Video monitor calibration

Flame Hardware Questions
1

Hello All

I’m looking for anyone who may be using the TV Logic calibration software, LogiCAL, with the OEM version of the xRite Display Pro. (This is a probe that has been adapted by TV logic to work with their monitors.)

I have the TV logic Lum313G and I’m about to press go on this calibration system.

It would be super to get some feedback from other users.

Please give me a shout if you are using this kit.

Thanks!:slightly_smiling_face:

Grant

2

OK, I’ve since heard the TV Logic software is not so great. So moving this forward…

Here’s what I’m looking for -

  • Any calibration software for Mac (like Calman but cheaper, in the region of £100-£200. I found ColourSpace DPS from Light Illusion, but its PC only)
  • OEM version of the xRite i1 Display Pro (£260 - £370 are the quote so far)

As I understand it, the system would work like this -

  • Connect the video monitor directly to the mac (not through video card)
  • stick the probe on the video monitor screen
  • look at the reading on the Mac software
  • manually adjust the video monitor settings until the readings roughly match up

The point would be that you get to trust your video monitor by checking it every so often

Is there anyone working remotely who is doing this and has a working system that they are happy to share? Perhaps many Flame ops are content to sit with the factory defaults and hope their video monitor doesn’t drift too far. Curious to know…Would be great to chat further

Cheers!:sunglasses:

Grant

3

This sounds like something in @val s wheelhouse.

2 Likes
4

There will be a long post, hope you will not get asleep before reading it to the end)))

Ok, I asume you need to calibrate your LUM-313G to rec709 standard.

Let`s start with proper workflow.

  1. You need to connect your monitor with SDI to your mac through IO card. Blackmagic preferably because Resolve will be used as patch generator (your calibration software will control Resolve to produce a sample of color that will be measured and used for calibration LUT generation). Free version will work. If you use AJA as your IO card then you will need separate patch generator (hardware or software) and it will cost you some $.
  2. Next comes instruments (measurement devices). Basicaly there is two type of instruments exist. Spectrophotomiters and colorimeters (yes, its not a same thing). If we look at xrite stuff its i1Pro series (from 1450$ at B&H) and i1 Display Pro series (from 170$ at B&H). Bad news - you will need both. Good news - more expensive one (spectrophotometer) you will need only once for a whole lifecicle of your display, so renting it is a good idea. You will use spectro to precisely set your colorimeter for your monitor. And if you need only SDR calibration there is no need fot i1 Display Pro Plus version, cheapest i1 Display Pro Studio version will work just fine.
  3. Third is calibration software. When it comes to “moving images” there is only 3 software to choose from. Calman, Colorspace(Lightspace) and Dispcal. I call them Bad, Good and Free. I had awful experience with Calman in both calibration results and support so cant advise them (wasted money and time IMO). Next is Lightspace (now replaced by Colorspace). If you get budget - just go for it. Their CEO Steve Shaw can be a little annoing when advertise his child on a forums, but he definitely know what he talks about, he came from postproduction industry (not from home cinema market like Calman guys). Also you get best class support (sometime I joke that Steve is not a human, but Skynets color management module). And no paid updates policy for the whole lifetime of a product, and very flexible licensing system (for £100-200 you most likely talk about 3 days rent). Bad news - it cant directly calibrate your TVLogic (manufactures fault), and if you have retail version of i1DisplayPro you will need to software hack it to work with Colorspace (nothing fancy, instructions will be provided). Both Calman and Colorspace only windows products, but they work perfectly fine in virtualized windows machine, Calman is support only on vmware Fusion back in the days, should be fixed now. And the last one from list - Dispcal. Its open source, it works on win/mac/lin and it provides good results, and unlike Colorspace it can not only calibrate your broadcast display, but also you GUI screens. It has forum for support, and developers is actively answer most questions asked. And I`d go with this route in your situation. If you will need to hardware calibrate something in future - just buy an Colorspace lic.

So if I was you, I`d bought an LUTbox (BMD Mini Converter SDI to HDMI 6G - 185$), i1 Display Pro and rent an i1 Pro for one day.

Hope this helps

2 Likes
5

Now how it would work (with dispcal)

  1. Download and install dispcal from https://displaycal.net/
  2. On first launch Dispcal ask for ArghyllCMS and propose to download and install it - just agree
  3. Next connect your both instruments to your workstation
  4. Launch Resolve and set it to monitor calibration mode Workspace → Monitor Calibration → Calman (you should have your BMD io card installed and working to do so)
  5. In dispcal set calibration preset setting to Video for Resolve D65 rec709/rec1886 for your TVLogic or Video D65 rec1886 for your GUI monitor
  6. Go to Tools → Correction → Create colorimeter correction. Type: Matrix. Reference instrument: i1Pro, instrument: i1 Display Pro. Measure your display with both instruments (one at a time) and save correction (just follow what asked by Dispcal to connect it with Resolve)
  7. Choose your newly created correction and press calibrate and profile (defaults should work)
  8. Upload LUT created after your calibration to LUTbox (or apply color profile to your GUI monitor)
  9. Congrats, you have calibrate your display!

I hope I didn`t forget something in the middle. Feel free to ask if you have any questions

4 Likes
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Val. This is really good stuff, thank you!

I’ll be reading this in-between client work today and hope to have a few small questions for you later on.

It’s really good of you to share this :+1:

Grant

1 Like
7

Hi Val

After reading through your brilliant rundown of the options, I hooked up with Steve at Light Illusion & am buying the Colourspace DPS software with OEM Display pro. Shame it’s windows only, I’ll need to break out of my Mac ecosystem! But I’m very pleased that this will provide a simple cut-down system for me to manually verify that my TV Logic is in the ballpark - I’ll be able to trust it & that’s the main thing.

Thank you very much for taking the time & I hope others find the post as useful as I have

Cheers

Grant

2 Likes
8

Great! Don’t worry about braking Mac ecosystem - I was in same boat back in the days, but it worth it.

1 Like
9

Bumping this thread. What do you recommend for a cheap/good enough solution for a 3-4 computer monitors plus an LG OLED?

Is X-rite now Calibrite? Im so confused.

10

Interesting timing. I was just trying to use my copy of Calibrate and was left with a lot of frustration.

It seems like they have iterated over the probes quite a bit, and while they should still work, it’s now refusing to recognize my only few years old probe and I’ll have to get a new one.

But looking out there, the pickings are slim for the basic pro user. Half of my monitors now have built-in hardware calibration, so I’ve been relying on that for the most part, and the rest of them would be nice but aren’t critical. Will revisit down the road. But if you find a good solution, I’m definitely following along.

11

Ugh. That sucks @allklier. What monitors are you using with built in? I have an older Eizo 1920x1200 with built-in. Maybe I’ll just go with something else that’s built in too and 4k.

Or maybe we go in halfsies?

12

The three with built-in are my two EIZO CG2730 GUI monitors and a Dell UP3221 monitor I use for the rare HDR work and more often Omniscope :slight_smile:

The one I’d love to calibrate more is my MacStudio 49" widescreen.

13

Copy.

Rethinking my approach…maybe I’ll just run an SDI out to my Eizo CG247x and rely on its built-in.

Crazy talk? Sane talk? Somewhere in the middle?

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For broadcast or for OS?

If broadcast, perfect.
If OS, use HDMI out, put a converter in-between and sync/color should be spot on.