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

[dcchan2]

You can still do what’s been suggested:

• set the projector’s vertical mask to the minimum width,
• play a 2.35:1 movie
• increase the Brightness so that the top/bottom black bars become clearly visible,
• gradually decrease the Brightness until the unmasked part of the black bar is indistinguishable from the masked area.

[Philnick]

I don't use masking, since my letterbox or pillarbox bars are nearly invisible, and I like variable aspect ratio films.

Instead, what I did today was use the Spears & Munsil UHD calibration disk's Brightness calibration pattern, which has a dark grey checkerboard pattern around the edges and in the center has a black field with four grey bars of different density, getting brighter from left to right, to adjust the brightness control so that the right-hand bar is clearly visible, the next one over is barely visible, and the other two are invisible.

I did that with the disk's SDR section to adjust the brightness for both Cinema and Natural and with its HDR10 section for HDR10 and Frame Adapt. I found that for both SDR settings, -7 worked for me, while for HDR no real tweak was needed.

I also tried toggling the Hide button and found that the central black area did not change in appearance when I did that.

I experimented in SDR with the disk's Contrast adjustment pattern but couldn't make heads or tails of it, so I left it at 0. (Spears & Munsil caution against adjusting anything but Brightness for HDR.)

No change was needed to the iris in either mode, so when I get my EFI ES-2000 tomorrow, I'll bring my laptop down to the theater and run Autocal.

I do have a pair of questions:

1) What's the essential difference between the Natural and Cinema settings in SDR, and
2) With respect to the Dynamic Iris, what's the difference between Auto 1 and Auto 2?

I realize those questions are beyond the scope of this thread, but there must be a common opinion about those. (Maybe I should ask at AVSforum instead - but I notice that a lot of the same folks participate in this thread and that one.)

[Philnick]

Much more on point:

I could have adjusted the black image for SDR not with the brightness control but with the manual iris.

Would that have made a meaningful difference other than requiring a separate color autocal for SDR?

Why shouldn't a different brightness control setting lead to the same need for a separate color Autocal as a different iris setting?

For that matter, when using the Dynamic Iris, how wide a range of Iris values is used by the DI? I'm getting the impression from my readings in this thread that the DI covers a range about four values wide. Should the color Autocal be run set to the widest manual iris setting in the range or one of the middle values of the range?

Hope I'm not opening up too big a can of worms with this post!

[drem]

I purchssed the spyderX and using the latest version of the Autocal software. First I ran in Natural picture mode, for SDR and am very happy with the results. Then I ran for HDR picture mode. Using HDR profile, HDR color space and PQ gamma, but I think the result is a little bit too over-saturated colors. Am I doing something wrong here with HDR calibration? I dont want to use any filters since I want all the brightness I can get. 

[dcchan2]

I don't use masking, since my letterbox or pillarbox bars are nearly invisible, and I like variable aspect ratio films.

The objective of the steps I described is to help set the black level (Brightness).  It has nothing to do with whether you watch movies with masking.

I did that with the disk's SDR section to adjust the brightness for both Cinema and Natural and with its HDR10 section for HDR10 and Frame Adapt. I found that for both SDR settings, -7 worked for me, while for HDR no real tweak was needed.

That to me seems rather unusual.

I also tried toggling the Hide button and found that the central black area did not change in appearance when I did that.

That was the reason for using the "mask test" as an alternative, as no toggling is involved.

[dcchan2]

Much more on point:

I could have adjusted the black image for SDR not with the brightness control but with the manual iris.

The main purpose of the manual iris is to reduce the white level (50 nits for SDR), with the side-benefit of improving the contrast ratio.  It definitely should not be used to set Brightness.

Hope I'm not opening up too big a can of worms with this post!

[Philnick]

. . .
That to me seems rather unusual.
. . .

Unusual that so large an adjustment was needed for SDR or that SDR and HDR were so different in this respect?

[Philnick]

The main purpose of the manual iris is to reduce the white level (50 nits for SDR), with the side-benefit of improving the contrast ratio.  It definitely should not be used to set Brightness.

Got it. Thanks!

[Philnick]

You can still do what’s been suggested:

• set the projector’s vertical mask to the minimum width,
• play a 2.35:1 movie
• increase the Brightness so that the top/bottom black bars become clearly visible,
• gradually decrease the Brightness until the unmasked part of the black bar is indistinguishable from the masked area.

Just realized that you're talking about the internal masking control in the projector, not physical masks on the screen. I'll try this.

[David Vaughn]

I purchssed the spyderX and using the latest version of the Autocal software. First I ran in Natural picture mode, for SDR and am very happy with the results. Then I ran for HDR picture mode. Using HDR profile, HDR color space and PQ gamma, but I think the result is a little bit too over-saturated colors. Am I doing something wrong here with HDR calibration? I dont want to use any filters since I want all the brightness I can get.

You used the SpyderX for color? 

[drem]

You used the SpyderX for color?

Yes, and I know it says here dont use this for color calibration. But after seeing a SpyderX calibration on a RS2000 on Youtube, which showed pretty good results even for color, I wanted to give it a try. Of course I know this is not a "real" calibration but close and good enough, for me at least. And like I mentioned the SDR rec709 calibration turned out great. The colors fell into place and it looks real nice compared to factory calibration. Colors look dialed in, for HDR, but just a little bit too saturated for my liking. 

