread that contains everything needed to calibrate and tweak your Sony Ruby.


For the time being this will be a little unorganized. It will serve as a parking place
to dump copies of previous posts but with time we will edit these down in hopes to have one nice clean thread will all the goodies.

Anyone interested in handling the building of this thread would be appreciated. Please contact me.

This is a community project and we welcome your help. If you see something you feel fits this thread please send it along to be added, we appreciate it.

Any suggestions to make this more user friendly as this comes together please share your ideas.

Thank you.

Send all content to: alangouger@yahoo.com

Warning: Anyone entering the service menu you are doing so at your own risk. We hold no responsibility for the outcome. Be warned if you are not careful you can cause damage to your projector that may not be covered under warranty. Do so at your own Risk.

For those who feel adventurous and want to take advantage of some of the calibration techniques please write down all factory default settings before moving forward.

Any changes made in the service menu will default back to stock setting on next power up and will not be saved unless:

1. You high lite the save option in the service menu and press enter.

2. If you do not let the Sony go through the entire power down cycle.

The Sony has a strike hot bulb that allows you to turn the projector back on again during cycle down mode. If you have made any changes in the service menu that you do not want to keep make sure you do not turn it back on again until its completed the full shut down mode and the fan is off. If doing so the projector will maintain any changes made to the service menu.

To enter the service menu on the remote press the following sequence.
Enter Enter Left Enter ( the on screen prompt appears ) Up.

You will now see two additional menus at the bottom of the menu tree.

A great thread by Ric ( lovingdvd ) with tons of great info that will be extracted over time.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=633010&page=1&pp=30&highlight=ruby+calibration

Some good extracts sent to us by ken liles .

1) post 1
Anyone complaining about the Ruby not having enough light your going to like this simple adjustment in the service menu.




Out of the box "Iris off" is brighter then "Iris Auto"...were going to change that.


Do not worry about the change we are about to make in the service menu. When you power down the projector and power it back on for the next viewing it will default back to factory settings unless while your in the service menu you choose to save to memory after your done making your changes so this is a harmless experiment:)


Do not choose "save to memory"


Make sure your projector is set to "Iris Auto"
This tweak will only effect the " Iris Auto" mode.


Go into service mode: On the remote hit enter, enter, left, enter, up.


Now pull up the menu and go to the very bottom selection and right courser.
Now go to "Other"
Now go to number 44. For safety right down the default setting. Were only going to change number 44. Do not change anything else. After you have written down the factor setting change it to 100.
Now back out of the menu without doing a save.


You should now have one hell of a bright picture. Blacks are still excellent.
Now toggle between Iris off and Auto Iris and you will not believe how dim Iris off is yet that use to be the bright mode. You will have a hard time going back to the default setting.


Give it a try. Let me know what you think.






2) post 41
Ok, for those of you who insist on some numbers, here they are:
My lamp has 122 hours on it, and I measured lux with an AccuPel 3000 connected to the DVI input. My default values were:
#43 - 364
#44 - 613
Darin's settings:
#43 - 140
#44 - 700
Alan's settings:
#43 - 364 (my default)
#44 - 100
My modified version of Darin's and Alan's settings combined:
#43 - 140
#44 - 100
I measured first with a full 100% white field in auto iris mode. Here are the numbers:
My defaults - 95 lux
Darin's settings - 95 lux
Alan's settings - 95 lux
My modified settings: - 95 lux
So we can see that maximum output is not affected with any of the settings.
Now here is the interesting set of numbers. I took a set of readings with a 100% window within a black field, and my guess is that it is around 25% APL (average picture level) based on the size of the window:
My defaults - 42 lux
Darin's settings - 38 lux
Alan's settings - 98 lux
My modified settings: - 98 lux
Hmmm...there is definitely something going on here, but I don't have enough experience to know what, but I suspect that Bytehoven is on the right track with a modification to the gamma curve, and there seems to even be slightly more maximum light output with simultaneous lower APLs...:confused:
There is no doubt about it, the picture looks MUCH brighter, but I haven't looked at the results for more than about 5 minutes so far, so I can't tell you much more than that. I certainly plan on playing with this a LOT more and testing it under lots of different conditions, so I won't comment any further until I get a chance to play with it.
Great find, Alan! :)


3) post 188
from Bob Sorel -
Ok, here's some hard numbers on my Ruby lamp, which I posted elsewhere in the forum:


Quote:
Ok, just so I have my lamp data in one place, here's how my lamp has been to date:


0 hours - 164 lux - 0% brightness loss
30 hours - 137 lux - 16.46% brightness loss
50 hours - 127 lux - 22.56% brightness loss
70 hours - 127 lux - 22.56% brightness loss (this is not a typo)
*87 hours - 120 lux - 26.83% brightness loss - DVI input
*87 hours - 107 lux - unknown brightness loss - HDMI input
**97 hours - 102 lux - 37.80% brightness loss
150 hours - 91 lux - 44.51% brightness loss


* - These were the last two readings I took just before calibration. At the time I planned on calibrating both the DVI and HDMI inputs, but once we saw the gamma problems with HDMI, as well as the lower light output, we canned that idea and calibrated the DVI input only. Unless I figure out why the auto iris behaves so strangely with the HDMI input (the gamma was fine in the iris off position), I have no plans on using it.


** - This is the first measurement after calibration, so some of the light loss may have been caused by the calibration process itself, though I doubt that it accounts for all of it.





Edit on 3/23/06 to reflect latest lux reading.



