WinDAS White Point Balance guide for Sony Trinitron CRTs

Ah yes, I have done it that way as well, but just wanted to bump up the contrast ever so slightly without reconfiguring the entire thing again.

The only issue I have now is that some modes my OSSC outputs don't fill the screen, horizontally, but I don't know if that's the monitor or the OSSC.

Not sure I'd recommend that. What's wrong with your contrast now? Not bright enough?
 
Yes pretty much. To be honest I wasn't going for an exact scentific calibration, just using 240p suite and NEC Test generator to get what I wanted. I'm happy with the image quality now, I've been carefull to get no blooming etc.

The only thing I can figure out, is does Windas offer the ability to adjust an image size more than the OSD controls?
 
Yes pretty much. To be honest I wasn't going for an exact scentific calibration, just using 240p suite and NEC Test generator to get what I wanted. I'm happy with the image quality now, I've been carefull to get no blooming etc.

The only thing I can figure out, is does Windas offer the ability to adjust an image size more than the OSD controls?

Kinda sorta - depends on what you're talking about. If you step through everything from start to finish (the alignment procedures - which take forever and a half! :D) then it allows you to adjust the raster position and such, which definitely can affect image size and what not, and that control is obviously not available in the user menus. But in terms of adjusting more than what the user controls allow - no, unless you're talking about the Cupid's Bow (C-BOW) and Sinusoidal?-Bow (S-BOW). But usually those don't need to be adjusted.

If you're talking straight up horizontal and vertical position, and horizontal and vertical size, then no.
 
Ah okay, I was only after horizontal size. I don't think it's an issue with the monitor so much, but the line doubler is adding black space around the image, which the monitor sees as 'real' image, but the width controls don't offer enough to send off the edge of the screen.

To be honest it's not a big problem, it's only when line doubling 480i images from what I can see, which I don't intend to do much of anyway.
 
How about this? Alternatively, Mega would be a good option.
 

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Did anybody ever figure out what was going on with the couple of G2 settings (G2 itself and the green setting afterward)? Spacediver your method obviously provides superior picture quality in conjunction with an LUT, but I feel like something is missing there with regards to the procedure. Assuming Sony techs were to have recalibrated these displays to some standard, I don’t think the G2 process would have been reliably done by eye at all. It seems like something along with the few grammatical and logical errors in the other procedures which would have been corrected by technical bulletins perhaps offering more detail about the procedures themselves. It’s too bad a WinDAS “service manual” never showed up online. I only thought it was interesting aside from the way image restoration seems to be functional at the least that there was something of a replicability and relation to the values that would make calibrating for specific gamma “values” predictable. Since Sony offered the hardware sRGB mode which is by definition a ~2.4 curve with the offset at the lowest output overall approximating a 2.2 exponent, it must have something to do with that besides only targeting 80 nits.
 
Good question about the green G2 setting. Not sure tbh, but I generally set it using the same procedure as I do the regular G2.

As for how it was done before, here's the thing - CRTs varied quite a bit precisely because this step was often done by eye (as I understand it). And because different people have different contrast thresholds, they might set the G2 lower or higher depending upon how sensitive their visual system is, or their own interpretation on how different the 0 and 16 bars (from the graybar test pattern) should appear from each other.

And I don't think the sRGB automatically ensures any particular curve, unless the G2 happens to be set "correctly" (whatever correctly means).

I have spoken to one guy who ran a video production studio that used FW900's (the SGI rebadges), and he told me that when the techs came to recalibrate the units, they cranked the G2 low for those inky blacks, and then used a LUT to bring it back to spec (they were using a 10 bit video pipeline so had no issue with doing this).
 
Hi folks,

I was given a free P991 today.

I got it home and mostly seemed okay, but I've noticed a strange shadowing effect to the right of bright text or other boxes. Even the mouse.

Here's a picture, the brightness is high to make it easier to photo, but it's still pretty visible with it down.



Is this windas fixable, or is it something like caps dying?

EDIT:

I don't seem to be able to reliably reproduce it. It's not there all the time. It seems to crop up after a few minutes. At max brightness the retrace lines are visible.
 
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Post this in the FW900 thread, you'll get a larger number of people responding than in this thread.

Here's an interesting post that may be relevant, it refers to saturation of the analog amplification circuitry.

Have you ruled out video cable? Or checked the input connections on back of monitor?

I don't think this is something that is addressable through windas.
 
Will do.

My inclination was that it wasn't something adressable in Windas, but I might try turning the G2 down anyway.

Video cable is the one inbuilt into the monitor, but originally I was plugging it into my modern PC via an adapter. Unfortunately plugging directly into my 98 rig gave me the same issue.
 
on second thoughts, perhaps windas could help (in particular, by lowering G2, as you suggested). Retrace lines are a definite sign of too high a beam current, and that can be addressed by lowering G2 and drive I believe.

And while I'm not knowledgeable enough about amplifier saturation to say for sure, saturation might also be alleviated similarly.

Also, if your OSD menu has an option for color restoration, try that too.
 
Hi everyone!


I'd like to calibrate my FW900 and I'm thinking about buying an X-Rite DTP94. What's the difference

between these two models (both are DTP94)? Is the EZ version enough for the job?
 

