X-Rite monitor calibration problems...

[Inception]

Hi,

Can you please tell me do any of you have any experience with the combination of
- nVidia graphic cards (nVidia GeForce GT 9800 (512 MB RAM) and nVidia GeForce GTX 560M (3GB RAM)
- X-Rite calibrators (i1 Display 2 and i1 Display Pro)
- Wide gamut monitors (Dell U2410)
- OS: Windows 7 SP1 (tested version - other OS versions would have similar problems I guess)

Problems:
- X-Rite i1 Display 2 looks to be faulty from the beginning. One example. When I measured the ambient light – my lamp has 5400K – X-Rite i1 Display 2 measured 9200K. I think this is the reason why my notebook computers were unable to show the red colors properly. Photos of red tomatoes looked completely flat just like my computer would only have 256 colors.
- X-Rite i1 Display Pro + nVidia GeForce GTX 560M – I simply can’t finish the calibration because the i1Profiler crashes at the end of measurement
- X-Rite i1 Display Pro + nVidia GeForce GT 9800 – it looks it works but only under specific combination of drivers and i1Profiler software. But still. I think the grey is a bit pinky at the highlights.

But when I borrowed Datacolor Spyder 3 Elite to see what is wrong I simply had no problems and the calibration process was smooth.

I only used color managed applications like Adobe Lightroom 4.0 and Adobe PhotoShop CS6 to check the differences.

What I don’t understand here is (valid only for X-Rite i1 Display Pro):
How it is possible that when the monitor driver is Dell U2410 (Digital) it is far brighter after recalibration than when the monitor driver is Generic PnP Monitor? Colors look OK in both cases. I mean. I calibrated the monitor the same way with both monitor drivers, but there is such a huge change. Isn’t there the monitor calibrator that should make it equal? I mean I can’t make a photo that would look the same on every computer this way. On the other hand Datacolor Spyder 3 Elite made equal results on any of my computers.

I also can’t understand why it happens when I upgrade my graphics card driver
from: Microsoft driver - Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT (Microsoft Corporation WDDM v1.1 from 5/14/2009 version 8.15.11.8593)
to: latest nVidia driver - Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT (nVidia from 2/9/2012 version 8.17.12.9573)
and recalibrate the monitor with X-Rite i1 Display Pro the colors are completely wrong. They are completely oversaturated.
And when I Roll Back the driver the colors become normal again. Shouldn’t the monitor calibrator make the profile that would make the colors equal?

What I think right now is that X-Rite is very sensitive to the hardware and drivers but Datacolor Spyder is not. Now I’m thinking to return the X-Rite i1 Display Pro to Amazon.com while I still can.

May I ask you for your opinion about that? Is X-Rite really that bad?
Would you just return this X-Rite having all these problems and buy Spyder 4?

One thing that I noticed is. If you don't have a wide gamut monitor your calibrator may be wrong too it's just that with ordinary monitors it is not as easy to see the calibration was completelly wrong.

Thank you for your opinion.

[Doug Nelson]

Re: X-Rite monitor calibration problems...

X-Rite has exceptional support, I'd suggest you call them.

[kav]

Re: X-Rite monitor calibration problems...

You need to stop changing graphics card drivers. Any time you do something like that, you'll need to make a new profile. There's no way around it. You will have to deal with that. The i1 display 2 is too old. Don't use it. X-rite didn't develop it in house. It's an older gretag macbeth design that was developed prior to the current generation of displays. It will not give suitable results with this one.

Now if you're having software bug issues, you should contact X-rite and see if there is a resolution to these with a software update. Boxed software isn't really updated very quickly. You just have to download the latest updates.

If Datacolor is giving you better results, I'd go with them, but I would compare to prints first. Something about printed media is much easier to analyze. It's easier to tell when something is truly off given the limited range of contrast and reflective nature. This may not be 100% correct with metamerism and other issues, but I'd still look at a couple of them.

[Inception]

Re: X-Rite monitor calibration problems...

Hi, Thank you very much for your reply.

Well. I just needed to test all of the combinations to find the solution.

As I mentioned I made a new calibration every time I changed something. This is why I spent the whole weekend for these experiments. I made numerous of calibrations at many different settings. I don’t count them anymore.

I had a complete fresh install of the computer. I used my older computer (Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83 GHz, NVidia 9800 GT (512 MB RAM), 4GB RAM) that I don’t use anymore for most of the tests. I prepared a disk image at the beginning so that I was able to put the computer into initial state very quickly.

But I also made some tests on my other three computers and monitors for reference. I also tried Windows 8 which I didn't mention previously.
I just wanted to be sure that X-Rite calibrator is really not a good choice for me before I return it to Amazon. I mean. I’d like to have X-Rite calibrator that I bought it’s just that it should do it’s job for what it was made.

But regarding the X-Rite support. Maybe their support is exceptional in the US, but here in Europe I once got just a single sentence from them as a response for all of my questions.

[kav]

Re: X-Rite monitor calibration problems...

In the US it's easy to call them directly and talk to a real person. It's a smaller company, so the people you do talk to tend to be knowledgeable enough. I definitely don't suggest the i1 display 2 as I mentioned. With the i1 display pro, I don't really use it with X-rite's software. I use it with other software that is specific to the displays being measured.

I wouldn't try Windows 8 just yet for such a thing, but there are a couple things you should know when testing any of these devices. Keep the display turned on a minimum of 30 minutes prior to running it. If it's a laptop disable any power saving modes that dim the display. Disable any automated ambient adjustment. Keep the colorimeter plugged in at least 10 minutes prior to running it. I do this with any of them to ensure consistent results.

Datacolor does seem to be way more popular than they were a few years ago, so maybe they're okay these days. If they're giving you consistent results from one measurement to the next, then that is good. It's also important to have software that isn't totally buggy, and that seems to be a common complaint with X-rite currently.

I have one last thing to mention. Most of these programs really don't address uniformity. You're measuring the center of the display and making adjustments based on that, so if corners are off, do not blame the colorimeter. I'd definitely return the X-rite based on your experience with them. It's not worth that amount of time.