4) post 254


I talked to him yesterday. He prefers his tweak for the most contrast. This tweak does have its drawback, dropping 43 slows down the speed of the iris. You can see it changing when going from a dark transition to a bright scene. The bright scene keeps getting brighter until the iris hits its targeted position.


If you want the best blacks Darins tweak is the best.


You can take 44 on its own and raise the number for deeper blacks without the side effect of dropping 43 but the image may be to dark for some. Those who say they have have plenty of brightness or the image is to bright, this may be the ideal adjustment for you to try.


I now prefer to set 44 around 350 to 400 and drop 43 to 200. While I can see the iris changing between dark to bright scenes I find this a good compromise between the two tweaks.


The contrast from my tweak was much lower to his tweak but said while the numbers are large our eyes will not see this as a big difference.


I never touted my tweak as having the best contrast only adding brightness.
Those who have tried this mentioned it still maintains excellent blacks and could only detect a slight raise in black level.


What is nice is we have the flexibility to dial something that fits our personal taste and needs. For those wanting 3 chip DLP kick or those wanting the max black this machine can offer there is an option from one extreme to the other.


The Ruby offers a lot more flexibility then what is offered out of the box. Because these tweaks take all of 2 minutes give them a try and see what works best for you. Its fun and gives everyone the opportunity to see what this machine can really do.


5) post 255


Quote:
Originally Posted by lovingdvd
Actually Darin's tweak calls for RAISING #44 to 700 (not leaving it at the default) and setting #43 to 140.


What I am very interested to hear is that, given this discovery about #44, whether Darin still prefers his original tweak, the tweaks talks about in this thread, or perhaps some new combination.

I'm now at 140 for #43 and 650 for #44. I was looking in the lens and couldn't see any difference in how open the iris was between 650 and 700 just by looking at it. In the past I held a small object up there and maybe there is a small difference in how open it is between those, but figured I would compromise a little. I measured about 20,500:1 after calibration that way in the center of the screen (corners are brighter on full screen video black). That probably isn't much different than with 700 for #44 since the iris is in close to the same position and this was after calibration with contrast at 70.


I don't have the exact numbers with me, but with contrast at 65, #43 at 350 or 250 and #44 at 350 the on/off CRs I measured were something like 2500:1 or a little lower, or about like iris Off. That is on my Ruby of course. I haven't seen the saturation feature that one of the 3 chip DLPs has, but maybe this tweak is something like that, where midtones get raised up in mixed images even if the endpoints are unaffected.


--Darin





6) post 257


IIRC you measured close to 30,000:1 with 140/700, and now are measuring 20,000:1 with 140/650. Perhaps the difference then between 650 and 700 is more than what the iris appears to be doing when watching it? Although some would argue you cannot really see the difference between 20,000:1 and 30,000:1 I'd think there would be some subtle differences in perceived depth, possibly.


Alan - yes at 700 I definately see the effect of the iris being very slow on certain transitional scenes. However this doesn't bother me for some reason. Perhaps its because I mostly notice it when switching between sources or having a sudden and dramatic APL change.


7) post 281


I just now had a chance to catch up on this thread. Have I got the following correct?



For good contrast and black-level, Darin likes #43:140, #44:650, contrast:70 on his projector which he measures an on/off CR of 20,500:1.
For brightness and reduction in BC Alan likes #43:200, #44:350, contrast:65. With a setting close to Alan's of #43:250, #44:350, Darin measured on/off CR of 2500:1.

It is great that we have the option of choosing the tradeoff between brightness and CR. I am surprised, though, that after years of CR being the number 1 concern that people are happy to trade an 8 fold drop in CR for an increase in brightness.

OK, I finally found my note today about the vertical edge enhancement settings. I sent these to Ric earlier tonight so he could check my scribbled note against his Ruby menus.

I found 3 service (factory) menu settings related to the vertical edge enhancement that degraded spatial "pixel perfection". Remember in my review that I said there was both slight vertical edge enhancement and horizontal edge enhancement. I didn't find a way to completely disable the horizontal edge enhancement, but one of these controls did eliminate the vertical edge enhancement. It's been several months now, so my memory may be faulty about which of the 3 controls did the trick, but I think it was setting item #19 to zero that did it. I believe item #8 is either on or off, and the item I used was variable. Anyway, for sure, it was one of these 3 controls.

8 IP-VS 0 is off, default 1 is on
18 IP-VS LIMIT default 64
19 IP-VS CORE 4

If you try playing with these settings be sure you test their effects with sharp (unscaled) 1080i horizontal lines (from a test generator or PC). I believe the same effects applied to 1080p signals.


Alan,

I previously posted the following in another thread after I "thought" I had finally found the relevant page of notes on the edge enhancement issue:

I found 3 service (factory) menu settings related to the vertical edge enhancement that degraded spatial "pixel perfection". Remember in my review that I said there was both slight vertical edge enhancement and horizontal edge enhancement. I didn't find a way to completely disable the horizontal edge enhancement, but one of these controls did eliminate the vertical edge enhancement. It's been several months now, so my memory may be faulty about which of the 3 controls did the trick, but I think it was setting item #19 to zero that did it. I believe item #8 is either on or off, and the item I used was variable. Anyway, for sure, it was one of these 3 controls.

8 IP-VS 0 is off, default 1 is on
18 IP-VS LIMIT default 64
19 IP-VS CORE 4

If you try playing with these settings be sure you test their effects with sharp (unscaled) 1080i horizontal lines (from a test generator or PC). I believe the same effects applied to 1080p signals.


