Color calibrating monitor for DVD (1 Viewer)

[Stephen_Ri]

Hi, I've just installed a DVD player on my PC and it plays fine on my ATI Multimedia Center 7.1 software but it looks a bit faded, so I wonder if you guys could recommend a good program for calibrating for DVD. In case it matters, my graphics card is an XPERT 128 and the monitor is a NEC MultiSync XV17+. The monitor itself is great and displays regualar pictures perfectly, I think it just needs to be set to NTSC standards or something. Thanks.

Stephen

 

[Max Leung]

There aren't too many good programs out there for calibration -- they typically require some instrumentation. However, you can use DVDs such as Video Essentials or Avia for very basic calibration such as brightness and gamma, although unfortunately most monitors won't let you adjust very much except brightness (aka black level) and contrast.

It doesn't help that monitors typically have higher gamma than NTSC televisions...around 2.4 to 2.9 versus NTSC's 2.2! Watching DVDs on my Samsung 900p is annoying because the monitor's gamma is 2.9!

 

[Cees Alons]

Don't forget mainly to judge it when you're watching it in an almost dark environment. Most people underestimate the dimming effect of stray light on their monitors.

Cees

 

[Demetri K]

you can always adjust color balance, brightness, contrast, and everything eles in your video card properties.

 

[Max Leung]

The only problem with adjusting video card properties is that sometimes they do not apply to the video overlays used by DVD playback software.

Although, it is somewhat moot now that virtually all software DVD players let you adjust them. Gamma adjustment is a bit more tricky though.

My biggest beef with CRT computer monitors is that some of them have high gammas, making everything look very dark. Increasing brightness on these monitors ends up crushing your blacks! Only solution is to adjust the color tables on your video card...a daunting task (and often won't work with video overlays).

 

[Stephen_Ri]

Thanks for the replies. I've got a pretty good picture although it seems because of the overlays I am only able to adjust contrast. However, if I use my monitor's setup and bypass the video card completely, I can adjust brightness. BTW, I looked at color management and the one I'm using is "NEC compatible 9300K G2.2", which suggests to me that its 2.2 gamma.

Stephen

 

[Max Leung]

Hey Stephen. Not sure what G2.2 is, but if it is gamma than that is good!

You should set your monitor to 6500K if possible. That is the standard that DVDs are color-corrected to, otherwise everything will look too blue.