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

[Manni]

 He did use the SpyderX, but I would think that if it worked for him, it should work fine for me with the Spyder5.

The spyder X has to be used facing the screen, so not the same as the Spyder 5 that has to be used facing the lens with the Autocal software.

Yes the Autocal only measures light when placing the meter into the box, so the same should apply lens or no lens: withing the box, preferably towards the right edge.

If you're already at the right edge of the box and still have issues, try backing off even further. Some people have reported better results when the meter was at the centre of the aiming box.

[DLCPhoto]

As the autocal application does not actually measure the distance between the lens and the spyder, I think that the shown placement of the spyder relative to the yellow rectangle is only in relation with the amount of light that is sensed, thus DCR lens or none will not change the fact that the lens should be as near as possible to the right boundary of the rectangle but still inside it.
The last time I tried with a spyder 5 to make it easier to spot the sensor's reflection I used a piece of black paper with a hole stuck in front of the PJ and centered over the lens so that I could see the shadow of the spyder on the screen in the middle of the paper's hole shadow, then moving the sensor's reflection just to the rim of the paper's hole.

Clever - good option!

[LeFric]

Does it happen to anyone that the i1Pro2, in AutoCAL 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12, does NOT move ANYTHING to north, south, east, west, forward or backward?

[Manni]

Does it happen to anyone that the i1Pro2, in AutoCAL 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12, does NOT move ANYTHING to north, south, east, west, forward or backward?

The ipro2 should be facing the screen, as close to the screen as you can get it so that it doesn’t read its own shadow (around 1-2 feet max). Use a small pattern (I use 1%) in another software if you can to position it so that it reads the centre of the screen. The aiming box in the autocal doesn’t work for the i1pro2, as explained in the basic section (positioning), which you might want to read.

[jj-34]

Manni, I have the Darrell Bird's article about sensor's viewing angle where he says that the I1 Pro has a VA of 8° and a 3.4" viewing circle diameter at a distance of 2 feet ( 1.7" at 1').
Does the I1 Pro2 have the same values ?

Does that fit with your experiments ?

[LeFric]

The aiming box in the autocal doesn’t work for the i1pro2, as explained in the basic section (positioning), which you might want to read.

OK!, that is what I wanted to read.
 Thank you.

[Manni]

Manni, I have the Darrell Bird's article about sensor's viewing angle where he says that the I1 Pro has a VA of 8° and a 3.4" viewing circle diameter at a distance of 2 feet ( 1.7" at 1').
Does the I1 Pro2 have the same values ?

Does that fit with your experiments ?

AFAIK the FOV of the i1pro and the i1pro2 is the same.

[estabanj]

I wanted to provide some feedback from my efforts and the great advice I have received.

Using Autocal for SDR using Spyder5Pro and i1pro2 I was able to get a very good calibration with only minor tweaks to the 2 point White Balance (Red and Blue not Green) and the coarse 3 point gamma (Picture Tone, Dark & Bright Level). So much so that when I sent my Chromapure results to Tom Huffman who had been helping me with his software, about how much more tweaking I should do...his response was "This looks darn near perfect."

One thing that was holding me back was my profiling of my id3 to my i1Pro2, I had a technical issue with my source plus I didn't use full field for profiling. Once I resolved that issue which held me back for weeks, the autocal required only minor tweaking to be "darn near perfect." Hopefully others can avoid my mistake and take the time to do a really good profile before tweaking.

Also I did all of this with my DCR in place so I don't think there is any need to remove it for autocal.

Now on to HDR....

[DLCPhoto]

NX7 Autocal, Version 11, 1.2, Spyder5, with DCR Lens in place, Anamorphic Mode C chosen, filling my 160" diagonal 2.35:1 screen:

Update to my prior posts, where I was getting poor Autocal results (gamma only), which Manni and others indicated was most likely due to the Spyder5 being too close to the Projector.  I had the virtual sensor in the right place in the software, but I think my tilt was off such that this created the problems.

I got out my taller tripod, was able to get much more stable positioning, and following Dominic's suggestion, I could tilt the tripod while watching the screen, to find where the sensor moved farthest to the right in the software, which should indicate it being properly lined up (with the DCR Lens in place, I could see absolutely no evidence of the reflection from the Spyder5, so had to rely on this).  I then moved the whole apparatus back and forth until the virtual sensor was just inside the right edge of the box (as shown in the screen capture).

Throw Distance to my screen is 18' 2".  Distance from the front of the DCR lens to the Spyder5 was 6' 8".  This is definitely further back than I had it the first time around.

The shadow of the Spyder5 was dead center in the screen, horizontally and vertically, with its symmetric shadow confirming no rotation of the Spyder5, in addition to direct observation of its positioning.

