JVC Autocal Software V12 calibration for 2019 RS1000/RS2000/RS3000/NX5/NX7/NX9

[Manni]

Me too received a Spyder X yesterday  (the same discount in Amazon IT I think) about I have had the same impressions as yours. I tried it with Calman but doesen't work.

Hi Ent,

Did you by any chance try to see if Calman 2019 R2 supports the Spyder X? I don't think it does, but I haven't had the time to test yet.

[ENT]

Hi Ent,

Did you by any chance try to see if Calman 2019 R2 supports the Spyder X? I don't think it does, but I haven't had the time to test yet.

Hi Manni, you thought right, I tried but it doesn't work with Calman 2019 R2.

This means that who don't have an alternative at Spyder X colorimeter  for use with Calman must to buy it.

[Manni]

Thanks for your confirmation!

[dlinsley]

I finally had enough hours (~120) on my RS3000's bulb to do a calibration. The attached was measured at my SDR settings on -7 low lamp (DI on manual for measurement). Has anyone else measured such a droop after so short a time? OOB measurements I've seen earlier were very good.

Also, the contrast seemed very low though taken off the screen (with a Discus trained to an i1Pro2 which in the past measured 65k off the screen with my RS600). I repeated the measurements at the lens with a Sper NIST certified (new earlier this year) meter, and it confirmed. With Hide I can get 47k:1, but the brightness control takes it no lower than 4k:1. This was with a 0IRE pattern from a Lumagen and duplicated with a test disk.

Will autocal help me correct the lack of contrast? I checked the dark level etc in the gamma settings, but everything is default. I'm going to try a factory reset of setting, and then an autocal if it's still the same - I can only think the internal calibration has 16 set incorrectly and hide bypasses it, since the brightness control cannot crush so that black is as black as hide. Fade to black in Auto2 is super dark though, so the DI works fine (and is why I've not really questioned it till now).

[Manni]

This is highly unusual.

First, the brightness control should allow you to get the blackest black. On these units, it needs to be set to -2 or -3 most of the time, but there is unit to unit variation.

If you can get a blacker level with hide, something is wrong. Are you sure that your levels are set correctly? Try to force HDMI to standard or enhanced, or set it to AUTO and see if it makes a difference.

If the PJ is set to the correct levels for the source with the correct brightness setting, what you describe shouldn't happen.

Second, the JVC Autocal should be able to correct almost any gamma droop, but gamma doesn't (or shouldn't) affect contrast, as gamma only adjusts between black and white. It doesn't touch black or white, so shouldn't really have much of an impact on contrast.

Brightness will control black and contrast white.

If you use offsets wrongly (for example, by adding instead of substracting values), you can raise your black levels.

If you set gains wrongly you can also lower your contrast.

But a gamma autocal, while it will restore picture depth especially in the high end, because that's where the droop happens (levels at 70-95 are too high, gamma is too low, and the picture lacks depth), it should not change on/off contrast.

So my advice is:

1) Switch the DI off. It's irrelevant for now.
2) Check your levels with a  black levels pattern. 16 and below should be black (not grey). 17 just above black, unless that raise the black levels at 16, in which case crush it. My recommendation is to set the source to standard (GPU full and madVR 16-235 if you use madVR) and the PJ to standard, but ideally test with a non HTPC source because levels can be wrong on a HTPC depending on the OS and GPU driver, so let's rule this out for now.
3) Adjust brightness so that using hide doesn't make any difference. For most, with the correct levels, it has to be set to -2 or -3.
4) You should get a native on off at the same level as what you measure with "hide", 47,000:1 native with the iris on -7 sounds a bit high but if you are at long throw, much closer to what it should be than 4000:1, which cannot be correct.
5) Once you get a basic working baseline, run a gamma autocal to get rid of the gamma droop. You should get a picture with more depth, but it shouldn't improve your on/off significantly.

Please let us know once you've checked your levels and set brightness correctly if you still have this issue.

You might have to use a difference source, reset the PJ settings to factory default or take the Radiance out until you get a proper baseline, then once you've identified the culprit, work out the reason.

