NEC LCD2490 SV - calibration woes.. I don't understand

Hey everyone,

I ended up getting the LCD2490wuxi-sv but I guess I just don't really understand the whole calibration thing. I'm not a photo professional, but I got it just because it was recomended to get great color, and I'd like to have great color.

I calibrate it using the photo editing, set to D65, manual intensity adjustment, monitor default contrast ratio, and 2.20 gamma curve.

During the manual intensity adjustment, I'm still experimenting with the brightness. I started at 80%, but that was a bit too bright, dropped down to 78%, helped a bit, but still a bit too bright I think, will try going down to 76 or 75%. Why not further? It just looks WAYYYY too dark if I go to like 50% or 60% or such. I don't understand how people are going even lower down to like 30% or such??? Is there something I'm doing wrong or not understanding? (contrast is at 50% also, even after calibration... should I be doing something with this?)

Anyways, here's the annoying thing - when I restart my computer, I get the nec spectraview splash screen, and then it "checks" my monitors, and says that the display settings have changed, and would I like to return to the previous settings? If I hit yes, I don't really know what it does, but it sets my brightness back to 100%, and if I hit no, it still takes brightness to 100% but says that calibration is off.

What do I do? It's annoying at startup, because it's obviously slowing down the computer startup time. (especially because I ended up getting 3 of these monitors so it does it for all of them) I thought the spectraview was supposed to internally calibrate it, and I shouldn't have to be messing with software at startup and such?

Any help would be appreciated guys, and if you can keep it "dumbed-down", as you can probably tell I'm not experienced with this stuff, I just want the damn things to look excellent.

I have no idea what is causing your startup issue. It never happened to me. Do you have some other kind of manual screen config tool in there? I am running XP with NVidia graphics card. I have my monitor calibrated in SV2 and the profile set to load. I get the SV splash screen, but no warning about changes, and no change in brightness, which would be obvious since I run very low brightness.

As far as brightness. That is relative. My living room is lit by a couple of compact flourescents when not lit by incoming light. So it is not very bright when the sun goes down, since I am at work during the day, I mainly use my monitor at night. I calibrated mine using manual intensity as well. Except I run mine at ZERO percent and even that would be too bright for extended use at night if I was doing work at home (coding with lots of small text), but is ok for entertainment surfing. On bright days with the curtains open, I turn it up as high as 50%, but 90% of the time I run it at zero (as it is now).

Snowdog,

Thanks for the reply. The startup issue is very annoying. You said that you have the monitor calibrated and the profile "set to load". Maybe that's what I'm not doing? Could you maybe share you settings that you have in the SV2 program when you go to Edit -> Preferences? I don't have any photo software loaded on the new comp yet, but under Display Monitor, I have "Don't lock" and there is a checkmark in all the checkboxes.
"Check calibration status on launch"
"Use Auto Luminance"
"Auto-load settings on Target Change"
"Generate profile after calibration"
"Automatically save profile"
"Set as Windows System Monitor Profile"

Should all those be checked? Is there something specific I have to do to make it "set to load"..? Is there anything specific I have to do to make it calibrate the internal LUT, or does just using the Spectraview kit do that in and of itself?

Thanks for the help man, you can see I need it desperately! lol

Edit- just to add, I run win XP sp3, Nvidia graphics cards (2 9800gtx+'s not SLI'd - need for 3 monitors). no other kind of manual screen config tool, this is a brand new comp I built.

Edit 2- oh, one more question. After calibrating it on manual, does it change/mess up the calibration if I change the brightness? Say I calibrate it using 75% brightness, and then I turn it down later to 60% brightness - does that mess up the colors and I need to recalibrate it?

When I said "set to load" I meant those same box ticks, but I couldn't remember:
"Generate profile after calibration"
"Automatically save profile"
"Set as Windows System Monitor Profile"

I think I also have "don't lock" set as well(can't check, at work). Changing brightness will not mess up colors. I have mine calibrated at zero and turn it up on the weekends if I use my computer during the day.

I am running XP SP2, 8800GT, not the latest drivers. You are making me scared to upgrade. We need more people with and without the problem to try and narrow it down.

A couple of comments and suggestions:

1. The "Manual Adjustment" Target setting is really only meant to be used once to allow you to interactively find an acceptable Intensity value. Once you have calibrated to an acceptable value, you should make a new Target and change the Intensity mode to "Specific Level" and enter the value that the monitor was actually adjusted to from the previous manual calibration. You can find the calibrated Intensity value on the Information window.

