Raspberry Pi PGenerator Thread

[matrix16888]

inspired by you guys, and happened to know one of my friend has a pi (old one, 3B version) collecting dust, so I got from him yesterday, setup the ezBEQ, wow, it’s now so much easier to load BEQ, just one cell phone, a few clicks, can toggle between different configs, no longer needs a laptop wired to minidsp, and save me money and hassle to buy a remote control for minidsp too, happy!

next, will look into more raspberry pi applications, @sammy bro Sammy, how do you use pi for music streaming? mind to share? would like to leverage on what you already done, thanks!

[Foodie]

@matrix16888

inspired by you guys, and happened to know one of my friend has a pi (old one, 3B version) collecting dust, so I got from him yesterday, setup the ezBEQ, wow, it’s now so much easier to load BEQ, just one cell phone, a few clicks, can toggle between different configs, no longer needs a laptop wired to minidsp, and save me money and hassle to buy a remote control for minidsp too, happy!

So good. Thx for sharing @matrix16888. One of the reasons why i didnt adopt beq and still using a custom house curve was because its very troublesome to always need to manually use laptop connected to minidsp to do changes and selection.

Good to know from u that now with this ezbeq, seems like much less cumbersome

[matrix16888]

yes bro, since you already got a pi, highly recommend you to setup ezBEQ, 30mins work if you read through the guide and know what to do (google ezBEQ, the 1st link is the guide), it’s really convenient, literally as shown in below video, a few clicks and that’s it!

This Is How Easy ezBEQ Is

[sammy]

@Foodie

@wind and @sammy, what colorimeter and brand u all using? If its the i1 display pro, is it the oem or xrite/calibrite version?

I’m using Calibrite ColorCheck Display Plus (CCDIS3PL) Bought from Amazon a few months ago for USD279

[sammy]

@matrix16888

next, will look into more raspberry pi applications, @sammy bro Sammy, how do you use pi for music streaming? mind to share? would like to leverage on what you already done, thanks!

I haven’t done it yet, but looking into doing Volumio. Seems simple and reliable

https://volumio.com/en/get-started/

Streamer build from Darko with LCD touch screen

https://youtu.be/ksy5nQJxq_0

[Wind]

I’ve shared a tutorial before. Link below

HT session with Wind

Sooo, it’s been a while since the pj update… and while waiting for a new official release for this prj workflow from calman, I’ve spent time playing with loading of BEQ into both of my Minidsp 2x4hd using a raspberry pi as compared to using remote, laptop ezbeq software, and WiDg. The benefit is faster loading time, direct search movie and load, and no need to merge files first before loading in to Minidsp using laptop. I’ve been doing some trial and error for some time to ensure stability usi…

It’s not too difficult.

[Wind]

I’m using Portrait Displays C6 HDR2000. It’s a calibrated meter.

Now let’s talk about my findings. I did a 6hr sdr calibration different night… All steps the same except using Pgen vs calman LG in app generator (let’s call it LGen)

Apparently I did not take the readings and I know I should… But I only managed to take the grayscale (when I remembered)… for colors result, I also did not take cos I’m damn too tired.

The below is the grayscale result. Noticed the blacks all very near to D65 using LGen

When using the Pgen, the black is all over the place…well not as near as using LGen

As for Pgen for the colors, it’s all over the place! Jesus😱… I was so frustrated with the result. Imagine waking up wee hours to the result with the points all over not inside the square of the color triangle and a dE of more than 10… vaguely rem like 15 or so… I shut down my laptop and immediately took a cold shower and get ready the kids for school.

So on Sunday night… I did the SDR using LGen and as expected, the LGen is right on point with less than dE of 2 overall result and I’m very please.

Not sure what I did wrongly on the Pgen but I did followed the instructions in the AVS forum closely and as consulted by @sammy

Anyway that’s me, my lesson learnt and my experience. It may not be applicable to you guys but it’s fun to learn and experience.