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Monaco Optix XR is identical to DTP94.

A more expensive option is the xrite i1 display pro, as it can measure lower luminances, and you can therefore calibrate your monitor with deeper blacks and still get an accurate picture.
 
Monaco Optix XR is identical to DTP94.

A more expensive option is the xrite i1 display pro, as it can measure lower luminances, and you can therefore calibrate your monitor with deeper blacks and still get an accurate picture.

The one on there right is the "EZ" version. Is it any worse?
 
I've had a GDM-FW9010, Sun microsystems rebrand of the FW900 for several years now and never calibrated it. Needs to be calibrated badly! I thought I backed up the windas files but I think it's missing something. Does anyone know where I can find a complete copy of windas?
 
So far windas is running, displaying the list of monitors. I'm using a serial to TTL on COM1 using windows xp. COM1 and MANUAL. When I click Set up/Config in Windas, it says 'program help at http://www.geocities.com/gregua/windas/ Thank you for using this program! Good luck!' but when I double click patchDas.bat, nothing happens. After clicking File/Save data to file it, crashes with the error code offset: j0000cdd7. The weird part is it will say 'cant connect the monitor! Check bus line and condition!' if I don't click set up/config first. It's already on COM1 and Manual. I've used windas years ago and don't remember it being this buggy. I'm stumped.
 
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Something to keep in mind when it comes to colorimeters is that the dye that is used as a filter will drift after 3-5 years, lower the color accuracy greatly. Another thing is there is no one be all colorimeter. Some are designed with other display technologies in mind and not best suited for CRT's. I'd make sure the model of colorimeter is designed for whatever monitor you are calibrating. The DTP-94 color eyes by x-rite is the one I have. It's very old and I don't expect it to be accurate anymore.
 
Something to keep in mind when it comes to colorimeters is that the dye that is used as a filter will drift after 3-5 years, lower the color accuracy greatly. Another thing is there is no one be all colorimeter. Some are designed with other display technologies in mind and not best suited for CRT's. I'd make sure the model of colorimeter is designed for whatever monitor you are calibrating. The DTP-94 color eyes by x-rite is the one I have. It's very old and I don't expect it to be accurate anymore.

the i1 display pro is a well engineered colorimeter, as is the dtp 94. The color accuracy does not drift greatly after 3-5 years as you claim.
 
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Huge thanks for the guide! I calibrated my G500 and FW900 and it really made a difference. I even felt bad selling my G500.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to reach pitch black black levels: I tried adjusting gamma through nvidia panel but I wasn't happy with the result because it made highlights blown out. Instead I raised brightness in menu, and it looks good, however it messed with delta E in green channel a bit and left blacks a bit too bright. I might give it another try, but I'm pretty happy with the result. Thanks for your efforts!
 
Is there a way to restore settings from an old eeprom backup file in windas to a new one?

Im asking because i overwrote my old settings in notepad, i only changed the G2 value but i have read after notepad messes up the formatting.

edit:

scrap the settings, I just noticed I had the wrong monitor model selected on WinDAS I have a SGI GDM-FW9011 thought I had FW900 and selected it incorrectly.

Im going to give the white balance another try, I did it earlier and everything looked overly green. Hopefully changing the model sorts it.
 
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The problem with your green tint might be in the first two G2 settings. It's possible (though I'm not sure about this) that if the black level isn't set similarly in those two steps, you'll end up with a greenish tint. Try setting them to similar black levels.
 
I’m in the middle of the white balance but I remember the two numbers being 145 and the next screen being 80. That’s me doing the black level by eye.

do you mean trying similar numbers?
 
I think I have done it, note I haven't done this in a pitch black room, need to wait a few hours till its really dark.

Changing the model number has fixed the green tint I always had before, its odd that the FW9011 lets you flash the eeprom with the FW900 data and screw things up.

1589127254632.png


If something looks odd please let me know.
 
nicely done on the white point. The gamma could use some work though. What video card do you have? If you're unhappy with the gamma, you can use the argyll instructions to dial that in.

Use the following:

dispcal -m -qm -J -F -G2.4 -f0

(You can use -G2.2 if you like. I sometimes create separate LUTs for 2.2 and 2.4 depending on viewing material).

when you test your grayscale in HCFR, make sure you have the following settings in the GDI options (in Measures/Generator/Configure):

 
Also, your black level is 0.1. You can probably bump the G2 a bit lower. The DTP-94 can read as low as 0.01 cd/m^2 I think. Keep in mind that, in my experience, the black level you set during the G2 adjustment is not the same as the resulting black level after the calibration. So you can set the G2 to a bit darker than 0.01 and still be able to read the resulting black level with your instrument.

I think having the black level readable by the instrument is important in the argyll adjustment step if you want accurate results. As it is now, yours is definitely readable (0.1), but you can probably get away with a lower G2.

If, however, you're satisfied with the black level, no need to redo the WPB adjustment in WinDAS.
 
I’ll try the Argyll steps next, I didn’t do anything with them first time round.

Graphics card is a 980 Ti.

I want those inky blacks but it’s still day time here and the room has white walls!
 
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