Anyone bother with monitor calibrators these days?

arknor

arknor

arknor

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I was doing a bit of research seems the spyder ones are crap
most the brands entry level models would be useless for HDR/OLED monitors and the best make is Calibrite

So the entry level model ends up being

Calibrite Display SL £160​

Standard luminance and upto 1000nits

or

Calibrite Display PRO HL £190​

High luminance and upto 3000 nits

Anyone still bother to calibrate there monitors these days or just grab a colour profile from like R-tings and be done with it?

Seems expensive for something that might not make a massive difference anyway and would only get used a few times a year :S


surprised people don't buy them and offer to set up peoples monitor colour profiles for like £25 or something.
would be easy money surely?
 
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I tend to find that if the monitor can't produce a good range of colours then it's not really worth attempting to calibrate it, and if it can generate a good range then it's usually been factory calibrated. Both of my current monitors and my main TV have been factory calibrated.
Course, they drift out over time, but I'm not really concerned about that. The main problem I have is when I have two monitors side by side and they look completely different. Then I usually manually adjust them to look the same, lol.
I do have a Calibrite but I rarely use it. It's a bit old so the sensor is probably inaccurate now, but they are handy to have.
 
How easy are they to use? I'd want it to be a press one button and that's it, not spend hours on each test screen then manually changing levels.

Plus monitor has it's own settings so how does it corrrect for that, pity they can't control the monitor over USB or something so the calibration software adjusts monitor contrast etc itself
 
hornetstinger said:
How easy are they to use? I'd want it to be a press one button and that's it, not spend hours on each test screen then manually changing levels.

Plus monitor has it's own settings so how does it corrrect for that, pity they can't control the monitor over USB or something so the calibration software adjusts monitor contrast etc itself
Click to expand...

They don't calibrate the monitor as such, they produce a ColourProfile that Windows uses. I am not sure about how it works, but I think Windows loads the profile in the graphics card. Whatever, nothing is changed in the monitor itself.
To calibrate a monitor you just attach the sensor to the screen, make sure the monitor is warmed up (has been on for 30 mins or more), darken the room as much as is possible, and press the go button! Then go make yourself a coffee while it does it's stuff. After a few mins it completes and sets the new profile as your Windows default.
 
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SpellowHouse said:
They don't calibrate the monitor as such, they produce a ColourProfile that Windows uses. I am not sure about how it works, but I think Windows loads the profile in the graphics card. Whatever, nothing is changed in the monitor itself.
To calibrate a monitor you just attach the sensor to the screen, make sure the monitor is warmed up (has been on for 30 mins or more), darken the room as much as is possible, and press the go button! Then go make yourself a coffee while it does it's stuff. After a few mins it completes and sets the new profile as your Windows default.
Click to expand...

I'm aware of the basics, but shirly it would make sense the monitor contrast, brightness, sharpness, etc levels are set by the hardware box- ie hdmi out from this box, and software, so the monitor is set correctly without any devices- because each one of those will be different, ie BD, DVD, Kodi box, PC etc.

(and of course it also does a ICC profile. Then it saves ICC profile for that computer.

Because monitor (or TV) settings could be be out.

That way the monitor is "calibrated" without any bias of any other connected device, ie the monitors settings are optimal before it goes through the videocard calibration.

And the software says something like "adjust contrast on monitor to minimum, then maximum" etc so the sensor can deem what is the minimum and maximuim levels before clipping, also suitable for the ambient light in the room (you wouldn't want HDR oled 100% levels if you watch in total blacked out room, minus bias light)
 
hornetstinger said:
How easy are they to use? I'd want it to be a press one button and that's it, not spend hours on each test screen then manually changing levels.

Plus monitor has it's own settings so how does it corrrect for that, pity they can't control the monitor over USB or something so the calibration software adjusts monitor contrast etc itself
Click to expand...
Calibrate do a 123 one that's supposed to be easy but its basic and doesn't support HDR/oled etc


They make a colour profile you use in windows, as said some review sites like Rtings use a calibrator during reviews and on the review you can usually find the profile they mad (you also need to use the same brightness and contrast setting they say in the review, it made a huge difference on my monitor and looks way better than how I adjusted it., but no 2 monitors are the same so that profile won't be optimal for my monitor, also lighting conditions matter etc
which is why calibration tools exist, unless your doing work that needs accurate colours etc then I guess it doesn't matter.


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pity they can't control the monitor over USB or something
Click to expand...
Maybe they can? like I have dell software for my monitor that can change the settings within windows instead of using my monitors controls.
It just needs the monitors usb cable hooked up to your pc I guess, the one you use for firmware updates to your monitor.
 
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I also run the windows HDR calibration app
But again it's more a what looks OK to me
No idea how it stacks up against anything else
Though I assume hardware calibrators
Should be more accurate
Since its not relying on the human eye
And what individual users think looks best to them
 
arknor said:
I'm partially colourblind so :D what looks right to me certainly isn;t.

Maybe why I'm so interested in getting one to test out
Click to expand...
Could be wrong
But would assume a machine won't calibrate
What looks right for someone who is
Colour blind

Have you tried the filters in windows?
I also assume there's different forms of colour blindness
So no one fix works for all
 
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