Using X-Rite i1 Display Pro with Ubuntu Trusty 14.04

As mentioned in a previous post, I borrowed an X-Rite i1 Display Pro color calibration device from my job recently and have been calibrating every display I can get my hands on :P

This proved to be a bit of an issue on my various Ubuntu-powered machines, though, as the packages for dispcalGUI that are in the Trusty repos don't support the device yet! I discovered this when the program repeatedly failed with:

new_disprd() failed with 'Instrument Access Failed'

When trying to figure out what was going wrong, I opened up a terminal and ran the 'dispcal' program directly (that is, without the GUI) with the -D5 debugging switch, which gave a little more information:

init_inst returned 'Hardware Failure' (External EEPRrom checksum doesn't match)
new_disprd failed because init_inst failed
dispcal: Error - new_disprd() failed with 'Instrument Access Failed'

Evidently, the EEPRrom checksums can't be trusted and the newer version knows to ignore them, so go download the new version from the dispcalGUI website (I recommend scrolling down to the 'conventional installation' section, which has debs instead of fooling around with the default 'zero installation' business they point you toward).

With the new package, you should be able to use your device without any problems.

Asus VG248QE Calibrated Color Profiles

Out of the box, the Asus VG248QE 144 Hz monitor has absolutely terrible color reproduction, but it doesn't have to be that way forever. I borrowed an X-Rite i1 Display Pro color calibration device from my job and used it to make some calibrated color profiles, which I'm happy to share with others who have this otherwise awesome monitor.

I had been using this color profile, which I found somewhere online (I don't remember where), but I made my own profiles for using 120 Hz refresh rate instead of 144 Hz, one for using a strobed backlight for anti-blur 60 Hz. and another calibrated at half brightness (not sure if this matters) for black-frame-insertion. For both of these profiles, my monitor had a built-in brightness setting of 24 and contrast of 53, just FYI. EDIT: I just set the monitor to the factory default 'standard' profile to keep things simple.

Also of potential interest, the dispcalGUI software suite includes a measurement of display latency, which was 15 ms for 120 Hz and 23 ms for 120 Hz with strobed backlight. I assume the increased latency was caused by the duration of the backlight blanking.