X-Rite Calibration Device Advice

redhed17

redhed17

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Hello, I have had Spyder 3 calibration device which stopped working, so I want to try a X-Rite calibration device, but I am getting confused as what to get. Can anyone add some clarity in a clear and easy to understand ;) way the differences between the ColorMunki Smile, ColorMunki Display and the i1Display Pro?

Thanks.
 
See https://www.xritephoto.eu/calibrators

Basically the DIsplay has more software options than the Smile including ambient light monitoring. It's the far better of the 2, and it is priced at the same level as the basic Spyder tool, so it's a good proposition indeed!

EDIT: the Display is £84 at Wex at the moment - at that price it's a no brainer.
 
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LojikDub said:
See https://www.xritephoto.eu/calibrators

Basically the DIsplay has more software options than the Smile including ambient light monitoring. It's the far better of the 2, and it is priced at the same level as the basic Spyder tool, so it's a good proposition indeed!

EDIT: the Display is £84 at Wex at the moment - at that price it's a no brainer.
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Thanks for replying. I didn't see that on the X-Rite site. :oops: :$ :rolleyes:

There's an offer on Amazon atm for the £130 for the i1Display Pro which I am tempted by.
 
ColorMunki Display is a good go to for basic calibration and profiling, the Smile being more basic and the Pro obviously more advanced, they can all be used with the free DisplayCal software for more advanced calibration and profiling.

Ignore ambient light monitoring though, you do not want any software/hardware trying to alter your monitor whilst you are editing.
 
redhed17 said:
Thanks for replying. I didn't see that on the X-Rite site. :oops: :$ :rolleyes:

There's an offer on Amazon atm for the £130 for the i1Display Pro which I am tempted by.
Click to expand...

Oooh! glad I spotted your heads up about this as I also have the older Spyder 3 Elite and have been thinking about the i1 Pro for ages but could never justify the price......................so have pushed the boat out at the £129 IMO a great deal at £40 off the lowest elsewhere :)

Not sure how many still left at Amazon but time is/was running out and once I placed the order it said 11 left and more stock on the way.........but of course that will be after the time runs out ;)
 
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Thanks for replying LojikDub, PhilH04 and Box Brownie. I decided to go with the i1Display Pro for £130. :)

I'll have to look into the DisplayCal software once the i1Display Pro arrives. :)
 
I got the i1 Display Pro yesterday, and jesus the X-Rite software is terrible. :eek: :rolleyes: Took about 4 attempts to install on my desktop, and it was even worse on my laptop. Software installed and worked different on each computer. :confused: I'm tempted to send it back. :thinking:
 
redhed17 said:
I got the i1 Display Pro yesterday, and jesus the X-Rite software is terrible. :eek: :rolleyes: Took about 4 attempts to install on my desktop, and it was even worse on my laptop. Software installed and worked different on each computer. :confused: I'm tempted to send it back. :thinking:
Click to expand...

Hmm! mine is waiting at the PO for me to collect.

Is this with the software on the CD or have you downloaded the up to date iProfiler v 1.8.2 off of the website?

What OS is each the PC and laptop running........................I wonder (though no idea why?) if the same installer installs a slight variant depending on the OS running it???
 
I have Win7 on the desktop and Win10 on the laptop. On the desktop, the installer gets to a point where it asks to install the driver for the device, I clicked install, clicked a couple of times and it said it couldn't do it. Uninstalled and re-installed the software three times. On the final time I just clicked the install device driver option about 4-5 times and then it installed. :confused: :mad: It went through the calibration, and then gives the option to compare to a previous calibration, but there is only the new calibration in the list. :thinking: The Datacolor software I used before showed the inbuilt calibration compared to the new measured calibration. And it was quite a difference. I may be using the software incorrectly, but it is not as easy to use as the Datacolor software imho. I think the desktop is calibrated.

