ColorHCFR v2.0 Available... - Page 2

There it is! Thanks!

Congrats to the entire team!

THe HCFR 2.0 is a great product...Thank you.
I have a question.....is it possible to edit or resize the icons in the tool bars?
I ask..because on a laptop running 1024X768 Res...the last button of the tool bar is off the screen. I know that you can add or remove complete tool bars...but can you edit the tool bar and remove a button or 2 that you would not use that much...to accommodate for the smaller screen area?

Thanks Again
RayJr

I spent some quality time with 2.0 today.

I have to say I really like the addition of the RGB levels meter. It's especially useful in figuring out when a colour "runs out" at the high end.

One feature request. I'd like to see the average readings function change from "average dark" to be a simple "average N readings" for every reading. There was a way to hack the .ini file to approximate this in 1.22 but I think it would be nice to have this in 2.0.

I have a few questions and apologize for any ignorance as I only have a small amount of experience calibrating with the earlier version of Color HCFR.

When I calibrate Gamma on my SXRD it seems that the measurement is off. Calibrated to Gamma 2.2 the picture is really really dark, with inky blacks and a loss of some detail. Calibration to Gamma 1.9 is much better and more of what should be in line with a "proper" gamma reading.

Is this a failure of my SXRD, Eye-One Display LT meter or HCFR? I am set for color space 709 and am using test patterns from the AVSHD disc from my PS3.

The other question is changes in the behavior of "continuous measures" mode. In earlier versions of HCFR I could run measures and see updating display information for RGB, etc. I could also put the measures values up against the RGB display and such and see how things were doing.

Now when I run continuous measures it seems that if I pull up any of the other windows they are static and not updating. I've noticed this with gamma, RGB track, color chart, etc. Am I missing something? Any way to undock the measures and put it in one of the other "tabs"? Any way to break out of "tabs" view and have free control over all windows?

Any help appreciated, thanks!

Hi

First, you can have many windows at the same time for the same measures, like before. Try Window/New Window menu, or right click on a tab, or take a look in the preferences, "Toolbars" tab

During continuous measuring, the measures tab is refreshed, and the combined graph for free measures too. And only this combined graph. Other graphs concern other series, the do not refresh during continuous measuring.

Georges

Here I am, giving a test to v.2 + DVD HCFR v2 + EyeOne Display LT + plasma Pioneer 508XD + DVD PAL + SCART.

Another night testing!

First of all I must admit I've got used to the new user interface quickly and liked it.

I've noticed you've introduced some new patterns on the DVD, like grayscale and saturation colors.... maybe when possible, you could update the guide "pour nuls" on the website to explain how to maximize HCFR usage, step by step.

That test has been performed in a complitely dark room, with little ligth coming out from my laptop's display, but far from the sensor.

I've started the test resetting the TV controls and starting from scratch, configured the sensor, etc.

I've noticed that plasma screens are available in the Eyeone list. The measurements look defintelly faster with version 2, but I've noticed some difference in measuring Y values, when dealing with contrast. Could it depend on the more accurate measurements?

I've started setting the contrast/brightness and I've noticed that HCFR with Eyeone Display LT on my Kuro has some measurements problems on very low "light" conditions.. reading IRE 0 is impossible, the program (or the sensor) chokes reading up to 40 IRE, then again on 50 IRE chokes again; from 60 to 100 IRE, it's Speedy Gonzales. That's a bit annoying particullarly when measuring RGB levels later on.

BTW, as in the guide "pour nuls" it is not explained how to set "scientifically" the proper amount of contrast and brightness, I've followed Tom Huffmans guide, where it states that, for a plasma screen, a correct Y within a 100% white window,should be set so that mesurement gives Y=121.

Once there, Huffman calculates the proper brightness adjustment to be (in the scenario above, with a target gamma @ 2.2) in a 10% window at Y=0,76; while it was quite easy to set the contrast, it was not to set the brightness: to get a measurable value I had to push brightness too much, say to a +8 value, while it is worldwide known that reccomended brightness for Kuros shouldn't go above +1. As I've said it looks like my sensor (or HCFR?) has some troubles when measuring IRE 0 to 20. It would be nice from the authors to discuss this if possible.

At this point I had to use the grayscale pattern on the DVD and set the proper gamma using eye-based evaluation!

After adjusting I've stepped back again into grayscale measurements and probabily due to wrong measurements I had a poor gamma curve.

Then, I've set the color amount: Huffman uses a calculation to adjust color given a calculated Y on red; in my case was about Y=25, but as a professional told me in the english forum, I could reach the same result pushing red in it's proper position on the CIE chart (using color amount control).

So I could get deeply into the CIE chart and discovered that HCFR 2 has nor problem when adjusting HUE with continuos measuring, as it suffered in version 1.

As I was told that, unlike many rookies think, you should never try to adjust RGB on the CIE chart using HUE at the risk of obtaining nonlinear grayscale (can't even imagine what it means), I've adjusted only YCM to get them into D65.

Here is my little suggestion: add an icon in the toolbar to perform secondaries-only measurements. Would be useful in this phase.

Once there I've started RGB calibration, passing into 3 cycles of RGB adjust and back into YCM adjust and so on.

The new 3d RGB bar charts are very effective!