It looks like you have another item, #5 in the I/P menu. I'm sorry my memory has been so bad on this issue, but its been several months and several projectors ago. Now I don't know if I used #5 (which might be why I didn't keep the original note) or used #18 or #19. Does #5 disable the horizontal edge enhancement (outlining around vertical lines) and/or vertical edge enhancement (outlining around horizontal lines). Perhaps you need both #5 and #18/#19 to eliminate both (I hadn't found a way to eliminate the horizontal edge enhancement)?


The following all effected vertical enhancement as you said.

8 IP-VS 0 is off, default 1 is on I turned this to 0= off.
18 IP-VS LIMIT default 64 I set this to 0
19 IP-VS CORE 4 Not sure I saw this doing anything but set it to 0 anyway.

Number 5 seams to also work for vertical ( I still see a little EE on vertical lines) but its hard for me to tell. I do not have any test discs and Jason borrowed my AccuPel again and he is on vacation this week

Maybe some else can do some testing and see what is going on. Setting 5 to 0 did soften the image.

The following all effected vertical enhancement as you said.

8 IP-VS 0 is off, default 1 is on I turned this to 0= off.
18 IP-VS LIMIT default 64 I set this to 0
19 IP-VS CORE 4 Not sure I saw this doing anything but set it to 0 anyway.

Number 5 seams to also work for vertical ( I still see a little EE on vertical lines) but its hard for me to tell. I do not have any test discs and Jason borrowed my AccuPel again and he is on vacation this week

Maybe some else can do some testing and see what is going on. Setting 5 to 0 did soften the image.

The following all effected vertical enhancement as you said.

8 IP-VS 0 is off, default 1 is on I turned this to 0= off.
18 IP-VS LIMIT default 64 I set this to 0
19 IP-VS CORE 4 Not sure I saw this doing anything but set it to 0 anyway.

Number 5 seams to also work for vertical ( I still see a little EE on vertical lines) but its hard for me to tell. I do not have any test discs and Jason borrowed my AccuPel again and he is on vacation this week

Maybe some else can do some testing and see what is going on. Setting 5 to 0 did soften the image.

The following all effected vertical enhancement as you said.

8 IP-VS 0 is off, default 1 is on I turned this to 0= off.
18 IP-VS LIMIT default 64 I set this to 0
19 IP-VS CORE 4 Not sure I saw this doing anything but set it to 0 anyway.

Number 5 seams to also work for vertical ( I still see a little EE on vertical lines) but its hard for me to tell. I do not have any test discs and Jason borrowed my AccuPel again and he is on vacation this week

Maybe some else can do some testing and see what is going on. Setting 5 to 0 did soften the image.


Maybe Greg Rogers can jump in here but Im sure I fiound what weve been looking for.
Enter the Fac menu, enter enter left enter up. Go to I/P. Scroll to #5 ip/sharp limit.

Mine was default at 255. I set it to 0. It was not a huge difference but I tested one scene where I always had ringing even with the sharpness set to 0 on the projector. The ringing is now gone.

[QUOTE=gregr]I would start by calibrating the Iris Off grayscale and the Iris On grayscale using normal window patterns. But then you must calibrate the Auto Iris grayscale using both full fields and window patterns. (You should calibrate using Contrast 80, Brightness 50 for all modes using standard 16-235 video signals.) You can start by first copying the calibrated Iris Off grayscale calibration settings to the Auto Iris mode as a starting point. The iris aperture will be open on 100 IRE and 75 IRE full fields, so you must ensure that the grayscale is corrected for those patterns. I would shoot for near 0 dE error at 75 IRE full field and 3 dE or less at 100 IRE full field. But then you must check the full range of 10-100 IRE window patterns and make sure the low end of the grayscale is calibrated on a 10 IRE window pattern. I would also check below 10 IRE window patterns and a 1-10 IRE 10-step pattern if you have them to make sure the grayscale doesn't become significantly green or red below 10 IRE. Then check a 10-step 10-100 IRE grayscale pattern (which will partially close down the iris aperture) and make sure there is no visible grayscale variation on those steps. You should also make sure that 0% APL, 25% APL, and 50% APL black-level PLUGE patterns have the correct black level, and a 50% APL white-level PLUGE pattern (such as a 98 IRE stripe against a 100 IRE half-frame background) is just visible (which ensures there is no white level clipping).


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=633010&highlight=Ruby+edge+enhancement

Now that my Ruby has 225 hour on it, I decided to tweak the grayscale from my last calibration (last performed at about 100 hours).

Here are the results:

Contrast: 80
Brightness: 50
Color: 50
Color space: Normal
RCP: On, with all numbers set to 0
Picture mode: Standard (not the default of Dynamic)
Sharpness: 50

Iris: AUTO
Gain: 97, 110, 128 (R,G,B)
Bias: 129,124,126

Iris: OFF
Gain: 97,111,127
Bias: 130,126,130

Note that I do not use the iris ON position, so this was not calibrated.

With both the above calibrations I have D65 within a dE of 3 from 10-100. This is the case even with iris AUTO with both full fields and windows.

I was also surprised I was able to accurately and consistently measure 5 IRE, and that it had a dE of 8 (slightly red) at that level. I consider that very good, and there's no way to dial that in any better without sacrificing 10-40 IRE.

This was performed with Darin's service menu tweaks #43/#44 to 140/700.

