Possibility of SMART III Calibration Tool for hire!

[benmc]

Hello all

I am thinking about buying the SMART III calibration for the HS10 when I am out in the states in a few weeks. The cost will be about £185

Would anyone be interested in the possibility of hiring the SMART III from me after this?

I was thinking about a cost of £20 per week with a damage deposit.

Here is the url of the tool

http://www.smartavtweaks.com/index.html

What do people think?

Regards

Ben

[darren7]

Yes that seems a good idear, £20 is very cheap, I have be told(well this is with the vpl-11/12ht) that the cine filter that you get with the projector is not the one to use, and that for a white screen you will need the cc40 filter.

so it may cost a little more, plus the TAX

Thanks

[benmc]

I am going to buy the SMART III with the filter for my HS10 which I will keep.

If people hire the SMART they will have to get thier own filters.

I hope that this makes sense

Ben

[TT9]

benmc,

Are you talking about the CC40R filter ? I have one of they anyway and am just looking for perfect calibration, as we all are.

I would be up for £20 hire charge.

Steve.

[benmc]

Yes I am talking about the CC40R Filter

[dunkyboy]

I definitely like the plan. £20 for a week sounds reasonable, and this should help bring the SMART calibration to the UK masses. :)

As for me, I don't think I'll be using it with my current PJ (not really good enough to be worth it, sadly), but if I upgrade in April like I'm hoping to, I'll definitely be interested.

Cheers,

Dunc

[John_N]

As I understand it, SMART is about contrast setting and I think it assumes that your colour temperature is already set correctly AFAIK.

If this is the case, SMART calibration will not be able to calibrate a projector after adding a CC40R filter because you will need to recalibrate the projector greyscale, ideally to D65, and this is not something that SMART can perform. To do this, you will need a colour analyser such as Milori Colorfacts which currently retails at about $1495 by the way.

Gordon - would you care to comment?
Rgds
John

[JohnS]

As I understand it, SMART is about contrast setting and I think it assumes that your colour temperature is already set correctly AFAIK.

Not wishing to argue and need to research trhis better but I thought that the whole idea of smart was to supply a filter and then colour correct it before setting the usual contrast and brightness etc.

I might be up for a hire as I'd been considering buying it myself, what about a "while your out there post it back marked as a gift"? Obviously I'd front the money but that "might" get over customs and vat etc.

[Phil Hodgins]

Guys

I have used SMART II to calibrate my 11HT and it produces some stunning results in combination with a CCR40 filter.

SMART does indeed rebalance the colour setup using the greyscale IRE windows found on the AVIA disk. To carry out a calibration it took me 3 hours and thats not having done it before.

To check the correct filter you can look on the Ehnance HT web site under the filter section and it will give you a good rule of thimb for filter selection.

I am also upgrading to SMART III as the origional photocell does not have a good response to low light levels i.e. 0,10 & 20 IRE. I also want to check the gamma matix for the panels.

Phil

[xander]

Guys, afaik, the Smart kit is licensed on a per-projector basis. This means you cannot rent it out or lend it to anyone without breaking the license agreement. It is rather expensive though...

[John_N]

Hi

If you look on the earlier thread entitled "Smart Calibration" you will see:

<Quote>

Steve Smallcombe is no -ones fool. I believe his methods are solid and that a valid increase in contrast and linearity will be achieved if you do a smart calibration. It doesn't get the greyscale to track at the correct temperature though. afaik. To do that you need a colour analyser as well.

I will be going to see a couple of forum members, hopefully next week, to calibrate their Sony LCD's. We will be using CCR filters and on at least one of them I'll do a non filter cal and a flitered cal so comparisons can be made. I am sure they will post the findings after I've gone.

Gordon

----
This is also my understanding. I don't believe that SMART has the ability to perform colour temperature calibration and therefore trying to use after adding a CC40R filter to your projector will not be the best way forward since the colour temp will be completely wrong to start with.

If I'm wrong, I would love to hear about it because SMART is a lot cheaper than a proper Photospectroradiometer....and this is why I feel suspicious - after all - you do tend to get what you pay for!

John

[John_N]

I've just read Steve Smallcombe's web pages and he appears to be assuming that the projector is calibrated correctly on at least one of the manufacturers supplied colour temperature settings.

This is so that he can calibrate the apparatus using a known reference to compensate for the non-linear spectral response of the photocell.

What this means is that SMART on it's own will not be of any use calibrating an HS10 system after addition of a CC40R filter, without ensuring that the colour balance is set correctly first, since it assumes that the manufacturers 'low' setting is calibrated correctly.

AFAIK it also reads light from the projector rather than screen and therefore any effects from the environment (screen , wall colour etc) will not be taken into account.

I'm sure that an increase in contrast and linearity over the greyscale could be acheived using this system, but not a colour temperature setting to D65 - which is what is really required after adding a CC40R filter.

Just my 2p worth...
Regards
John

[Phil Hodgins]

John_N

I can tell you that Smart does indeed reset the colour balance when a filter is used. Smart uses RGB filters and measurements are made entered into a spreadsheet etc. If it dd not then you would get a colour cast on a IRE greyscale ramp. The start of all this is to use the factory low setting which is at the correct temperature.

