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richardj21724418
richardj21724418
Known Participant
November 13, 2018
Question

BenQ SW2700PT and colour management of hardware calibrated monitors

  • November 13, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 5986 views

Last year I posted about problems I was having with profiles generated by Palette Master Element (PME) on the BenQ SW2700PT.  I thought I'd post an update on my findings as it might help other owners of the SW2700PT and hardware calibrated monitors in general.  My monitor is a couple of years old and was updated with firmware version V004 20161006, in case that's a factor.  For calibrating I'm using the i1 Display Pro.

It's necessary to understand that colour management of a hardware calibrated monitor is not handled in quite the same way as a 'conventional' monitor.  I think this could be one reason why people report having profile problems.  It's probably obvious to some but it's clear from the discussions I had on the Color Management Forum that it can be a bit of an intellectual challenge if you're set in your thinking of how colour management 'should' work.  I'll admit, I didn't get it at first.  I think BenQ could do more to educate users, rather than assume we all understand.

There are also several calibration & profiling issues with this monitor and the Palette Master Element (PME) software.

What I've found is:-

1) The profile produced by PME is always produced to the same colour space, regardless of the colour space you're calibrating to.  I'd assumed the profile was made to native space but in fact it's closer to AdobeRGB.  As it doesn't relate exactly to any of the calibration colour spaces it means it's useless.  It also means it's not possible to obtain a valid profile for the native mode using PME.  If you want to use the native mode, you'll have to create a profile with some other software.

2) When calibrating to the RGB Primaries you are calibrating the monitor to standard colour spaces by programming the internal 3D LUTs.  This means the profile you use for colour management is the profile for those standard spaces.  e.g. when you've calibrated to Adobe RGB, the ICC profile you use is the standard Adobe RGB profile.  If the monitor is properly calibrated to Adobe RGB, there should be no need to attempt to create a monitor specific profile.

3) The caveat is the gamma should be set to the correct value for the standard space.  If you use a different gamma, I think you'll need to create a monitor specific profile with other software.

4) I've only checked Adobe RGB, sRGB and L*.  With Adobe RGB it works well.  I've verified it with i1Profiler and the profile created is very similar to Adobe RGB - the discrepancies are within the range of temperature drift.  I think it works correctly with L* too (using the Lstar profile).  Unfortunately, there's a problem with sRGB mode.  PME doesn't support the correct sRGB tone reproduction curve (linear for about the first 4%, then a gamma of about 2.4).  The closest you can set is a single gamma curve of 2.2, which is what's required for Adobe RGB.  This means if you apply the standard sRGB profile the shadows will appear too dark and the mid range contrast will look wrong.  Of course, you can create a profile for this mode (or just change the TRC values in the sRGB profile to a gamma of 2.2 to match the calibration).  However, one of the main reasons for using sRGB is for viewing non colour managed applications.  These blast data straight at the monitor and for that, the monitor should be calibrated with the correct sRGB TRC.

5) Even the factory sRGB mode hasn't been calibrated correctly.  It uses a single gamma of 2.2, the same as used for the factory Adobe RGB mode.

Provided you can live with these issues I think it's actually a pretty decent monitor for the money.  I know some people won't be happy with the uniformity but at my level it hasn't really bothered me.

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    1 reply

    richardj21724418
    richardj21724418Author
    Known Participant
    November 14, 2018

    An update to my first point.  The profile produced does in fact appear to be the native gamut, as I thought last year.  I don't know why I thought otherwise.  It may have to do with installing the new version of PME and loading settings from settings files created with the old version, before the RGB Primaries option was added.

    So the only remaining issue for me is adding an option to calibrate to the sRGB TRCs.  I'll put in a request for this.

      oro_photos
      oro_photos
      Participant
      December 20, 2018

      Hey Richard! I've been having issues with calibrating my new monitor. I'm a complete newb to this level of calibration so I had no idea what I was looking for. I finally came across your thread and it sounds like what I may be experiencing. When I run a sRGB calibration, the end result is has more saturation and contrast than my Macbook Pro display or iPhones. The Macbook and iPhone images look much more similar than what the Ben Q shows. I'm a video editor so I want to edit in sRGB since most people's devices use it.

      M
      mayukh80
      Participant
      December 18, 2019

      oro.photos  wrote

      I'm using the Spyder5Pro. I've tried many times to calibrate it but the end result has either been way to warm/saturated/contrasted or on the complete opposite side of the spectrum- desaturated/no contrast and with a strange greenish color shift. I tried assigning the RGB primaries as sRGB but no luck. I'm close to giving up and just selling the monitor for something cheaper since it seems proper calibration is above my head

      What about if you simply set the factory sRGB display mode?  Do the colours seem about right then?

      Sorry if this is obvious but bear in mind when you use the monitor in sRGB mode you will need to set the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 display profile for colour management in your PC.  Not that this will affect applications that are not colour managed (e.g. your videos?).  For applications that are colour managed the shadows will appear a bit dark, for the reason I mentioned earlier (the monitor is calibrated to a gamma of 2.2, not the correct sRGB tone curve).

      It may well be you're doing nothing wrong and it could be a problem with the Palette Master Element Software and/or the Spyder5Pro.  I feel your frustration!


      I have recently purchased BenQ SW240 to plug with macbook pro13" (non-retina, mid-2012 model).

      Downloaded the palette master element and tried calibrating the hardware with Spyder 5.

      the problem starts here, when the calibration is nearing 98% ~ 100%, the screen turns either cyan/magenta. the validation of the software shows that it has failed with "Delta E" values hovering in the range of around 30~40 !!

      I tried with a windows laptop and it worked as a charm. The only thing i set before calibration using Windows OS was the "HDMI PC Range" at 0-255. But with macbook there aint any option to do so, even though i have plugged from thunderbolt to HDMI.

       

      Can someone help me out to resolve this issue at its driving me nuts !

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