More details: Since dE does not always tell the whole picture, here is a break out of % R/G/B and dE at each IRE with iris set to AUTO:

First, as measured using full fields

IRE: dE / %R %G %B
10: 3 / 101 99 103
20: 1 / 100 100 102
30: 1 / 99 100 100
40: 3 / 101 99 103
50: 2 / 101 100 101
60: 2 / 101 100 102
70: 2 / 102 99 102
80: 2 / 101 99 102
90: 2 / 101 100 101
100: 2 / 102 99 99

Next, as measured with window patterns: (different than full fields due to auto iris):

IRE: dE / %R %G %B
10: 3 / 101 99 103
20: 2 / 99 101 99
30: 2 / 98 100 101
40: 2 / 98 101 100
50: 1 / 99 100 101
60: 1 / 99 100 101
70: 2 / 98 100 101
80: 1 / 98 100 100
90: 3 / 99 101 97
100: 3 / 101 100 97

As you can see, even within a dE of 3 I tried to steer away from green as much as possible, and favored blue when forced to err toward one side.

For those without instrumentation you may want to try these numbers and see how it looks on your unit.

Note: I've seen many posts about people lowering Contrast into the 40s - low 70s to minimize or eliminate brightness compression (BC). Although I do see BC rarely, its not bothersome to me. If you do lower CR, just be sure you realize that you are significantly lowering your CR as a result (also as pointed out by GregR). Everything has its tradeoffs so you'll need to decide which is more important to you.

Regarding Color and RCP - My equipment (ColorFacts 6 with SpyderTV and EyeOne Beamer) cannot properly measure primaries and secondaries. Therefore I am unable to tweak this. However I did turn RCP on and kept the numbers at zero, rather than just turned it off. This is because just the act of turning RCP on chagnes the grayscale a bit. So this way if I want to tweak RCP in the future I can without affecting grayscale. Likewise I left Color at the default. Overall the image is a bit oversaturated, but with the Ruby's vivid colors I sorta like it this way anyway.

Regarding Sharpness - 50 definately has ringing and there are ways to to minimize it even beyond changing this to 0 (by using the service menu - see Alan's tweak thread for details). However I feel the Ruby's image overall is a bit too soft, so even though the sharpness this control adds is artificial, I still prefer it - at least with most programming material.

Hope you guys find this info useful. Questions and comments always welcome.

Note: Edited to add Sharpness, RCP and Color settings and related commentary.

Ok, so #44 seems to control how much brighter/brilliant the image appears, but what does option #43 do ???

IIRC #43 controls how much the iris clamps down in dark scenes, whereas #44 controls how much it opens up in bright scenes. Could be off base here though. Darin?

IIRC #43 controls how much the iris clamps down in dark scenes, whereas #44 controls how much it opens up in bright scenes. Could be off base here though. Darin?
What I found is that a lower number for #43 would mean that images had to be darker before the iris would start to close (higher would mean the iris would be more aggressive about where it started to close) and a higher number for #44 would make the minimum iris position be smaller (darker). At least to about 650 to 700 for #44 where the iris would be at the smallest possible for a blackout and so going to a higher number wouldn't lower the absolute black level.

--Darin

Say those who are using a Lumagen with the Ruby (Alan?) is there any problems getting 1 to 1 mapping? The guys are Lumagen are getting a Ruby shortly. They had heard there was some difficulty?. We used one with an 004 Qualia with beautiful results. Thanks

What I found is that a lower number for #43 would mean that images had to be darker before the iris would start to close (higher would mean the iris would be more aggressive about where it started to close) and a higher number for #44 would make the minimum iris position be smaller (darker). At least to about 650 to 700 for #44 where the iris would be at the smallest possible for a blackout and so going to a higher number wouldn't lower the absolute black level.

--Darin

Darin - A month or so ago IIRC I read a post where you mentioned going with 650 for #44 instead of 700. I'm still running with 700, mainly because you mentioned you measured about 22000:1 with 650, yet months ago you had close to 30000:1 at 700.

Do you believe that indeed there is any perceivable advantage with 700 vs 650? If not I might as well move #44 down to 650 and pick up some additional brightness. I don't feel I actually need any additional brightness at the moment (about 300 hours and roughly 18 fL I estimate), but at the same time if using 700 isn't buying me anything I might as well go brighter. Thanks.

Say those who are using a Lumagen with the Ruby (Alan?) is there any problems getting 1 to 1 mapping? The guys are Lumagen are getting a Ruby shortly. They had heard there was some difficulty?. We used one with an 004 Qualia with beautiful results. Thanks

I have sold approx 18 Rubies and at least 11 are running Lumagens with 1:1 mapping no issues at all simply bang in 1080p, no other changes required for exact mapping :)

I have sold approx 18 Rubies and at least 11 are running Lumagens with 1:1 mapping no issues at all simply bang in 1080p, no other changes required for exact mapping :)
Thanks Elliot! Looking forward to trying the combination in our demo facility.

ddingle, Im jumping in late here, sorry. The latest software updates have truly elevated the Lumagen to new levels. Im enjoying 48hz playback along with superior 1080i deinterlacing allowing me to squeeze further performance and enjoyment out of my Ruby. I am having no trouble with 1:1 mapping. Using the Lumis internal test pattern or running my acupel through the Ruby allowed me to confirm this. If you indeed end up getting the Lumagen update us the results on your end. Thanks.

Darin - A month or so ago IIRC I read a post where you mentioned going with 650 for #44 instead of 700. I'm still running with 700, mainly because you mentioned you measured about 22000:1 with 650, yet months ago you had close to 30000:1 at 700.

