I've decided to take an ID Software approach on the delivery date this time (ID Software created Doom, Duke Nukem, Quake, etc.)..."The delivery date will be when everything is done".
I know that doesn't help your planning at all, and I apologize for such a snide answer, but there is a bit more involved than software development this time. There are some hardware modifications, vendor negotiations and business agreements to put in place in addition to the software.
The good news is that it's been pretty smooth sailing so far. We will be posting regular updates as this progresses (both here and on the brand-new Dilard.Com web site . The first update: early experiments have been very positive!
By the way, here is picture of what Kevin was describing above:
Very good news. Any chance of a Dilard-based auto black level, color temperature, gamma and shading wizard to go along with this colorimeter?
Will the colorimeter need to be pointed at the screen or into the projection lens? I am concerned about light reflecting back from the room onto the screen biasing the color temperature readings.
Any chance of a Dilard-based auto black level, color temperature, gamma and shading wizard to go along with this colorimeter
That's exactly the plan! I don't think that we can do much with integrating the colorimeter into the shading wizard, but the others are all in the cross hairs!
I've done all of my experiments with the colorimeter pointed directly back at the projector.
The three smaller holes secure the probe, and the larger central hole frames the sensor itself. Of course, the screw on the bottom is for the tripod mount.
[This message has been edited by milori (edited 04-30-2001).]
I wasn't expecting that this unit would be useful for shading, but it would come in handy restoring the D6500 color temperature, black level and gamma after the hypothetical interactive shading wizard does its stuff.
I've decided to take an ID Software approach on the delivery date this time (ID Software created Doom, Duke Nukem, Quake, etc.)..."The delivery date will be when everything is done".
Say, anyone know if the new colorimiters will let me exactly match paint colors? I spent quite a while this weekend trying to find the exact matching swatch. I'd pay mid-3-digits just to not do that again. And if does projector calibration too, so much the better. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/wink.gif
My Tribes server is the busiest in the world, my UT server is a top 5 server, and the CS server is new, but only holds 22 players so I can't compete with the 32 player servers that run Dust 24/7 (not that I'd want to!) but it stays very busy also..
As usual, your detail is a plethora of info that exercises the mind and tantalizes the senses.
You have the ability of putting simplicity into complicated tech talk that I, and I'm sure others, really appreciate.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I read into your post as a lead in for the upcoming wizards, and how it might be possible to use an available tool, either through renting or purchasing, to calibrate our DILAs color scales in our own homes. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/eek.gif
I would like to point out one thing. Your product would work extremely well for 1-chip DLPs. Since they have more uniform color and more even grey scale tracking. You could use solid colored fields for testing and get accurate results for the whole screen all at once.
An automated test program could run through just a few colors and then make gamma and color corrections as necessary.
With a D-ila your color corrections will have to be done before and after several iterations of shading adjustments. I am sure with less than perfect users doing the shading work.
This isn't a knock on the d-ila by any means simply another road for a similar product you could create for the 1-chip or 3-chip DLP's (with some knowledge of their service menus of coarse)
Times change. 10 years ago a computer with the power of a single pentium III/1000 would have been a 20 processor (or more) sequent with a price exceeding $1.5M. Today you can get this for <$1200.
10 years ago a spectrometer (colorimeter) was large and heavy, used
diffraction gratings or prism's and photomultiplier tubes and cost
tens of thousands of $. A brand new perkin-elmer instrument these
days is built the same as it was 10 and probably 20 years ago, and
starts at $80k. Not really practical for home calibration.
(unless you also own a fork-lift)
Over the past 5 years a number of hand held instruments have appeared
to do the spectrometer function. They fall into two different categorys.
The first category is instruments like the photoresearch pr640, the
mcmahan lightspex, pritchard pr-100, minolta cs200a and others.
The first two use multipoint silicon detectors with resolution ranging
from 64 to 128 points. The last two use photomultipliers and have
resolution from 256 to 1024 points. All of these devices share a
common characteristic, their price. The cheapest of the bunch is
$4500. A little much for people to spend for home use.
The second category consists of devices like the minolta mc7 and ca-100, the optimate I and II, the xrite-dtp92, the macbeth spectrolino, and the sequel chroma4. All are tri-stimulus devices which means
that they have one sensor for red, one for green and one for blue.
Some of these sensors have integrated optical filters, some use plastic glue on's. These devices are great for their real intended use,calibration of direct view crt's. As such their filters try to
match the phosphor characteristics. Great for crt's, lousy for
lcd monitors, and even worse for front (or rear) projection lcd
(including dila) and worst yet single chip dlp projectors because
the spinning wheel drives the detector nuts unless it is properly
sync'd. These devices have market pricing ranging from $249 to
$1295 (not usually including software). Attempts to make these
devices do what they were not designed to do has resulted in numerous
problems.
Enter a new class of colorimeters. The device is priced for home
use. It has 7 color sensors instead of 3. (not counting the additional
sensor used to determine refresh rate if any). It contains sharp
optical filters that lose less than 1db in the passband as compared
to 4 to 6 db for the tri-stimulus sensors. (precision diffraction grating) Since there are more sensors across the 400nm to 700nm optical band the necessity to adjust the readings after they are taken from the sensor for different display devices disappears.
Sensitivity and color accuracy improve. A factor of 5 or so over
older tri-stimulus designs. Color temperature accuracy is better
than 100 degrees at .1 footlamberts. Price of the detector with
some really excellent software is <=???.
(note, 3 digits, middle 3 digits)
(mark asked me to delete the price)
This is the sensor that dilard will be recommending for home use.
Although we will also support the sequel chroma 4 and the minolta
units. We will also be supporting a 500 point unit that i am
building personally. It has gone up in price a bit because
the hamamatsu r636 GaAs detector i am using is more than i wanted
to spend and hamamatsu seems unwilling to rebuild this device
into the smaller package with one or 2 less dynodes. But it is
absolutely amazingly flat across the entire visible spectrum and
A forum community dedicated to home theater owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about home audio/video, TVs, projectors, screens, receivers, speakers, projects, DIY’s, product reviews, accessories, classifieds, and more!