As for HDR, I would say about same result… with LGen a bit better overall… cos the black points for the grayscale for HDR on the Pgen is also everywhere lol🤷

Oh well, again for the fun and experience is ok if you have the nights to “spare” lol…

There goes the saying, no need to reinvent the wheel as whatever calman app provides according to the intended tv/projector model will work best as it should be.

I’m glad to share my findings in my own personal experience and happy to learn new things from @sammy

[Foodie]

Thanks @Wind for sharing.

Must be be tiring and frustrating to spend so much time and then for the result to turn out that way. So sorry to hear that sigh.

Strange that the result for both blacks and color is all over the place, given that avs people was claiming it is bit perfect and works. Not sure if it be useful to post your finding at avs forum to see what the experts there say.

If u have time, without recalibration, it might be useful to do a quick measurement to compare (i) the calibrated outcome/picture mode that is done using Lgen using Lgen pattern VS (ii) using same calibrated outcome/picture mode that is done with Lgen but switch to Pgen pattern to measure. Ie. Just do pre / post measurements in calman and skip calibration step. This will quickly show the delta between using the two patterns with calibration done using Lgen. If the delta is v. High or highly erratic when using Pgen, it might mean the Pgen patterns are not appearing correctly as intended.

Did using Pgen take lesser time than Lgen using the same grid for color calibration? U and @sammy beri fast hand fast leg I still trying to find spare time away from my young kids situation at home to do up the Pgen/test .

[sammy]

Aiyo. Sorry to hear that PGen didn’t work well. As the pioneer in using PGen with the AU810, you are forging new boundaries and finding pitfalls. Perhaps you can report it to the AVSForum PGenerator thread to see if they have any comments.

Pgen seems to work quite well in SDR with my Samsung TV doing manual calibration with my dE for both color and 10 point greyscale under 1. Subjectively, the picture looks good in SDR with the skin tones spot on and seemingly more dynamic range. I haven’t done the HDR manual calibration for the Samsung yet. I do notice the calibration is fairly sensitive to the temperature so if I run it right after turning on, the dE is higher compared to when I keep it on for 30 mins or so.

After I finish with the Samsung TV, I’ll move on to the LG projector to see if I have the same problems you have. My strategy will be to compare the lightning and faster 9 point LUT before running a longer one.

BTW, were you able to run a post calibration check using PGen since its not possible with the internal PG?

[Wind]

Am glad you ask. PGen is faster than LGen…

Also there is an option call “rolling” to select before start of calibration to make grayscale better… when it finishes the first round, calman will random select those “out of place” points to try it’s best to make it center. I uses that option.

[Wind]

@sammy

BTW, were you able to run a post calibration check using PGen since its not possible with the internal PG?

You mean HDR? Nope. It works the same way at the LGen. Just that the pattern is generated from Pi rather that LG itself. The rest of it are the same. HDR don’t show post result.

I should have run a 9pt first but I’m thinking just whack and maybe I don’t need to do it again. “Maybe” cost me another night lol

[Wind]

Maybe TV is different compared to projector. I trust that TV will work.

When using Pgen, the grayscale is not as good starting from black “12” and below. Comparing to using LGen, it still able to give good control on the points to try to bring it to D65 center.

Comes to colors, like I mentioned, LGen beats Pgen out far. I think it has something to do with the color pattern generated from within LGen vs from Pgen. I swear I follow the tutorial from AVS for both SDR and HDR. HDR not that bad. I still prefers the one from LGen and yes I did notice the diff.

SDR is … The post result points is not even close to the little squares lohhhhhh… Sigh

[Foodie]

@Wind

Am glad you ask. PGen is faster than LGen…

Thanks bro @wind. Happy to know that it’s faster. At least can shave off some time when we do the more time consuming fixed grids! The time taken for 17pt fixed grid and above drives me crazy

Roughly how many % of time did it save ah bro?

[Foodie]

Finally managed to find time away from my young kids to start setting up my Pgen for the very 1st time. Understand that I have to flash the Pgen image to the SD card first before creating an account in Device Control.

