Best monitor calibration software

goodtimej wrote on 11/17/2008, 7:59 PM
I am having a problem where everything I render out looks a little washed out and I really think I may be in need of calibrating my monitor. I do not have an external monitor, I know that I need one, but I do have a pretty nice computer monitor. It is a Dell 30".

So say I am working on a NTSC DV widescreen project. I edit it all together, then I hop in and do color curves to make the colors look better and wow, when I get done it looks fabulous on my monitor. But when I render out as .mpg and watch on my tv or as .wmv and watch on another computer, it always ends up looking a little washed out or like I turned the brightness on too high.

I know I could just back the color curves off a little bit and that would help, but I would prefer somewhat being able to rely on what I see on my monitor without using too many intermediary steps.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me? I am definitely new to the world of monitor calibration, BTW. Thanks for your help....
I know I could just knock down the

Comments

TheDeanster wrote on 11/17/2008, 8:08 PM
I'm a professional photographer (over 20 years) and what I use to calibrate my monitors is the Xrite i1 Display 2.

http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=788

You can pick this up at any good photography store or Amazon! It does a great job....and I highly recommend it!
John_Cline wrote on 11/17/2008, 9:06 PM
Funny you should ask... I just completed calibration on some new 26" 1920x1200 monitors that I picked up at Costco (Vizio VMM26 multimedia monitors $399)

I use the Spyder from Datacolor. Works very well and the Vizio monitors calibrated beautifully. You can choose from a number of different calibration standards, including Rec.601 NTSC and the Rec.709 HD spec.

http://spyder.datacolor.com/product-mc.php

Some Rec.709 test patterns and calibration discussion here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496

There are some free third-party calibration applications for the Spyder, including this one:

http://www.homecinema-fr.com/ColorHCFR/index_en.php

Which is discussed here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=983943

GlennChan wrote on 11/17/2008, 9:30 PM
Make sure you get your levels right first.
http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/v8color/v8color.htm
You need to manually handle color space conversions in Vegas in many situations.

2- If your target deliverable is for TV, I would prefer using an external monitor since it will show things like interlacing issues (field order, interlace flicker) and overscan. Things you won't see in Vegas' preview window (except overscan... you can turn on the frame markers).

I'm not sure if Vegas takes advantage of the computer monitor calibration devices mentioned in this thread. If you use a windows secondary display as your preview device, you can load icc profiles... but even loading extreme ones doesn't seem to do anything to the image.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/18/2008, 4:56 AM
I use a Spyder3 Elite and I'm very happy with the results. It just plugs into your USB port, hang / position it over the display and let the software take it's measurements and build a profile for your monitors. Very easy and accurate. I also use the profile it built in Vegas for the secondary display color management option.

~jr
Jeff9329 wrote on 11/18/2008, 10:30 AM
I'm not sure if Vegas takes advantage of the computer monitor calibration devices mentioned in this thread. If you use a windows secondary display as your preview device, you can load icc profiles... but even loading extreme ones doesn't seem to do anything to the image.

That's why professional monitors perform an internal hardware calibration.

I went with NEC. Best money I ever spent on the PC.