Datacolor User to User Support Group.

First...I can't believe that it took a browser search to find this
list and then discover that I already belonged to it and had
completely forgotten...duh...'-}}

Second...this is somewhat embarassing to admit because I consider
myself at least a wee bit above basic bozo-hood when it comes to both
color management and monitor calibration BUT!!! 

Yesterday, I downloaded and installed version 3.0.7 Spyder3Pro
software. In the process of recalibrating my NEC 2090Uxi LCD monitor,
I discovered that the reason that it took me eons to calibrate using
version 3.0.4 was not because the software was deficient in any way
but because I'd been adjusting the WRONG things in the NEC OSM RGB
options. 

I'd been adjusting the HUE settings rather than the White Point
settings which is, as noted above, rather embarassing. 

Part of the difficulty is the not very enlightening NEC documentation
and it was just pure luck that I stumbled across the proper RGB
options--we won't discuss my opinion of the Spyder3Pro
documentation...well...I can't help myself and the most polite thing
that I can say about it is that it's sadly lacking most all respects
in terms of being informative and helpful.

It's really rather amazing to see the subtle colors on my monitor that
I've never seen before--who knew that in Explorer (WinXP, classic
windows detail display) the filename area has an underlay of a very
pale sort of green-y color?

Ok...now that's out of the way...let me ask a few questions and make
some observations:

1. Using version 3.0.7, it takes 25-30 seconds for the profile to be
established when my system has completed booting (a pop-up window
displays with the message)--not my experience with verison 3.0.4. I
filed a support ticket receiving an answer rather quickly that "a
delay has been instituted in the loading of the profile to ensure that
the Spyder3 profile will be loaded after other, possibly conflicting,
startup items have futzed with the video card."

Ok...I can understand the concept but 25-30 seconds worth of delay?!!!



2. In the Spyder Utility preferences for Video Card, it appears that
if I choose "Never" for "Load video card lookup table (LUT) every..."
that the profile is never loaded. 

Is that the correct interpretation on my part?

If so, perhaps in the next version of the Spyder Utility software,
this could be reworked adding an option "load LUT on boot" /"Load
Profile on boot" along with the option(s) to check the LUT table
periodically--personally, I've never had a profile unload itself and
have had no need to periodically check the LUT table so requiring me
to add this periodic check to my system overhead just to get the
profile loaded on boot is annoying.



3. The load delay and the (probably minimal system overhead) is
annoying enough that I'm considering uninstalling version 3.0.7 and
reinstalling version 3.0.4. If I do this, I think that I should do it
in the following way:

     3A. Remove the load of the Spyder Utility software from the ALL
USERS Startup directory

     3B. Remove the monitor profile from the Color Management tab for
the monitor

     3C. Reboot--with no load of the Spyder Utility and no profile
specified, my monitor should be UN-profiled at this point

     3D. Uninstall Spyder3Pro version 3.0.7 software and probably reboot

     3E. Reset my monitor back to factory specs via the monitor's OSM

     3F. Install Spyder3Pro version 3.0.4 software and go through the
calibration process

Does this seem reasonable or overkill? Basically, I was thinking that
this starts me with a clean slate. 

Thanks much for any advice and suggestions...

Terrie
http://tlbtlb.com/
tlbtlb@...


PS: Lastly...because I have you captive here...some further
observations (also passed on to datacolor via my reply to my support
ticket):

1. It would be nice if there were documentation on the tabs and
options in the Spyder Utility.

2. It would also be nice if a note were to be added in the
documentation for options that are only available for the SpyderElite
(for example: "only available for the SpyderElite" or "not available
for the SpyderPro"). To be perfectly frank, none the Spyder3
documentation is helpful or informative--basically it's pretty lousy.

3. The url referenced in all of the documentation (
www.datacolor.com/Spyder3 ) does not exist

4. The videos on the datacolor.com site are not captioned for those of
us with a hearing loss so the videos are not accessible