x-rite DTP94 does not work with new monitor: new_disprd failed

[eddie]

hi! I got displaycal happily to work well with my DTP94 on windows11 with my eizo s2431w, which I used for the last 17 years without any problems, made my living with it.

today I try to upgrade: got a new benq sw272q and want to calibrate for the first time. but now DC replies: new_disprd failed with „instrument access failed“. as I would very much like to stick with my x-rite could you please help me with that? thanks!

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[Vincent]

When you see an error accessing some instrument first of all try using argyll commandline.
Run specplot or dispcal -R on commandline and check if instrument is detected.

BTW very bad monitor choice, almost the same price as CS2731, worse/contrast uniformity and worse HW calibration software.
If you buy an CS2731 or even that SW-Q toy at least try to use its HW calibration software, if DTP94 is not supported time to upgrade to an i1d3 from Xrite. Otherwise is pointless to pay the extra money for these monitors with HW cal (a waste for any SW model anyway) over a reasonable priced P3 monitor.

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[eddie]

the price difference for me was about 450€ and the monitor displays pretty well.

would any i1 do?

as soon as I insert the DTP it appears in device manager, only displaycal and another cal-software do not detect it, which both did until this morning on my old monitor.

i copied specplot and dispcal -R resp. into powershell and this came out:

specplot : Die Benennung “specplot” wurde nicht als Name eines Cmdlet, einer Funktion, einer Skriptdatei oder eines
ausführbaren Programms erkannt. Überprüfen Sie die Schreibweise des Namens, oder ob der Pfad korrekt ist (sofern
enthalten), und wiederholen Sie den Vorgang.
In Zeile:1 Zeichen:1
+ specplot
+ ~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (specplot:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

PS C:\Users\xxx> dispcal -R
dispcal : Die Benennung “dispcal” wurde nicht als Name eines Cmdlet, einer Funktion, einer Skriptdatei oder eines
ausführbaren Programms erkannt. Überprüfen Sie die Schreibweise des Namens, oder ob der Pfad korrekt ist (sofern
enthalten), und wiederholen Sie den Vorgang.
In Zeile:1 Zeichen:1
+ dispcal -R
+ ~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (dispcal:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

[Vincent]

the price difference for me was about 450€ and the monitor displays pretty well.

that seems related to your local market / if you cannot measure you cannot see how it performs

would any i1 do?

as soon as I insert the DTP it appears in device manager, only displaycal and another cal-software do not detect it, which both did until this morning on my old monitor.

i copied specplot and dispcal -R resp. into powershell and this came out:

specplot : Die Benennung “specplot” wurde nicht als Name eines Cmdlet, einer Funktion, einer Skriptdatei oder eines
ausführbaren Programms erkannt. Überprüfen Sie die Schreibweise des Namens, oder ob der Pfad korrekt ist (sofern
enthalten), und wiederholen Sie den Vorgang.
In Zeile:1 Zeichen:1
+ specplot
+ ~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (specplot:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

PS C:\Users\xxx> dispcal -R
dispcal : Die Benennung “dispcal” wurde nicht als Name eines Cmdlet, einer Funktion, einer Skriptdatei oder eines
ausführbaren Programms erkannt. Überprüfen Sie die Schreibweise des Namens, oder ob der Pfad korrekt ist (sofern
enthalten), und wiederholen Sie den Vorgang.
In Zeile:1 Zeichen:1
+ dispcal -R
+ ~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (dispcal:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

Using commandline implies that ArgyllCMS executables (bin folder) are accesible in path.

[Vincent]

Also remember that new widegamut led monitors use WLED PFS / QLED and unless you have access to an spectrophotometer, DTP94 is unlikely to measure them correctly.
And i1d3 colorimeter is adviced for all these reasons.

Benq Palette Master Ultimate + i1d3 colorimeter packs a default EDR correction for WLED PFS backlights, a pack with all flavors (sRGB, Apple P3, ) that although doe snot match exactly these WLED PFS with almost AdobeRGB green and P3 red, should be close out of the box and will allow you to use HW calibartion + fas slot swicth (although not multimemory in each slot like Eizo).
IMHO DTP94 may have served you well in the past, but with your new monitor it’s worth upgrading.

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by Vincent.

[eddie]

would also X-rite Colormunki do?

I have the exe’s from the bin-folder here. starting dispcal.exe does not show up, while specplot displays graphs etc.

for further handling of those tools I would need help …

[Vincent]

would also X-rite Colormunki do?

which munki and for what purpose?

