CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

**kal** · Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2017 8:52 pm Post subject:

It's this one here: http://amzn.to/2pM6NCM

Kal

jbltecnicspro · Joined: 23 Apr 2016 Posts: 512

**kal** · Posted: Mon May 01, 2017 1:29 am Post subject:

All the ones mentioned so far are good, sound discs. Which shouldn't come as a surprise as test patterns are pretty hard to screw up - though the original Avia DVD did have greyscale patterns that were incorrect! (The authors have admitted to this).
Where they differ is in the number of test patterns, how they're arranged, how much 'hand holding' there is in terms of intro videos/etc. I prefer the bare bones ones so that I don't have to skip through intros/FBI warnings/etc. Some of the more 'commercial' ones also cover audio calibration. So it really depends on what you're after.

I used the AVS one for years - it has a ton of great stuff in it because it's fan-built really. All the patterns that everyone wanted.

Today I tend to reach for this one: http://www.curtpalme.com/ChromaPure_Calibration_Disc.shtm
Mostly because it's the software I use and I've become familiar with the patterns.

So often what someone chooses isn't because one is better than another, it's because it's what works for them, what they're used to. Today obviously people are skipping over the DVD ones as we want HD (Rec.709).

I'll still reach for some of the older more commercial ones sometimes - but mostly if I want to test something on the audio side like an audio frequency sweep looking for rattles in the room or something.

Kal

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

I actually do plan to add a blu-ray burner to my PC. I want to create at least one custom test pattern that I can use on any projector.

That test pattern would be a bunch of small rings/circles. Not dots, circles. Its purpose is to fine tune the electronic astig adjustments. I've found that it seems to work better for that adjustment than any other pattern.

If the rings are clear and sharp, then everything is clear and sharp.

**kal** · Posted: Mon May 01, 2017 2:18 am Post subject:

Not need for a bluray burner. A DVD burner is all you need to burn an 1080p disc. The avs709 disc is this way. I burnt it in a DVD burner years ago. Now I play it in any bluray player and it's all hd / rec.709 / 1080p.

Kal

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

Got the disc, started using it immediately.
I soon established, and not at all surprisingly,
that matching grey scale between the 9500
and the RS45 from the Marquee controls is not
easy. I will certainly have to use the gamma
adjustment on the Moome input card to try to
get it even close.

The blue hump is quite evident in a direct comparison.

napos · Joined: 21 Oct 2006 Posts: 164 Location: Athens, Greece

Chris, the only way you will get rid of the blue hump is by defocusing the blue electronically by about 10 units.
Also, try using the C button on the moome card. It will give you a lot more low level detail.

Nicholas

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

**kal** · Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 8:52 pm Post subject:

Yep. Even simpler. The thumb drive would cost about $2 given the files size is tiny by today's standards (400-600mb).

Kal

racerxnet · Joined: 20 Jun 2007 Posts: 362 Location: Illinois

Chris is a bit stubborn in his thinking for calibration and playback format. Maybe given some time he will come to terms on how one format vs another may not matter. Glad he is looking at the chain for gray scale and primaries.

MAK

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

And how is a thumb drive going to do me any good when my test rig source is a bd player that can't use the USB port for direct media access? It's for updates only on this older model.

I got the disc, that works for me and it's drop dead simple. Let it go. I do my business my way. You set up your test rig any way you like, I like to have the disc.

At this exact moment I'm more interested in exploring the relative sharpness between several Marquees of different vintages
and each featuring different combinations of neck card and VIM board. Some stock, some modded. When I've found out what's
what in that respect, then I will pick out which unit(s) get the full calibration routine...when and if I relocate my missing color meter or get a replacement for it.

**kal** · Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 11:50 pm Post subject:

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

I'll do that if it turns out to be beneficial. But I'm not making any assumptions about that.

