Massive Color Drift Correction for i1 Display Colorimeter - Page 2

Colorimeters are a new thing, they had volt meters 100 years ago, and my guess is a good reliable volt meter was not an inexpensive item.

It may not be the red filter, it may be the blue and green. Either way the same reason the filters go bad is the same reason these meters were affordable in the first place. They were cheap filters. The glass ones in a Klien K-10 cost more than a case of i1 Display 2s.

And a Washing machine should last 20 years .. and a TV should last 20 years but that Flat screen you paid $3000 4 years ago is now dead in the land fill.. With most tools and test instruments you get what you pay for.. I bought a new C6 (i1display 3) because it has sealed optics and they think it will last longer than the older design in the i1dispay2. I then bought a used i1Pro because I wanted a more accurate meter than just the colorimeter with tables.. Will the C6 be junk in 4 years, no one knows.. It sucks that stuff is not made to last for year and years but that is the way the economy is designed.. Everyone wants stuff CHEAP and you don't get the top of the line anything CHEAP

if you store the meter in an airtight case with a high-quality desiccant and keep it away from light, heat, and moisture you can get more consistent results over time

I suggest you take another look at this article as it really does make a difference.

also, if you plan on buying another colorimeter in the near future, go for a sealed optics design like with the D3 family of meters

+1, very true

for example, who knows how long the LED backlights in modern displays will last? only time will tell

the sealed optics of the D3 should give it a huge advantage over the D2 or the spyder family of meters that directly expose the filter array... just like the design on high end meters for professional use

I've never heard that the i1 Display 2 is considered professional equipment.

The i1 Pro is x-rite's most "Professional" piece of equipment. The i1 Pro is an extremely reliable piece of equipment, we've seen those meters come through our lab 4 years old and still within original spec.

The i1 Pro is a great tool it's easily accurate enough for any consumer uses. Also they make the colormunki spectro that is a cut down version of the i1 Pro. Not nearly as good in reflective mode, but fairly comparable for emmisive use.

Granted in 2008 when you bought your meter, only the i1 Pro was available and they were selling in the vicinity of $2000, now you can find used ones on ebay for <$500 and the colormunki spectro new on amazon for $450.

I don't know about wanting something for "cheap", but when the D2 came out it was what was available and lauded at least as much as the D3/C6 is now. So, as you say. . . "who knows"?

And the way the economy is, some of us may take the plunge once to get a colorimeter, but if it turns into junk, do not care to risk further resources. So you can't fault a person for that.

And if the D2 had unsealed filters subject to premature failure, then the product may not have been ready to market. Or else the vendor knew it and , as I said previously, figured on a hobbyist using it a few times, loosing interest, and then "who cares". Either way, not much integrity there.

And to expect a person to buy both a colorimeter, software and updates, and a spectro. . . Why shouldn't the one product be enough? It isn't sold in a package that way or disclosed as a requirement.

To be fair, if that's what a person is ok with then fine for them. I personally feel burned that my D2 was unreliable too. Last I checked they are on Ebay regularly for $45 to $60.

I'll be watching to see how the D3/C6 ages.

sotti, I assume this model ColorMunki is what you are talking about?
ebay
The physical design doesn't look too suitable for projector profiling but the product details include using it with projectors.

You mention that the ColorMunki spectro isn't good for reflective mode, I assume you mean measured off the screen (ie. its better 'looking' into the projector lens). Would a ColorMunki spectro be suitable for training an i1 (to adjust its profile table to ensure it reads accurately) and using the i1 for the projector measurements?

It works fine with projectors, but mostly just for reading odd the screen, I don't believe it has an illuminant head like the i1 Pro does for reading directly from the projector.


Not quite, I was referring to it's use to measure printed materials. The i1 Pro has a tungsten lamp which corresponds directly to illuminant A, making color measurement very accurate. The munki has I believe a doped up LED, this makes a big difference in the accuracy of measuring printed materials where the internal lamp is the only light source.

Unfortunately that is what marketing is all about! Would you buy something that said, This is a poor quality, low priced device and it is only good for DIY users!"?

I agree with you 100% that products should last many many years and not be made so poorly that fail or become inaccurate quickly. I would probably feel the same way you do if I were in your shoes. This is one thing that is great about the internet and sites like this one, with sufficient time invested anyone can do the needed research to know more about a product than what the manufacture tells us.