Do you believe that indeed there is any perceivable advantage with 700 vs 650? If not I might as well move #44 down to 650 and pick up some additional brightness. I don't feel I actually need any additional brightness at the moment (about 300 hours and roughly 18 fL I estimate), but at the same time if using 700 isn't buying me anything I might as well go brighter. Thanks.The reason I went to 650 is that while looking into the lens at the iris size I couldn't see any difference between 650 and 700. I think a lot of my difference in those measured CRs was from calibrating my Ruby (the 30k:1 was uncalibrated as I had mentioned), but it is possible that there was a small difference between 650 and 700 and it was just hard to tell that the iris had gotten smaller. If there is a difference, the whites wouldn't get any brighter or dimmer between 650 and 700 in the brightest stuff, just in the stuff that is dark enough overall to get the iris to close down to the minimum.

--Darin

someone please recap, what setting does the most to decrease EE?

thanks

The reason I went to 650 is that while looking into the lens at the iris size I couldn't see any difference between 650 and 700. I think a lot of my difference in those measured CRs was from calibrating my Ruby (the 30k:1 was uncalibrated as I had mentioned), but it is possible that there was a small difference between 650 and 700 and it was just hard to tell that the iris had gotten smaller. If there is a difference, the whites wouldn't get any brighter or dimmer between 650 and 700 in the brightest stuff, just in the stuff that is dark enough overall to get the iris to close down to the minimum.

--Darin

So am I understanding correctly that you are saying the only difference between 650 and 700 is that at 650 the image would be a bit brighter on the darkest scenes?

If you have a chance I'd be curious to know what the difference is in CR that you measure between changing from 650 to 700, without changing any thing else - just to know if it indeed does make a difference or if the difference you originally measured was due to calibration.

ddingle, Im jumping in late here, sorry. The latest software updates have truly elevated the Lumagen to new levels. Im enjoying 48hz playback along with superior 1080i deinterlacing allowing me to squeeze further performance and enjoyment out of my Ruby. I am having no trouble with 1:1 mapping. Using the Lumis internal test pattern or running my acupel through the Ruby allowed me to confirm this. If you indeed end up getting the Lumagen update us the results on your end. Thanks.

Alan,

Do you know if anyone figured out how to get the Ruby to accept video levels over DVI @ 48Hz instead of PC levels? Does connecting via HDMI make any difference?

I must say that the Lumagen/Ruby combo looks nice. I select between two output configs: 48Hz for film-based DVDs and 60Hz for video-based DVDs. PAL film-based DVDs ought to look best at 48Hz as well, right? If I ever buy a PAL video-based DVD I'll simply create a 50Hz config.

I wanted to bring this thread back to the top now that I finally have my Ruby. I am wondering how many of you are running the Ruby is High Altitude mode. The fan noise is so much lower than any previous PJ I have had, I find that it is not objectionable at all. If I run into some real quiet movies or shows, I just switch it back but honestly I do not feel I ever need to. The main issue is shouldn't this help extend bulb life and maybe help keep lumen output higher throughout the life of the bulb? Thoughts?

I wanted to bring this thread back to the top now that I finally have my Ruby. I am wondering how many of you are running the Ruby is High Altitude mode. The fan noise is so much lower than any previous PJ I have had, I find that it is not objectionable at all. If I run into some real quiet movies or shows, I just switch it back but honestly I do not feel I ever need to. The main issue is shouldn't this help extend bulb life and maybe help keep lumen output higher throughout the life of the bulb? Thoughts?

I have read so much in the Ruby forums about how heat buildup affects bulb life and decreasing lumen levels that I took another approach I thought I'd offer here.

I tried the HA mode and wasn't unhappy with the increase in fan noise but it did become more noticeable, especially for the viewers in my back row of seats that sit directly under the Ruby.

Instead, I put a 4 x 10 hvac return duct in the ceiling just behind the ruby where it blows the hot exhaust air. I connected the 4 x 10 to 6" round RA galvanized connector to a 12' length of flexible, insulated, (sound absorbing), ductwork. I ran this to a remotely mounted squirrel cage blower that is extremely quiet by nature and which sucks a significant amount of hot air from behind the Ruby. (The blower is mounted in the attic roof rafters over the ceiling of the next room over. Mounting it to the rafters also reduced or removed any vibration associated with the fan running at full speed.)

My thought was that this additional flow from behind the Ruby would help increase the circulation Through the Ruby without adding a single dB of noise. Indeed, I have lowered the ambient temperature of the room by at least 2 - 3 degrees. For convenience, I have connected a variable speed switch to a nearby wall switchplate but I leave it on full when the Ruby is running as there is no noise from the installation.

I wanted to bring this thread back to the top now that I finally have my Ruby. I am wondering how many of you are running the Ruby is High Altitude mode. The fan noise is so much lower than any previous PJ I have had, I find that it is not objectionable at all. If I run into some real quiet movies or shows, I just switch it back but honestly I do not feel I ever need to. The main issue is shouldn't this help extend bulb life and maybe help keep lumen output higher throughout the life of the bulb? Thoughts?

Yes, the tolerance for fan noise level seems to vary. Some say it is not objectionable, but personally I don't see how its not. I find it very loud in HA mode - at least, compared to its default mode. Then again, I sit directly under the pj which is only mounted on a 8' ceiling (putting the pj just about 5 feet right over head, so this likely contributes a lot to it being bothersome in my case.

There's been lots of talk about the HA mode yielding greater bulb life, but I think its just theoritical at this point. Could be something to it of course, but not proven. Currently I'm at about 300 hours and its plenty bright for me still (106" diag Firehawk, 15.75' throw).

The way I look at it is that as long as I can get a year out of the bulb that's acceptable to me considering word has it replacements are available around $650. I'm on a pace to do about 700-800 hours in a year (has my Ruby since the first of the year) so from how things look now a year with this bulb may be doable, especially since some say the lumen drop off levels out. Then again others have said it keeps dropping, so who knows! :)

I'm with lovingdvd concerning fan noise. My setup is about the same. I do have a HVAC return path behind, but below, PJ to manage heat.