2. The software will check to see if any adjustments have been made to the monitor each time it starts up. It compares the current monitor settings with values from the last calibration. If they are different then it asks if you want to restore the settings. So for some reason it is detecting a change in at least one setting in the monitor. Obviously this shouldn't be happening if you haven't adjusted any settings on the monitor.

Can you list specifically what Target settings you are using? Also do you have "Use Auto Luminance" checked in the Preferences? If so, try turning that off and recalibrating.

3. You can disable checking of the monitor settings in the Preferences as someone else pointed out, but the problem shouldn't be happening in the first place.


4. >>Edit 2- oh, one more question. After calibrating it on manual, does it change/mess
>> up the calibration if I change the brightness? Say I calibrate it using 75% brightness,
>> and then I turn it down later to 60% brightness - does that mess up the colors and
>> I need to recalibrate it?

Yes! You should not make any kind of manual adjustments to the monitor once it is calibrated. If you need to make any changes, edit the Target in SpectraView and recalibrate. Otherwise SpectraView will of course notice the change and ask if you want to revert it.

We are going to be releasing a new update to SpectraView in the next few weeks that has a lot of major improvements, so I'd like to make sure if this is a real issue so it gets fixed.

Which is th ebest monitor tool/software for this monitor? I just got the basic version.

Ok, this is getting VERY annoying. I made the change that you mentioned Monitor Guy (and thanks for you input by the way!) by turning off "Use Auto Luminance".

Calibrated all 3 monitors, restarted computer. Again, it pops up telling me that settings for the monitor have changed, and would I like to reload the previous calibration settings. I hit yes for monitor #1 and it reset the brightness to 100%. I hit No for monitors #2 and 3, and it left them at the brightness I calibrated to, but it then told me that calibration for monitors #2 and 3 where turned off!

What is going on, what am I doing wrong?

Going to try again and un-check "Check calibration status on launch" and see if that cures the problem.

update:

Well, leaving "Check calibration status on launch" UN-checked "fixed" my problem. After I calibrated and restarted my computer, the Spectraview software did not give me the pop-up that settings have changed...etc.

When I loaded up the spectraview software, it still showed all 3 monitors as having calibration "On". (in contrast to before when it told me that settings have changed and do I want to reload the previous settings, and selecting "No", would turn calibration to "off".)

The monitors load up set at the brightness I calibrated them at.

Kind of sucks I have to do it that way, and that others don't have that problem but I am. Whatever works though, I want them to have great color, but not have to mess around with re-calibrating them every single time I restart my computer!

just curious you connect it via DVI-D right?

PAo_ReVoLT said:

just curious you connect it via DVI-D right?

Click to expand...

Yes.

GrimWarrior said:

Ok, this is getting VERY annoying. I made the change that you mentioned Monitor Guy (and thanks for you input by the way!) by turning off "Use Auto Luminance".

Calibrated all 3 monitors, restarted computer. Again, it pops up telling me that settings for the monitor have changed, and would I like to reload the previous calibration settings. I hit yes for monitor #1 and it reset the brightness to 100%. I hit No for monitors #2 and 3, and it left them at the brightness I calibrated to, but it then told me that calibration for monitors #2 and 3 where turned off!

What is going on, what am I doing wrong?

Going to try again and un-check "Check calibration status on launch" and see if that cures the problem.

Click to expand...

Can you list specifically what Target settings you are using?

Also look on the Advanced OSD menu and check that:
"Auto Brightness" is off,
"Low Bright Mode:" should be "---".
ECO mode should be Off.

Unchecking "Check calibration status on launch" will get rid of the message because it won't check the monitor settings, but it's really just masking the issue.

Thanks

Hey I know this is slightly off topic, but did not want to start a new thread. I hear a very slight click noise when the monitor comes out of standby. Its prob just a relay or something, but wanted to be sure, esp for the price of this monitor. Thanks.

Depending on how you hooked up all 3 monitors, the DDC/CI might not be transmitting correctly. This is how the monitor communicates with the software. I found out that if you use a HDMI switch, the DDC/CI doesn't work, so if you're using a splitter of some sort, you might be getting the same problem. Try hooking up the monitor directly to the computer while leaving the other two disconnected and see if you get the same problem.