Screen Adjust was turned off, as were all motion and similar settings.
The screen capture below shows Natural Picture Mode, BT-709 Color Profile, 6500K, Gamma 2.2, Aperture at 0, Manual.

I changed the Screen size in the Settings from my prior error of 129", to the proper 169", the effective diagonal for the NX7 casting an image 147" wide.  Probably not relevant, but no harm in using the right figure here.

As the screen capture below indicate, the results are much better than they were, but still not right.  Log only was done initially, and was pretty close to true Gamma 2.2  I then did the actual 33-point Gamma Autocal, with identical looking results: it's as if the Autocal was not able to make an adjustment to get the Gamma a perfect 2.2. The while line is almost 100% superimposed on the blue line (which can be seen when zooming in on the image).

I had done this many times with my prior RS400, with the eventual results being a perfect 2.2

Any suggestions on why I can't get this now?  Should this be done with Anamorphic D, which results in a central 16:9 image in the center of the screen (at reduced brightness relative to the Anamorphic C mode)?  Something else not being quite right?

I ran this a couple of times (not saving anything until I'm satisfied) and the Projector had been on for over 30 minutes before attempting any Autocal.

[dcchan2]

Any suggestions on why I can't get this now?  Should this be done with Anamorphic D, which results in a central 16:9 image in the center of the screen (at reduced brightness relative to the Anamorphic C mode)?  Something else not being quite right?

Does the Color Temp screen look normal? Have you tried placing the meter even farther from the projector?

[DLCPhoto]

Does the Color Temp screen look normal? Have you tried placing the meter even farther from the projector?

Thanks Dominic.  I just finished watching a movie, so the projector has been on for a while.

I moved the sensor back, and the screen capture below shows the virtual sensor in the Autocal software.

I've also attached the 3 post-calibration screens (which again, I have not saved to Projector).

What do you make of this?  I can continue to move it back, and perhaps things will improve, but this goes against the usual recommendations for having the virtual spyder just inside the box, all the way to the right.

While I wait for replies, I think I'll switch to Anamorphic D, for 16:9, and see what I get.

[DLCPhoto]

I switched to Anamorphic Mode D, showing content at 16:9 on the screen.  But when it went into Autocal, the full screen was illuminated, suggesting that this Mode was being ignored.

I've attached the result, and not surprisingly, it was no different.

I'm puzzled.  There was somebody here, or the other forum, I forget, who indicated they did a successful Autocal with the DCR Lens in place (although he didn't post the actual results).

I'm open to any ideas on how to get full Gamma calibration.  Perhaps there's some tiny detail or setting I'm overlooking, but for the life of me, I can't find it.

[DLCPhoto]

I figured it out.

I forgot that I had played around with the Natural Profile a couple of months ago, for 3D content, and had made adjustments to the Gamma sub-settings: Picture Tone was up +7 and Bright Level was up +3.  I use a User Profile named SDR for my regular Blu-ray watching, and had forgotten about this.

It is probably included in the instructions, to make sure these Gamma sub-settings were set to Zero, even when Gamma 2.2 is selected, and I overlooked it.

I re-ran Autocal, and it was now perfect.  I saved it, the INIT file is now in my Dropbox account, and all is good with the world.

I'll now run with the Filter in place, and High Lamp, which is what I use for HDR.

ETA: And looking at the before and after for Gamma, the Blue line is only very slightly visible, so after 150 or so hours, I've not experienced any significant Gamma droop (at least in Low Lamp).

The devil is in the details!!  Sorry for the grief here, but hopefully this will help somebody else avoid this mistake.

[DLCPhoto]

And here are the results with the Natural Picture Mode, BT2020 Color Profile, High Lamp.

Not knowing the accuracy of my Spyder5 for Color, I have done Gamma only at this point.  Is there any useful information that can be gleaned from the Color and Color Temp Graphics?

[dcchan2]

I figured it out.

I forgot that I had played around with the Natural Profile a couple of months ago, for 3D content, and had made adjustments to the Gamma sub-settings: Picture Tone was up +7 and Bright Level was up +3.  I use a User Profile named SDR for my regular Blu-ray watching, and had forgotten about this.

Glad to hear you solved the mystery. One lesson I learned from my own mistakes was never to modify any standard settings.  If changes are needed to the gamma or colour temperatures, I only make them under custom settings.

However, I’m still not sure why the first (January 19) results were so different from second set.

As for gamma droop, my NX7 also showed a relatively straight line at 400 hours in the Autocal gamma plot, but the blue colour had severe droop, which is visible only in the Color Temp plot (or if you manually measure the RGB response).  Unfortunately that plot only shows the After results, so one would not see it when running gamma auto-cal.