[David Vaughn]

Yes, and I know it says here dont use this for color calibration. But after seeing a SpyderX calibration on a RS2000 on Youtube, which showed pretty good results even for color, I wanted to give it a try. Of course I know this is not a "real" calibration but close and good enough, for me at least. And like I mentioned the SDR rec709 calibration turned out great. The colors fell into place and it looks real nice compared to factory calibration. Colors look dialed in, for HDR, but just a little bit too saturated for my liking.

The issue is that the tolerances for the SpyderX's are all over the place. So in the YouTube video, that guy could have had a "golden sample," versus one that's off by a mile. Regardless, if you're happy with the results, that's all that matters. 

[Philnick]

My used EFI ES-2000 (a/k/a X-Rite i1Pro Rev E, or i1Pro 2) arrived today, so I took my laptop down to my basement theater and settled in for the afternoon and evening.

First, I readjusted the brightness control for SDR and HDR using the method suggested by dcchan2 of putting on a scope film and turning on the projector's masking.

This let me adjust the brightness to where the letterbox bars became indistinguishable from the projector's masking.

I ended up setting the brightness for all modes back to 0 instead of the -7 I had arrived at with the Spears & Munsil Brightess calibration image.

Then I connected my laptop to my RS1000 via my LAN, plugging them both by ethernet into the same switch, using DHCP to assign an address to the RS1000, and copying that address into Autocal's settings page along with the projector's serial number. I also entered in the distance between the projector and the screen and the diagonal measurement of the screen, though those two measurements apparently aren't really necessary in a bat cave.

The Spyder X was recognized immediately without my consciously installing a driver for it. Trying to run a gamma calibration with it kept failing with the message that it had gotten unplugged, until I closed all my other programs and popped up the Windows 10 Task Manager to kill some background processes.

Then the gamma Autocal with the Spyder X ran without incident, including creating the init file. I had created an Autocal Calibrations folder on my desktop for Autocal to write into.  When I was done with both calibrations I copied that whole folder into my dropbox for safekeeping.

Switched over to the EFI ES-2000 and was perplexed at first that it wasn't seen by Autocal, until I remembered about it needing a driver. Since I had read here that the i1Diagnostics program installs one, I ran that program, which I'd downloaded from X-Rite's website a few days ago. That installed the driver and lit up the probe's white "parenthesis" lights.

But Autocal still didn't see it - even sitting on its calibration tile - until I pressed the recessed button on the probe's left side.

Then I could run the color autocal, and the resulting white balance was very good, about 6450. The 2.2 gamma had a slight upward deviation in the middle, but I took it.

Due to all the tech problems, I ended up not using remote control because the lid of the laptop seemed to adequately block its screen's light from the probe. I'll use remote control next time - maybe that will flatten out the gamma curve. The color triangle, by the way, got larger and much closer to the ideal triangle than it was before calibration. Then I set the RS1000 back to Frame-by-Frame on High, with DI Auto 2 on that as well as for SDR.

Subjectively, I was impressed by the improved color rendition of the nature shots in the demo clips section of the Spears & Munsil UHD calibration disk. The improvement was subtle but real - the first thing I noticed was warm light browns on the horses in the snow. The flowers and lizards looked great, and the peacock feather looked great as well. Everything just looked real.

I have to say that the opening sequence on Nabiru in Star Trek Into Darkness is one of the most gobsmackingly beautiful UHD disks I own. Then I used its included standard Blu-ray to check out my SDR image after calibration and ended up switching from my usual Cinema to Natural from now on because that seemed more faithful to the UHD rendition.

I ended up using 2.2 gamma for SDR after flirting with 2.4, which seemed too compressed (as did Cinema for the color rendition). I'm using Auto 2 for the DI.

BTW - Into Darkness has one quirk that I don't get. It's the only UHD disk I have that comes up with dark and missing colors on the opening menu screen until I uplug and reinsert the HDMI cable from the back of my Oppo. This happens every time I play it! Maybe it looks so great because it runs at a higher bit rate than other films. All my HDMI cables are six foot "Certified" cables. Maybe I'll try polishing the outside of the HDMI plug and spraying contact cleaner into the jack and the end of the cable.

As far as cables go, I was able to make both probes work using a six-foot USB extension cord. (I used a USB 3.0 jack on the laptop, since those provide more current to devices than 2.0 jacks.)

I do want to thank everyone here for all the help!

[dcchan2]

The 2.2 gamma had a slight upward deviation in the middle, but I took it.

If it looks like this, it simply means the gamma droop has been “cured”.  The blue line represents the “Before” value. 

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

The color triangle, by the way, got larger and much closer to the ideal triangle than it was before calibration.

How were you able to determine the “before” value?

[Philnick]

If it looks like this, it simply means the gamma droop has been “cured”.  The blue line represents the “Before” value.

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

How were you able to determine the “before” value?

That is what the gamma looked like after calibration. Thanks for letting me know that it's correct, not thrown off by light from the laptop.

I guess I won't have to bother with remote control for Autocal.

The smaller "color gamut" triangle I saw before calibration was after the Log Only run with the Spyder X.  Since that probe isn't reliable for color, I suppose that doesn't prove anything. Short of reloading the Init file and doing a Log Only pass with the EFI i1Pro 2, I suppose I'll never know.

I will say that before calibration, the Spears & Munsil close-up of a single peacock feather in the demo section looked rather dull and clinical, but after calibration its colors were much more vibrant.