eeColor Box – 3D LUTs for the consumer electronics market – coming soon? – maybe

[Anonymous]

As a THXer it is not my goal to be a traveling calibrator nor put food on the table via my certification and abilities. All I want is to be able to take a consumer TV or projector and make picture fidelity the best it can be. I truly enjoy 1D LUT calibrating of displays but as we all have seen there are many faults inside the Rec.709 gamut. 3D Look Up Tables have the ability to smooth out most of the faults, and to that end I’ve been dedicating a lot of time to the subject. My gut feeling is that 3D LUT technology will soon become part of the work we will all be doing. THX is doing it’s own work on the topic but so far nothing exists that can be passed down to us, the CE calibrators. There are two companies, SpectraCal and Light Illusion that I am most interested in at this time.

Near term, again, hopefully:

The Box – http://eecolor.com/eecolortech.htm

SpectraCal is peddling it – http://store.spectracal.com/business-av/video-processors/spectracal-eecolor-processor.html

SpectralCal news – http://store.spectracal.com/news/press-release.html

Here is what I know and hopefully this device will eventually become mainstream and/or force prices down on other processors like the Davio:

SpectraCal is touting and is soon to release Studio software which will “automatically” produce 3D LUTs for individual displays. From reading their announcements I am skeptical that the software covers enough color points but the final result vs comparisons remains to be seen. I believe that 3D LUT formulation and implementation will also be be available in the upcoming CalMAN v5 Commercial and possibly Expert modes but needs to be confirmed upon release.

In September, 2011, at CEDIA, I purchased the first eeColor Box from SpectraCal. I had high hopes for some sort of magic improvement in fidelity but was unimpressed when the six canned LUTs did nothing more than keep skin tones more or less correct while greatly oversaturating everything else. Now that SpectraCal is using it for calibrated LUTs perhaps it will live up to its expectations.

For well over a year I have been communicating with Steve Shaw, owner of Light Illusion, with specific emphasis on LUTs. He has been toying with introducing his own LUT holding box but has not produced one as of this time. I have been talking not only with Steve but also with the president of SpectraCal and a representative from ee all on the subject of 3D LUT implementation. Steve was at NAB last week and gained information from both ee and SpectraCal.

So far I have learned to use Light Illusion’s LightSpace CMS software and am able to produce 3D LUTs for my personal displays. With the help of Tom Bond from ee I have been able to load them into the eeColor Box but it is not working correctly in that the box is doing additional unwanted processing and the resulting picture is unsatisfactory both visually and in measuring. Light Illusion received an eeBox today and Steve confirms my findings. He will be working with ee to see what can be done via firmware or hardware.

I am extremely enthusiastic about the potential of this technology due to the hundreds if not thousands of dedicated home theaters here in my Southwest Florida town of Naples. I doubt there would be an abundance of interest in less affluent areas but you never know.

I’ll keep you all informed of any progress or failures through this sub forum and would appreciate and thoughts, views, and expertise you can offer.

Buzz

Topic

[Anonymous]

We all love the potential of technology providing greater precision for a reasonable price, especially if it makes our job easier. Please keep in mind that practically “perfect” color fidelity from a display would never be completely perceived by the viewer if the viewing environment conditions interfere with color perception. There are solid reasons why professional program colorists work in controlled environments that include neutral surrounds and ambient lighting that mimics the video white point.

Compromised viewing environment conditions will unavoidably contaminate/distort the viewing experience due to the limitations of the human visual system. This will always be necessary to consider in designing high performance motion imaging systems until color scientists and technology develop a means to compensate. Even if suitable color appearance modeling could be formulated for a correction device, delivering such a device at a reasonable cost would be the next hurdle. Return on investment in the real world would need to be determined.

Here’s a timely quote from this month’s SMPTE ‘Motion Imaging Journal:’

“Viewing Environment

Viewing environment is important in determining how a viewer perceives the color appearance of images on a display device. The chromaticity and luminance of ambient lighting, as well as the color and nature of the surround, have a large effect on the color appearance of displayed images. The perceived color and contrast of a displayed image may change significantly, depending on the nature of the surround and ambient lighting. The viewer sees the images in a range of viewing environments, and although the viewer can adjust settings such as brightness and contrast, the viewing environment still introduces another large variable into the way an artist’s images are experienced by the viewer.” from ‘The Validity and Relevance of Reference Displays for Evaluating Color Reproduction‘ pp23, by Michael Chenery, Senior Color Scientist at THX, Ltd.

