Calibrating an older HP monitor

scorsesefan

scorsesefan

Veteran
Hi all,

I have an older HP Dreamcolor Z24X and I've noticed a slight yellow bias to it. Does anyone know how to calibrate this monitor? A relatively cheap solution would be great because I bought it used a few years ago and it's getting pretty long in the tooth...

Thanks
 
I was just in your situation recently. Only difference is I just purchased one refurbished. PC Liquidators has them for around $100. Technically you’re supposed to purchase a very expensive calibrator from HP. The HP one leaves a calibration in the monitor hardware. Which is the optimum “real” way it “should” be done. Any other way, short of adjusting the monitor manually, gives a software calibration only.

I just used a Colormomki and DisplayCal’s free software (which is key— don’t use the xrite software!).

Display cal provides a LUT or a profile you can load in Davinci.

I also use a BenQ Pd2500 which is inexpensive and Technicolor certified at 100%RGB and Rec.709 and has UHD. I toggle back and forth between them for working monitor and color monitor.

The BenQ comes factory calibrated with a paper printout of the response curves and adjustments. In fact, whenever I calibrate it and toggle the calibrated profile on and off, nothing changes.

This setup has been really great for me as an indie filmmaker — your mileage may vary.
 
For sure. I haven't, but it does it. It's one of those things where it's crazy that it's just free and available for filmmakers. Pretty customizable and powerful IMO.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
I was just in your situation recently. Only difference is I just purchased one refurbished. PC Liquidators has them for around $100. Technically you’re supposed to purchase a very expensive calibrator from HP. The HP one leaves a calibration in the monitor hardware. Which is the optimum “real” way it “should” be done. Any other way, short of adjusting the monitor manually, gives a software calibration only.

I just used a Colormomki and DisplayCal’s free software (which is key— don’t use the xrite software!).

Display cal provides a LUT or a profile you can load in Davinci.

I also use a BenQ Pd2500 which is inexpensive and Technicolor certified at 100%RGB and Rec.709 and has UHD. I toggle back and forth between them for working monitor and color monitor.

The BenQ comes factory calibrated with a paper printout of the response curves and adjustments. In fact, whenever I calibrate it and toggle the calibrated profile on and off, nothing changes.

This setup has been really great for me as an indie filmmaker — your mileage may vary.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Jack. Is there a way to calibrate it in Premiere Pro?... I was looking at the BenQ in BH. Is it UHD or 2K?
 
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You can't calibrate it in premiere. You can only adjust it manually and really all you can do by eye is brightness contrast with SMPTE bars. To be clear you can't calibrate it within davinci either. The software and hardware calibrator provide a correction that's saved in your computer preferences. Davinci is set up where you can share that color profile with it and it will take that information to make sure the playback or grading windows are presenting images working in tandem for the highest accuracy with the software profile you created in Display cal. So you're not really calibrating it in Davinci, Davi's just using the information DisplayCal gathered and referencing that to send accurate color images to your eyeballs.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
You can't calibrate it in premiere. You can only adjust it manually and really all you can do by eye is brightness contrast with SMPTE bars. To be clear you can't calibrate it within davinci either. The software and hardware calibrator provide a correction that's saved in your computer preferences. Davinci is set up where you can share that color profile with it and it will take that information to make sure the playback or grading windows are presenting images working in tandem for the highest accuracy with the software profile you created in Display cal. So you're not really calibrating it in Davinci, Davi's just using the information DisplayCal gathered and referencing that to send accurate color images to your eyeballs.
Click to expand...
Ah, got it... BTW I noticed your avatar. I have an amusing Peter Dinklage story. I live near wburg Brooklyn and I think he must live there or near there. One day I saw a little person on a bike get cut off by an SUV and he punched the driver's side window... Well, it was Dinklage and instead of a horrible road rage incident the guy in the SUV just kept looking at him in awe and probably thinking "Tyrion Lannister just punched my window LOL"...
 
scorsesefan said:
Ah, got it... BTW I noticed your avatar. I have an amusing Peter Dinklage story. I live near wburg Brooklyn and I think he must live there or near there. One day I saw a little person on a bike get cut off by an SUV and he punched the driver's side window... Well, it was Dinklage and instead of a horrible road rage incident the guy in the SUV just kept looking at him in awe and probably thinking "Tyrion Lannister just punched my window LOL"...
Click to expand...

Haha awesome.

:-Laugh(DBG):
 
When you guys are talking about this youre talking about outputting to an external via a blackmagic box or something similar right? Im in the unfortunate position of being neurotic about wanting to have accurate color monitoring but only ever doing an occasional unpaid project where I do any real “grading”, and therefore cant justify the expense of a real setup. Sounds like the profile you use in Davinci would be sent out (via blackmagic box etc) to the external monitor then?

The Colormunkis look like they’re around $150 unless I’m missing something?
 
I'm going out to a BM mini monitor but I decided to take Jack's suggestion and go for the Benq 27 inch. Like you said it's like $150 for the calibration tool and the HP is already sort of older tech. If I already owned a Colormunki I would give his workaround a shot...
 
Thanks. So how does that work then with the BenQ? You still have to calibrate it somehow for it to be accurate, even if it's a decent monitor.
 
I've heard the factory calibration is very good. Maybe Jack can chime in? At some point I guess I will have to pick up a calibration tool. In any case I'm not doing high end work with it...
 
Ah I see. From what I understand other than something like a Flanders (and maybe Im wrong here) that is out of the box calibrated/accurate, any monitor needs to be calibrated either by a probe or some other fancy way. That said, perhaps the factory setting IS very good and perhaps that level of good is “good enough” depending on one’s purposes.
 
Josh Bass said:
When you guys are talking about this youre talking about outputting to an external via a blackmagic box or something similar right? Im in the unfortunate position of being neurotic about wanting to have accurate color monitoring but only ever doing an occasional unpaid project where I do any real “grading”, and therefore cant justify the expense of a real setup. Sounds like the profile you use in Davinci would be sent out (via blackmagic box etc) to the external monitor then?

The Colormunkis look like they’re around $150 unless I’m missing something?
Click to expand...

BMD finally made it where you can monitor on just a computer monitor as a second screen. It’s probably not as color managed as Well as when you go out via black magic box, but then again you have to make sure the monitor you’re going out to is calibrated.

There’s a few options within Davinci to use the profiles created by Display cal and other hardware specific calibrators and colorimeters.
 
Thanks. I have an Ultrastudio minimonitor, HDMI and SDI out. When you say BM finally made it so you could use a comp monitor as second screen, I assumed these devices would feed anything with a compatible input? Was that not always the case?
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
BMD finally made it where you can monitor on just a computer monitor as a second screen. It’s probably not as color managed as Well as when you go out via black magic box, but then again you have to make sure the monitor you’re going out to is calibrated.

There’s a few options within Davinci to use the profiles created by Display cal and other hardware specific calibrators and colorimeters.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think this is similar to the color management option that was introduced in Premiere Pro recently...
 
Oh I see. Those profile options are new? Im still on v14 cause of OS limitations. Been putting off upgrading forever.
 
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