CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

star · Joined: 18 Oct 2019 Posts: 13

Do have problems with my PC and Sypder. Win10 says (after plug in), Spyder 3 is recognised and after a while "device is ready". BUT: It isn't. Looking into device manager I see a yellow triangle with a "!" in it - driver not loaded (error 28) (Datacolor Spyder).
I also tried to manually install the argyll driver (Argyll Spider) - it fails because of it is from a 3rd vendor and not signed (or similar).
I tried to remove and de-install /remove the device, but after plugin to USB same as above happens.

As (datacolor) driver is not loaded I don't know where it is and how to wipe from system (if it ever there). Someone has an idea how to handle that USB stuff well?

**kal** · Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 1:09 pm Post subject:

What Spyder are you using? Here you say "Spyder 3" but in other emails you were asking about "Spyder 5".

WHat 3rd party driver are you using and why?

Kal

star · Joined: 18 Oct 2019 Posts: 13

Once I used a Spyder5 and now a Spyder 3 (because of the crappy results with Spyder 5). Also I had to change my Laptop. No idea whether on this have been ever installed the Datacolor software - now it is not. Nevertheless, devicemanger recognised it properly as Datacoloer Spyder3 but cannot load driver.
And the argyll/hcfr driver can't be loaded too (see above for error message).

**kal** · Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 2:27 pm Post subject:

The Sypder3 is even older than the Spyder5 so it will likely have drifted much farther and be less accurate than the Spyder5 since it's older. I'm assuming you bought the Spyder3 used as it's been discontinued for years.

I'm afraid I don't understand the issue you're having. I don't understand why you want to use a third party driver. Your issue is with DataColor Spyder hardware so I'd suggest reaching out to them for help. If you're wanting to use third party drivers however, they wouldn't be able to help with that. I would suggest getting the meter working correctly with the included drivers first.

I've never recommended Spyder meters (other than the newest SpyderX). Everything before that is too problematic and inaccurate. They're just not worth the hassle. Yes, they've always been cheaper but what's the point if they're inaccurate / problematic? As the meter ages and the filter degrades they get even worse. See my FAQ for more details: http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11436

Good luck!

KAl

star · Joined: 18 Oct 2019 Posts: 13

I did not explain good enough, sorry.

There was no driver installed. I want to install the driver that is included in HCFR. I get the message:
Windows found a driver for this device, but there was a problem while installing. Spyder3 (Argyll).
The inf file doesnt contain digital sign.
So this driver is meant to be "3rd party driver" - whyever.

If I install the original driver then HCFR just offers me a simulated sensor. I would expect that I can select the Spyder.

That is what confuses me. I am not sure what is expected behaviour.
Did you expect the installation of the original driver?
Or should the included driver just work?
Anyhow both option fail - the original doesn't show the device in HCFR, the included one is not to install.

BTW: The Spyder3 might not be new or perfect, but works well at a friend (get it for the week)

**kal** · Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 9:28 pm Post subject:

Your best bet is to ask the people who support HCFR for support on their software with the meter you want to use. I'm not sure how to get this to work as we stopped using that software years ago.

star · Joined: 18 Oct 2019 Posts: 13

My fault, I thought this is the forum for HCFR.
Strange, the simple first question was: It is required to use Original (Vendor) driver or shall the (in HCFR) included drivers do the work.
The help (install colorimeter) give some strange stuff towards argyll. Ok, I see - I am wrong here.
Nevertheless, thanks for feedback.

**kal** · Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 9:45 pm Post subject:

El Duderino · Joined: 23 Jan 2011 Posts: 4627 Location: Portland, OR

The acronym HCFR is for Home Cinema FRance. There is a separate site for it. I'd post a link but I suppose that could be seen as bad form as they might be seen as a competitor to this site. One big hint would be that it would be really helpful if you can read/write French.

I suspect that one reason you aren't finding much joy with the Spyder colorimeter may be that the Spyder colorimeters are tri-stimulus devices and need to be profiled for different display types. Different display technologies have different Spectral Power Distributions. For instance, the SPD for a CRT can be very different than the SPD for a LCD, DLP, LCOS, plasma etc even when they are all well calibrated for the same white point. If you don't account for these SPD differences, then a tristim will probably be wildly inaccurate, much more inaccurate than any age related filter drift would be.

Tri-stimulus probes typically account for this by being 'trained' to a reference colorimeter. Typically a real spectrometer. An alternate approach is to use a another spectro to setup a given display to produce one of the reference white points (commonly D65) then 'teach' the tristim and create a specific conversion matrix and cal file based off of that.

Attached is a document I made probably over 10 yrs ago about how to make a cal file for the DYI HCFR tristim probe. I suspect it's very outdated and references a way old version of HCFR, but the gist of it should still apply to other filter based tri stimulus colorimeters

If you aren't in the realm of training and creating your own tristim conversion matrix, about the best you can do is to see if you can find someone else who has created one for your specific display type or use one that someone else has created for a similar display type. For instance, for a CRT PJ and the HCFR tristim, using the communal NEC-6PG cal file would usually yield very good results for most other CRT PJs but probably make of mess of a LCOS or DLP.

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=974401&d=1443904988

If you want to stick with open source / freeware packages that is perhaps more recent / more active support base, you might want to check out displaycal.
https://displaycal.net/#colorimeter-corrections
https://colorimetercorrections.displaycal.net/

If you just want results with active support and not have to rely on piecing together bits from random Joes on various forums and climbing up learning curves, a commercial package like Chromapure may have better value.

**kal** · Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2019 12:11 am Post subject:

star · Joined: 18 Oct 2019 Posts: 13