From a user developing their own code to aid automatic calibrating of LG TVs, using the Remote Control capabilities of ColourSpace to pull metric data from ColourSpace.

"Your product is really awesome btw "

A comment from another forum:

"I bought Calman Home for LG to use with my LG CX 48″ OLED. It was a nightmare trying to get a decent calibration. They refunded me, no questions asked, and I went with ColourSpace instead. I haven't looked back since."

Says it all really

Love this comment, from another forum:

"Calman is... meh its like iMovie compared to Flame imho, I used Calman before switching to ColourSpace."

We are getting more and more messages like this, from unhappy Calman users:

"I am a frustrated Calman ultimate user and want to migrate to ColourSpace. I understand there might be a trade in."

We are always happy to discuss trade-up options.
Each request is treated on an individual basis.

From a post-production company, who swapped to ColourSpace a year back.

"Our company is now using Colour Space INF since several month with our CR-300 and CR-100 and we are really happy with it.
Thank you for this truly fantastic tool!"

A very positive statement!

From another forum:

"Thanks to the incredible man that is Ted Aspiotis, I reset my TV from my calman home for lg calibrations, and have redone SDR/HDR/DV calibrations manually using ColourSpaceZRO to pretty great resutls."

Great to know that even ColourSpace ZRO produces superior results!

Ok - this is one of my own comments, as it really has to flagged as being, well, inaccurate, if not deliberately deceptive...

Calman has posted a video titled "How to Change Bit Depth in Calman".

Ok, what's wrong with that?, I hear you say...
Well, in the actual verbal description the term "...can represent data in 8, 10, 12 bit..." is used.
The key word there is 'represent'.

Calman CANNOT work in any other bit depth other than 8 bit.
It can 'show' values on the GUI in other bit depth, but the underlying operation is still 8 bit.

ColourSpace can work natively 8, 10, 12, 14, or 16 bit.

Steve

From another forum:

"The more i keep trying the better the results keep getting. Thanks to all the information on this thread and TED . I use to be intemidated to use colorspace because i was taught with calman at isf and use to find it easy compared to colorspace. I use to think colorspace was hard when i did not understand how to use it. Now i cant remember the last time i opened Calman."

That really does say a lot...

From a post on another forum, on the capabilities of ColourSpace ZRO:

"For what ZRO can do, the cost is one of the best bargains for an enthusiast in my humble opinion.

It offers full integration with a TPG able to generate bit accurate patches for SDR, HDR10 (in different chroma signals and bit depths) and Dolby Vision (in Calibrate and Verify modes) for the cost of a new UHD disc release in the US.

This is a fraction of the cost in comparison to what you'd need to pay for similar hardware / software combinations capable of same which are only available in 8 bit."

Again from another forum from a user that has upgraded to ColourSpace due to the removal of PGen (and madVR) support from Calman Home license levels:

"My opinion on UPGCI removal for Home is a poor move by Calman. Now, if you want an external pattern generator, you have to pay 1000's of dollars for a Calman branded generator or hundreds of dollars more a year for a higher version of Calman for the UPGCI functionality. Main reason I'm in process of learning a competitor's software so I can ditch the annual subscription to Calman and keep using my Raspberry Pi PGenerator and reduce my costs."

It is the ongoing yearly 'subscriptions/support' costs for Calman that are a killer - 100% fee every time you want to obtain the latest version of the Home software you have already purchased...
And removal of support for PGen and madVR TPGs greatly increases costs for home calibrators.

Just a general comment from a young fimmaker:

"I really appreciate all the work that has gone into the program. It takes a while to learn its idiosyncrasies (I'm still learning them), but it's very powerful software, and has helped me gain confidence not just in my displays, but in my own images as a filmmaker, and my work as it relates to colour. Which I guess is the point, so mission accomplished for you. Please keep up the good work!"

From a LinkedIn post from a professional calibrator:

"I use to think Colorspace was difficult to use. In this video I am using colorspace. I set my brightness and black level up first then I ran a grayscale large then I extracted the space and set that space up as the target gamut and then did a 2 point to the white balance and then ran another grayscale large extracted its space and now doing a 17^cube 3D lut. Before the verification now the delta errors are already low and I avoided going into the service menu. I don't mind going into the service menu at home but I don't like to void customers warranty's on there new televisions. I use calman sometimes but this is better as far as being able to see so many points in the graphs and all the information that it outputs I don't have to question if the calibration is good or not afterward. And I can save the 3D lut and upload it again when ever I want avoiding the need to do a full calibration again."

Very nice to read such positive comments from someone who previously used Calman only.

Another user showing the inherent flexibility of ColourSpace, and how users can develop their own workflows for calibration:

"I'm excited to share that after significant development, I have completed a new calibration patchset focused on reducing calibration time while maintaining, and in some aspects improving, the quality of the Look-Up Table (LUT). This patchset, consisting of 2585 points, demonstrates measurable improvements over the traditional 4096-point set, particularly in the dE ITP distribution.

Utilizing my Klein K10-A, calibrated with a Jeti 1501, the profiling process for this new set required only 58 minutes, including drift patch intervals.
This is a notable decrease from the 1 hour and 40 minutes needed for the larger set and significantly less than the time required for the standard 4913-point set.

Despite my LG C8's less than ideal gamut, the results were exceptional, achieving a dE 2000 average of 0.2727.
This outcome suggests that the new set not only serves professional calibrators but also offers significant advantages to enthusiasts using an i1 Display Pro.

This development highlights that efficiency does not have to come at the cost of quality.
And of course it is drift optimized, thanks to @bobof and his great SOFS sorting tool."

You can see how the patch set has a denser population within the colour space, reducing towards the edges.

