Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Display 2

[xtknight]

The Eye-One is a device that lets you calibrate monitors (CRT, LCD, or notebooks). I decided to pick one up and calibrate every monitor in the house to see what kind of results I'd get.

The device itself looks like a suction cup (google pic) and there's a white plate used for measuring ambient light. I should add that it does not take ambient light into account in the color profile, though it does give you measurements of the brightness and temperature of the ambient light in your area.

The Eye-One Display 2 hooks up via a USB connection. This was very convenient since I have a USB hub right on my monitor. The circular black weight in the picture above attaches to the USB cord to keep the calibrator from moving. The color sensor cup hangs by the wire.

Some may find the installation confusing. There was a zip file containing drivers on the CD that you had to extract, and the software on the CD was outdated and unstable (v3.1). The latest Eye-One Match software (v3.6) works very well however, and even supports XP x64.

Upon starting the Eye-One Match program and selecting 'Monitor' you are presented with your 'target' calibration settings. For white point, I chose 6500K (daylight). Gamma was set at 2.2, the default for PC monitors. I left luminance at 120 nits, the recommended for LCDs.

Enough with the philosophy though. After you go through the whole process of adjusting contrast, brightness, and color channels on your monitor's OSD, how much difference does it make?

Prior to the calibration my 20WMGX2's settings were about 30 brightness and 50 contrast in the sRGB (6500K) preset (which isn't exactly 6500K). These settings were measured at about 250 nits, very bright for general usage. After, my settings ended up being 10.9% brightness, 82.0% contrast, and R:93.3%,G:88.2%,B:89.4%. This, coupled with the ICC profile it generated (which contains the gamma curve compensation), made the monitor absolutely beautiful. It was very easy on the eyes, and white looked consistent and pure without being overpowering. Black was 0.3 nits, a very respectable deep black. Even websites looked better: colors were more even and I found myself not fiddling with the brightness settings anymore depending on what I'm doing.

The calibration itself was quite tight.

NEC 20WMGX2
Color Temperature 6500K->6500K
Gamma 2.2->2.2
Luminance 120.0 cd/m2->120.6 cd/m2
deltaE2000 avg: 0.56

Needless to say I was very impressed with the results. Before I could say I had awesome colors, but now I can say they are even more accurate and comfortable. The gamma profile seals the deal by making fine adjustments that you yourself are unable to make on your monitor (or reliably on the video card). If you just had the brightness/contrast settings correct, color temperature could still be way off, and things would definitely looked washed out without proper gamma compensation. These are crucial to having impressive on-screen color reproduction, and only possible by using a colorimeter device like the Eye-One Display 2.

Measurements of other monitors:

Samsung 710t dE2000: 3.00
ViewSonic VP930b dE2000: 1.20

The 710t is a low-contrast LCD to begin with, so results were less impressive but it was easy on the eyes. The VP930b returned quite respectable colors after calibration. The colors were more precise, and it was a lot easier on the eyes than the monitor's preset SRGB mode. They recommend you recalibrate every 4 weeks to retain color accuracy. Even after a year it'd be much better than the defaults though.

 

[Mem]

I just like to say that calibration makes a very noticeable difference with LCDs,so I agree with Xtknight,calibrating my Belinea 10 20 35W with my Spyder 2 Express made a big difference,colours had a wider range and skin tones looked more natural.

I paid £70 for my Spyder 2 Express in the UK and think it's worth the money.

I believe the Eye-One Display 2 is about £180 in the UK so would expect excellent results too, just like Xtknight as stated..
Thanks for ther review xtknight.

 

[Lord Banshee]

Do you have a link of purchase? I would have to travel 1-2 hours for the closet retailer that thier site says has it.

 

[xtknight]

The Eye-One Match software and calibration process only works on Windows and Mac OS X, but you can load the ICC profile on Linux/X by using xcalib and it looks exactly the same as under Windows. With xgamma you are limited in your adjustments, but xcalib has the ability to load a look-up table rather than just multiply your gamma by a specified exponent (1.1, 1.2, etc).

I do agree the biggest difference is in skin tones since most LCDs are rather cold by default. Don't forget to disable dynamic contrast and DV modes on your LCD (such as advanced DVM, or 'movie' modes). They'll definitely screw up calibration since they're dynamic and often improve midtones at the expense of other colors. Digital vibrance and DV modes are a joke compared to a well-calibrated monitor. You don't realize how bad they are until you compare the two. They oversaturate everything.