When finished adjusting I think I've end with a quite good result; sure it isn't perfect, but we must consider I'm using a poor sensor, a supermarket DVD player and a SCART cable (although it is a 1,5mt 60€ cable).

Probabily I could get better results with other equipment, and I'm wondering if a better player with HDMI cables will give better results.

Edit: looking at the CIE chart again, I'd like to pose another suggestion: could it be possible to add another context menu reference value in the CIE chart to show dot lines going from G to M, C to R and B to Y in continuos reading mode? Very handy to get values to cross on D65

 

DVD After.zip 4.109375k . file

blutarsky,

A couple of comments for you. Tom's suggestion for 35 ftL as a value for Y is a suggestion, not a hard and fast rule. Looking at you gamma/luminance you are trying to set your contrast too high and are "running out" of intensity. If you lower it you will get better tracking.

Similarly, I wouldn't hold too much faith in the comment that brightness should not go above +1 for the Kuros. Brightness and contrast interact. They are also dependent on gamma settings and picture mode (normal, theater, etc).

J, thanks for answering; what sequence would you suggest for contrast?


To be honest that's quite true in a way that if you set brightness over +1 in Kuro models you end "lighting" your screen like a poor quality LCD, "illiminated" also when alla black...

I've got a fair amount of experience with my plasma and usually start with contrast set so I've got around 27 ftL.

As it turns out that's the point where I start to get colour shifting in the top end because I'm running out of colour. I use a crossed ramp for setting this.

Anyone installed v2.0 under Vista?
I'm going to purchase a notebook with Vista (though I'd like to swap Vista with XPP as soon as possible) and I'd like to know if HCFR works smooth.
In the help file there's this note: "...functions only under Windows XP and Windows 2000".
Thanks.

Hello m.m

ColorHCFR V2.0 works fine on Vista. It has been tested, and all known Vista issues have been solved (it was one of the main reasons we didn't release in 2007 )

Indeed, a Vista bug is still present: in the documentation... :roll: I will correct the help file it in the next version.

Georges

Sorry.... I did my testing under Vista!

Fabulous work! Thanks so much to all involved!

The "professional" doesn't know what he's talking about.

First, adjusting the color control up and down will move the measured performance on the CIE chart, but in a much less responsive way than it will change the Y value. Adjust the color control a single tick up or down and you will see a much larger change in Y than to the xy coordinate.

Second, because the color control has such an immediate and profound effect on lightness and a much more modest effect on saturation, if you used a CIE chart position to adjust color on a display with an oversaturated red primary, by the time you got the xy position to line up the lightness would have been so compromised that the color would be considerably less accurate than when you started.

Thery didn't really "add" the meter. They just made it more prominent. It was available in the previous version in the Information Measures window.

In fact, my primary reaction to version 2.0 is that the functionality is, as far as I can tell, identical. All that has changed is the GUI. Some things have been moved, others rearranged, and some of the graphics have been made nicer.

thnx.. i didn't dare writing it first
but i totally agree, nothing really new there .. but then again .. it was quite complete already

btw:
i'd like to report an error
with 1.22 and still in 2.0, when i choose a "user color" in Advanced/Preferences/Appearence the program crashed, on 2 different computers so "think" it's an error of the proggie

Not sure how I missed it before. Oh well.

One big change, it seems to me, is the addition of Y (luminance) to delta E. The calculation of Y may not be different, but the delta E default produces surprisingly different numbers in my case. Is the interpretation in terms of, say, 3-5 delta E being the threshold of human perception the same? My delta E's for the primaries and secondaries have jumped from 1 or 2 to 20-60. This is surprising because my probe (DTP-94) indicated that I nailed most of the target Y's for RBGCMY using Tom's method. I have a Sharp 12K (with CMS) and most people have found that the color decoder is pretty good on that model. Is it likely that setting brightness, hue, and saturation at the same time using continuous measures will produce significantly better results?

The primaries/secondaries deltaE seems to be based on RGB and White measures in the Primaries box. If you open an old CHC file, the white column is blank (but editable). If you copy from the appropriate greyscale (75% or 100%) measure and paste to the white column, it will recalculate the RGB deltaE. There is also a Black column, but it doesn't seem to affect the results.

Also, the preferences has an option to "not use luminance in deltaE formula" to calc it as it was in 1.22.

-JD

I've had the same "appearence crash" on two of my machines (WinXP). Otherwise so far 2.0 is working very well.

ISF C3?

I'm not 100% sure, but I think they would also have to buy/pay for a license fee to the ISF in order to offer ISF CCC capabilities. Which is asking for them to do a awful lot more than just a little bit of additions, when considering that it's a freeware program.

Thanks. I found that it was a combo of not having the correct white reading in the primaries window and the Y on my last primary and secondary run differing considerably from what I got when setting my RGBCYM brightness with continuous measures. I will need to take the average of many measures for Y, particularly for the dimmer colors like red, blue and magenta.

Yeah, I knew that you can get back to the old delta E in the advanced preference menu. I like the new one with Y included.

The new dE calculation uses the Lu*v* formula where minimum perceptible errors are ~4-5.

Tom, blutarsky (me) doesn't know what he is talking about!
I've read again what the "pro" meant and I've misunderstood his words! Sorry.

Ain't Vista a bug?