Cinetron HD700 Projector Calibration and Settings
We calibrate each home theater that is reviewed. The Cinetron HD700 calibration we did is typical. We calibrate basic settings like Brightness Contrast, Color Saturation, and also calibrate the color temperature, to as close as we can to the targeted 6500K. What we don't do, is calibrate the individual colors for hue and saturation. That further perfects the color, and many pro calibrators do that as part of their service.
This page has not been completed - it should be updated shortly.
1/31/2010 - Art Feierman
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Cinetron HD700 Color Temperature
Let's start with the basics. First, here are each of the modes, showing their "out of the box" measured color temperature for white.
Lumen Output and Color Temp at 100 IRE (mid zoom):
Dynamic = 961 @ 8071K
Standard = 879 @ 7983K
Theater = 868 @ 7313K
User 1,2,3 = 890 @ 7327K
Thanks to Color 1's defaults, it does produce very good color accuracy, even without calibration, but Mike's calibration further improved the picture. Color 2 has that larger gamut.
Here are the color temperature measurements Theater mode, first with Color Temp set to Medium and then with it set to Low.
Color Temp over IRE Range (Pre calibration):
Theater Theater with Low color temp
30 IRE 7134K 6044K
50 IRE 7337K 6246K
80 IRE 7374K 6373K
100 IRE 7313K 6328K
At first glance, it looks like just changing the Color Temp from Medium to Low improves things by getting the projector a whole lot closer to the ideal 6500K. That said, the picture is very red in the dark areas, and is definitely not as watchable as the cooler Medium color temp setting.
No matter, our calibration worked wonders, with much improved tracking of 6500K than either of these could handle.
Cinetron HD700 Basic Settings
In addition to calibrating Red Green and Blue for a correct grayscale balance (6500K), there are a number of other settings that come into play. Typically Contrast and Brightness (white balance and black balance), need to be done first. Color saturation and gamma also need adjustment.
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Dynamic |
Standard |
Theater |
User 1,2,3 |
Contrast = (50) |
(50) |
(50) |
52 |
(50) |
Brightness = (50) |
(50) |
(50) |
57 |
(50) |
Color = |
(60) |
(55) |
(45) |
(50) |
Tint = |
(0) |
(0) |
(0) |
(0) |
Color Temp = |
(Med. High) |
(Med. High) |
(Medium) |
(Medium) |
Gamma = |
(3) |
(3) |
(1) 4 |
(3) |
Lamp Mode=High (unless noted otherwise)
Lens aperture fully open
All other settings at default (untouched)
Zoom set at mid-point for all measurements
To get the very most out of the HD700, our numbers should improve the overall color accuracy and picture quality, rather nicely.
Cinetron HD700 Post Calibration Grayscale
After calibration, Theater mode looked like this, with our User defined color temp:
Color Temp over IRE Range (Post calibration):
20 IRE 6276K
30 IRE 6459K
40 IRE 6457K
50 IRE 6612K
60 IRE 6612K
70 IRE 6499K
80 IRE 6507K
90 IRE 6424K
100 IRE 7193K
As you can see, that cool white is still there, but that's not a big negative. I think it contributes to the projectors dynamic look and feel. The very dark near blacks still are slightly warm, but much, much improved, and now very hard to spot during normal viewing of darker scenes.
Gamma settings:
The gamma controls on the HD700 allow for detailed customization. It's a slightly funky system (the clue being it offers gamma adjustment settings for the various IRE ranges, and they all default to 1.35)? (What would have been so wrong to use 0 as a default, or 1). Irregardless, these settings are what Mike came up with, and they yielded a slightly erratic gamma curve, but averaged 2.23 pretty close to the "ideal" 2.2.
Mike's notes about gamma:
Gamma adjustments add to the default gamma, which is too low with any preset (1.65 on Gamma 1 to 1.95 on Gamma 4). There is a huge dip in gamma at 90 IRE which is followed by a big increase in color temp at 100 IRE as the lamp runs out of Red.
All that basically means, all four defaults are a bit too bright in the midranges, compared to dark or bright areas. Gamma 4 can do in a pinch, it's pretty good, especially for sports.
Cinetron HD700 RGB Settings
These are the adjustments we made to Red, Green and Blue for the grayscale balance of Theater mode.
Color Temp on User 1, Gamma on User 1, Color set to 43, Hue set to 1, all other settings on default or as previously stated.
Default settings for Gain and Bias is 128.
Gain R = 144
G = 128
B = 114
Bias R = 132
G = 120
B = 125
The final yield - Caibrated Theater mode:
Lumens at 100 IRE: 864 @ 7193K