Datacolor Spyder5 Confusion and Disappointment

And here I thought this thing was going to make my life BETTER ...

Not so.

After getting a new Dell UP2715K 5K LED-lit IPS monitor, and hooking it up via DisplayPort (one) from one DP output of my nVidia Quadro K2200 video card which I got for my desktop machine so I could also run my twin HP ZR22w (CFL-lit HD IPS)

as well as ... running the new Dell from my laptop, which has dual DisplyPort outputs so I can run it in 5K mode (the single DP output from the desktop only gives me UHD, which is OK for most of my purposes on that machine)

And I noticed that the colors, brightness, and contrast were different not only from the HP monitors, but also the laptop monitor, which, by the way, pretty much agreed with my HP monitors as I had them set up.

And I've never used anything other than "eyeballing' type calibration steps, and been pretty happy, but too many variables between these 4 monitors prompted me to get a Spyder, so I ended up choosing the Spyder 5 Pro.

I have not yet used it on the laptop to calibrate the laptop screen (an HD LED-lit IPS display) or creata a profile for the Dell monitor on it, but in calibrating and creating profiles for the desktop, the HP HD monitors, and the Dell monitor, I found, to my confusion and concern, that:

1. Using the ambient light sensor asked me to dim the Dell, which was fine, but RAISE the brightness on one of the HP monitors, way beyond what it was capable of (and brighter than I like) and on the other HP monitor it was fine. No consistency. So I chose to run calibrations without the Ambient Light sensor, which made the results better (to my eye)

2. Making a profile, saving it, then doing a FullCal recalibration on the same monitor and saving the second calibration would result in two different calibrations! Again .. no consistency.

3. Most importantly, the calibration between the two identical HP monitors was different, as well as WAY differnt from the Dell. This is what has me most confused.

Granted, the Dell is an LED lit monitor, and brand new .. the HP's are practically antiques, and CFL lit. But the difference is so drastic (the HP's look pink in the whites and the Dell looks almost greenish, but better)

ANY advice on how to approach this? The point, I would think, is that I should be able to trust my eye that the monitors I am using are calibrated to some standard ... or as close as they can be... but I worry that the differences make me distrust everything.

Thanks for reading the boring post.

A couple weeks ago I bought one also. My HD versus 4K monitors were very different. After calibration they both looked the same. I also had to leave my 4K much darker than it wanted it to be. I do agree the brightness part of the calibration is not accurate. Other than that I'm happy.

OK ... thanks ..so somehow something is goofy. Besides the different backlighting on mine, I don't know what it could be. Are your monitors all the same type of backlighting?

Hmmm,

Just finished a calibration on my laptop screen and the Dell 5K screen ... and ... results?

Yeah, they look different.

A white page opened looks reddish on the laptop and greenish on the Dell. Switching back and forth, the Uncalibrated View on the Dell looks closer to the calibrated view on the laptop screen.

Flummoxed, bewildered, and exceedingly annoyed, I am!

And get this: Different color gamut measurement results of the same monitor based on which computer it's driven from ... a video card issue?

So ... why does this matter?

Well, when importing, for instance, RAW stills sequence via AdobeRAW, one does try to make sure clouds are not pink or green (unless one wants them to be such) .... and depending now, on which monitor I play my clips on, I can Goldilocks: Playing same clip and moving amongst the monitors: This one is Green clouds, that one is pink clouds, and this other is "just right". Until I change the calibration profiles then they change roles .

UGH>

Gene,i have spyder4 and not issue so far...i found that my laptop interprets sony footage differently from my pc but i guess it's an hardware issue since the tabcolor test looks the same on both pc...
Did let the monitors warm up??did you set monitors to default setting before calibration?any lights hit the monitor?

Yep ... monitors are plenty warmed up ... been doing this literally ALL DAY. Set to default.

Keep finding references to people "tricking" the system into working, which drives me nuts ... the whole point for me is to take ME out of the equation.

Yes there is light hitting the screens ... not that much, but that is of course changed by the fact I wear a brimmed hat ... shades my eyes from overhead light ... I wonder if I need to redo these cals with zero light ...

Right now have AE open to a project with 4 layers pure color, white, r, g, b, that I switch between. All I want is for the monitors to agree.

THE fear I have is "is it too garish?" like some cals show, depending ... others show too flat, which is not great, right, but better than candy ...

Bonkers.

Gene, there might be an error with your Spyder. Just send it back (and get a proper XRite i1 Display Pro). And don't use the ambient light sensor instead set the brightness to 120 cd/m2. Gamma to 2.2 and color temperature to D65.

OK. I'll give that a try. I found it interesting that it took a little more aggressive searching to find comparisons between the two among the glowing reviews of the Spyder.

I guess my production is dead in its tracks until this gets resolves. I can't work distrusting my system. Time to catch up on keywording!

I have been using the spyder tool for a couple of years now simply to make my two displays match perfectly. It does that well. But I don't rely on the visual too much, even if calibrated. I prefer to rely on the tools given by using them properly - such as for photo work, I always use Adobe's RAW process. The histogram is far more accurate then my eyes ever will be. But you need to learn how to use this program and it can be confusing. For video, I rely on RGB parade graphs along with Chroma, Luma etc.. again, one needs to learn and understand how these things display and work. It takes time to comprehend all of these tools, but it is well worth it and far more dependable than your own visual experience.
Here is a pretty good workflow for RAW: http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/ps_workflow_sec2.pdf -

Use this for any raw image or jpg image sequences (i.e. time lapse sets) prior to loading into AE or Premiere or any other product that know how to load a file sequence and it's xml data along with it.

AS far as for video, that is a longer process of understanding and it took me a few years to really get it. With the help and brief intro given by Alex Buono (dp Saturday Night Live) at one of his tours a year ago, it all of a sudden was understandable. I recommend whenever you can buy a course from someone such as Alex, it is worth every penny as these little nuggets make it all worth while.