What's the "best practice" for positioning various probe types for display profiling?

I have both an i1Pro2 and i1Display Pro, and was wondering if there's a recommended distance that each of these probes should be positioned from the face of the display (in my specific case, a 58" Panasonic TH-58PF12UK ProPlasma)?

mike_n mentions in his amazing guide to calibrating the Panasonic 65VT60 that it's recommended to position the Klein K10 20" away from the screen, due to heat and Plasma noise issues. How do these issues affect the positioning of lesser spectro or filter probes, like the i1Pro2 or i1Display Pro?

Hi melorama,

DCT has a free tool the Meter Distance & Pattern Size Calculator which allows you to calculate the maximum off-screen distance of your probe in regards to the pattern size that you are using.

With the i1Pro and i1D3 you have to be even more aware of the Plasma heat as the construction is less heat resistant than the K10. Plasma noise is the same problem for all meters, so I place all meter off screen when profiling / calibrating Plasma displays.

- M

Thanks mike,

Looks like a cool resource....but I'm not exactly sure how to interpret the results of the tool, from a practical standpoint (keep in mind that I'm a professional colorist, not a professional calibrator and display/probe nerd).

For my TH-58PF12UK, I entered 50.5" x 28.4" for the screen dimensions, with a 16% patch/pattern size (16% is the PatchSize I'm using with the DaVinci Resolve closed-loop integration).

The results I get for the i1Pro (i assume this radio button also encompasses the i1Pro2?) for the "Custom" line is PWidth: 20.21", PHeight: 11.35", FWHM dist: 81.19", TLT dist: 81.19"

I don't really know what "FWHM Distance" and "TLT Distance" are, but something tells me that positioning my probe 7 feet away from the Plasma screen is probably incorrect

Could you shed any further light on this (no pun intended)

Hi,

the numbers are not incorrect at all, those are the maximum distances for the FWHM & TLT distances. You can definitely position the probe closer to the screen. The i1Pro / i1Pro 2 have a narrow angle of just 8 degrees and in your case, the max distance increases because you are using larger 16% patterns... I personally would not go over 10 / 11.11% for Plasma profiling b/c of ABL etc.

The numbers tell you the max distance of your probe to read the entire FULL patch with the probe positioned perfectly towards the patch, but obviously you have to very careful with the i1D3 and i1Pro/2 as they don't have aiming / positioning lasers (like the K10 has) so it makes positioning "harder". Other folks use third party positioning lasers to position their i1D3 / i1Pro more accurately...

in your case simple move the probe closer to the screen to ensure that the probes "reading zone" is within the patch ... but naturally when positioning a probe off screen: make sure there is no other light bounding off the screen when profiling.

Also make sure that you use the active screen area size when you enter numbers...

- M