Originally posted by: Lord Banshee
Do you have a link of purchase? I would have to travel 1-2 hours for the closet retailer that thier site says has it.

I ordered from here (I'm in southeast Michigan): http://www.logix-usa.com/Gretag_EyeOneDisplay.html

Had to pay sales tax but it still ended up cheaper than from the Gretag Macbeth store and delivery was very fast since it was local.

 

[Zebo]

$225:Q...How about we pass this around to users with good heatware for a $20 fee xknight? This way you get it paid for eventually and we can calibrate for cheap?... although by the lack of responses since this thread was started many seems to not care about IQ Anyway I'm going to give your settings a try once I get my rig back up..(painting my office) Bightness seems way too low like not white anymore but beige from I remember anything below 30 looked beige on our monitor.

 

[josh6079]

First off, awesome job there. That seems to be a neat little tool to have.

Prior to the calibration my 20WMGX2's settings were about 30 brightness and 50 contrast in the sRGB (6500K) preset (which isn't exactly 6500K). These settings were measured at about 250 nits, very bright for general usage. After, my settings ended up being 10.9% brightness, 82.0% contrast, and R:93.3%,G:88.2%,B:89.4%. This, coupled with the ICC profile it generated (which contains the gamma curve compensation), made the monitor absolutely beautiful. It was very easy on the eyes, and white looked consistent and pure without being overpowering. Black was 0.3 nits, a very respectable deep black. Even websites looked better: colors were more even and I found myself not fiddling with the brightness settings anymore depending on what I'm doing.

Major Kudos xtknight!! I tried these settings and while it is definatley less bright, it isn't as strenous. Right away my eyes just felt easier. The colors still look well-balanced also. I'll give some of my games a go and see what I think, but so far it looks like a nice improvement.

Thanks again. :thumbsup:

 

[Michael]

There is another option that is less expensive than the Eye-one. I bought a device they now call "Huey". It made a very big difference to the way my VP930b looks and it also generates a custom ICC profile.

Huey

I have 4 LCD monitors in my house, so I found it well worth the expense.

Michael

 

[xtknight]

New settings for this week (you do have to recalibrate off and on if you want it to be really accurate):

Brightness: 8.5
Contrast: 100
R: 94.1, G: 87.4, B: 90.9
ICC (RGB gamma): http://lcdresource.com/tools/Monitor_10-20-2006_1.icc

Results:
6500K, 2.2 gamma, ~120 nits
deltaE<0.48 (best I've gotten so far)

Try these settings and then apply this ICC profile using xcalib (don't forget to zero out all the NVIDIA color correction options first).

 

[Avalon]

$225 is way too much for me. I wouldn't mind dropping $20 to someone to pass it around when I got a new LCD, though.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Michael
There is another option that is less expensive than the Eye-one. I bought a device they now call "Huey". It made a very big difference to the way my VP930b looks and it also generates a custom ICC profile.

Huey

I have 4 LCD monitors in my house, so I found it well worth the expense.

Michael

Did the ICC included on the VP930 CD seem WAY off to you too? I wonder why they bother bundling those when they're just off by so much.

Originally posted by: Avalon
$225 is way too much for me. I wouldn't mind dropping $20 to someone to pass it around when I got a new LCD, though.

Well it's not too much if you pass up that $500 DX10 video card upgrade.

 

[Michael]

xtknight - yes, the ICC that came with the monitor looks off. The settings now are pretty close to "reality". For example, if I look at a picture of me in a colourful shirt and than hold the shirt close to the screen, I can not see much difference. Before calibration I could see a difference.

The biggest difference comes in printing. I get something to look right on my screen and it looks right when printed as well.

Michael

 

[Madellga]

I got recently a 2407 Rev A03, it was a deal too good to pass.

It's for my wife's office, it is good enough for her use.

But compared to my 2405, it's a step behind I guess. XT's advice is correct.

Nevertheless, my question goes to the hardware calibration device. This 2407 desperately needs calibration and I'm not getting anyware alone.

I've seen the Spyder2 express and Huey for a reasonable price (around 90 euros).
Are they good enough for a "normal" user like me?

I would like to buy the Pro stuff, but its use is kind of limited - once for every new monitor you buy, which does not happen so often in my case. Are those "light" device up to the job?