Calibrating Monitors

[Ron Chau]

True about making generalizations, but I've been reading about a lot of widescreen LCD 24" computer monitors that are having problems when fed with a signal other than a DVI-PC. Aspect ratios, poor coloring, contrast, resolutions, etc..

Makes me wonder if I should just get an LCD HDTV as my HD preview monitor. At least I can be confident it will show my HD camcorder footage correctly.

[Eugen Oprina]

Tim, Boyd and Ron, thank you very much for your answers.
Tim, I think that I know how to calibrate bars. I use the procedure described in the DVRACK help menu. Unfortunately the LCD doesn't have the blue only button.
Boyd the 251 is the GY HD 251E JVC camera. Thank you very much for the link too.
Ron, I have a LCD HDTV and it is not any better.
In conclusion I am following Tim's advice and use this monitor on the field for indicating focus/sharpness.
Thanks a lot for your help,
Eugen

[Will Hanlon]

So to tell if I've calibrated my TV correctly, I look at the PLUGE bars, the first of which should be indistinguishable from the second and the third of which should stand out from the other two. Is it really that simple? I'm using some test bars I exported from Vegas and put on a DVD.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Perhaps this will help? http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm

[Amos Kim]

I have this monitor but I hate it's colors. Does anybody know how I can accurately calibrate it's contrast and color?

[David W. Jones]

Feed color bars into it and calibrate it as you would any broadcast monitor.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Maybe this will help? http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm

[Will Hanlon]

That's helpful, thanks. Sounds like going by the PLUGE bars for brightness/contrast is right. I love how my TV lacks brightness or contrast controls other than two generic modes... I need a better TV.

[Will Hanlon]

Alright, I'm still confused. This article says, "Turn the contrast all the way up. The white (100 unit) bar will bloom and flare. Now turn the contrast down until this white bar just begins to respond." What does that mean? Just begins to respond? This is very subjective. Is there any more concrete way of doing this? Any monitors that come already calibrated or could I use some kind of waveform? I'm making these tiny adjustments to my video, but they could all be for nothing if my monitor isn't set up right, which is very disturbing.

Well, I did some checking around. Looks like I could pay a professional to calibrate it or buy something like the SpyderTV to eliminate some of the guesswork. Anyone use that device? I know this is a little extreme, but the project I'm working on is very important to me, and I feel I don't have enough experience or confidence in calibating my TV using simple DVD test patterns to know if I did it correctly... and the adjustments I'm making to the image are really finetuning, which is in vain if my white or black levels are off.

[Glenn Chan]

When contrast is set too high, the electron beam will lose focus and/or the geometry of your image may distort.

It's easier to see if you take a small piece of paper and stick it on the monitor until you see a little sliver of light.

2- In some consumer TVs, the geometry will always change as you adjust the "contrast" (white level) setting... so it's kind of hard to tell what a decent calibration is.

3- Check that the white bar appears white to you and not grey. If it's grey, you should increase the contrast on your TV since whites should appear white. (This is a necessary compromise.)

4- Some consumer TVs can't be calibrated for hue and chroma ("saturation/color").

Your best bet for a fairly accurate image would be to get a broadcast CRT monitor ($600 up). I wouldn't bother with calibration DVDs or the SpyderTV. I wouldn't waste money trying to fix a consumer TV, because some of them have inherent problems that can't be calibrated away.

[Bill Ravens]

I find it rather frustrating that no matter how well I calibrate my own equipment, my customer(potential customer) always has a DVD/TV that is out of cal, so the comments about the images being "too bright" or "too dark" are all too common. When I suggest that their system is out of cal, I get suspicious glances of distrust. So, I've given up on being anal about calibrating my TV monitor. To add insult to injury, there seems to be no industry standard with DVD player manufacturers. Some add pedestal, some don't. And none of them give the user a switch to select pedestal or not. Hell, they don't even tell you in the product literature what you're dealing with.

[Jay Cowley]

I edited a music video on my computer screen with a Viewsonic LCD screen. I desaturated a lot of the colour, to give the video a certain look, and was happy with how it looked on my computer screen

Then i saved the file, and sent in back to my HDV Tape, to watch on my TV, the TV made it look all colourful again, and took away some of the desaturation I had applied when editing on my computer.

Is it my computer monitor thats too dull, or is it my TV thats making the image look too colourful. I also find this when watching ATSC HDTV on my computers tuner, when watching a show like Lost on my computer, the colours are more dulled looking, whereas when I watch on my TV, the colours are extremely bright and feel enhanced. I'm not sure whether a show like Lost is edited to look very bright and vibrant, or if it is made to look more natural and a bit less contrasted.

[Glenn Chan]

Some consumer TVs intentionally mess around with the image. It may have different modes... e.g. "vibrant" or "vivid".

LCDs also inherently have a s-shaped curve to their transfer function, so it will add a little contrast and saturation to your colors if it isn't calibrated off.

2- What you see on your computer screen (in your NLE) may be inaccurate in different ways.

[Dave Blackhurst]

Jay -
One of the challenges in editing is calibrating everything... is your computer monitor adjusted for color and gamma, as well as ambient light? I've got a color adjustment on my Nvida video cards which I really like (it seems to balance the minor inconsistencies between two "identical" monitors - yes two of the same model are slightly "off"...), plus a Pantone Huey which adjusts (hopefully) more accurately and for room light...

I've used the THX adjustments that come on some DVD's to adjust my TV's as close as possible to their "ideal" settings - there are still subtle differences...

However, overall I feel like I'm "closer" to a "correct" image - I still have to brighten up anything from my computer screen just a touch to keep it from appearing too dark on the DVD/TV... or for that matter my printer...

EVERY device has a sort of color curve "built in" by whoever designed it - cameras, monitors, TV's, printers, etc... partly so that when you go buy a device you go "wow, don't the colors pop/look pretty..."

This doesn't mean that the colors are accurate, just the engineers and marketers thought they LOOKED good and they probably tested them to see what sold better... more saturated looks better than "flat". AND as you also note, TV shows and movies are color graded to achieve specific "looks" - thereby achieving an atmosphere or distinctive "feel" to a show or production... "movie look" can mean a lot of things in this context - WHICH movie was that...?

The most you can hope for is to calibrate your systems as best as possible within your budget, and then adjust as you work to get your desired final result... render short portions of your project and test before you go rendering BIG projects...

HTH

[Paul V Doherty]

In general, the more expensive and pro-grade a piece of equipment is, the less faux "bells and whistles" is has!

Translation: the more expensive, the more nuetral the image