Patch Set

From a discussion on calibration systems on an alternative forum:

"researching about calibration more it seems that ColourSpace CMS is a superior product? Did you also had a personal experience with Calman and then moved over to ColourSpace CMS or were you always with ColourSpace CMS to begin with?

I know this is a subjective answer. A person will use whatever calibration software they would want, however I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

I also like how ConnectedTedd is involved in the project and how well educated he is in this industry and him backing up his or his company's product is very enticing.

This would be a future move on my end unfortunately since I bought the C6 HDR2000 bundled with Calman for LG from Portrait Display so I probably won't drop $500+ for the ColourSpace CMS software anytime soon.

Briefly looking at the ColourSpace CMS overview/introductory video on YouTube however it seems like there's a HUGE learning curve with that software compared to Calman. I assume this is because the user has more control on the software compared to Calman software. This is mere speculation on my end however."

With the response being:

"Just a disclaimer. I'm by no means an expert. It's taken a while for me to get even semi-proficient at all this stuff. There are folks who are much, much more knowledgeable than I am, but I also understand all of this can be intimidating and I wished folks provided me with some insight when I was first starting out.

Hopefully some of this info is helpful. Of course if those experts want to chime in, I hope they do.

Regarding ColourSpace and Calman:

Yes, I tried Calman, and yes, I prefer ColourSpace, but Calman is the defacto software of choice of pro calibrators.

They wouldn't use it if it didn't provide reference results.

I should also say that I only "used" (if you can call it that) Calman for a single month, and only the Calman Home for Sony version (no LG). I do not have a full idea of the results which can be achieved with Calman based on my budget gear and current skill set.

After nearly two years of exclusively using ColourSpace, Calman is as unfamiliar to me as ColourSpace would be to a long time Calman user who's only used CS once or twice.

I went with ColourSpace (first version was ZRO, with no LUT capabilities) because of its PGenerator integration. A couple of years ago, PGenerator was the only affordable bit accurate external patch generator available to enthusiasts.

Sony only has 2 pt / 20 pt white balance and CMS controls, so ZRO suited my needs. I soon found out I could get better results via manual calibration on my Sony than using Calman's Autocal algorithm and haven't looked back.

Sony recommends 10 bit patches for calibration and Calman only works in 8 bit values. Also, while PGen does work with Calman, Calman does not support PGen natively. It uses Calman's Unified Pattern Generator Control Interface + Device Control for use on Calman software.

ColourSpace + PGen can produce bit accurate patches in different bit depths and chroma signals in SDR and HDR10, and can also produce bit accurate standard Dolby Vision patches.

FYI, Calman will be dropping UPGCI support on their home license versions sometime soon, so no more PGen support. This is to make way for their budget external patch generator, the G1.

As for ease of use and support:

ColourSpace and its predecessor, LightSpace, is based on professional LUT capable software created by Light Illusion which was used in production houses.

The head of Light Illusion is very much against any type of step by step walkthroughs, workflows, etc., which is why they are not included in ColourSpace. He considers them to be too restrictive, instead choosing to let the end user apply the various tools provided as the situation requires.

You just open up the program, and there aren't any kind of prompts. You just have to know what to do. You're very much expected to do the work in obtaining a knowledge base regarding display calibration in order to utilize the software....they both go hand in hand.

I've learned more about display calibration in the past couple of years than I did in the previous 3, but you're right, the learning curve is steep.

While there are videos and guides provided by Light Illusion, the tips and tricks tend to be scattershot. Helpful info can be obtained via research, but locating that info may be challenging. There are a multitude of add ons provided by fellow enthusiasts that are extremely useful, but you have to search them out. I can see how someone may suffer from information glut when trying to learn how to use the software.

Ted, though, is extremely supportive. I would have been totally lost without his help and I'm sure a lot of other folks can say the same.

Personally, I find ColourSpace extremely easy to use....I'm able to perform a manual calibration and get solid results just by using various graphs and widgets and very rarely looking at actual numbers. But, it took a long while to get to that point.

Calman takes a much more user friendly approach, offering step by step prompts, menus, workflows, etc., promising reference results with the few clicks of a button without much user involvement.

I'm guessing Autocal is the main source of Calman's popularity. I don't begrudge folks who like this aspect of Calman, but it does seem to hamper the desire for wanting to learn more about the hobby.

If things don't go as planned using the approaches implemented by Calman, some enthusiasts may not have an idea what went wrong or how to fix it. On the flip side, if Autocal does go well as far as the end user is concerned, maybe results could be improved upon with a little more of a knowledge base. But hey, to each their own. If it causes more people to take up this very niche hobby, I'm all for it.

As for a detailed list of feature differences between ColourSpace CMS and Calman, please see here:

https://www.lightillusion.com/forums/display-calibration-8/colourspace-home-cinema-key-features-compared-to-calman-home-908.html

I know, I know, not the most unbiased source....but, the list of differences is comprehensive."

I have to agree with the response.
Especially the comments regarding my personal view on 'step by step walkthroughs, workflows, etc.,', and how more is actually learnt about calibration using the ColourSpace approach.

Oh - although Calman is only the 'defacto software of choice of pro calibrators' in the home cinema environment due to Calman giving away their software for free to such users... It is not because it is good.

We just had to grab this post from another forum:

"I am so ****ing tired of dealing with your bs software. How many failed calibrations do I have to put up with after spending $1000's on your professional level software! Hours wasted on numerous failed 3D LUT calibrations. Plus your autocal Is absolute garbage! I have to spend tons of extra time cleaning up your bs results. Hint - don't spend a penny on this **** software until they fix their issues. Tired of the same **** response to known bugs - "We are aware of that issue and hope to have a fix soon"."



The post was shortly removed, with the comment:

"Deleted - as is their software from my laptop!"