my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film-Yak   » One day deal on a home theater color meter

Author Topic: One day deal on a home theater color meter Joe Elliott Master Film Handler Posts: 497 From: Port Orange, Fl USA Registered: Oct 2006 posted 10-05-2013 12:22 AM                     Note: this is off a one day deal site, for Saturday OCT 5th. Although you may be able to find it later somewhere else. It is for a "Datacolor S3TV100 Spyder3 Colorimeter TV/Home Theater Color Calibration" I thought some people might be interested in this. Home color meter Below are the details for this meter, although I could not get the formating to copy: Designed for home theater system to display accurate colors, shadows and details just like the director intended Ultimate Color Accuracy for your Home Theater - get clearly defined shadow and highlight detail Save Energy - Calibration can save a bundle on the annual operating costs of a TV Extended life of your television backlight and LCD tubes by adjusting your set to the the optimal (not maximum) lighting levels State-of-the-art optical design and new 7 detector color engine provide industry- leading performance Calibrated set will properly adjust the brightness and contrast and reduce the amount of electricity consumed by the display Precisely calibrates all of your Plasma, RPTV, DLP, LCD, CRT TVs and Front Projectors Scientifically determines the optimal settings for your display using the sliders that exist in the user menu of your TV  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 10-05-2013 12:33 AM                     At $50 it can't be worth bothering.  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 10-05-2013 04:28 AM                     The Spider 3 will do its job. For a home environment it's ok. Better than nothing. I have an X-Rite, and now X-Rite have developed a new one which is cheaper and faster and can be pointed at the screen. Compared to my Jeti is indeed quite accurate. They can't be calibrated and mine is a surface sensor - cannot be pointed at the screen even though I do it anyway: as I said better than nothing. Clearly you won't pay £3000 for a colour meter for your personal screen.  |  IP: Logged Steve Moore Expert Film Handler Posts: 211 From: Leeds, West Yorks, UK Registered: Apr 2008 posted 10-05-2013 06:26 AM                     I can't see how a "correctly" calibrated monitor/tv reduces electric consumption? Possibly with a CRT if the guns are being driven less hard, but thats hardly a selling point  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-05-2013 09:14 AM                     And just what makes this meter's reading worth their numbers? The good meters cost $8000 and up because their numbers are accurate and actually have meaning...in fact, they are only good for a year. I've shot different color meters at the same screen and when both are calibrated, the numbers agree within specification. "Cheap" meters are notoriously inaccurate. The same goes for luminance meters. If you want a "cheap" meter...why not use your phone to take a picture of your theatre's screen after it is calibrated and be sure to load the REC 709 color space so it is right for the "HDTV" color space. Then use that as your target at home? You are only trying to hit either the white color or possibly to go for all three colors and white.  |  IP: Logged Joe Elliott Master Film Handler Posts: 497 From: Port Orange, Fl USA Registered: Oct 2006 posted 10-05-2013 02:46 PM                     Steve, I think you missed the fact that this is a meter for home use. Not for cinema. And I wouldn't even imagine someone who installs home systems for a living would even want to use this meter. For that price, I would imagine it is more useful as a hobby meter.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-05-2013 04:14 PM                     I didn't miss the point...my point is when it comes to color calibration...using a cheap meter is no better than using nothing. It is $50 wasted. So it gives you numbers...what good is it if those numbers have no meaning?  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 10-05-2013 06:08 PM                     Steve, the Spider 3 is a good meter. It's slow and not designed to be aimed at a projection screen, but I wouldn't say that it's no better than using nothing. The final result won't be 100% accurate, but you know how off can commercial TVs and PRJs be out of the box. Maybe you'll end up with 6300K rather than 6500K, but it's much better than the standard 9200K! XRite have released a better meter at a very good price, I guess it's one of the reasons why the price is so low. My old XRite Display 2 does not give random numbers, I have compared it with my JETI and the readings are all consistent.  |  IP: Logged Joe Elliott Master Film Handler Posts: 497 From: Port Orange, Fl USA Registered: Oct 2006 posted 10-05-2013 09:48 PM                     Sorry Steve, I misread your post. Reading it again, I realized that.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.