DIY projector calibration anyone done it?

nightrider1470

nightrider1470

nightrider1470

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25 May 2011
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I have a benq W1200 amazing projector but could do with a good calibration as it does have the ISF mode with all the colour settings to change.

Been quoted £300 to have it done by someone, but considering the projector only cost me £700 its loosing it appeal.

So my question is, can this be done by a rookie with out having all the expensive tools?

Anyone advise me of what I need to buy for good results

Things like DVE DVD seems a little to basic from what I have read


Thanks :)
 
I've just started getting into calibration and bought colourimeter for about £350 incl. software. Other than setting the brightness, contrast and sharpness etc with a test disc, you'll need one of these to get decent results as it can't be done by eye. I was torn between diy calibration and paying someone else, but i'd rather learn a new skill and calibrate my own projector. You should really recalibrate every few hundred hours anyway and plus the knowledge will server you for future pjs :)
 
As stated above, you need the correct equipment to get the desired result. My old but hugely expensive CRT projector was always drifting slightly and I was always adjusting and tweaking, mainly the convergence and focusing to get it perfect. Some things, however you are going to need to use a colourmeter.

A friend of mine is James Soanes, from 2020Audio Video, so I don't need to buy anything. He's a great guy and does all my calibration. He's also right in with JVC so if they use him he's pretty good in my book.

The problem with the lamp technoliges as said above, is that the colour temps change after a few hundred hours and they will require adjustment to make optimal. The problem I have is that I'm not wholly sure I can see a massive difference between the last calibration and the current one. All I do know is that my PJ looks stunning and that's what counts.
 
Ok well I have bought a calibration blueray to start with to see what results I can get, am sure your colour hardware things lol will produce much better results but am just testing the water

I notice it comes with a blue filter, can anyone explain to me how its used ?
 
The blue filter is used with the colour bars test patterns. It is so you can adjust tint and master colour level. It shows you the adjustment as brightnesses of various squares. Colour is adjusted by looking and comparing the brightness of the blue and white segments of the test pattern as viewed through the filter. The correct level is reached when those areas have the same brightness viewed through the filter.

As others have said, calibration needs objective measurement using a colour meter. The thing sbout calibrators like James and myself is our wealth of knowledge and experience. Its one thing to tinker with your own displays as and when the mood takes you. No one but yourself is judging you work. It's an entirely different proposition to walk in to a paying client's home, the assess their entire picture chain to diagnose what else needs to be sorted, and then produce a credible result. Although there is an incteasing number of calibrators in the UK James, Roland Brooks and myself are I believe the only people capable of doing this and the convergence work on high end CRTs.

I would definitely recommend persuing calibration. Some of the biggest gains are made with budget projectors.
 
If you are talking about doing grey scale and colour calibration then you need a colour meter and some software on the PC. That's the only way to do this objectively.

The colour wash patterns (whole screen / window) are for measuring the primary- (RGB) and secondary colour points (CMY) to show the range of colours possible from the projector (colour gamut). For those projectors with Colour Management Software (CMS) it is possible to alter those primary points a little so long as the lamp is capable of producing the colours of light first. In most cases lamped projectors are slightly undersatured in red and blue and oversatured in green. The secondary colours are produced by mixing the primaries e.g. red & green make yellow - the Y from CMY, the other colours being Cyan and Magenta.

Adjusting the greyscale using the 0%, 5%, 10%.....95%, 100% White patterns is the next step. Here you are looking at several adjustments at the same time to get the right combination of luminosity and colour balance: Luminosity is the light output at each point in the greyscale. You'll come across this as Gamma. It's easy to get the correct colour balance at a certain point in the grey scale but then screw up the brightness so that point in the grey scale is too light or dark compared to the adjacent points. Then there's the colour mix itself. D65 is a point in a 3D colour space made from combining red green and blue. This is different from simply producing 6500 kelvin.

The above might seem a bit complex on first reading, but if you get into calibrating your own display with a meter then it will start to make sense. Another thing is this is just a small part of the overall process. The whole thing is quite involved.
 
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