Calibrating a CRT Monitor with a MacBook Pro

[Jordan Scott Price]

I've been using my 13" Sony Trinitron CRT for all of my color-critical work for the last five months or so. I feed it a signal from my MacBook Pro via miniDisplay to HDMI --> HDMI cable --> HDMI to S-video converter --> S-video cable into the CRT.

While it's a Sony CRT, it does not have blue-only, so I have been calibrating with color bars by eye (I work with bigger, more professional CRT's at work, so I'm used to what color bars should look like). So far, results have been good, but I've wondered if the signal is contaminated from the MacBook Pro. Apple has it's own monitor calibrator in Display Preferences, which works well with the MBP's LCD screen, but I'm wondering if its default calibration profile set up for the CRT is causing problems.

For example, I cannot see the 11.5 IRE Pluge bar on the CRT when I feed it color bars from Premiere or FCP. Could the calibration profile my computer has stored for the CRT be too dark or have too much contrast for proper SMPTE calibration? I know it's not the greatest monitor, so it may not have the capability of displaying any disparity in levels from 0 - 15 IRE.

Has anyone calibrated their CRT properly when using a Mac without something like Matrox? It is a cinch to calibrate the CRT's at work - we use Matrox on all our PC's - but it's driving me crazy wondering if the CRT image is actually accurate.

 

[Jordan Scott Price]

Update:

Took a break from looking at the monitors and then went back at it.

I decided to try calibrating with the default color profile my MacBook Pro uses for the monitor. Then I fed the monitor color bars and recalibrated Chroma/Phase until the colors looked right. All is swell there (as usual).

My problem is still trying to figure out how to set black level (brightness). The 11.5 IRE pluge bar does not show up no matter what I do to the monitor, so I assume the monitor simply can't see below 12 IRE.

I think I'm going to try to figure out the monitor's native black level by making a greyscale map in Final Cut Pro or Premiere - basically just a blinds pattern of luminance values, starting with 11.5 IRE, then 12, 13, 14, 15, etc. I'll send this to the monitor, reset contrast and brightness to their midpoints, and then start dialing in/out brightness until I can see a difference between the smaller numbers (11.5 and 12, or 12 and 13, or 13 and 14 - whatever the monitor can see as black).

Hopefully this will work!