-As an spectrophotometer for correcting DTP94 may work… but you won’t use HW calibration features that although limited on those benq, are an improvement
-As an spectrophotometer as “one device for all tasks” for measuring monitor it’s slow and maybe not so reliable in low light readings, but since uniformity compensation in those benqs is so agressive due to their low quality panels, once you active te it resulting contrast is very low as you can see in ArtsWright “promotional videos” (that actually show the kind of bad monitors they are)… so maybe a colormunki photo specprophotometer may be able to measure such low contrast without issue. Anyway, using a munki photo or an i1Pro2/3 with Xrite SDK (used by Benq, eizo, Nec… software) is only 10nm, while these WLED PFS LED may ask for a little more resolution.
-as colorimeter, colormunki display, now rebranded as calibrite display SL or something like that, it is not supported by Xrite SDK in all HW calibration suites, including benq. You can use it with Displaycal but no HW cal on benq. There is a workaround using “hooks” (i1d3_hook, google it) so benq or Xrite software will believe it’s an i1displaypro. hooks are  windows only AFAIK, use it at your own risk. Also colormunki display are slower than i1displaypro variants, up to 4x.

IMHO a munki, may it be the spectro or the colorimeter is not a sensible purchase in 2025 for saving a few bucks, but YMMV, specially on very cheap second hand devices.

I have the exe’s from the bin-folder here. starting dispcal.exe does not show up, while specplot displays graphs etc.

for further handling of those tools I would need help …

“dispcal -r” runs a basic test on display on 1st display (plug only one display) and 1 measurement device (unplug the others), so is a basic test to check device conectivity and support.
If you want to use with several displays read doc, to order argyllcms to display measurement patch on certain display:
https://www.argyllcms.com/doc/dispcal.html#r

so if my argyll bin folder is in path, just typing “dispcal -r” works.
If it does not work, run dispcal -? and see the list of measurement devices argyll seen by argyll. If not seen, something is wrong in your setup, ask in ARgyllCMS maillist, Mr. Gill, ArgyllCMS programmar may instruct you to sun one of these commands in full debug mode so he can figure why it is not showing up, maybe adding ” -D3″ parameter for full trace.

[eddie]

thanks, but you overestimate my knowledge, surprisingly, as I just bought that benq you look at as crap.

I understand that my nice DTP94 does not work with my new monitor, even if I would get it in contact again (like it was until yesterdays monitor switch). sniff …

the remaining questions seem simple, at least to me. as I just NEED to look for the cheapest good option for the things I need and do not like benq’s need to register to use their cal-SW I would be glad you or whoever knows the cheapest good suiting cal-tool and a software that goes without registration/online and which is simple enough for me – I am not shure if displaycal fits that need 😉 the spyders are cheaper than the calibrites but confuse me as they seem to use the same names for many generations. so: which one would be enough for my one and only monitor and goes with its own (offline)software? thanks again!

[Kuba Trybowski]

Get a colorimeter from the i1 Display Pro family:

• X-Rite i1 Display Pro/Pro Plus;
• Calibrite ColorChecker Display Pro/Plus;
• Calibrite Display Pro HL/Plus HL;

i1 Display Pro colorimeters support hardware calibration: they can be used with proprietary calibration software from such companies as Eizo (ColorNavigator), NEC (SpectraView II), and BenQ (Palette Master Element).

You should avoid Spyders since they are inaccurate and – unlike i1 Display Pros – support only those display technologies for which they have spectral corrections stored in their internal, inaccessible memory. If your monitor or laptop/AIO display isn’t supported, you’re simply out of luck.

Without Palette Master Element (PME) you’re limited to software (graphics card-level) calibration, which is inferior to hardware (panel-level) calibration.  Only PME (and very expensive third party software, such as Calman and Colour Space) will allow you to do a hardware calibration of your monitor and thus use it to it’s full potential.

Technically, you could calibrate your SW272Q with DisplayCAL, but it would at least partly defeat the purpose of buying that monitor.

[eddie]

thanks for the explanation, kuba! I now got DTP94 to work again – I had to deinstall (with its argyll-driver using displaycal) and reinstall its proprietary driver and using my quato icolor-display software. different than with my old monitor the software reacts on setting brightness, but doesn’t on setting rgb-colors: the 3 measuring instruments stay at their place while I change settings. calibration seems to work though, but I do not know, if the manual setting to the middle point in those 3 rgb’s beforehand is crucial or not or if calibration sets it right anyway. was my effort at that point in all the years with my old monitor unneccessary?

the before used s2431w-eizo is no hardware-cali-monitor, but I made  quite some printed matter with it that where just as expected. could my DTP94 even with the above difference help me going along still or does it fail with what my new monitor shows? thanks a lot!

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by eddie.

[Vincent]

, but I do not know, if the manual setting to the middle point in those 3 rgb’s beforehand is crucial or not or if calibration sets it right anyway. was my effort at that point in all the years with my old monitor unneccessary?

Whatever you do not do on RGB gains in OSD will be done in VCGT by displaycal (unless aiming for native white) hence not recommended unless the OSD prest you try to grey/white calibrate is locked.

If you modify RGB Gains and resulting white is not white means that colorimeter need a correction for that backlight and the only way to provide it for such an old device (or a new SpyderX/X2) is to buy/rent/borrow an spectrophotometer, while i1d3 accepsts “distributed” colorimeter corrections (CCSS/EDR files) that other people made for similar backlights.

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by Vincent.
• This reply was modified 1 year ago by Vincent.

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