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Originally Posted by THX-UltraII

First of all, treat 25fps as 23,976 option in madVR will not work in my setup. This is because I ONLY bitstream and if I am correct this function only works when you let the decoding by done by the HTPC.

With a username like that, dare I ask why you require bitstreaming?

Originally Posted by Mark_A_W

It is a CRT projector. It behaves differently to a digital. It can do peak white very well, but not a full white field.

CRTs need to be calibrated with 1% area patterns. I don't know of any commercial package which offers these. The EBU mentions this in their documents on measuring reference monitors.

This may make it difficult to measure projectors with lower-end meters though, as they should be taken at a distance of 3 screen heights, and the cheaper meters tend to have a fairly wide angle of acceptance. To be honest though, with projectors I tend to just measure facing the projector itself using a screen offset, as you get much better readings, especially with lower-end meters or spectrophotmeters in general. If you have a completely neutral screen (such as Carada's Brilliant White material—assuming they have not made any changes) the offset may not even be necessary.

Here are the required patterns. (10% steps) http://www.mediafire.com/?9zcr8fvf57glgfz

Originally Posted by Mark_A_W

As for the 20% being low, again that's a CRT thing. Some people put a bump in their gamma curve to address this, but I found that causes streaking (another CRT thing) on mine.

When you say streaking, do you mean phosphor trailing? (streaks left behind objects moving over dark areas)

If that is the case, you probably have brightness set too low. CRTs cannot do true black when operating correctly, there is still the need for bias voltage to keep the gun at the proper operating level. Grade 1 reference monitors had a contrast of approximately 10,000:1 when set up for correct operation—worse than the second generation of Kuros, in fact.

I fully appreciate the appeal of true blacks, however. I was completely dissatisfied with the Kuro Monitors' black level for example.

Back when I was a CRT owner—sadly, due to several displays dying on me in the space of a year, the complete lack of a second-hand market for them here, and an impending move, I now have a local-dimmed LCD—I would set my display up for jet black, and then use a VideoEQ to get a flat 2.40 gamma with perfect greyscale. This required a hand-crafted LUT though, with the device only operating in 8-bit there was considerable banding and discolouration introduced near black with their software. In theory it could do 10-bit, but it required a 10-bit input to get 10-bit out and madVR is still sending 8-bit to my TV.

I don't know how well madVR's 3D LUTs would work for this task, you would have to try it. I suspect it would need, at the very least, some tweaking of the input values to help shape the LUT, if not a completely hand-crafted LUT—most LUT generation tools seem to be tailored around digital displays and don't work too well with CRT.

If I recall correctly, I actually found that my CRTs were fairly linear in their response, and it was best to set 20%, 90% and 100% values in the LUT, letting everything else be interpolated. It is critical that the LUT does not end up tapering down from 20% to 0,0,0 however. It should simply continue the slope from 90–20% right down to 1% grey and then 0 should be set at 0,0,0 otherwise there will be significant discolouration.

I actually think that a hand-crafted LUT is probably best in all instances, as you are sometimes better off with minor greyscale/gamma irregularities for the sake of avoiding banding/discolouration near black, or to ensure that all levels remain distinct. Unfortunately, I've still not figured out how to create a hand-crafted LUT for use with madVR yet. (I want to set the output RGB values being sent to the display for specific points, not give it an input and have it calculate what it thinks is best)

I've only recently started using the 3DLUT functionality, but it seems to make a good improvement on my LCD, I just have to stay above 20% to avoid banding problems. I suspect with a hand-crafted LUT this could be better, but I'm able to use my display's controls to fix those issues. (I shift the errors up to the higher end of the greyscale where there aren't any problems making changes)

Originally Posted by nand chan

I assume a “professional calibrator” will have access to professional-grade equipment, like $5000 spectrophotometers.

You would be surprised at the quality of the meters in some kits that cost thousands of dollars, particularly Sencore's kit. Not sure what it's like since they have teamed up with Spectracal though, but for considerably less, you can get better equipment than Sencore were selling a few years ago, for a fraction of the price from Spectracal.

The $5000 CP-5000 from Sencore was worse than the $500 Chroma-5 from Spectracal. (a newer OEM version from the same product family)

The $7000 OTC1000/X-Rite Hubble's only saving grace is that it is a good non-contact meter. Other than the narrow angle of acceptance and laser targeting, it is not a particularly great performer—it's only specced down to 0.034 cd/m²!

Colorfacts is extremely overpriced software—I can't speak for the latest version (if it's even still around) but I'd actually say you're probably better off with HCFR compared to it. Hell, HCFR still has some features in there that are only offered in one other package that I'm aware of. (RGBCMY saturation & luminance measurements, which were only just introduced in Chromapure earlier this year)

Originally Posted by leeperry

which is within the error margin of any colorimeter, let alone the utterly inaccurate HCFR

Do you have any evidence of this?