Guides on calibrating CRT with i1 Display Pro meter?

[sofakng]

Does anybody have any guides or information on how to calibrate a CRT? (Hitachi CMS-13RGB PVM, aka JVC 1400pn)

I have an X-Rite i1 Display Pro that I'm hoping to use. I don't have too much experience with it though but I know several software applications are available (HCFR, SpectralCal, etc)

Thanks for any advice!

[Kez]

I have had decent results with this guide in the past.

http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10457

[Einzelherz]

That's the guide I learned from as well. I use HCFR with it.

My advice is to write every setting down before you change them.

[bonzo.bits]

I’ve used that guide for Plasma and OLED with the same colorimeter as the OP. Tempted to use it on CRT now.

[Einzelherz]

It works the same on everything. The main difference is how many steps any given device has for calibration. My plasmas and CRTs only do high/low (80% white and 30% white) but my parents' LCD had 10 points (every 10%) which was pretty sweet.

If you're comparing screens though side by side, don't expect them all to be exact though. Everything in my house is calibrated to as close to the same error as possible, but side by side they each look a little different. I believe that's due to the different technologies. Even my two CRTs (one dot mask, one aperture) look slightly different.

[nissling]

Workflow and target is essentially the same for all displays or projectors as long as you're using the same standards (BT.709, EBU, SMPTE-C etc). Controls differs between different products however and you must assure that you have an understanding for each specific monitor you're working with. For instance contrast typically adjusts white clipping on LCDs and OLEDs while changing light output on CRTs and some plasmas.

Using a proper profile is always essential regardless of display but for CRTs it's especially crucial. Most CRTs have certain peak at around 720nm which a colorimter with inproper profile will see as more red, while our eyes basically sees a brighter picture thanks to it. I've only used the i1D3 briefly in CalMAN but I think it has a CRT profile built-in that you can use.

When adjusting white balance you must always start with RGB gain and work your way down because you have far less data in highlights than shadow details.

From my experience pretty much all 10 or 20 point calibration controls on consumer sets are more or less broken. You may end up with very good measurements but in reality you've moved so many bits while the display itself doesn't have anywhere near as good precision as would be needed for such adjustments. 2 point is generally more than good enough considering the limitations present in consumer sets so I strongly advice that instead of going for 10 point (or more).

[Guspaz]

On LG's OLEDs, you can just straight up load a full 3D LUT onto the TV itself, and they're natively 10-bit panels, so they've got the precision to do it. IIRC they're already pretty good out of the box, though, so there may not be much pressing need.

As part of the pandemic, I brought home an old Dell office monitor, and the on-screen R/G/B adjustment didn't get the whitepoint remotely close to the sRGB target, so I had to use the calibration profile to wrench the whitepoint way over. I'm pretty sure that I'm losing a ton of colour resolution, but it's still an improvement, because without the calibration, light grays were barely discernable from white. After the calibration, they're fine. And I also wanted to try to get the brightness and whitepoint of the shitty office monitor (a TN panel, I think) as close to that of my IPS DCI-P3 gaming monitor as possible, so that they at least wouldn't look radically different side-by-side.

[nissling]

From my experience the 3D LUT system on LG OLEDs is broken too, and the panels are not even close to present 10 bit color depth with the electronics used on LGs. Barely even 8 bit. Loading a 3D LUT on the LG will give you obvious banding and not look pleasing at all. The manual calibration tools kind of works on the LGs, though not 20 point white balance or CMS of course. With 2 point you can achieve good tracking to D65 but controls have a tendency of being a bit reversed (like lowering red may in reality just increase green and blue).

Both Sony and Panasonic have managed to implement dithering much better on their OLEDs. Despite using the same panels they offer clearly better bit precision. Haven't played around with 3D LUTs on those however, but the Panasonics I've calibrated have performed excellent in the end with the help of end user controls.