Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

HP dreamcolor tinted magenta

Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso

Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 29, 2006
Messages
796
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Location
Los Angeles
Hi all,
my HP dreamcolor monitor shows magenta tinted images. I've tried calibrating it over and over with the HP profiling tool (the rebranded HP eye1d) and the tint doesn't go away.
Then I call HP and they say they don't do repairs so I need to buy a new monitor. Great!
What can I do?
 
There's really not a lot you can do. The panel has probably gone bad. You would need to re-profile the display externally and then add a custom input LUT through a proper hardware box to try to get back in spec. But this would cost more than the Dreamcolor is worth and you'd probably never get it calibrated anyway.

It's time for a new display. Maybe don't get another Dreamcolor...
 
Flanders has a new SDI monitor that is really beautiful. there are the Sony OLED's or you could try to hire a professional calibration guy to come and profile your Dreamcolor which if the panel is bad won't help much but at least you'll know for sure its not the software acting up. If you want to go the cheaper Route, you could purchase a new Panasonic 50" plasma or OLED and have it calibrated and that would give you a good reference image as well for under 2K.
 
Thanks for the comments.
Let me add that the magenta tint, while visible, is not something that stands out as a completely broken monitor. It's just not good for evaluating images.
Lets say I don´t want to spend more than 4K on a monitor and I don't need SDI input. WHat would my best bets be?
 
If you don't need SDI, I would suggest going the Plasma / OLED route. Get yourself a 24" or 27" Dell Ultrasharp as GUI, a Plasma/OLED as Reference and you could go DVI- HDMI with a simple cable or Mini-Display Port to HDMI to the plasma. But the way i would do it would be to get a Kona 3 or 3G card, and send an SDI signal out of your Kona Card via Scratch or FCP, etc to a converter box such as the AJA Hi5 3G and convert to HDMI to the plasma. That way you get a 10 bit signal as reference instead of just 8 bit.
 
Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso said:
Lets say I don´t want to spend more than 4K on a monitor and I don't need SDI input. WHat would my best bets be?
Click to expand...


I like the NEC PA241W. You can buy the additional SpectraView II calibration software that will keep it in check. Personally I prefer the NEC over the Dreamcolor.

Best part is that it's cheap right now at B&H Photo. $735 new w/ free shipping. You can't beat that!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=676418&is=REG&Q=&A=details
 
IMHO: I would stay away from OLEDs unless you're willing to spend real $$$ (10K+ on the SONY BVM Line).

But a larger Panasonic Plasma is really cool. You can buy last year's 65" VT50 high-end prosumer model for a little over $2000 from Amazon. There's a few ways to get it calibrated from expensive to almost free and the image is SICK!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00752VKTG/
 
Adrian Jebef said:
I like the NEC PA241W. You can buy the additional SpectraView II calibration software that will keep it in check. Personally I prefer the NEC over the Dreamcolor.

Best part is that it's cheap right now at B&H Photo. $735 new w/ free shipping. You can't beat that!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=676418&is=REG&Q=&A=details
Click to expand...

Hi, I see a couple NEC calibration devices, which one is the right one?
Also what about the PA242 which offers a widre gammut? worth it?
 
Re calibrate by eye or using something other than the kit. That I1 probe has a shelf life of about 1 year - it may well be your problem.

THEN - use a 3D lut - the Dreamcolor is accurate-ish on it's own, but it's by no means perfect nor even what I would consider a grading monitor. It can be with Lightscape LUT calibration fed to an eeColor box. Mine looks very close in accuracy to a Dolby - even side by side they look exactly the same except blacks (and dark color saturation) are more "accurate" on the Dolby, although one could say that the Dolby is further from the consumer's experience in this way, and so less accurate.
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
Re calibrate by eye or using something other than the kit. That I1 probe has a shelf life of about 1 year - it may well be your problem.

THEN - use a 3D lut - the Dreamcolor is accurate-ish on it's own, but it's by no means perfect nor even what I would consider a grading monitor. It can be with Lightscape LUT calibration fed to an eeColor box. Mine looks very close in accuracy to a Dolby - even side by side they look exactly the same except blacks (and dark color saturation) are more "accurate" on the Dolby, although one could say that the Dolby is further from the consumer's experience in this way, and so less accurate.
Click to expand...