The way I look at it is that as long as I can get a year out of the bulb that's acceptable to me considering word has it replacements are available around $650.


where are people seeing a ruby replacement bulb for $650.00?

where are people seeing a ruby replacement bulb for $650.00?

There was a thread with this info posted just yesterday IIRC. I think it was a post from TryG so try searching on his posts recently and you should find it.

Anyway let's keep this thread on topic - calibration chat only please.

Okay, I am guessing this would have been covered here if any new info was avaialble but has anyone had any further tweaks for the EE? I am using the ones in Alan's thread from gregr and Byte. They have helped but I still have horizontal EE. On a side note, I do have very good convergence. I have perfect right side and center convergence. My left side is off less than 1 pixel red and green and this is on the far left side. I can see it with test patterns but cannot see it with the Sony menu or their own test patterns. I would consider this a very good unit for that. Ultimately though, I would like to see better overall optics. I cannot get perfect focus across the whole screen where as I have with my BenQ 8720. Anyone else had issues with this? I am trying to get some hours on the unit and then I will calibrate. I plan on following gregr's recommendations and will be using the Progressive Labs CA-6x and an Accupel. I will let everyone know if I run across any new discoveries. I have had quite a bit of experience with the hs-51 and its DI so I will be interested to see how this corresponds with my original findings.

Eric

I also notice the H EE issue once in a while. Its the one thing that really bothers me. On the titles I am seeing this it was not an issue on my DLP so I know its the Ruby. I can live with it though but I wonder if theres something else in the menu we are not aware of that will kill this. Its been awhile sense anyone last went digging in the SM. Maybe its time to start researching some more to see what does what. Ill have a little time this weekend and will attempt to look into this again.

Eric

I also notice the H EE issue once in a while. Its the one thing that really bothers me. On the titles I am seeing this it was not an issue on my DLP so I know its the Ruby. I can live with it though but I wonder if theres something else in the menu we are not aware of that will kill this. Its been awhile sense anyone last went digging in the SM. Maybe its time to start researching some more to see what does what. Ill have a little time this weekend and will attempt to look into this again.

Alan,
I will be checking on this soon as well. I will dabble over the next couple of weeks while I want to get around 100 hours for a calibration.

Another very interesting thing I found last night had to do with EE, I believe. I was looking at the HDNet test patterns I have recorded on my HD Tivo. Something odd I noticed was on the middle test pattern with all the crosses, I had a good bit less of what I am calling EE on the 720p signal vs the 1080i signal. The HD Net patterns are originally mastered in 1080i I believe so I would figure that they would look much better in the native format. But 720p shows much less outlining. I wonder if this has to do more with the Tivo or the Sony? Anyone else tried this?

Hi Eric...

How would you compare EE on the Accupel patterns versus patterns from broadcast of recorded sources?

I ask because the Accupel should provide the cleanest pattern while broadcast or recorded patterns on DVD or HD media might suffer some inherent edge artifacts from the compression.

As far as the Ruby SM, even though Velocity Scan Modulation is really an interlaced CRT trick, maybe Sony is using it somewhere in the Ruby processing. Manipulating VSM was always in an effort to create some additional artificial edge detail, and I'm sure old habits die hard. :)

I have never seen anything like VSM on the 51 or 51A, but it could be easily overlooked it it was a combination of two controls. One control being on/off and the other controlling the amount of modulation.

Perhaps the EE you notice is a function of the sync/timing of the RGB panels. In this case the correction might be finding the group of controls in the Panel Driver menu called "V Common R-G-B" . These controls came in handy on the 51 to correct a horizontal noise problem, but I don't recall the specifics. The trick was setting these RGB controls to the same value (which was 83 on my projector).

One thing to keep in mind... We continue to peel away levels of image gunk as we proceed to 720, 1080i, 1080p and beyond, so we might be simply revealing new levels of artifacts previously masked. Know what I mean?

Byte,
I haven't even had a chance to hook the Accupel up to my Ruby yet so I couldn't tell you if they are cleaner.

Hi Eric...

How would you compare EE on the Accupel patterns versus patterns from broadcast of recorded sources?

I ask because the Accupel should provide the cleanest pattern while broadcast or recorded patterns on DVD or HD media might suffer some inherent edge artifacts from the compression.

As far as the Ruby SM, even though Velocity Scan Modulation is really an interlaced CRT trick, maybe Sony is using it somewhere in the Ruby processing. Manipulating VSM was always in an effort to create some additional artificial edge detail, and I'm sure old habits die hard. :)

I have never seen anything like VSM on the 51 or 51A, but it could be easily overlooked it it was a combination of two controls. One control being on/off and the other controlling the amount of modulation.

Perhaps the EE you notice is a function of the sync/timing of the RGB panels. In this case the correction might be finding the group of controls in the Panel Driver menu called "V Common R-G-B" . These controls came in handy on the 51 to correct a horizontal noise problem, but I don't recall the specifics. The trick was setting these RGB controls to the same value (which was 83 on my projector).

One thing to keep in mind... We continue to peel away levels of image gunk as we proceed to 720, 1080i, 1080p and beyond, so we might be simply revealing new levels of artifacts previously masked. Know what I mean?

The Ruby SUPPORTS HDMI 422 RIGHT?

The Ruby SUPPORTS HDMI 422 RIGHT?
It does, when I send 422 color space via HDMI with my VP30.

