Calibrating my CRT computer monitor

July 18, 2006

I've been running into some problems while trying to calibrate my two LaCie CRT monitors. Both are LaCie Electron Blue IV 19" models. I know they aren't going to get the job done for color correction like a real broadcast monitor will, but I wanted to get them as close as possible to useable as I could. I've run into a few problems, however, and I was hoping someone could shed some light on them.

1) No matter how much I change my brightness, I'm only seeing the rightmost of the three pluge bars in the colorbars generated by my copy of Final Cut Pro. This is a little alarming. Does it mean my monitor is adding 7.5 IRE to the signal and it's impossible for me to see 0 IRE?

2) I don't have a chroma control or a blue only button. I can only tweak RGB levels. I have no idea how to get my colors adjusted properly.

This is all very frustrating because even though I don't have the best understanding of video--unfortunately I had an awful video tools teacher in film school--I have successfully calibrated a real NTSC monitor before. I'm just at a bit of a loss with my computer monitor. Is it even possible for me to calibrate my monitor using the color bars? Is my best hope just to grab one of the field monitors at school and then just use my eyes to get the image of my CRT as close as possible?

Last but not least, can anyone reccomend a book that I could use as a primer on the technical aspects of HD? For instance, I was confused for the longest time because my awful teacher insisted that digital video should never be shot at 0 IRE, when in reality this is apparantly preferable for any application besides broadcast. I would love to have a much better understanding of how HD images work before I start shooting my Junior project in the winter.

Thanks,

Giles Sherwood