HerrB
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 p.1 #4 · NEC Spectraview vs. Apple Cinema | |
Hi Sputnik and Hermie,
Thank you very much for the info. Over the last few days I have been investigating the whole thing a bit more and want to share my current thoughts. And to everyone: as always, I'd appreciate inaccuracies, misunderstandings or lack of clarity pointed out. Without further ado, here now my musings:
On Hardware calibration of LCD monitors (something I was not even aware of until a few days ago):
A good overview to start with:
http://lists.apple.com/archives/colorsync-users/2005/May/msg00350.html
DDC/CI -- a protocol that allows the computer (equipped with a suitable graphics adapter and the right calibration software) to configure a monitor-built in colour look up table for calibration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel#DDC.2FCI
So I checked the NEC 2690WUXi user manual:
http://www.nec-display-solutions.de/c/download/213188/2690WUXi-UserManual-english.pdf on page 23 it says there is a monitor menu entry with this description "DDC/CI ENABLE/DISABLE: Turns on or off the two way communication and control of the monitor." This lets me assume the with the right calibration software this monitor offers hardware calibration (note this is the 2690 WUXi and not the SpectraView 2690).
I found this write up http://duncandavidson.com/2008/03/nec-2690wuxi-first-impressions.html a very informative overview and recount of what the NEC 2690 WUXi has to offer. It also focuses on a few points one might not expect when moving from standard kind of LCD displays to the wide gamut class of devices (see the bottom of section "Downsides and a Big Suprise", point "the sheer punch of colours").
There also is a very detailed review -- albeit in German language -- on http://www.prad.de/new/monitore/test/2007/test-nec-lcd2690wuxi.html which concludes with highest praise of the device pointing out the extraordinary bang for the buck you get.
This for me leaves two things that I need to resolve before I commit to the 2690 WUXi:
POINT 1: I would want to use calibration software that allows me to use the monitor's hardware calibration feature; it seems the basICColor display SQUID 2 or display SQUID FE of http://www.basiccolor.de will do the job. I shall try to contact basiccolor on the phone soon because, quite frankly, their web appearance is not clear at all about how some their different products differ -- at least not to me as a relative novice in this field.
On the subject of basICColor I found this review http://www.uncoy.com/2006/04/basiccolor_disp.html and his gripe about the relative clumsiness of their web portal I can share.
POINT 2: I want to find out how easily I can switch between different calibrations of the NEC. This goes back to the above point of "the sheer punch of colours". What I wonder is whether I would want to do is: on one hand enable the full punch (wide color space that is) when doing (profiled) photo work and on the other make the screen appear more subdued -- a bit like lesser displays -- when working with standard applications. Whether this makes sense I cannot really tell yet, as I am only in the process of grasping all this. I wonder whether using a system wide ColorSync calibration can be used for this.
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