Raspberry Pi PGenerator Thread

Thanks @sammy for the inputs and help. Successfully flashed the SD card, and installed Device Control. The DeviceControl instructions for PGen wasn’t that clear, luckily the AVS folks were very helpful to chip in too.

This is how my DeviceControl panel and Device Menu looks like now. Hope I’ve set it up correctly! :grinning: Will take a break for the day and try the next step soon.


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Looks good

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I ran another SDR calibration intending to run a 17 pt LUT, but this time the Greyscale exhibited the issues @Wind was talking about. After the Greyscale autocal, the dE for 0-15 IRE are much higher than my first run, which messes up the calibration. Above 15 IRE, the dE is low. Tried a few times and was unable to replicate my first run. I switched to the LG generator and the dE on the low IRE values went back down. Will investigate further tonight.

If it is an issue, its specific to Calman Home for LG using PGen (or other Pattern Generators), because PGen worked very well for both SDR and HDR when using Calman Home for Panasonic to autocal calibrate my Panasonic OLED. Also worked nicely to manually calibrate my Samsung LED TV.

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Ya, order placed so just wait loh

Thanks for sharing this. I can totally feel you upon seeing the result

Discovered that during Autocalibration, the delay between calibration frames was too short. I had Calman estimate the delay and it had set it at 0.25s. Turned out the Calman generated estimate was too short for using PGenerator with the LG projector. However, 0.25s seemed fine when using that delay calibrating with the internal LG pattern generator a month ago.

I discovered the delay issue by doing consecutive profiles of the colorspace and greyscale using Calman and they were different from run to run. Initially I thought my colorimeter was broken. But someone on AVS had a similar issue with an LG OLED, and the starter of the AVS PGenerator thread, liberator72, suggested that 0.5s was the minimum when Calman Home for LG was used with PGenerator on an LG OLED. Trying 0.5s on the LG projector, successive colorspace and greyscale runs were virtually identical and switching to the internal LG pattern generator, gave a similar result too. So I am fairly confident that 0.5s delay is enough for the LG projector with PGenerator. Chatting with @Foodie, it turns out that he has not only been using a longer 0.75s after advice from AVSForum, but also extended the meter exposure to 1.5s from the default 1s. Those more conservative may want to go with that timing.

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With the delay at 0.5s, HDR calibration went without a hitch. With the internal TPG, you could not do a post calibration comparison because the Alpha 7 LG TPG can’t do it. However, Pgenerator has no issue doing this and I saw my HDR result for the first time

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Bro Sammy thanks for the recommendation, I bought a micro SD card yesterday, and setup the volumio in my pi today, it is very easy to setup, however, the user experience of the Volumio app/webUI is not the greatest I have ever seen, but it works great, and connection to NAS is very convenient too, now I can control my 2.1 setup in my bedroom with my hp, iPad, MacBook Air and also Mac mini wirelessly, really enjoy it!

Just finished setting up my RPi Pgen.

Are these settings correct for SDR calibration? Esp the COLOR FORMAT. The RGB FULL is slightly confusing as it gives the perception that it is PC level range. But I am using Pgen to calibrate Video Level devices only.


Also, I’m not sure which output resolution to use for my LG OLED TV for calibration for SDR and HDR. Any ideas?
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Ran my first measurement (not calibration) using Pgen on a previously calibrated picture mode that was calibrated with LG’s iTPG with a profiled meter. Here’s the outcome. Measurements are quite close compared to using LG iTPG with a small variation in DeltaE.

Below is the measurement of the previously-calibrated picture mode using LG iTPG with the profiled meter.

Shows that Pgen is working well and the iTPG of my display (LG C1 OLED) is accurate :slight_smile:

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Awesome bro Foodie

Just to close this up and for sharing of learning points:

  • RGB FULL is the correct choice for video level calibration (the name is misleading as it gives perception that it is doing full hdmi range and may affect video level calibration)

  • The correct output resolution shld be 3840x2160p at 60hz for most 4k displays.

