Portrait Displays Releases CalMAN 2017

July 12, 2017

Portrait Displays, Inc. announced today a comprehensive automated color accuracy solution for High Dynamic Range (HDR) video displays.

CalMAN 2017, the latest version of the world’s most widely used video calibration software, includes dramatic advances in auto calibration. 
With CalMAN 2017’s AutoCal, calibration professionals or TV viewers at home can automatically optimize all the settings of supported televisions, including Samsung 2017 QLED TVs and 2017 Panasonic models, ensuring that the TVs operate to their full capabilities and content is delivered optimally.

Formerly, optimizing a television could take hours, as users or professional calibrators had to manually tune TVs via a remote control using an on-screen menu. This process was both tedious and sometimes inaccurate.  CalMAN 2017 automatically measures and adjusts hundreds of settings in minutes with just a few clicks.

“CalMAN’s AutoCal makes it possible for viewers to see everything their impressive new televisions are capable of delivering,” said Martin Fishman, co-CEO of Portrait Displays. 

An entirely new workflow in CalMAN 2017 allows the measurement of color volume.   Color volume is an important new way to visualize a display’s capabilities. 

Until recently, information about a display’s color reproduction range has been presented in a two-dimensional format, showing the display’s color gamut at only one luminance level. 

The recent popularity of UHDTV, including high dynamic range and wide color gamut, has created a need for more comprehensive views of a display’s color range.  CalMAN 2017’s three-dimensional color volume measurements reveal subtle color capability differences between different display models and technologies. 

The Color Volume workflow in CalMAN 2017 is the first commercial solution for measuring all the color capabilities of a display, and CalMAN 2017’s Color Volume Visualizer is the first commercial utility for seeing a display’s color volume. 

Since the advent of high dynamic range video, CalMAN has continually been on the forefront of support for HDR, working closely with advanced developers around the globe to support the latest advances in HDR.  CalMAN 2017 adds support for the Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) version of HDR, a standard rapidly gaining acceptance among broadcasters. 

A new Dolby Vision workflow eliminates the dependence on the Dolby Vision “golden reference” that has been a bottleneck for calibrators who had to wait for updated golden reference files for new televisions or new firmware versions.  The new workflow measures the capabilities of the individual display rather than using a generic golden reference.  

Numerous other features have been added to the latest release of CalMAN, including support for a wide variety of new hardware devices.  Full release notes can be viewed on the SpectraCal web site:

http://www2.spectracal.com/e/2742/notes-calman-for-business-html/3cthzq/936810413

Since the acquisition of SpectraCal, Inc., Portrait Displays is the world leading vendor of video calibration software.  SpectraCal’s CalMAN software is the video calibration solution chosen by nearly every professional video calibrator, and by most end users in broadcast, production, and post-production.