Projector Calibration Equipment (OpticOne vs Colorfacts) - Page 2  

Bruno: I studied this a lot and also got the OpticOne. I also had the SmartIII and found it's generic dlp version didn't work well for my H77. I found the OpticOne very intuitave to use, I had no trouble with it at all. It's really very straight forward IMO. Ironically, the best info to learn about this I've seen is teh SmartIII docs avail on their website. That gave me the foundation to understanding what to do and how to use filters. The OpticOne gives all the tool I'd think one could need to do the measurments and dial in the grayscale. Note however I have had limited time to "play" with it. It realy is straightforward though.

HTH

Hi Bruno,

UHP lamps tend to be red deficient, so if you push up the individual RGB contrasts, you will find that green and blue are higher than red. Normaly you would reduce the green and blue to match the red, but in doing so reduce your overall contrast, and the contrast ratio with respect to black. You may notice the overall brightness of white is lower. You haven't changed black, but now your CR is lower.

If you use a filter instead of the projectors digital RGB contrast adjustment to correct the color, you keep the RGB contrasts high, and although overall you have a dimmer image, the diference from black to white is higher because you never lost any contrast by reducing them from within the projector.

An FL-Day filter reduces mostly green, and a yellow filter reduces blue for example. Finding the right filter for the job can be tricky.

It can be a bit trial and error, but Colorfacts (and the other two as well I would say) will be able to tell you how out of balance the RGBs are, and by using a filter, how much you have corrected them - with CF you have RGB bars that show you how high each color is in relation to the others, so by just placing the filter in front you will almost instantly see the effect. You will always have to adjust the RGB contrast to some degree because you won't find a perfect filter, but gaining 300:1 CR with a filter is possible.

Gary.

I might as well throw this out again, especially since I did this tuning this morning and it happend again. I found numerous times tuning with the one-eye verses the tri-chromat sensor that the one-eye gives me a better colored picture. Mainly flesh tones look more natural. It could be because the one-eye is said to be best in the high IRE's and I assume flesh tones fall up in this category.

Gary now that you've trained your chromat to see the 100IRE D65 of the one-eye, tell me if you think your calibration gives you a better look overall, plus do the flesh tones become more natural?

I haven't got around to the training part yet, thx

OpticONE does offer the same functionality. There's an RGB meter with red, green, and blue bars that will show you their relative values at a certain IRE level. You can fix the meter to one color (your limiting color, for example) and calibrate the other two from there, or you can let all three colors move independently.

For anyone looking to buy a calibration package, I'd say OpticONE is the way to go unless you need the type of handholding ColorFacts requires.

Hi Tom,

There is a difference between the two after comparing the standard readings and the trained ones, so I'll have to have another look at the grey scale etc.

It's easy to train one to the other though - there is a wizard for it, and it's easier for you as you can have both meters connected and take readings by clicking the relevent primary whilst displaying it for each meter. Then you just load it from the menu system.

It's easy to clear it so you're back to normal without losing any settings or the stored training file, so you might as well give it a go and see how close they are.

Gary.

Still haven't trained the tri-chromat but I have another question.

When they say move the RGB contrast up in succession to find the limiting color, do they mean each color up one click at the same time keeping them in balance till one color won't increase anymore? Or can I just move one color up at a time?

Seems colors can limit the ability of one color to reach it's highest point. Which is the best way?
thx

Pantone are bringing out a consumer priced version of their colorvision system for Projector systems. Right now they only have products for LCDs, CRTs, etc. And Colorvision only have the high end colorfacts product.

They emailed me a link to my other PC, so I dont have it here.

Go to the Pantone site and click to their color calibration area, you will see a link on the right for "coming soon - projectors, etc". Says June or Summer.

Hope this helps.

Good to hear about the OpticOne, tho, I will look at that, as I was about to do the 30 day rental of the Colorvision for $299, to get my setup in shape.

Hi Tom,

I increased each color one at a time until I found its maximum - do it at 100ire. I made a note of the numbers so that I wouldn't exceed them at 80ire when adjusting for D65, otherwise you'd lose D65 above 80ire and crush colors. For maximum contrast, find a filter that will balance them all without having to adjust them would allow max CR at D65. I found a combination of an fl-day and 81c gave 2600:1, but at the expense of overall brightness. I'm hoping to find a single equivalent. Currently an fl-day and 1b skylight allow 2600:1 on my H77.

You can use Colorfacts to find where thay max out, or something like Displaymate on the PC which has color ramps so you can visualy see the crush point as ypu adjust. I think idealy you'd have a color test pattern to playback via DVD though, as PC levels are different to video levels.

rdjam,

Thanks for the info, will have a look. :)

Gary.

Ok one at a time, do you bring the color back down before starting up with the next color?

I don't remember doing that when I did it with mine, but I don't think it should make any difference. Just remember not to exceed the maximums when calibrating.

Gary.

Ok I hope to get some free time to work. I won't touch the HT1000 though, it looks too good as is. For analog at least.

I agree. The HT1000 still produces an image that is hard to beat IMHO.

Gary.