If I recalibrate and create a 3D lut, what would be the best way to apply that lut to the monitor? If it´s not hardware based inside the monitor circuitry, I'll have to deal with Windows COlo management system, right?

What probe+software would you recommend? The results I´ve got with the HP profiling tool, or the eye1display2 or the spyder 3 were all terrible.
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
Re calibrate by eye or using something other than the kit. That I1 probe has a shelf life of about 1 year - it may well be your problem.

THEN - use a 3D lut - the Dreamcolor is accurate-ish on it's own, but it's by no means perfect nor even what I would consider a grading monitor. It can be with Lightscape LUT calibration fed to an eeColor box. Mine looks very close in accuracy to a Dolby - even side by side they look exactly the same except blacks (and dark color saturation) are more "accurate" on the Dolby, although one could say that the Dolby is further from the consumer's experience in this way, and so less accurate.
Click to expand...


To be honest, this is just going to cost you money and plenty of frustration. If you were dealing with a proper Class 1 display then it might be worth your trouble but for something like a Dreamcolor I wouldn't bother.

Again, if you're looking for something along the lines of your last display then stay in a pragmatic price point. If you want something better you'd probably be stepping up to an FSI or similar at $5K. It's about what you're willing to spend. I have that older NEC. For the money it's pretty good but I know it's got a shelf life of a couple years if I'm lucky. I've used Cine-tals for years. New and fully upgraded you were looking at over $25,000. I've replaced the panels in my Cine-tals because they were worth it. For my NEC I'd just buy another one when mine went bad.
 
Have you tried resetting the monitor to factory defaults?
There's an option somewhere in the menus.
If you reset it and the magenta cast remains, the monitor's probably gone bad.
If not, get another dreamcolor profiling probe. :-)

Hope it helps.

Btw, I love both my dreamcolors. ;-)
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
Re calibrate by eye or using something other than the kit. That I1 probe has a shelf life of about 1 year - it may well be your problem.

THEN - use a 3D lut - the Dreamcolor is accurate-ish on it's own, but it's by no means perfect nor even what I would consider a grading monitor. It can be with Lightscape LUT calibration fed to an eeColor box. Mine looks very close in accuracy to a Dolby - even side by side they look exactly the same except blacks (and dark color saturation) are more "accurate" on the Dolby, although one could say that the Dolby is further from the consumer's experience in this way, and so less accurate.
Click to expand...

To get proper calibration on the dreamcolor, you must use the official probe and software and then feed the monitor the proper signal. It's the only way to get the monitor's hardware calibrated. If you profile your video card to the monitor, you'll never get as accurate because you have no control over the back light color temperature, not to mention potential banding. When you use hp's complete solution, the internal hardware in the monitor gets calibrated and remains so independently of the source, meaning you could connect your laptop, xbox, bluray, etc... and the display remains properly calibrated, as long as the signal complies with the criteria to engage the dreamcolor engine (progressive, not interlaced and rgb, not yuv)
 
Luis de la Cerda said:
Have you tried resetting the monitor to factory defaults?
There's an option somewhere in the menus.
If you reset it and the magenta cast remains, the monitor's probably gone bad.
If not, get another dreamcolor profiling probe. :-)

Hope it helps.

Btw, I love both my dreamcolors. ;-)
Click to expand...


Yep I did, monitor stays the same though. Whites are tinted magenta. I could try hitting it with a hammer! XD
Actually I have 2 HP profiling probes, and one of them is definitely bad (produces super green Matrix-like results). Then I ordered the new one and it used to work. The problem is that I think the probe is not for sale anymore, is it?
 
It's a gamble. :O

I find it weird also that hp refuses to repair it, since it isn't a regular consumer product but one of their professional division products. Even the warranty and support terms are different from those for the consumer division. Maybe a few extra emails to could pay off? Hope you get it back up and running again. I'd hate having the same thing happen to mine.
 
If the monitor is too magenta, you could try just adding more green until it goes away. Not perfect, but I really doubt the accuracy of any of these expensive consumer monitors and calibration systems. For example, I recently used a Spyder to calibrate four monitors. Their color temps, brightnesses and hues were still all over the place after the calibration. I wound up picking the one that looked the best, and by using my eyes and color temp and light meters to calibrate the other three to match. Not perfect, but a heck of A LOT BETTER than what the Spyder did.

I'd also consider contacting a professional monitor calibrator and telling him what's going on. He very well might know a way to fix it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top