--------------------------------------------

Maybe I missed this somewhere, but I'd like to know what everyone is using for their sharpness control settings? The default is "50" and visually, I don't see any artifacts, but I'd be very interested in everyones preferences.

Thanks,

Paul

Bump.

Hi,

I purchased my Ruby in March and will be buying one of the Blu-Ray players in October that supports HDMI 1.3

My question is:

1.) Can my Ruby support HDMI 1.3?
2.) If yes, will the image be any better? (I understand there are audio benefits as well)
3.) If I understand correctly there is actually a brand new connector required, so how would I plug this into the Ruby? Does anyone know

FYI: I have the Samsung BD and I have been very unimpressed with the quality of the movies todate and I am hoping that the bad quality is due to the current selection of movies available - would this be a correct assumption?

Thanks for your input

-Steven

I purchased my Ruby in March and will be buying one of the Blu-Ray players in October that supports HDMI 1.3I doubt very much that there will be a BluRay player in October '06 that supports HDMI 1.3. There aren't any announced for then. If the PS3 ships on time there could be one with HDMI 1.3 in November. I don't think it would make any difference to what you get with the Ruby and there should be plug adapters if needed. The HDMI 1.3 could help the audio side, but with a new receiver.

--Darin

Given the video standards already cemented in place for both HD formats, as well as the formats that all OTA/cable/sat HD(lite) are broadcast in, it is not eveident that HDMI 1.3 will buy ANYTHING for video. Perhaps there will be some advantages in computer usage.

Ditto for audio, IMO.

anybody have settings to change right out of the box? basic settings? any help would be appreciated. It looks damn good, but looking for a little more. thanks

Every unit is slightly different so the best option is to get it calibrated or attempt it yourself if you have the tools, but I think DarinP2 has some initial settings somewhere if you do a search.

Is there a new firmware available for the Ruby to make it accept 1080p/24 (or 48) over HDMI?
Does it accept it over DVI?

I understand it can accept this format on the component input...

You can use 1080p48 over DVI.

I was looking for more of the best gamma setting, color temp, things of that nature, not necessarily chaning the r,g,b as of now as it is so new.

The settings depend on the input and source.
On HDMI, we usually get good results with

BRIGHTNESS 52/53
CONTRAST 65-70
COLOR 50 +/- 2
TINT 50 +/2
SHARPNESS MIN
IRIS AUTO
All else OFF

COLOR TEMP MIDDLE (very close to D65)

If you want better/best results, get your unit properly calibrated by an ISF technician.

Now that my Ruby has 225 hour on it, I decided to tweak the grayscale from my last calibration (last performed at about 100 hours).

Here are the results:

Contrast: 80
Brightness: 50
Color: 50
Color space: Normal
RCP: On, with all numbers set to 0
Picture mode: Normal (not the default of Dynamic)
Sharpness: 50

Iris: AUTO
Gain: 97, 110, 128 (R,G,B)
Bias: 129,124,126

Iris: OFF
Gain: 97,111,127
Bias: 130,126,130


What do you mean by "Color space: Normal"? Are you referring to Color Temp? And if so, are you then using Middle? Or some other value?

And for "Picture mode: Normal", do you mean Standard or Cinema? There is no "Normal" setting and you're not using Dynamic.

I have a Toshiba HD-A1 connected to my Ruby via HDMI. The Toshiba has firmware 1.4 and Enhanced Black Level set to ON (0 IRE). My understanding is that the Toshiba still does not do BTB or WTW over HDMI (but could be mistaken).

I have to raise the Brightness from 50 to 65 in order to get proper black level/detail. Does anyone else have this equipment combination and if so, are you using similar values?

I set Brightness back to 50 for my HD-TiVo, so I'm sure that it's something to do with the HD-A1 and just want to verify this is the norm right now. I haven't ceiling mounted the PJ yet, so I can't hook up my component cables to try them.

What do you mean by "Color space: Normal"? Are you referring to Color Temp? And if so, are you then using Middle? Or some other value?


I can't recall off the top of my head what the exact setting is labeled as, but its the one where the only two choices are labeled as "Normal" (I think) and "Wide". I am using Normal.


And for "Picture mode: Normal", do you mean Standard or Cinema? There is no "Normal" setting and you're not using Dynamic.

Standard.

HTH

are you using a video processor in the chain or just the toshiba and ruby? I have the same setup although I have the lumagen hdq in the mix as well

stevenjw,

I don't have any HDMI sources connected right now so I appologize if this has nothing to do with anything but can you select PC vs. Video levels on the Ruby with an HDMI source, or is that only available with DVI? For my DVI input coming from my processor I need to set it to PC levels for processed DVD's and video levels for cable sources to get the right brightness/black level.

I can't recall off the top of my head what the exact setting is labeled as, but its the one where the only two choices are labeled as "Normal" (I think) and "Wide". I am using Normal.



Standard.

HTH


My bad. You were correct, it's called Color Space and Normal is the default and what I use too.

As for Picture Mode, you're using Standard vs. one of the three UserX options. Do you know how the Gain/Bias settings affects Standard and/or Color Temp. And concerning Color Temp, are you using High, Middle, Low, or one of the three CustomX settings? It seems to me that these are all related (along with Gamma), but I'm not sure if there are Gain/Bias settings saved for each Picture Mode.

