Monitor calibration....

I have access to a standard def sony monitor that seems to have the controls needed to calibrate it, except for a blue only option. However, it does have component in, so can I just send a component signal in, but only plug in the 'B' cable to adjust the chroma and get it calibrated that way? Is this what the blue only button does or does it do something different?

Thans

EW

The blue button is there to help you adjust the phase and color controls on an NTSC television monitor. PAL and SECAM don't need it or not nearly as much.

The way NTSC (Composite) is made, the color channels from the camera are coded and squashed so they will fit on the back of a black and white television signal. If your TV has no idea what to do with those signals, you get black and white. If you have a color TV, the signals are decoded into the original red, blue and green. This is Compatible Color Television from days gone by. We're going color and you don't have to throw out your old black and white TV.

The problem with the way RCA did it, there is no reference between the original colors in the studio and the colors delivered to your house. Keep saying to yourself, "It was cheap to do it that way."

Colorbars are created with exactly the same amount of blue in the gray, magenta, cyan, and blue bars. If you press the blue button and all four of those bars are not the same brightness, then you need to adjust either the phase control or the chroma/color control. Maybe both.

You can get exactly the same effect by looking through a Kodak Wratten #98 blue separation acetate filter, which I'm sure is no longer made. It was bright blue.

A similar viewing filter was included in the last two or three versions of the Home Televsion Setup DVDs.

None of this affects the gray scale calibration. That's another whole problem. If you put one of these on your monitor, does it look gray at noon?

[www.kozco.com]

Koz

Hmmm.....

Very interesting but I don't see the answer to my question.....

If I have a monitor with component inputs but no blue only option, can I calibrate (NTSC) by sending component signal and only plugging in the blue cable?

EW

No.

You're calibrating the NTSC decoder electronics which is missing in component video.

Try it. Does the Phase control do anything in RGB component?

Are you sure you have RGB component and not one of the others?

The phase control isn't supposed to do anything in YUV or Y, R-Y and B-Y component although some monitors "fake it" and you do get an effect. The Color/Chroma (intensity) control works in every mode except RGB.

Nothing works in RGB except contrast and brightness.

This is a petty good writeup of colorbars:

[www.videouniversity.com]

The blue button or filter works with colorbars. If you're really in RGB component and you pull everything but the blue cable and sync, the picture should look like the bright blue display about 2/3 of the way down that web page. The phase control should do nothing to affect those four bars on top 3/4 of the screen.

What's the model number of your monitor?

Koz