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.
A Lion AV Consultants affiliate

“Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging”

[Anonymous]

I’ve spent well over a hundred hours working with CalMAN 5 beta (Studio) and the SpectraCal ColorBox these past three weeks and have had less than satisfactory results. I suspect that the problem is with the box itself but SpectraCal is admitting nothing. At least Melissa in support is a pleasure to work with. Until they get things worked out I’d not be investing in Studio. Real studios use LightSpace or CineSpace among others and I’ll probably wind up with one of those.

On another note, Lumagen Radiance, CalMAN, and ChromaPure all released software yesterday to enable 125 point 3D LUT processing. That’s not nearly enough points for exceptional interpolation but despite that the picture I’m looking at on my VT50 is easily the best I’ve ever seen.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1410156/the-official-panasonic-vt50-settings-thread/510#post_22401321

[Anonymous]

The biggest hurdle for the eeColor box is that you can get a Lumagen Radiance Mini for a little less than the MSRP of the eeColor box. I believe it is a comfort and potentially a big benefit to have all the Lumagen’s adjustability and customization capabilties compared to the eeColor box that lacks everything the Radiance Mini has except the LUT calibration capability. The Radiance LUT calibration capability instantly extends the useful life of those products by many years.

[Anonymous]

ee ColorBoxes for LUT processing are about to become available for about $600 thanks to the efforts of Steve Shaw of Light Illusion and Tom Bond at ee. LightSpace software is being updated nearly daily for 17x17x17 point cube display characterizations for LUT production useable by both the ee ColorBox and the Lumagen Radiance series VPs. The results so far are very promising.

Buzz

[Anonymous]

Steve Shaw contacted me recently with regard to Lightspace and the ee ColorBox. It’s an intriguing package and I have to say that I’m tempted. However, I’m not sure about the commercial viability of this for me. The early adopter price of the Lightspace software is still in excess of £1500. To recoup this cost I’d have to sell at least 22 ee ColorBoxes. With the UK calibration market being extremely price sensitive I’m not sure this is viable. I don’t think there are going to be too many clients looking to spend £350-400 on a ColorBox and an additional £225 on calibration when their TV only cost £2k. Even looking at it optimistically my guess is that it would take me at least 3 years just to make my money back. I really like the idea, just not sure about the commercial viability here in the UK at least. Now if the software were cheaper still than the promo price then I’d probably give it a whirl but the promo will end at some point and then it really will be out of my league.

[Anonymous]

I hear you. I figure I won’t look into this area at all until someone asks. Then they foot the bill for the package. I don’t have that type of client at all.

[Anonymous]

@Michael TLV 3833 wrote:

I don’t have that type of client at all.

The clients for this product are those who lust for nothing but the best, the latest and greatest, etc. Today I contracted with a builder here in Naples to calibrate five (you read that correctly) Sharp Elites in the same house on January 3rd and 4th. I’m going to make the owner an offer to do one of the displays with the LightSpace/eeColor Processor 65x65x65 LUT combo for the $600 price of the box. Hopefully he’ll bite because I believe I read somewhere that the Calman/Chromapure/Lumagen 125 point profiles are not cleaning up the Cyan tracking problem. Please correct me if my memory is bad. I want to see if the 17 point cube profile through LightSpace will do the job. It certainly should.

In addition, I’ve been doing some testing with Calman and the eeBox. The trick is to tell Calman that the box is the Spectracal version and then the software will calibrate GS as well as Gamut. I’ve gone as high as a 9x9x9 7 deep cube (729 cube points which took about 3 hours) and the results have been very good. The Lumagen Radiance series is limited to 5x5x5 so there is an advantage in both programming and price however you lose the Lumagen processing capabilities.

Lastly, I’m working directly with ee and will be selling the boxes for $600 + shipping to US customers as of 1/1/2013.

Buzz

[Author]

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