BenQ 2710PT Calibration & Gamut Help

[Khrest]

I've just tried calibrating my new BenQ with my SpiderExpress4 and I'm a little confused.

With my old Dell 2408wfp I would choose Wide Gamut and the Spyder would calibrate fine (I only just discovered on checking however that the Dell is only 16.7m colours so I assume that's not Wide Gamut anyway, which is doubly confusing as the Spyder doesn't reject the setting).

With the BenQ which is specced as 1.07b colours the Spyder tells me halfway through that the display is not Wide Gamut and allows me to continue.

I think I'm confused about
1) What wide gamut means, because I thought it was the 1.07b panel type (the BenQ).
2) What is the best preset to use before calibrating? sRGB or User?

I do a lot of photo processing so having good accuracy and colour range is more important than gaming performance.

 

[Baddass]

you've got colour depth and colour space muddled up a bit there.

The colour space (gamut) is dictated by the backlight type and explains the volume of colours and the range of colours the screen can display. Most backlights are able to deliver a colour space very close to the sRGB reference space, and that includes older CCFL and more modern W-LED backlight types. Other backlight types such as wide gamut CCFL (WCG-CCFL) and GB-r-LED backlights can offer a wider range of colours which reach the Adobe RGB reference and beyond.

The number of colours express as 16.7m and 1.07b here is the colour depth and really determines the number of orientations the pixels can make to produce differeing grey shades (then filtered to give RGB colours). A screen can have a wide gamut backlight paired with a 16.7m colour depth, just like it can have a standard gamut paired with a 1.07b colour depth. that's exactly what you've got here. Although to be fair, most wide gamut screens nowadays are paired with 1.07b colour depth.

The "user" preset is probably the best place to start with calibrating as you will have access to change the RGB channels in the OSD as well. you want to be making as many adjustments as you can to the monitor hardware itself (brightness, contrast, RGB etc) before you let the software profile the graphics card, as that will help retain tonal values and preserve gradients. The user mode will give you most access to settings to alter before you get into that automated step of the process. i assume the software guides you through making adjustments to the monitor settings to reach an optimum starting point before it works it's magic?


The Dell 2408WFP is a WCG-CCFL backlit model, so is indeed wide gamut. The BenQ BL2710PT is W-LED with standard gamut.

 

[Khrest]

Thanks Baddass, that helps explain things a bit better. I see also that I should have read the sticky first, so thanks for not berating me over that

The screen software doesn't seem to allow the colour temp to be adjusted in the user mode, just the relative RGB values. I'm assuming I should set all of them to 100, turn off any other processing like dynamic contrast etc and then do the contrast and brightness using a test page.

I must say that in comparison to the 7 year old Dell, the BenQ is better, but not massively so, but then the Dell was £70 more expensive than the BenQ even without inflation adjusting. I always felt that the Dell was a super monitor despite it's age (I see a lot of screens at clients), so at least my son is getting a very nice panel to replace the TV he is using at the moment.

 

[Baddass]

the colour temp setting in the OSD menu is just a pre-defined set of options for different RGB levels, resulting in different colour temps for each. so the 9000k mode for instance would have a higher Blue gain, and lower red and green to give you a cool setting close to 9000k.

the user mode should have RGB all at 100 by default, but you might need to adjust those during the Spyder calibration process. in the first part of that process does it give you any guide to helping you adjust the RGB values yourself? often sliders where you change the RGB in the OSD menu until you reach the target levels shown in the Spyder software. that is normally an early stage helping you to reach RGB levels which produce the colour temperature you've defined in the software as your target (typically 6500k)

 

[Khrest]

No, the software is pretty much NEXT, NEXT, NEXT type of wizard process, I haven't found anything in it that allows any manual changes at all beyond specifying the gamut and backlight type. It may be because it's the Express4 not the more expensive one.

 

[Baddass]

yeah maybe so. that device isn't really ideal anyway for a backlight of that type. give it a go and see what results you get. you may be better calibrating in the sRGB preset mode on the monitor which is likely to be a better starting point than the user mode. since all the corrections are going to be done at the graphics card level, you want the best starting point from the hardware to help give you better results. give it a try in both modes and see which looks better (