Gadgetory

normally when we do these videos we're evaluating the performance of the item about which we made the video but not today no today will be different the subject of today's video is one for which we are not capable of measuring the performance for it is itself a measuring instrument I didn't imagine this could one evaluate the performance of a tape measure perhaps by comparing the feet to one's own feet or the inches to one's own pit Intel brings ddr4 to the mainstream with their new core i7 6700 K and Core i5 6600 K processors check out the link in the video description to learn more okay so the intro was pretty silly today but I don't want that to take away from the seriousness of the tool that I've got in front of me ok no seriously I'm done with that this my friends is the cryptically named xr8 I won basic Pro to an instrument that even with the best press discount we could negotiate cost us 800 US dollars to buy excuse me Linus what makes that goofy-looking hunk of plastic worth over a thousand Canadian pesos great question the I one basic pro 2 is a professional-grade color measurement and calibration device in this case a spectrophotometer with the ability to accurately I mean assuming you adhere to the yearly recertification process measure not only the light output of pretty much any display you would actually want to use but also of projectors and even printers to maintain an accurate workflow from the initial graphic design to display on the web and finally to physical paper media this is necessary because while the human eye magnificent beast that it is can detect a given range of wavelengths of light that's what we perceive as color our devices be they monitors televisions or printers cannot achieve the same level of performance yet with printers in particular leggings significantly behind their digital counterparts so accurate color calibration and careful profile creation for the various devices and artists would use is essential for preventing that chick modeling the hottest parkas for this season or whatever from looking oversaturated when viewed on a monitor and under saturated when viewed on the pages of a magazine and this is even more important when collaborating remotely with someone else say for example if you were designing a land hoody where standardized Pantone colors mean nothing if everyone's equipment is not calibrated correctly okay got it Linus color is cool and sciency and all that crap but come on we've seen your work and you guys are all over the map when it comes to color in your video so what do you need it for okay one that is something we're working on thanks to LG and X right all of our workstations are equipped with I one pro color imagers and thirty-one mu 97 4k video editing monitors so you should expect to see some improvement soon and to this device is actually not for the video editors here at Linus Media Group it is for me now you might have seen some fancy pants looking graphs in the last couple of monitor videos that I've done those were created by spectra Cal's Cal 9 5 for business software an incredibly robust tool of which I've only barely begun to scratch the surface people use this software for all kinds of stuff like making sure that our wall of discreet displays doesn't have that goofy effect where they all look a little different which is jarring when an object passes over the border between them two home theater installations two professional studio use but I'm focused on using their evaluation tools to determine the performance with respect to color accuracy maximum luminance etc of computer monitors so it works a little something like this I fire up a monitor that I need to evaluate and I look for the profiles in the displays menu that are most likely to be accurate so the movie profile usually isn't the right one since that tends to crush blacks like there's no tomorrow so you lose detail in dark parts of the scene usually if you want the accurate one it's going to be srgb or RGB depending on how wide a gamut your monitor can cover so then I run through the gauntlet of tests and this basically tells me if the display manufacturer is actually calibrating before they put the monitor into the box or just applying a general profile and hoping for the best from unit to unit after they ship once that's done although this has become less necessary in recent times with IPS monitors becoming so affordable and even and even high-performance with 144 Hertz displays like Aces xB 270 hu available I use the I one basic Pro tune to apply an ICC profile to the monitor effectively correcting whatever mistakes the panel is making natively with your computer's graphics card and measure again to get a best case after calibration look at the displays capabilities so that's pretty much it there's not much to say other than thanks to X right for the discount and two spectra Cal for the software license and the marathon three-hour training session on the phone so that we can do much more now than just say you know yeah the colors on this one look pretty you know fleam you know and just make things up as we go along both now and into the future guess who's back it's zero makers of useful and often adorable mobile accessories so they've got a couple of new ones here today the first one is the plate cable which is usually 15 bucks but they actually got a special 450 units over in Amazon for twelve and pretty much what it does is it takes what would normally be a cable and folds it up around a little thing that fits on your keychain it's available in either Lightning or micro USB connectors and then folds back up when you do not need it any longer so you can always carry a cable around with you at all freakin times the other one is a variant on one that we've actually shown you guys for there two and one cable so the previous one had they're like cute little danboard thing on it with the light-up eyes and all that well this is a lower-cost alternative it's 15 bucks normally but same as the other one for the first 50 units it's 12 dollars so we'll have links to both of those in the video description and thanks to cheerio for sponsoring this episode so I hope you guys enjoyed this look at our newest piece of measurement gear thanks for watching if the video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon instructions up there buying a cool t-shirt like this one or with a direct monthly contribution through our community forum which you should also by the way join so now that you're done doing all that you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right corner to check out Luke's unveiling of invidious new graphics cards that are also in laptops but their desktop performance and wow it's amazing my head just exploded for the second time in less than two minutes