Testing & Reviewing Uncalibrated Monitors – Results Problem

[mikej86]

Hi!

Hopefully I’m posting in the right place.

I’m a writer and at the moment I’m working on a group test of four ~£150 monitors. I’ve used DisplayCAL with an i1 Display Pro for years, for testing monitors and laptops, but I’m encountering issues that I never have done before.

I’m using the latest version of DisplayCAL and these are the monitors that I am testing:

Acer KG221Q
AOC G2460VQ6
BenQ GL2580
Iiyama G2530HSU-B1

They’re all TN panels.

I tested them all using the option to ‘Report on uncalibrated display device’. I went to the Log to get my results, and they were all fine, but three of the screens returned contrast measurements of below 200:1, with brightness levels that I expected but black levels at approximately 1.20cd/m2 or above.

I know they’re cheap monitors, but I could see visually that their contrast levels were not that low. I looked up existing reviews of the screens and consulted with a friend of mine who knows a lot about monitors (and who also uses DisplayCAL with an i1 Display Pro) and nothing seemed odd to him, but something is obviously wrong.

I was running DisplayCAL at its default settings to test the monitors at their out-of-the-box performance levels. I went through this page to make sure I’d done everything (https://www.xrite.com/service-support/poor_results_with_i1display_pro_on_pc) and made sure that the various settings that I could access in DisplayCAL were at either default or sRGB.

I thought that, perhaps, the PC I was using was the issue, so I tried on a different system – but the same thing happened. I switched to a laptop, and got much better contrast results from a couple of the screens, but then the results reverted to providing awful contrast levels.

On each monitor I reset to factory settings and turned off any settings that would affect contrast, like Dynamic Contrast. In between each monitor I would also reset DisplayCAL to its default settings.

I purchased a new i1 Display Pro in case that was broken, but my results have been exactly the same with the new unit and when tested on *another* new PC to give myself a totally fresh platform to use.

I have also seen on this forum that someone asked about testing a monitor at its factory settings. In my DisplayCAL across multiple systems the option to run a Measurement Report is greyed out. I’ve seen on the forum that if you go to the Verification tab and select to use a simulation profile you can test a screen, but these options were also greyed out.

I’ve tried re-installing the software, different monitors, different USB ports, different PCs and laptops, and I really don’t know what else to do. I’ve never encountered this issue and I’m a lot, so any help would be most welcome!

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[Florian Höch]

Hi,

I tested them all using the option to ‘Report on uncalibrated display device’. I went to the Log to get my results, and they were all fine, but three of the screens returned contrast measurements of below 200:1, with brightness levels that I expected but black levels at approximately 1.20cd/m2 or above.

You’re probably driving the displays with video levels (16..235), but they expect full range levels (0..255). If your graphics card has a control panel, check that the correct output levels are selected.

I have also seen on this forum that someone asked about testing a monitor at its factory settings. In my DisplayCAL across multiple systems the option to run a Measurement Report is greyed out. I’ve seen on the forum that if you go to the Verification tab and select to use a simulation profile you can test a screen, but these options were also greyed out.

You need to select “Current” under settings, then on the verification tab enable simulation profile, use sim. profile as target, and set tone curve to unmodified.

[mikej86]

Hey,

Thank you for the reply!

I checked the video driver settings and you were right – it was on video levels rather than full range. I switched to full range, and it seems to have fixed it! Thank you!

However, on the second issue I’ve had no progress. I’ve selected Current but the same settings are still greyed out.

[Florian Höch]

However, on the second issue I’ve had no progress. I’ve selected Current but the same settings are still greyed out.

Attach a screenshot of your verification settings please.

[mikej86]

Hey – here you go!

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[Florian Höch]

You have selected a preset under “Settings”, and not selected a simulation profile.

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