Joined
·
2,151 Posts
The long awaited day had come. I put the wife and kids to bed, locked the dogs out, popped off a couple of Molson Goldens and got to it.
I mounted the sensor 7 ft away on a full zoomed image, dead center. I did not leave the Panamorph in place. Looking into the glassy beast while the Pj was/is on, I can see light reflections off the prisms that I figured would only hinder the process.
My serial cable is 40 ft of Cat3 Home Depot 5 pair wire. Pretty cheapo stuff really. USB cable from sensor with a $20.00 10 ft Staples USB extension.
Radeon VE.
I'm elated to say that the precalibration and calibration wizards work perfectly flawless. Not one hitch, glitch or niche.
The whole process took about an hour. That was two pre's and a final. The final showed a time of 18 minutes.
Some things I noticed during the calibrations:
1. My final contrast ratio given was 228 vs an original of 442. I saw that karos had made mention of that too. Judging by the image after calibration, I'd say that had to be a mistake somehow. Mark?
2. I did my cal. in 800 x 600, with all settings at 0. When I got to the "put the black and white boxes into their appropriate places using the sliders" section, the right ones were actually black but the left ones were green and red. No biggie. What I thought was odd was that the proper alignment of these square pegs in the round hole would change if I switched to a 1360 x 1024 resolution.
"Why on Earth would you change resolutions right in the middle of your long awaited soooo very important calibration?", you might be thinking. "Boy, what an idiot. You could have lost the whole thing."
Well, I had to. In 800 x 600, I couldn't see all of the wizard. It was larger than my desktop area, so I had to go to 1360 x 1024 to see the upper bars. I did go back to 800 x 600 before clicking OK on that screen, though.
Bottom line. I should have started in the 1360 x 1024. Mark, should there be a difference between the two?
3. The sensor casts a shadow on the image, sometimes right in a spot you really need to see, so be prepared for that. VE to the rescue again. All I had to do is switch to my "clone mode" via Pronto to see what I couldn't on the screen(like the sliders), make the adjustment, then switch it off. I made sure my 2nd monitor was off when any "sensing"was being done.
4. If I could have, I would have done this calibration in a black room. The light spill on my white walls around my G11 lens must have some affect on the final readings Dilard sends to the projector. I could see where doing this in a darker colored room could possibly help. Of course, this is just speculation since I have nothing to compare to.
Ok, on to the end result.
First, I have two caveats:
1. The calibration gave me banding in the image where I never had before. The wizard actually mentions that you should run the Eight Bar, Pixel Align, Tracking and Pixel Wizards after the cal., so I guess this is to be expected. The problem is I can't get rid of the banding, mostly because I can't see very well the bottom portions of the wizard. They're too dark. I've tried turning up the brightness and contrast all the way up, but it wasn't enough. Mark or anyone, is there a trick to being able to see the lower portions?
I've tried til' I was Red, Green and Blue in the face.
2. I have what looks like a very faint "hot spot" in the lower, center part of the screen. Hard to describe, but it's a small area that is slightly lighter in shade than the rest of the desktop. I figure this may have something to do with my white wall light spill or maybe the 32 point tests?
That's all the bad. Now for the good.
Here's some of the thoughts that were going thru my head while watching the only DVD I've seen a billion times(Superbit version):
"The Manuchean(sp?) ship really does have texture to it."
"Space really is the final frontier. Look at all the stars."
"WOW, my DILA finally does grey." My biggest letdown of my G11 has always been the way it did greys. Now, they really are grey. Yipeeee!!
"The Generals coat in the reproduction scene has a beautiful two tone shading to it that I've not seen before."
"Leloo's thermal bandages could've been just a weeeeeee bit thinner."
"Hmmmm, I think I'll get me another Molson Golden."
"The lapel! THERE IT IS." The lapel on the princess babes dad's dark jacket in the Diva scene has never been able to be seen distinctly without me radically turning up my brightness. At long last, I can see it!!
"Hey, who turned on my Hi Def receiver!!?"
"That hot spot on the Diva's belly isn't really a bunch of sizzling pixels after all. It's the reflection of the stage lights. Cool."
"The detail in the upper left area of space in the same Diva scene now shows the detail it deserves." If you look at this scene on a good CRT monitor, you'll notice a huge amount of detail in the reflection off the glass, with a great amount of stars in the background.
Those are the three crush tests I use most often for contrast and blacks; the ship, the lapel and the reflection off the glass in the Diva scene, and the calibration passed with flying colors, I'm happy to say.
If you're looking for a bunch of numbers, charts, graphs, specs., I can't be of much help. I'm a "grab a couple brews, run it through it's motions and sit back and(hopefully) enjoy" kind of guy. It's hard enough locking everyone in their rooms to do these kind of things as it is.
Besides, I wouldn't know an IRE from the IRS.
It was late when I finished, so I didn't have a chance to look at much more than those few scenes, but I can honestly say that the improvements were dramatic, even with my two issues mentioned above. I hope to fix those.