The laptop, which may be because how I may have set the thing up, had different issues. I got past the device driver problem of the desktop, but this time the when the software opened, it was very hard to use because when I made it full screen, the software didn't fit the screen and was hard to scroll on the screen. Then when I connected the i1 DispIay Pro the software didn't seem to see it was connected. :eek: Lots of messing about with different USB sockets, possibly needing to get a USB hub for it to work according to the internet, but I think a couple of re-installations made it visible.

During the calibration it asks whether you can alter the brightness and contrast, I found that via a graphics program in the control panel I could. The problem was that when the X-Rite software was full screen, it didn't want to not be full screen to enable me to make changes to the settings and re-measure. :eek: :rolleyes: :mad: Which meant I had to go to the Task manager to stop the program and then start again to see what the Brightness level was. :rolleyes: Eventually got through it all on the laptop after an hour, when it should have taken less than 10 mins. Again, could not check against the previous calibration. Not sure if it is calibrated or not. I'll assume it is like the desktop.

Also, I had registered the i1 Display Pro the night before, but it was asking me to do it again on the laptop. I think I got past that by telling it was the i1 Display Pro connected.

Also, on the desktop it asked me to name the new calibration when saving, but it didn't do that on the laptop. :thinking:

Hopefully this was just me having issues, as if this is the norm I can't understand how they could still be in business if this is the experience of a lot of people. :confused: Fingers crossed you (or anyone else) don't have the problems I have had.

I am conflicted as what to do as to whether to keep or not. :confused:
 
redhed17 said:
During the calibration it asks whether you can alter the brightness and contrast, I found that via a graphics program in the control panel I could. The problem was that when the X-Rite software was full screen, it didn't want to not be full screen to enable me to make changes to the settings and re-measure. :eek: :rolleyes: :mad: Which meant I had to go to the Task manager to stop the program and then start again to see what the Brightness level was. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Im pretty sure it was asking about controls on the monitor and not in software.
 
dave_bass5 said:
Im pretty sure it was asking about controls on the monitor and not in software.
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Not made clear in their software. :thinking: :rolleyes:

Even so, their software on my Win10 machine, I had to use Task Manager to close the program down to get out of the full screen, which doen't scream good software to me. :rolleyes:
 
dave_bass5 said:
Im pretty sure it was asking about controls on the monitor and not in software.
Click to expand...

This does make sense ........as that is the way I had to do it using my Spyder 3 Elite as it's software could not control the monitor (a Dell 2209W). So not too sure if the i1 software can or not???

Ref: the page I linked above ~ it mentions disabling DCI/CC using the monitor OSD, however it will not let me do it, so enabled by default but the page mentions deselecting some settings in the software GUI but making sure to leave ADC selected so that it can control the brightness & contrast!


redhed17 said:
Not made clear in their software. :thinking: :rolleyes:

Even so, their software on my Win10 machine, I had to use Task Manager to close the program down to get out of the full screen, which doen't scream good software to me. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Have mine now from the PO so will see how the software plays nice and installs aok? NB Win10 64bit Pro here.

Likely no time to today to run a calibration but hopefully at least check the PC and the software recognises the device.

One thing that is not clear (I did look on the website FaQs) whether I should reset the monitor to defaults or indeed factory settings before using the i1 ???
 
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Box Brownie said:
One thing that is not clear (I did look on the website FaQs) whether I should reset the monitor to defaults or indeed factory settings before using the i1 ???
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I think the software may say to reset , but you may have seen that by now. ;)

One thing it does do is calibrate very quickly, so if get through the installation painlessly ;) the actual calibration takes a couple of mins.
 
OK and FWIW on my experience to date

1) It installed AOK ~ though had a secondary installation of "Device Services" which asked for permission to install (this went to a default folder on the C drive and looking at the folder contents seems to be the drivers for the various X-Rite devices....................presumably it comes into action when the i1 is plugged in)

2) It launches AOK and what I like is that there are some tutorial videos online.................but they need Flash Player..................so as a Chrome user I will be looking at them in IE11

3) Just noticed it has, without the i1 connected, some demo functions to illustrate how it 'works'.

So far so good.............will update once I have had the time to connect and see what it does :)
 
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