Color calibration, Full Range RGB etc (1 Viewer)

[Doomblaster]

Ok..not sure if this is the right part of the forum, but here goes the question anyway. My setup is as follows: HTPC with MediaPortal 1.3.0 (Intel 3770T w/HD4000, Digital Devices tuners) connected via HDMI to Denon AVR-3311 which again is connected via HDMI to a Pioneer PDP LX508D. I also have a Spyder3 unit with Spyder3TV software upgrade. Basically I tried running the "normal" calibration routine with Spyder3 on the HTPC, but the endresult wasn't really satisfying. I then tried using Spyder3TV to calibrate the TV only which made it all a bit better, but still not good enough. I then started exploring a bit. As far as I understand both receiver and TV supports Full Range RGB (0-255) and limited range RGB (16-235). Doesn't seem like TV supports xvYCC, so that route is probably a nogo. I'm not exactly sure what HTPC supports. According to Intel forums, it seems to be hard to get Full Range RGB to work properly on HD4000. Anyways, which way is the best to calibrate the color on this setup and should I go Full Range RGB, limited range RGB or YCbCr? I mean...should I calibrate HTPC, TV or both? If both...what should I calibrate first? If it matters, I use the HTPC mostly for watching regular TV, but also the occasional blu-ray (original discs). From what I read, the format on blu-ray discs are always 16-235 (YCbCr?), and I'm not sure what cable TV is sent like (if that matters). All in all I just get very confused about what to choose and where to start, there are just so many options! Any advice on how to go about this would be great.

A small side question, is there any way to figure out what type of signal is sent out from each unit in a fairly easy way?

 

[DragonQ]

Choosing 16-235 vs 0-255 doesn't matter too much. The former is simpler since it's normally the default for both GPUs using HDMI and TVs. It should also stop any unnecessary level expansion by MediaPortal, which is good because EVR isn't very good at this.

Using 0-255 allows you to get "whiter than white" but this is almost exclusively useless. The main benefit is it also allows you to calibrate a bit more easily. However, for quality purposes, outputting 16-235 should be better.

To ensure quality, you usually want minimal post-processing by your GPU. Turn off all these features (e.g. noise reduction, contrast boost, etc.) and calibrate your TV to start with. In some cases GPU post-processing is useful, e.g. for SD content because MediaPortal's upscaling algorithm is very poor. I use ffdshow for this but apparently MediaPortal 2.0 will make this redundant.

 

[kiwijunglist]

Above post covers everything. Agree with turning off all enhancements on the TV.

You can download a video calibration video and watch it in mediaportal. as long as it gives expected results everything should be "good enough".

 

[kiwijunglist]

I should also add the most important thing to get right is brightness and contrast

Play the video called black clipping in mediaportal
Turn tv brightness down to 0
Gradually increase brightness until you can just barely see that bar #17 is blinking

Now play the video called apl clipping
Check that you can still see #17 blinking, if you can't adjust brightness up / down slightly

Now play white clipping
You should see 230-234 blinking (if white level is too high there is no blinking)
Make note of the current contrast (white level) setting on the tv.
1. Now adjust white level to 100% if the blinking bars disappear then gradually reduce until they re-appear. White level is now adjusted correctly. If you get eye fatigue from watching movies then you need to reduce the contrast/white level a bit or lower the backlight setting.

2. If the blinking bars are still blinking at 100% contrast then your tv doesn't not clip white levels, return the contrast to the original setting. You have to set the contrast so it is high enough to make things look bright without giving you eye fatigue or artifacts. If you are not sure just leave it at the default setting.

More basic calibraiton instructions:
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8968806/Patterns-Manual.pdf