Re: Monitor calibrtaion software/hardware
Re: Monitor calibrtaion software/hardware
- Subject: Re: Monitor calibrtaion software/hardware
- From: "email@hidden" <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 17:45:46 -0400
Hi to all,
I felt compelled to respond to some of the nonsense and misinformation
that I have read on this forum recently. I was a founder and owner of
Sequel Imaging. I have designed or headed the teams that designed the
Sequel Chroma 4, Sony Artisan, i1display1, i1Display2, as well as
numerous other OEM products used in the display world. I developed the
original USB-DDC cable which allowed DDC controls to be used on the
early monitors. Today, I work for Xrite looking at advanced
technologies and while I don't really design colorimeters anymore, I do
get invited into design efforts and reviews.
With regard to the DTP94 -i1Display2 comments:
I was a very strong supporter of continuing the DTP94 for our OEM
partners and I won that argument. It is important to understand that my
argument was based upon the fact that the OEM's spent tens of thousands
of dollars evaluating, qualifying and writing software for the DTP94.
It made absolutely no sense to force them to buy the i1Display2,
requalify the hardware, requalify the software and then force them to do
that once again when we replace the i1Display2 with the next generation
of product. MY ARGUMENTS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH PERFORMACE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN THE PRODUCTS. During the integration process, a wide range of
tests were run on both products. Statistically, there was no
significant differences. Using an independent reference, on certain
displays, DTP94 did well and on others, there where issues. The same
was true with the i1Display2. There is a definate population difference
between the two products because they are calibrated to two different
standards. We found that the difference between the two primary
standard measurement insturments, when looking at certain LCD's ,could
yield deltas as high as .006.xy. Keep in mind that number is on the
order of the specification for the i1Display2. The stated accuracy of
the 15,000 dollar PR650 is on the order of .006xy on any color
measurement of a CRT source. I liked the DTP94, but it was slow, it had
quantization issues in the deep dark and in very saturated colors. This
gave the appearance of a highly repeatable instrument except when
subjected to critical testing by engineers.
Some comments about Sequel.
A comment was made that approximatley 20% of Sequel's product were bad
. The exact quote:
Sequel, from the old days mind you, about 20%.
I cannot let a quote like that go without comment. If you have RMA's that show you returned 20% of the product we shipped, then show them to me. I'll apologize on this forum. The Sony Artisan is a Sequel Chroma 4, made with all the same interal parts, filters, sensor, processors, calibrated on the same stations using the same software. Did we ever hear a disparaging word about the Artisan on this list? The chroma 4 design and it's variants probably reached between 20-40 thousand units. In the entire time that I owned a big piece of Sequel, I don't remember seeing more than 10 units returned in any single year. And that's "from the old days mind you...".
Kristy Finley's comments
"I too have watched the majority of my stock of i1 Displays go bad,
and some are only a few months old. In contrast, the i1 Pros (which
I've owned for more than 3 years) are still able to produce excellent
display and print profiles."
in another post she writes:
"Initially, I thought I had a bad batch of displays, it's been known
to happen. However, when I ran the same set of criteria through CEDP
with the same colorimeter, the screens looked much better. In fact,
they looked identical. Never before had I been able to get this level
of similarity and predictability. This is why I decided that CEDP was
"right" for my school."
Here we have someone who is quite honest about being a novice and appears to have a problem. I'm not sure I know what the problem is with her Stock of i1Displays, but I wish she would call her dealer or distributor and complain and we'll try to solve the problem. She also notes that the software seems to be producing variable results and when she uses a colorimeter with third party software, she get's much better, in fact, identical, results. Is it software, is it hardware, did she pickup the phone and complain? I sent her a note offline to find out if we are ignoring her problems. If the problems are real, we'll fix them if we can, but we can't read minds, and this forum shouldn't be the place to be making blanket statements about product quality, until we let you down.
Some comments about specs:
If you look at the specifications for a low cost colorimeter FROM ANY VENDOR, you will find that the stated variablity can produce visible difference between displays and calibrators. This means that if I take one calibrator/display pair and compare that to another calibrator/pair you can expect to see a difference even if the products are in spec. If you took two,$15000, pr650 spectro radiometers, on two unique displays, you could end up with an 8 to 12 deltaE difference between displays and still be within the stated spec of the reference instruments. Just because you see a difference, it doesn't mean that the product is out of spec or has "gone bad".
As we expand into larger markets with greater volumes of product purchased by consumers that do not have large amounts of color knowledge, we find that we must actually build products with tighter specifications to avoid larger issues. End user displays, particularly on laptops are getting worse, not better, and as displays get brighter and are used in higher ambient conditions, we find the various aspects of appearance predominate the color puzzle. We continuously try to balance ease of use, measurement quality, and ambient considerations into our products. Mis-information or vague assertions do not help this situation. If you have a problem let us know. My email is no secret. If you feel you are not being helped, let me or anyother Xrite employee know. I'll pick up the phone and find out why...
Thanks,
Tom Lianza
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