**kal** · Posted: Sat May 06, 2017 12:17 am Post subject:

For what it's worth, it's pretty much CRT projector calibration 101. You either defocus blue, or you live with the blue hump and low light output well below SMPTE standards (14 ft-L).

A thread from 2001 where a lot of the CRT experts chime in (Chuck Williams, Guy Kuo): http://www.avsforum.com/forum/16-crt-projectors/86339-why-defocus-blue.html

Make sure to defocus properly. See this 'CRT Projector Focus & Mechanical Aim' guide from Guy Kuo from 2004: http://www.curtpalme.com/Focus_and_Mechanical_Aim1.shtm

A quote:

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

There's NO WAY I will calibrate to 14 foot-lamberts. Though I don't own it, I've worked with the common Konica-Minolta LS-100 meter and have calibrated literally dozens of Marquees with one and I find that even as little as 9 foot-lamberts is brighter than I care for in a home theater environment.

It is probably due to the fact that I don't like to push the tubes hard that I prefer to focus blue to full sharpness, as it'll do that and still meet my target light level with no problem at all.

Even at 9 FT-L, if the scene goes to full bright it makes me squint, so please tell me why I'd even want something brighter than that if the extra brightness is something I don't even want to see.

I do realize that defocusing blue is necessary when pushing for high light output, and if that's what's needed then I do that. But for
my own viewing, I don't want it that bright so there's no need to calibrate for that light output level or defocus to facilitates it.

Depending on how things turn out when adjusting gamma and the projector's on-board color temperature adjustments, I may end up having to defocus for better tracking anyway, but my preference is to do the minimum of that.

**kal** · Posted: Sat May 06, 2017 1:12 am Post subject:

14 ftl is the agreed upon SMPTE standard, simply because it looks better and throws a more lively and vivid pic. Live with it for a couple of weeks and you'll never want to go back to 9 ftl. With crt of course you may be limited in light output and have to live with what you have. Compared to other projection technology, crt is dim.

I ran a lot dimmer when I had crt because I had to. Today to me that looks a lot more drab.

As to why SMPTE chose 14 ftl, there are probably published studies on it. I don't know. Some googling would probably bring up lots of info as to where the standard comes from.

Kal

jbltecnicspro · Joined: 23 Apr 2016 Posts: 512

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

napos · Joined: 21 Oct 2006 Posts: 164 Location: Athens, Greece

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

My screen is 96 inches wide. That would be 120" diagonal if in 4:3 mode, and about 110" in 16:9.

I've got a garage full of G90s that all had to have one or more CRTs replaced at relatively low hours because they were
all set up at around 14 FT-L When you're replacing a green CRT in a unit that has 1999 hours on the meter because of obvious pattern wear, you're pushing the tubes too hard!

Granted, if brightness were everything to me I could just install one G90 and use the other five as spare tube sources and burn
them like a bad cook burning toast, and still get years and years out of them, but I say again, WHY would I do that when I don't find even 9 FT-L to be dim by any stretch of the imagination?

WHY would I want it brighter if it can already make me squint on bright scenes? That makes NO sense.

If I do want brighter, I turn on the RS45 which will definitely do that. And I find myself closing down the aperture to get the
brightness back down to where I'm more comfortable with it and it doesn't commit EYE ABUSE on bright scenes, and then it's
not far from where I set up the CRT projectors in terms of light output.

Yes, the room is fully light controlled. If I choose to just cover up a few power indicators I can make it so dark in there that every now and then you hear little thumps followed by a very faint chittering sound, which is a bug tripping over something in the dark and cursing about his bruised foot. Very Happy

You could develop film in my home theater with everything turned off or all indicator lights covered.

It may interest you to know that when I calibrated all those Marquees a while back, they were all in the very same kind of simulators that have been the source of all those used Marquees with pentagonal pattern wear on the tubes.

And we calibrated them to a specification of THREE foot-lamberts at full white. There was an option for a 6 foot-lambert calibration but the management office directed us to use the 3 FT-L specification.