The SD card (16GB) that came with the Raspberry seems to have something pre-loaded and has few partitions, and there are partitions ‘boot’ and ‘recovery’ with files inside. Do I (i) retain these partitions; or (ii) wipe them all out, combine the partitions into 1 including boot partition and format? Worried I may break something, so wanted to check first.

And if the answer is (i), which partition should I flash the Pgen img to?

Below is the SD card default partitions when it came.

[sammy]

@Foodie

Finally managed to find time away from my young kids to start setting up my Pgen for the very 1st time. Understand that I have to flash the Pgen image to the SD card first before creating an account in Device Control.

The SD card (16GB) that came with the Raspberry seems to have something pre-loaded and has few partitions, and there are partitions ‘boot’ and ‘recovery’ with files inside. Do I (i) retain these partitions; or (ii) wipe them all out, combine the partitions into 1 including boot partition and format? Worried I may break something, so wanted to check first.

And if the answer is (i), which partition should I flash the Pgen img to?

Below is the SD card default partitions when it came.

Flashing the PGen ISO is not linked to creating an account for Device Control. You can do it in any order. Your SD card should be full of stuff you can download off the Internet so its easily replaced and designed for real newbies to get started on Linux. The flashing of the ISO should completely wipe it out, as most ISO flashes do. However, I didn’t check the card to see if anything was left. I flashed to an empty SD card.

[matrix16888]

sorry guys, seems there is no other raspberry pi thread, so I hijack the topic to post some non-pgen related queries, my apologies!

@sammy bro Sammy, did you manage to get your pi from 14 element? I read through the volumio setup, it’s very straightforward but seems it needs a separate pi to run volumio OS. so I might have to buy additional pi for volumio. thanks!

[Wind]

Based on my best estimate about 40mins according to my old lappy. Vaguely saw 5hrs plus vs 4hrs plus… I can’t determine the “plus” though

[Wind]

Volumio will need its own SD card. It’s not able to “share” the SD card for Pgen and volumio for example.

If you have only 1 Pi, it’s as simple as changing the SD Card to the respective OS you wish to use. This is what I’ve been doing and I have 3 SD card. One for Pgen(previous used for volumio), ezbeq, Roon bridge each… I interchange them often. BUT each time you want to change, you will need to perform graceful shutdown. This is to prevent corruption of data which potentially result in reflashing… I know cos I used to just pull the power off from the Pi lol

[matrix16888]

thanks bro Wind, that alignes with my understanding too, last night I backup the ezBEQ microSD card, and placed order for another card and card reader from amazon.sg. and would like to see whether bro Sammy managed to get his Pi 4 from 14 element, if can get Pi 4 at the price 14 element offers, that’s great deal and I don’t have to swap cards frequently.

before I got my friend’s pi, I went through quite a few videos, and learned how to proper power on/off pi, and how to backup the system/cards.

The more I learned, the more applications I found pi can do, that’s real fun.

[sammy]

@matrix16888

sorry guys, seems there is no other raspberry pi thread, so I hijack the topic to post some non-pgen related queries, my apologies!

@sammy bro Sammy, did you manage to get your pi from 14 element? I read through the volumio setup, it’s very straightforward but seems it needs a separate pi to run volumio OS. so I might have to buy additional pi for volumio. thanks!

I couldn’t wait, so I got a used Pi 4b from Carousell for $100 in the end. Test Volumio out first with your existing Pi as prices should come down in the not too distant future. I recently acquired a streamer called a WiiM Mini from Amazon. It was USD90. Really a superb streamer with a good app and is bit perfect up to 192Khz from optical interface. People on audiosciencereview love it although Amir didn’t because it is not (yet) Roon compatible. Supports Tidal connect and Spotify connect and can even send DSD to a DAC via Audirvana over my network. Quite amazing for the price. So I intend to try free Volumio at some point, but this works so well already, I haven’t been incentivized yet.