Closer to D65 - adjusting greyscale on the Mits HC3000

For some time now, I've wanted the HC3000 calibrated but the thought of paying $400+ dollars for an ISF calibration was a bit too steep for me. I also held off until recently because it's known that the color output on a digital display bulb can drift quite a bit over a short duration of time vs other technologies like say a CRT tube whose color output will more likely remain stable.

I think my DLP bulb now has about 1,000 hours or so. I am pretty sure the light output on my bulb has dropped by at least some amount but it's one of those things that has not been very obvious to me since I use the projector enough that the change is gradual to my eyes. My point being, because of the gradual dimming I have never known the best time to calibrate the projector. However, as I watched more movies, I slowly noticed how off the colors were. And so I've built up this itch to have the projector calibrated as I mentioned above. Using calibration discs like DVE or Avia by themselves and adjusting by eye are better than not calibrating at all but it's generally agreed upon that if you really want the best picture possible out of your display, it's recommended to use a device like a colorimeter that can perform accurate measurements so that you can appropriately adjust all the various settings like the color temperatures.

Not too long ago I came across Kal's GREYSCALE & COLOUR CALIBRATION FOR DUMMIES and realized that a great, cost effective DIY calibration solution exists and many people seem to give it a lot of praise. As per the guide, I finally picked up an Eye One LT colorimeter and a DVE HD Basics and with Kal's calibration guide, I was off to the races.

All said and done, the settings after adjusting the greyscale are now as follows,

1) Gamma: Cinema (this was pre-set. I did not change during calibration)

2) Contrast: 0

3) Brightness: 0

4) Color Temp - Contrast (RGB HighEnd):
Red: 20
Green: 0
Blue: -7

5) Color Temp - Brightness (RGB LowEnd):
Red: 4
Green: 0
Blue: 2

6) Brilliant Color: On (this was pre-set. I did not change during calibration)

My other "first stab at it" results are described in the screenshots below. One other side note (and this is maybe more for myself to help me remember for future reference). When I set up on the tripod as shown above and adjusted the positioning recommendations as described in step 1.14, I could not get my peak light output (The 'Y' luminance value) above 39.6 (or 11.562 ftL). I'm not sure if this was due to the age of my bulb or a design limitation of the HC3000.


Post-greyscale adjusted image. Charlize Theron's face looks more balanced than before the adjustment. I compared to Art Feierman's image on the BenQ W5000 and while my image is not as nice as on the W5000, it's an improvement over the pre-adjusted image and seems to be in the right direction at least. Like the reds on Tobey's face, I think there is a pinkish cast over Charlize's veil that does not look right to me. So despite the progress as shown in the charts and measurements below, I think some additional work might need to be done. It's a real challenge to find out what the director's intent was.

Pre-greyscale adjusted image at "default" settings (color temp: medium). Dude, way too blue!

Post-greyscale adjusted image. Tobey Maguire's face looks less ghastly for sure. But I'm not sure if the face is too red? Or Director's intent? If anyone knows, please do share.

Pre-greyscale adjusted image at "default" settings (color temp: medium). Tobey Maguire's face looks too blue, lifeless, almost corpse-like *gasp*

CIE Diagram - Post greyscale adjustment: Ah, much better! I felt a sense of accomplishment when I saw this diagram. Again, the 90 and 100 IRE point were off as shown in the RGB level chart below and you can also see they are outside of the blue outer circle. All of the other points fall well within DeltaE<10> which is a good thing.

CIE Diagram - Pre greyscale adjustment: Dude, way outside D65. *shakes fist to the sky*

RGB levels - Post-greyscale adjusted. RGB levels are much closer to the 100% target. The 90 and 100 IRE points are off but all of the other points fell well within DeltaE<10> which is a good thing.

RGB levels -Pre-greyscale adjustment. RGB levels are way off from the 100% target.