Calibrate your Vidda / Hisense projector: a beginner’s guide

No experience with calibration needed. If you can copy a file to a USB stick and change a value in the projector menu, you can do this. Expect one evening: about an hour of warm-up and setup, then 3–6 automatic runs of 15–30 minutes each. You can leave the room during each run.

Why bother?

Out of the box, even the “Filmmaker” mode of a laser projector is rarely accurate: gray is often slightly green or magenta, the shadows are too dark or too bright, and some colors are pushed. Calibration fixes this with the projector’s own controls. The result: skin tones that look like skin, neutral grays, shadow detail as the director intended. Nothing is installed on the projector, and you can always switch back to another picture mode.

What you need

    Approx. cost
A colorimeter Best: Calibrite Display Plus HL / Display Pro, or an X-Rite i1Display Pro (used is fine). Also works: ColorMunki Display, Spyder X / X2 / 5, i1Pro — see supported meters. Borrowing one works too. $150–300 (used $80+)
A computer Windows 10/11, a Mac or a Linux PC/laptop. It sits near the meter during the runs. —
ArgyllCMS Free software that talks to the meter. free
ProjectorCal This program + the video patches (≈ 1 GB). free
A way to play videos A USB stick for the projector’s own media player, or Plex. —
A tripod or a stack of books To hold the meter. Most meters have a tripod thread. —
A dark room Calibrate at night or with blackout curtains. —

Step 1 — Install (10 minutes)

Windows 10 / 11 (beta — please report how it works for you)

  1. Install Python from python.org (or winget install Python.Python.3.12).
  2. Download ArgyllCMS for MS Windows 64 bit from argyllcms.com and unzip it to C:\ — you get e.g. C:\Argyll_V3.3.0\bin\spotread.exe. i1Display / ColorMunki Display / Calibrite meters need no driver; Spyder and i1Pro need the ArgyllCMS USB driver (see Installing on MS Windows on the same site).
  3. Download ProjectorCal-Windows.zip and ProjectorCal-patches-v3.zip from the latest release and unzip both.
  4. Double-click ProjectorCal.cmd. Keep its window open while you calibrate. Create desktop shortcut.cmd puts a ProjectorCal icon on your desktop.

macOS

  1. Install Homebrew if you don’t have it, then in Terminal: brew install argyll-cms.
  2. Download ProjectorCal-macOS.zip and ProjectorCal-patches-v3.zip from the latest release.
  3. Unzip, move ProjectorCal.app to Applications, right-click → Open the first time (the app is not signed).

Linux

sudo apt install argyll python3          # Fedora: sudo dnf install argyllcms · Arch: sudo pacman -S argyllcms
unzip ProjectorCal-Linux.zip && cd ProjectorCal-Linux
unzip ~/Downloads/ProjectorCal-patches-v3.zip -d assets/
./projectorcal.sh                        # ./install-desktop-entry.sh adds it to the application menu

Want to look around first? Start it with --mock (./projectorcal.sh --mock, or py -3 run.py --mock in the Windows folder): it runs the whole program with a simulated projector and meter.

Step 2 — Put the patches on a USB stick (10 minutes)

  1. Format a USB stick as exFAT (the videos are larger than FAT32 allows).
  2. Copy the patches folder from the zip onto it.
  3. Plug it into the projector and open the folder in the projector’s media player once, to check that the files play.

With Plex: put the folder on your Plex server as a library of type Other Videos. Use the player you watch movies with — calibration is only valid for the signal path you measured.

Step 3 — Prepare the projector (5 minutes + 45 minutes warm-up)

  1. Choose the picture mode you want to calibrate — Filmmaker (or Cinema / Theater) is the right start.
  2. Turn off everything automatic: Dynamic Contrast / Local Contrast, AI picture, motion smoothing (MEMC), light sensor / eye care, noise reduction.
  3. Set your normal laser level (Brightness) and do not change it later.
  4. Let the projector run for 45–60 minutes. Laser brightness drifts while warming up.

Step 4 — Place the meter (5 minutes)

Step 5 — Start ProjectorCal (5 minutes)

  1. Open ProjectorCal. It opens in your web browser.
  2. Settings (top right): choose your projector model and your meter model. The program tells you if your meter needs the slow video. Check that the gamma points layout matches your menu (count the Control Points under Gamma → Adjust).
  3. Preparation: press Check again — the program finds the meter. Play SDR/SDR_01 (white) and press Test reading. Then cover the meter lens and measure the room light: it should be close to zero.

Step 6 — Enter your current settings (10 minutes, only the first time)

Go to Full check, open Projector settings and type in what is set in the menu now: picture mode, laser level, Black Level, Contrast, Color Temperature, Gain/Offset R G B, gamma preset and all gamma points, CMS values. Usually most are 0. The program compares later runs with this snapshot — it needs to know where you started.

Step 7 — The automatic run (15–30 minutes, hands off)

  1. Press Start SDR.
  2. On the projector, play the file the program shows (AUTO/ProjectorCal_AUTO_SDR_v3.mp4, or the _slow one).
  3. Don’t touch the remote, don’t walk in front of the beam, keep the lights off. Go make tea.

The program finds the start mark by itself, assigns every reading to its patch and throws away anything suspicious (a menu on screen, someone in the beam, a stuttering player).

Step 8 — Read the verdict and change the menu (10 minutes)

The verdict lists every value to change, for example:

Gamma → Control Point: Point 6: −11 → −3 · Point 7: −10 → −4 White Balance: Offset R: 0 → −1 CMS Blue: Bright: 4 → 5

Set exactly these values in the projector menu, close the menu, and press “I set all this in the menu → save to settings”. Then run the automatic check again (Step 7).

Step 9 — Repeat until it says “within tolerance”

Usually 3–6 runs. Each run makes the program smarter about your projector: it measures how far one step of each control really moves the picture, so its next suggestion lands closer. When the verdict says everything is within tolerance, you’re done. Print the report if you like (top right).

Optional: HDR10 — press Start HDR10 and play the HDR video. HDR mostly gets a white-balance check; the projector’s own tone mapping is reported, not changed.

What “good” looks like

  Good What it means
Gray ΔE2000 < 1.5 neutral gray, no color tint you could see
Gamma 2.4 ± 0.05 (dark room) shadows and mid-tones at the right brightness
Color ΔE (weighted) < 3 accurate skin, sky, foliage
Contrast as high as the projector allows set by Black Level, measured for you

A Vidda C3S reached gray ΔE ≈ 1.0, gamma 2.40 and color ΔE ≈ 1.7 in seven runs — see the case study.

Problems?

See the FAQ. Still stuck? Open an issue with the meter log (Settings → Meter log → Download).