There is no point in running an autocal if you have 4,000:1 native contrast with your current settings. That won't change with an autocal, so there is an incorrect setting somewhere.

[dlinsley]

Thanks Manni. I hope to get some time over the next few days to try and rectify this.

BTW the 47k:1 is up against the limit of the Sper meter. Without hide it reads 0.13 lux and with hide 0.01 but that is its minimum reading, so could really be 0.015 (presuming it would round up to 0.02 otherwise) and so 31k:1 which seems more probable.

[Manni]

Thanks Manni. I hope to get some time over the next few days to try and rectify this.

BTW the 47k:1 is up against the limit of the Sper meter. Without hide it reads 0.13 lux and with hide 0.01 but that is its minimum reading, so could really be 0.015 (presuming it would round up to 0.02 otherwise) and so 31k:1 which seems more probable.

You need to bring the light meter closer to the lens if you're that close to its limit when reading black. As long as you don't get closer to its upper limit, it doesn't matter where you stand. Try 3-4 feet from the lens if you're still within its upper limit.
The Discus should be able to read that on/off off the screen if you read it right after its initialization.
Black should read the same with and without hide if levels and brightness are set correctly.
Keep us posted!

[riddle]

Hi, does some one tested thats new FW for JVC? What i saw and readed how will works there calibration? On all photos what i saw there is only option for "color temperatures" where you can set somethink... so calibration will works only by JVC Autocal? This is little confuced for me...

Thank you

[Dylan Seeger]

Thanks Manni. I hope to get some time over the next few days to try and rectify this.

BTW the 47k:1 is up against the limit of the Sper meter. Without hide it reads 0.13 lux and with hide 0.01 but that is its minimum reading, so could really be 0.015 (presuming it would round up to 0.02 otherwise) and so 31k:1 which seems more probable.

As Manni states, you should be measuring from the projector's lens, as close as you can get it without maxing out the meter for your peak white lux reading. Most of these meters are more accurate in the upper registers of their measuring capability. So keeping the black level reading as high as you can get it in lux on the meter should mean you're getting the most accurate reading your meter allows. This should be within a foot or so in front of the projector.

[dlinsley]

My light meter was about 6" from the lens. I guess it is just not sensitive enough at the low end.

I can't believe I didn't check this, but I had a positive offset in the RGB controls. Redoing the D65 setting results in 34k:1 as read off the screen by the Discus

Autocal corrected the droop (though a strange result at 95%), but the gamma is much higher than the 2.4 expected. I'm verifying with Discus and Calman 2018 (last version of Enthusiast before they killed it), and have Calman set for power 2.4, and autocal correctly read my Picture Mode as using the 2.4 setting. The graph after autocal was only a tad off the 2.4 line. I can try later with 2.2 to see if it corrects it, but I thought JVC really used 2.2 and then calculated the other powers from it.

Note on the 95IRE reading, Calman's peak white workflow where it reads 90 through 100 shows no clipping, so contrast is set correctly. Average DE is great, was just expecting autocal'ed gamma to be almost perfect.

[Manni]

Yes, as I said positive offsets for RGB balance is a classic mistake and the best way to raise your black floor and kill your contrast. Glad we've solved the contrast issue.
Re your post-cal graphs, this doesn't look like what you should get after a proper autocal. You should have a flat gamma at the requested target, not such a wonky curve.
Make sure you follow the instructions in the basic section, that the Spyder is positioned properly when doing the gamma autocal, and that you train the Discus to a reference meter before measuring gamma post-cal.
Also take screenshots of the logs taken after the autocal by the autocal itself, to see how it sees the calibration.

[Sittler27]

I'm doing an autocal on my NX9 running v2.07 with JVC autocal v1.10 and I wanted to ensure the same specifics for the autocal apply as did for my old x970R on the other JVC autocal software:

a. gamma only calibration (using Spyder5Pro) in Custom1 with Rec.709 (non-filter) in low lamp with iris wide open to allow max. light - or, should I be using the Natural mode?
b. Brightness & Contrast @ 0
c. once gamma calibrated, all gamma curves used on modes that use low lamp are considered calibrated (including HDR(PQ)); any modes using high lamp would require a separate gamma calibration done while on high lamp
d. after initial calibration, take backup.ini file and save it somewhere safe to be able to restore to factory settings later if required


Did I miss anything? Anything to add?