  • For those of us using argon casing, need to also install an extra plug in for the argon casing fan to work properly

  • There are 2 hdmi ports on the RPi. Apparently, they are different in specs. One is main and it can provide more options for output resolution in the PGen admin menu, and must be used. So, for normal RPi casing users, the main hdmi port is located nearer to the usb-C power port. For argon casing users, because of the routing for the full sized hdmi ports, the main hdmi port is located further away from the usb-C power port.

  • if u are using Pgen with calman, pattern delay shld be minimum 0.5s

  • if u are using a LG TV from 2020 onwards with alpha 9 chipset, the LG iTPG is confirm bit accurate for SDR/ HDR/ DV. So no need to use PGen. But for all LG 2022 models, the iTPG is not working as of now with calman, so u can use Pgen.

  • if Pgen is used as the TPG, for LG display users, there is no need to play the LG video file via USB.

  • for calman home users, note that Pgen only support SDR and HDR calibration /measurements. DV not supported

Hope this helps!

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Nice summary! I’m still “collecting” my moods to do the calibration using other modes. As of now I’m satisfied with my results on Game mode.

I’m being lazy lol but yeah! Nice work there bro Foodie and Sammy!

Great summary Foodie. Just to note, Pgen can do RGB FULL, so if you have a LG display, you should not set the Black Level to “Auto” otherwise the LG display will see the Pi as a device that can do a full range 0-255 signal and Auto will become Full Range instead of Low. If this happens, the calibration will be off because Calman always does Autocal at the 16-235 and there is a mismatch between Calman and the Display.

So Black Level must be set at Low and not Auto for Calman Autocal calibration. It is possible to switch Calman to PC levels (0-255) in the Workflow Basic Options tab, but there is no point as movies content is generally 16-235 from our streamers and players. The exception is games being played from a PC as some games are at 0-255. Also, if you use MadVR, you will be connecting an nVidia card, which is well capable of 0-255 and you can calibrate at that both the MadVR PC and the LG display to match. MadVR will figure out the difference in content and display appropriately.

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Did you also do a HDR cal? Was there much difference?

Great add on @sammy!

Here’s another useful elaboration from 1 of the PGen /calibration expert in AVS forum on the reason for choosing FULL RGB on Pgen; and how calman and LG works during the LUT calibration:

LG OLED requires 16-255 patch generation for its internal SDR LUT when running Autocal. Limited Range RGB is only 16-235, so you need to send a Full Range RGB signal and restrict the patch range with the settings in the software. But you need 16 to be your video levels black, and to do this you have to set the HDMI Black Level in the TV to Limited/Low, otherwise your black level will be lifted.

Because of the way the LG internal LUTs work, it has to be done this way. Using a Full Range RGB device for test patch generation is not the same thing as setting up external devices for content consumption.

Didn’t have time to do yet. Ha… But it shld be next project this coming weekend. Profile my colorimeter with my LG oled unit using Pgen 1st; and then recalibrate hdr to see if can get a better outcome. (hoping it will) :wink:

Thanks @sammy for the exchange of info & tips last week! Learnt a lot of new things thru the convos. :clinking_glasses:

Can I attach PGen to HDMI2, calibrate, and ‘apply to all inputs’ so that I can have calibrated HDMI1 & 3 as well?

I am curious does this also make the internal apps being calibrated?

I.e. the built-in Netflix or YouTube .(not using any HDMI input)

Thanks

what should I choose here?

U can connect Pgen to any hdmi inputs to calibrate.

But it’s kind of hard to help answer your qns w/o much info provided.

  1. What display model are u using wrt to this qn?

  2. What calibration software are u using wrt to this qn?

  3. Are u using manual calibration or autocal (assuming your software has autocal)?

For the part in bold, it’s probably more suitable to post it in the respective display brand/ calibration thread as it’s not really Pgen related . :wink: