Need urgent help with washed out images

[josephus]

We've completed the first phase of four interior (house) model animations, approx 3 mins each. Modeling was done in Archicad, then imported into FormZ for final model tweaks, animated, and rendered with FormZ Renderzone. I had the ambient light set quite high to get a very light (cheery) ambiance. The animation looks very good on my monitor, it's light but subtle (just empty rooms at this juncture). However, my client just rec'd the "rough draft" for review and said his was "all washed out". He''s viewing on a newer 17" flat panel display. I'm viewing the animation on a 17" widecreen laptop, as well as on a 17" Dell flat panel display...all looks good. Although our monitors are calibrated (Color Eyes), the monitor is set to the default sRGB (not the profile I created with Color Eyes). When I view it on my older 21" Sony CRT (also set to sRGB) it indeed is all washed out, probably much the way the client is seeing it. I've tried lowering the resolution settings on my laptop and the Dell 17" flat panel, but that did not produce the washed out look. BTW the movie output is Windows Movie Maker at 320x240 resolution. Any ideas???????

[IC]

No matter what I do, I can't calibrate my flat screen monitor at home to match my crt at work.

If it looks right on the one at home, I lower the light intensity by about 25%.

 

They are just intrinsically different but my crt displays exactly as it prints so I know it is most accurate.

[josephus]

No matter what I do, I can't calibrate my flat screen monitor at home to match my crt at work. If it looks right on the one at home, I lower the light intensity by about 25%. They are just intrinsically different but my crt displays exactly as it prints so I know it is most accurate.

 

I have that same problem here, and both were calibrated with the same instrument, a Color Eyes Display. I think my older refurbished 21" Sony CRT is on its last legs (I should say beams:), but what perplexes me is that the client tells me is using a flat panel display.

 

I thought creating color "accurate" prints was tough, how in the world do you get out a web video that will work on all monitors? Do you have to keep the lighting pretty much in the middle so there's room for it to shift???

[josephus]

...hmmm, maybe the problem is not in the monitor, but something in the file. FormZ creates a .fan file when it finishes which needs to be exported. I use the .avi file format using one of the Codec compressions available in FormZ, and then I import the .avi file into Windows Movie Maker and save out as a .wmv file. Could it be that I'm embedding a Codec into the file that some computers do not have loaded, and hence go to some sort of default setting which happens to highly overexpose the images? I don't know the technica aspects of all this...just need to get a handle on why a few computers/monitors are reading the same file and showing it several notches more exposed.