As to the marketing.. here are 375 products sold by Harbor Freight that claim to be for professionals..
http://www.harborfreight.com/catalog...q=professional
Nothing sold by Harbor Freight is a serious quality product, I own many of them. I know they are inexpensive replicas of good stuff and they will fail but if I get 2 or 3 uses out of them I have gotten my money's worth.

Think of you i1D2 in that way. You got a couple of calibrations out of it, and you learned how to calibrate. You would have paid a pro more than you spent to do several calibrations. After all isn't that why we buy our own tools and do things ourselves, to save money and have that feeling of accomplishment?

I'm sorry you're having serious issues with your meter, but it would be naive to believe everything the marketing folks tell you about a product. The D2 is not a professional grade meter and many professional calibrators would consider it to be an very error prone meter. I had somewhat better results with the CalMAN enhanced 'X2' version of this meter, but ultimately I upgraded to the D3 family of meters.

Thanks, so it sounds like the colormunki should do just fine then for training an i1 for projector calibration.

+1, I agree with these points and this applies to any product in any market

Yes it would work very well.

Yes, this is a similar result I got when both my i1 LT's drifted. As per my posts above, my fix is going to be to purchase a second hand colormunki spectro (which is much more stable over time but no good for low light measurements) and train my drifted LT to the spectro so that the offset tables will cancel out the drift.

You can also read earlier threads I started about using an alternative color reference to adjust the offset tables but the only reasonable way I could work out was to use a second projector bulb that is stored away as a reference (the delta between an old reading and a current reading is the meter drift) but that is too much hassle and not guaranteed.

isn't it possible though for the meter to drift so far than it cannot be profiled successfully?

At some point that could become more of an issue, but as long as they are reading data that is remotely sane, it should be fine.

You can always double check the readings against the spectro to see if they line up.

On the other hand, I have many Sears Craftsman tools which were inexpensive from many years ago and still work fine after some being abused on auto repairs from times when funds were limited and repairs were done "under the shade tree". Given that analogy, it is not unreasonable to expect the same kind of return on investment on a $200 (original price) meter.

The durability of inexpensive, forged/hardened tools in no way relates to the long-term accuracy of an inexpensively made sensor designed to measure certain qualities of light. As someone who has supposedly worked with "pro-grade" calibration equipment before, I'd think you'd understand and respect that massive difference, as well as the massive difference between a $200 colorimeter and something several orders of magnitude more expensive that is used by professionals.

Just following up on Airscapes' comment about Harbor Freight tools. Interesting you would seek out and have to comment ONLY on my post.

Typical though.

I don't know exactly the magnitude of the shift but the red decrease was very visible to the naked eye making the picture look green / turquoise (the green was more obvious than the blue when the picture was red deficient). Sorry I don't have actual dE values but I would guess 15+

Luminance and RGB are 2 different things. The meter can read the proper brightness (amount of light or luminance) correctly but not the proper color.
Gamma is the difference in luminance form 0 -100% and has nothing to do with color, so it can be accurate and the color reading be very wrong. You can not fix this without using a known good reference spectror meter, and if you had such a meter, you would probably just toss the D2 in the trash and use the spectro since the speed difference would be of no great issue.

If you are not familiar with meter profiling this is something that is done in the software if it support it. I have no idea what HCFR support.
To profile a meter:
The software tell you to ready your reference meter and you place it so it is looking at a known spot on the screen, hopefully taking into account Field of view difference between the 2 types of meters.

Then you display a Red, Green, Blue and white pattern and take readings of each.

Next you set up the target meter that you want to make better so it sees the same spot on the screen.

You do the same readings on the target meter.

The software makes a table of the difference between what the reference meter sees vs what the target meter sees.

This difference table is then applied to all readings made by the target meter during the calibration.

This fix is only accurate on this one display where the reading were taken.

Hope that clears it up.

+1, well said


so is your reaction to HogPilot's post; this is an open discussion thread, not private messaging

I'll say it again, proper storage of these meters is essential to maximizing their lifespan (especially for those meters with completely exposed filter arrays). I'm not sure the OP's storage method was 100% optimal.