I tried the standard colour setup screens of both AVIA and THX optimod and both were spot on.

I would agree that a colour analyser would be more accurate but the Smart system produces very resonable results considering the cost of the kit.


Phil

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

John: You are correct:

Greyscale and colour balance are two seperate things. NO PROJECTORS MEASURE D65 direct out of the box. Your room, the equipment you use, your screen, your contrast and brightness controls ALL affect this. Use of SMART will get you maximum contrast from the device mapped to original settings.

My own SMART package has turned up. When my new spectroradiometer arrives I will go visit a friend who has a grey screen and a VPL11. I will measure before and after SMART then will do another greyscale calibration. I will try to take pictures. I want to understand exactly what is happening here as do all of you I am sure.

Gordon

Colour bars are used to check whether the colour decoder is working in the set. If it is not then adjusting greyscale cannot fix it.

PHIL: Low setting on these devices measures differently for different folk as I have just pointed out. It is nearest to 6500K of the factory settings but 6500K is NOT the target. This is the problem. D65 is. You can get a lovely 6500 Kelvin image that is cast green.......

[John_N]

Hi

Thanks Gordon,

To further Gordon's point a bit more, let us consider colour temperature. Colour temperature does not explicitly define the spectral distribution of a source (ie - what colours of the rainbow are in there and in what proportion). What this means is that two sources can both measure 6500K but they can have different perceived colours when you look at them - this is because one might have more blue and less green, while the other may have more green and red and less blue for example. An instrument would still measure the colour temp as 6500K but the spectral energy distribution would be different.

This is what D65 is about. It is a mathematical illuminant and is defined as spectral energy emitted by a black body emitter at 6500K which is also very close to the spectral energy distribution of natural (North) daylight. This is what we are trying to acheive with setting our gain/bias controls.

Hence we end up with not only a measured colour temperature of 6500K, but also a spectral energy graph that matches D65.

Therefore we should not really be talking about "setting our colour temperature to 6500K" but rather "setting our colour balance to D65" in order not to confuse things....

Unfortunately SMART can therefore not set your colour balance correctly as Gordon has already mentioned.

Kind Regards
John

[John_N]

Hi Ben

One more thing - I might be interested in looking at SMART - because SMART needs to be used in conjunction with a colour analyser really and vice versa I think for best results - so my interest in colour analysers doesn't affect your SMART idea...

Cheers
John

[greggz]

Just wanted to expand on some information I read in this thread.

There are 2 products now, SMART II and SMART III.

Smart II uses an inexpensive $2 photo cell, cheap RGB filters, and your projectors LOW settings as the baseline for correction after applying the CCR filter.

Smart III uses a $200 light meter and more expensive filters and DOES NOT rely on how your projector came from the factory. It seeks to adjust your projector to a measured D65.

With regard to using SMART on multiple projectors, the license reads that 1 copy of the SOFTWARE must be purchased for each projector. So if you wanted to adhear to the license, you could purchase the $250 kit, but you should send Steve the cost of the software for each additional projector. I think the software is around $60, but you'd have to check with Steve on that.

I've tweaked my projector with SMART II and am happy with the results. I havent decided yet if I will move up to SMART III. I figured I'd wait until my bulb burned out and then decide at that time if I'm going to stick with the 11HT or maybe move up to Sony's rumored SXRD projector. Its similar to LCOS technology and is rumored to have a 3000:1 contrast ratio. Rumor is that it will hit the streets at around $8,000. It could be here as soon as 2004. [Edit: Rumor is now 2Q03 for a SXRD projector from Sony]

[John_N]

Is this true? Anyone else out there know about Smart 3 ???

If so, I'm very suprised that such a cheap package can calibrate to D65... Hmm. What does it use for a reference then? How does it compensate for ambient light / furnishing / screen gain / etc?

This needs some thinking about.... I suspect that it won't be all that accurate although may be better than nothing...

How much is it again?

John

[benmc]

I looked into getting it when i go to the States on Saturday and it was going to cost about £185 but with the new house comming there is no free money!! That did include the CC04? filter

But the new house has a double length garage that I want to convert into a cinema room!!!

Ben
EDITED Wrong Price Conversion

[greggz]

http://www.smartavtweaks.com/SMART3.html

The introductory price for the SMART III bundle is US$249.99. That includes the software, the light meter, and the RGB filters. The appropriate CCR filter is an additional $50.

With regard to screen gain, Steve has always maintained that the appropriate screen for a CCR corrected and properly calibrated 10/11/12HT is a 1.0 gain matte white screen.

[jciarrocchi]

I too am looking for the Smart III to rent or to buy and can'rt get it here in the US. Do you have it? Will you rent it??


Hello all

I am thinking about buying the SMART III calibration for the HS10 when I am out in the states in a few weeks. The cost will be about £185

Would anyone be interested in the possibility of hiring the SMART III from me after this?

I was thinking about a cost of £20 per week with a damage deposit.

Here is the url of the tool

http://www.smartavtweaks.com/index.html

What do people think?

Regards

Ben

[Gary Lightfoot]

EDIT,

I see what you mean - Steve is doing other things so has suspended sales. Sounds a bit odd...

Gary.