Bottom line, IMO:
The Dilard 2.2/Colorimeter really rocks!! Good luck to all!
Chris
I mounted the sensor 7 ft away on a full zoomed image, dead center. I did not leave the Panamorph in place. Looking into the glassy beast while the Pj was/is on, I can see light reflections off the prisms that I figured would only hinder the process.
My serial cable is 40 ft of Cat3 Home Depot 5 pair wire. Pretty cheapo stuff really. USB cable from sensor with a $20.00 10 ft Staples USB extension.
Radeon VE.
I'm elated to say that the precalibration and calibration wizards work perfectly flawless. Not one hitch, glitch or niche.
The whole process took about an hour. That was two pre's and a final. The final showed a time of 18 minutes.
Some things I noticed during the calibrations:
1. My final contrast ratio given was 228 vs an original of 442. I saw that karos had made mention of that too. Judging by the image after calibration, I'd say that had to be a mistake somehow. Mark?
2. I did my cal. in 800 x 600, with all settings at 0. When I got to the "put the black and white boxes into their appropriate places using the sliders" section, the right ones were actually black but the left ones were green and red. No biggie. What I thought was odd was that the proper alignment of these square pegs in the round hole would change if I switched to a 1360 x 1024 resolution.
"Why on Earth would you change resolutions right in the middle of your long awaited soooo very important calibration?", you might be thinking. "Boy, what an idiot. You could have lost the whole thing."
Well, I had to. In 800 x 600, I couldn't see all of the wizard. It was larger than my desktop area, so I had to go to 1360 x 1024 to see the upper bars. I did go back to 800 x 600 before clicking OK on that screen, though.
Bottom line. I should have started in the 1360 x 1024. Mark, should there be a difference between the two?
3. The sensor casts a shadow on the image, sometimes right in a spot you really need to see, so be prepared for that. VE to the rescue again.
All I had to do is switch to my "clone mode" via Pronto to see what I couldn't on the screen(like the sliders), make the adjustment, then switch it off. I made sure my 2nd monitor was off when any "sensing"was being done.4. If I could have, I would have done this calibration in a black room. The light spill on my white walls around my G11 lens must have some affect on the final readings Dilard sends to the projector. I could see where doing this in a darker colored room could possibly help. Of course, this is just speculation since I have nothing to compare to.
Ok, on to the end result.
First, I have two caveats:
1. The calibration gave me banding in the image where I never had before. The wizard actually mentions that you should run the Eight Bar, Pixel Align, Tracking and Pixel Wizards after the cal., so I guess this is to be expected. The problem is I can't get rid of the banding, mostly because I can't see very well the bottom portions of the wizard. They're too dark. I've tried turning up the brightness and contrast all the way up, but it wasn't enough. Mark or anyone, is there a trick to being able to see the lower portions?
I've tried til' I was Red, Green and Blue in the face.
2. I have what looks like a very faint "hot spot" in the lower, center part of the screen. Hard to describe, but it's a small area that is slightly lighter in shade than the rest of the desktop. I figure this may have something to do with my white wall light spill or maybe the 32 point tests?
That's all the bad. Now for the good.
Here's some of the thoughts that were going thru my head while watching the only DVD I've seen a billion times(Superbit version):
"The Manuchean(sp?) ship really does have texture to it."
"Space really is the final frontier. Look at all the stars."
"WOW, my DILA finally does grey." My biggest letdown of my G11 has always been the way it did greys. Now, they really are grey. Yipeeee!!
"The Generals coat in the reproduction scene has a beautiful two tone shading to it that I've not seen before."
"Leloo's thermal bandages could've been just a weeeeeee bit thinner."
"Hmmmm, I think I'll get me another Molson Golden."
"The lapel! THERE IT IS." The lapel on the princess babes dad's dark jacket in the Diva scene has never been able to be seen distinctly without me radically turning up my brightness. At long last, I can see it!!
"Hey, who turned on my Hi Def receiver!!?"
"That hot spot on the Diva's belly isn't really a bunch of sizzling pixels after all. It's the reflection of the stage lights. Cool."
"The detail in the upper left area of space in the same Diva scene now shows the detail it deserves." If you look at this scene on a good CRT monitor, you'll notice a huge amount of detail in the reflection off the glass, with a great amount of stars in the background.
Those are the three crush tests I use most often for contrast and blacks; the ship, the lapel and the reflection off the glass in the Diva scene, and the calibration passed with flying colors, I'm happy to say.
If you're looking for a bunch of numbers, charts, graphs, specs., I can't be of much help. I'm a "grab a couple brews, run it through it's motions and sit back and(hopefully) enjoy" kind of guy. It's hard enough locking everyone in their rooms to do these kind of things as it is.
Besides, I wouldn't know an IRE from the IRS.
It was late when I finished, so I didn't have a chance to look at much more than those few scenes, but I can honestly say that the improvements were dramatic, even with my two issues mentioned above. I hope to fix those.
Bottom line, IMO:
The Dilard 2.2/Colorimeter really rocks!! Good luck to all!
Chris