(I can't remember if one gamma calibration calibrates every single gamma curve (SDR & HDR; low & high lamp; filter and non-filter) or if that was only for color calibrations)

Finally, a question:
1. I've decided I'm not going to do a colour calibration using the jvc autocal+Spyder5Pro. So I'll use my i1DPro off screen

[grendelrt]

Yes, as I said positive offsets for RGB balance is a classic mistake and the best way to raise your black floor and kill your contrast. Glad we've solved the contrast issue.
Re your post-cal graphs, this doesn't look like what you should get after a proper autocal. You should have a flat gamma at the requested target, not such a wonky curve.
Make sure you follow the instructions in the basic section, that the Spyder is positioned properly when doing the gamma autocal, and that you train the Discus to a reference meter before measuring gamma post-cal.
Also take screenshots of the logs taken after the autocal by the autocal itself, to see how it sees the calibration.

Hi Manni, can I ask for a little more info on this, I saw Tim said something similar and not at the same time haha. He says to raise values instead of reduce but then says raising may cause black lift (which coincides with your view). 

When adjusting RGB Low values the rule of thumb is to only raise the necessary RGB values to attain Grey Scale Balance, and not reduce values. This is to prevent 0% blacks crushing. As with the RGB High rules of thumb, this is not always the best approach as lifting values may cause black to lift too much.

Is this mainly concerning a 2 point adjustment (not a 12pt?) and what is the correct route to take, always error on dropping offset values when adjusting the low end?

[Manni]

I'm doing an autocal on my NX9 running v2.07 with JVC autocal v1.10 and I wanted to ensure the same specifics for the autocal apply as did for my old x970R on the other JVC autocal software:

a. gamma only calibration (using Spyder5Pro) in Custom1 with Rec.709 (non-filter) in low lamp with iris wide open to allow max. light - or, should I be using the Natural mode?
b. Brightness & Contrast @ 0
c. once gamma calibrated, all gamma curves used on modes that use low lamp are considered calibrated (including HDR(PQ)); any modes using high lamp would require a separate gamma calibration done while on high lamp
d. after initial calibration, take backup.ini file and save it somewhere safe to be able to restore to factory settings later if required


Did I miss anything? Anything to add?

(I can't remember if one gamma calibration calibrates every single gamma curve (SDR & HDR; low & high lamp; filter and non-filter) or if that was only for color calibrations)

Finally, a question:
1. I've decided I'm not going to do a colour calibration using the jvc autocal+Spyder5Pro. So I'll use my i1DPro off screen

Please read the basic section (see post #1), it should answer most of your questions.
Once you have, please post again if you still have anything that's unclear.

[SirMaster]

Hi Manni, can I ask for a little more info on this, I saw Tim said something similar and not at the same time haha. He says to raise values instead of reduce but then says raising may cause black lift (which coincides with your view).

When adjusting RGB Low values the rule of thumb is to only raise the necessary RGB values to attain Grey Scale Balance, and not reduce values. This is to prevent 0% blacks crushing. As with the RGB High rules of thumb, this is not always the best approach as lifting values may cause black to lift too much.

Is this mainly concerning a 2 point adjustment (not a 12pt?) and what is the correct route to take, always error on dropping offset values when adjusting the low end?

12-point is going to be a gamma adjustment as far as I know which is different.  And a gamma adjustment shouldn't be able to affect black.

Usually the first point on 12-point is 5%.

With offset/bias control it seems to affect a gigantic dark range including for some reason black at 0%.

The other control in the 2-point is the gain which can affect 100% white (but also the 12-point gamma can't affect white and the 12th point is usually 95%).

So it seems by my experience that gain/offset(bias) or "2-point" is fundamentally different than the multi-points which have always seemed to be essentially RGB gamma adjustment controls.