I'm going to experiment some more with the above just to see if I understand how they relate. Right now though I do like your service settings for Gain/Bias using Picture Mode: Standard, Color Temp: Middle, and Gamma:Off. I'm going to attempt to use two User settings to control my Brightness settings. One for 50 and another for 65 with everything else the same. That will make programming my Harmony easier too.

are you using a video processor in the chain or just the toshiba and ruby? I have the same setup although I have the lumagen hdq in the mix as well

No lumagen or other processor in the chain, just a monoprice 5x1 HDMI switch.

stevenjw,

I don't have any HDMI sources connected right now so I appologize if this has nothing to do with anything but can you select PC vs. Video levels on the Ruby with an HDMI source, or is that only available with DVI? For my DVI input coming from my processor I need to set it to PC levels for processed DVD's and video levels for cable sources to get the right brightness/black level.

I'm not sure, but think that these are only available on DVI and Input-A (D-sub) and not HDMI. I could easily be mistaken.

Thanks certified D, when you say sharpness min, do you mean 0? I think stock is 50. And also, what about the setting for "cinema, dynamic, or standard"?

I need some tweak info, but it's too early for calibration. Can someone translate the +/- 1mm screwdriver lens horizontal shift into maximum +/- % of screen width? I need to try to fit a VW100 into an existing projector enclosure aimed at an existing screen location. The enclosure is offset 4.5" from the center of the screen for housing the many projectors with lenses offset from center.

I found SHARPNESS had little to no effect on the HDMI input and in order to avoid excessive edge enhancement, I usually turn SHARPNESS all the way down, 0 (zero), yes. This is what you should do on most displays since they tend to over enhance the picture. I prefer a slightly softer picture with all the "correct information" and detail to a sharp looking over enhanced one.

The CINEMA, DYNAMIC and STANDARD modes are just different names for USER PROFILES. It does not matter which one you choose, I believe you can make them look all identical - somebody correct me on this one, but I don't think they have different presettings (i.e. gamma) on these. If you set all picture values identical, I don't see a difference in the projected image whether it's on CINEMA or STANDARD or USER 3.

Certified D, yes you are correct. the cinema, dynamic, and standard modes are just presets or suggestions from the factory. I tweeked on them last night and came to that conclusion. I tried your settings and found the picture a little flat for my taste. I'm no expert, but the one thing that stands out about this projector is the whites can be too white at times. I am going to run the projector thru avia tonight and see what happens. Also, does anybody know if the disc that came with the unit has any value?

jimbecker, as I previously stated these settings depend on input and source. I can imagine that your unit needs different settings and AVIA is certainly the better way to go if you are familiar with the disc and have a different setup than I do.
If your screen size is beyond the Rubys light output capabilities, the picture will be flat indeed/as well. Cranking up contrast in order to get the required ft/L (or punch) will further compress the whites and not make a "better" picture.

The disc coming with the Ruby contains the SONY Image Director software. A tool to design our own gamma curve and further tweak the Ruby. But I can live with the gamma OFF setting. It's pretty hard to get a correct gamma curve, especially with the IRIS AUTO setting and I strongly doubt my eyes could tell the difference :cool:

I am on a 108" dalite with 1.3 gain. I used your settings certified d, except kept brightness and contrast at 80/50.

Thanks for all your help.

I decide to update my calibration since I'm now at 425 hours and the last one I did was around the 200 hour mark. Boy had things drifted. Before I was at D65 from 10-100 with a dE of 0-3. Prior to this last calibration I was a bit surprised to see I had drifted to a color temp between 5500-6000 with a dE of over 15 through much of the range. In summary red was now way to dominant.

I realize that drift is typical, but didn't think it would be so substaintial. With my Sharp 10K IIRC the change over a few hundred hours on the bulb was much less.

The moral of the story is just a heads up for Ruby owners that want to stay true to D65 to check every hundred hours or so. I probably won't retune this again for another couple hundred hours though. Also this is something to think about if you are paying for a calibration...

OK here are my updated numbers. See my postings earlier in this thread for details on all other settings not specifically mentioned here:

Auto-iris: ON
Brightness: 50
Contrast: 80
Bulb hours: 425

Gain:
Red 86 (97)
Green 109 (110)
Blue 131 (128)

Bias:
Red 128 (129)
Green 124 (124)
Blue 124 (126)

Note that the numbers in parens are the OLD values I had (for comparison purposes) previously at 200 hours. The numbers listed before the numbers in parens are the new numbers.

This resulted in D65 with dE between 1-3 from 10-100 IRE and a dE of 5 at 5 IRE.

Let me know if you have any questions.

For those of you following along at home, I've posted my updated Ruby calibration numbers for a nice D65 calibration at 425 bulb hours here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8121661&&#post8121661

As noted in that post I''m finding quite a lot of drift as the bulb ages so be sure to recheck your calibration often...

Yeah, things drifted for me a lot (as to be expected) from 0 to about 90 hours. That's why I always make sure to put at least 50 hours on the lamp before an isf calibration. Notice that the GAINs are what changed the most.

Thanks for post, I'm sure it'll get some good use:)

Yeah, things drifted for me a lot (as to be expected) from 0 to about 90 hours. That's why I always make sure to put at least 50 hours on the lamp before an isf calibration. Notice that the GAINs are what changed the most.

Thanks for post, I'm sure it'll get some good use:)

Yes normally I expect this sort of drift within the first 200 hours of the bulb life. However its frequently said that bulbs break in after about 200 hours and that its good to wait until about that point to get it calibrated. Yet as I've seen, even after 200 hours the lamp has not stabilized. Unless this situation is unique to my bulb (unlikely) this would make for some unhappy folks who get their Ruby calibrated at 200 hours only to have it way off just a couple hundred hours later. It will be interesting to see at 600 hours whether things are more stable...

Let me know if you have any questions.
I have one :)
How come my GAIN and BIAS settings are from -30 to +30 ?