Pantone Monitor Auto Calibrate for $79

[Jarred Land]

Check this thing out.. just picked it up for 79 bucks and it kicks ass. I was trying to color match both of my Dell 24" monitors and it turned out to be a huge pain in the ass.. One was a full year and 3 revisions newer so i just couldnt do it with the lame color menus.

Nick pointed me to this thing that did the calibration for both monitors perfectly, and even better it sits on your desk and adjusts your monitors depending on ambient light source.. cool shiznit. I kinda was iffy since it was so cheap, but being a pantone product i gave it a go. So far so good.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B..... (http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?link_code=ur2&tag=dvxusercopm-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduc t%2FB000CR78C4%2Fqid%3D1150163945%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fref%3Dpd_bbs_1%3F%255Fencoding%3DUTF8%26v%3Dgl ance%26n%3D229534)


http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000CR78C4.01._AA280_SCLZZZZZZZ_V56331893_.jpg

here is the size in relation to my setup.. its frickin small :

[J.R. Hudson]

I used to date a girl that would have liked this.

[Jarred Land]

I used to date a girl that would have liked this.
mmm.. its a little small (4 inches).....


you walked right into that one.


ha ha haa ahaha ah sorry dude, couldnt resist.

[RaySigmond]

There is also the ColorVision Spyder2Pro from ColorVision. A lot more dough though, $259

http://www.colorvision.com/profis/profis_view.jsp?id=602

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=426710&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

[clumsy_cool]

how does it work ? does it just sit there between your screens, or do you have to plug your monitor in it ?

[Jarred Land]

the colorvision is fine but the huey is a little bit better.. it does the calibrate as the colorvision thing but this huey goes beyond that by actively constantly monitoring ambient lighting and adjusting.

It hooks up via usb, and to calibrate it has little suction cups

[Jarred Land]

heres a little powershot movie of it in action:

www.dvxuser.com/huey.mov

[Larry Rutledge]

Hey pretty cool....does it work for CRT also, or only LCD? I am having a heck of a time because my two CRTs are totally different from each other.

I know, I know...I need to replace them with two of those fancy Dell 24" suckers...but I just don't have that kinda dough...yet.

[Jarred Land]

yes it does CRT.. if you watch that little video you can see step #2 you pic either Latop/TFT/LCD or CRT monitor.

[Larry Rutledge]

Cool, I'll have to start setting my pennies aside...would be very helpful. :dankk2:

[vidled]

Wicked! Thanks for the tip, and video.

[Jarred Land]

no problem man.. it just made my life so frickin easy i thought i would share... its great having 2 monitors that actually look the same now.

[morten]

I love the randomnes of pictures of people's setups... like a fake hamster under the editing desk


looks like you have a rodent problem there. might I recomend the NeCoRo robotic cat to deal with it? http://www.necoro.com/

mor10

[Jarred Land]

yeah i guess i shoulda cleaned up a little for the photos lol... I guess now i know what keeps gnawing on my toes.

[vidled]

Jarred: you mention the two monitors of yours that didn't match; same problem here too; both are of same year (I think) but the software/firmware definitely is different, even if only slightly; I was never able to get them matched up very well though. I tried....I had some coffee....I tried some more....and gave up.

$75 seems like steal, really.

[Jarred Land]

yeah i have the dell 24".. when i go into the hidden factory settings it shows #1 being a samsung version 1.8 and monitor #2 being version 2.2... .. they look the same on the outside but they never did match. now they do :)

[xl70e3]

hmmm I just got myself Monaco Optix XR Pro last week to color match my 2405s (same thing - different revisions, diferent OSD... newer one always seemed to be pink'ish) and yet I can still see some minor differences. I'll be tweaking 'em again. Optix does work great though, but it's more like $350.

now wth is that hidden factory settings menu? :huh:

[oneinfiniteloop]

now wth is that hidden factory settings menu? :huh:

Someone posted how to access this menu just recently, I think it was about the time when Jarred ordered his monitor, but I can't find the thread for the life of me.

Jarred, what would say on the color accuracy of the Huey. I read a few reviews last night and people say great things about it (except accessing the control panel in OSX) and I was just curious how accurate it is for semi-color critical design work, i.e. motion graphics, etc...

[Jarred Land]

It actually has different settings for motion graphics, print design etc. I have a pantone book and the colors look pretty good via Adobes pantone selector.

[Matt Grunau]

Someone posted how to access this menu just recently, I think it was about the time when Jarred ordered his monitor, but I can't find the thread for the life of me.



Id'e like to know how to access that menu as well.

I have 2 dell 19 ultras, I bought them at the same time, but #1 is very slightly warmer. I'de like to see if they are the same.

The color settings are all the same on them.

[oneinfiniteloop]

Ok I found it. Here is the post that details how to do it and below is the link to the actual thread.


Argh, sorry to hear that :(

If you hold down <- and + simultaneously when powering on, it should display the hidden factory info/settings (unless they've also changed that) - although I'm not sure if it will be of any use.

Apparently my LCD is a Samsung v1.8. (And apparently I've been using it for 4,714 hours)

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=58882&highlight=dell

[morten]

no problem man.. it just made my life so frickin easy i thought i would share... its great having 2 monitors that actually look the same now.

I must be a total idiot but I can't figure this one out.... I got the Huey, I calibrated my monitor but I can't calibrate my 2nd monitor. the thingy works fine on monitor 1 but monitor 2 stays the same no matter what I do. I tried calibrating monitor 2 but it didn't work. all changes only effect monitor 1.

am I an idiot or is there something I don't know about the product (such as no dual monitor support).

mor10

[Jarred Land]

a few people asked me this.. dont worry morten your not an idiot ha ha ha.

to do it, you need to change the master monitor to the 2nd monitor then do the calibration, then switch it back. if your using a mac you just drag the toolbar in the display options from one monitor to the next.

[smelni]

I just bought one on amazon - looking forward to getting it

[morten]

yeah... figured it out a few minutes after posting. there's this whole "patience" thing that people say I should work on. dunno what they're talking about.

Thanks for the tip tho. My screens look the same for the first time ever. and my colours are spot on.

[smelni]

I just received my unit and and not happy at all.

I calibrated and it gives everything a pink hue - not sure why.

Also - it doesnt work with avid - when avid video is playing is ignores the gamma settings of the huey but then settles back into them when you stop the video -

Im gonna futz a bit more but its looking grim

[yabyum]

bump. just got this and it seems alright. some more info for everyone:

-diff between huey and huey pro is software, allows for multi-monitoring. though i guess u can do that too on the regular huey judging from OP

my LCD sucks at showing the blacks right though. There is a video I have that I meant for the background to be all black, so I crushed the levels. It showed all black on the LCD, then I checked it on other comps and it definitely wasn't all-black. My LCD doesn't show this right... Is there a better way to calibrate or is this just the limitation of the LCD (kind of big imo). It's a Dell 2001fp btw.

my CRT shows it fine, but I have other worries on that too... I think it's dying out (haven't used it in like 4 years, but on the factory settings the image looks all washed out. if i drop the brightness to like 12 then the blacks look black again, but the color isn't as good as my LCD. it's a Sony CPD-e440 for reference

[yabyum]

I just received my unit and and not happy at all.

I calibrated and it gives everything a pink hue - not sure why.

Also - it doesnt work with avid - when avid video is playing is ignores the gamma settings of the huey but then settles back into them when you stop the video -

Im gonna futz a bit more but its looking grim

actually i think i have this same problem, but with vegas!!! :(

[Moojangles]

i have the pro version that i bought on ebay for $30. Seems to work well for what it is.