My build stays in any position, without any extra counterweight.
Could be that the positioning of the new hardware inside, dictates how it balances?
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DIY 5k Monitor - success :-)
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Could be that the positioning of the new hardware inside, dictates how it balances?
@DaveF
Either, weights in the chin,
Or adjust the spring tension on the hinge.
The big problem with that is that the bolts holding down the springs are quite short, and they are not ordinary M3 bolts, but 'Fine Pitch' M3mm bolts, so longer bolts (which would be better) are difficult to source.
Either, weights in the chin,
Or adjust the spring tension on the hinge.
The big problem with that is that the bolts holding down the springs are quite short, and they are not ordinary M3 bolts, but 'Fine Pitch' M3mm bolts, so longer bolts (which would be better) are difficult to source.
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@6-Colors
Nice report.
The hardware for the JRY--AA1 is evidently excellent, but maybe let down a bit by its firmware...
It will be interesting if StoneTaskin can improve it, and enable the IR remote function built into the board.
@joevt
Yes, without using the command line, the free version of Better Display can give fairly comprehensive data as to the output of the Mac.
Below is the data for a R1811 with HDMI 2.1 input from a M4 Pro mini.
But it's Colour Mode has the caveat:
Which the OSD for the R1811's latest firmware allows, and confirms.
- Negotiated mode may differ from the listed parameters. Check visuals or display OSD info.
What does the BetterDisplay command line say?
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-5-ports-to-latest-macs.2442749/post-33646305
https://github.com/waydabber/betterdisplaycli
https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/wiki/Integration-features,-CLI
https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/issues/2646#issuecomment-1946631590
@waydabber I thought maybe BetterDisplay solved the problem of getting the current color mode for the current display mode and could differentiate between framebuffer color depth and output color depth so that it wouldn't need to show that caveat/disclaimer?
Any tips on getting brightness control to go from 0% to 100%, instead of this bouncing around? I’m at a loss between the R1811 control schema and the Monitor Control or Better Display Pro software how to get it all working in harmony and in a normal manner. 
@joevt - the "Negotiated mode may differ from the listed parameters…" text is just a generic disclaimer is in the Color Mode menu and is always shown regardless, simply out of an abundance of caution. It might be superfluous but does not hurt. I put it there after some complaints about a 10-bit framebuffer with (supposedly) 10-bit output still caused obvious banding on a config (which might have been a display issue of course as the panel might still be 8-bit or there could have been an issue with some other processing at the display side, or maybe some interim dongle or adapter did something, who knows). It's just meant to say that eventually the user needs to trust his eyes and/or look at the display's OSD (if it has connection info) as well instead of only relying on what various APIs are reporting.
I filled a ziplock with woodscrews, got the weight about right taping it to the front chin, then shoved it into the body through the RAM through hole used for cables. And, it works. It's grotesquely inelegant
but it's invisible. I'll clean it up when I go from blue-tape to final seal with the ifixit kit.I've moved everything back to my normal desk and am using my franken-monitor (complete with temporary blue-tape seal) in a normal manner. And, I'm forgetting about it, which tells me it's working fine enough to live with for a while.
5K via HDMI works fine.
I'm having unrelated problems with my external SSD, so I'm postponing figuring out BetterDisplay Pro.
I got an email from StoneTaskin with an information gathering step for the constant current board problems I'm having. But, I'm not sure I care. I've spent more time than I have on this side project (e.g. it's a $400 monitor cash out of pocket but it's a $5,000 monitor in terms of the value of my time ) so I may well eat the $30 for the board and leave it disconnected.
I'm still looking for insights on how to tune up the brightness control with BDP.
5K via HDMI works fine.
I'm having unrelated problems with my external SSD, so I'm postponing figuring out BetterDisplay Pro.
I got an email from StoneTaskin with an information gathering step for the constant current board problems I'm having. But, I'm not sure I care. I've spent more time than I have on this side project (e.g. it's a $400 monitor cash out of pocket but it's a $5,000 monitor in terms of the value of my time
) so I may well eat the $30 for the board and leave it disconnected.I'm still looking for insights on how to tune up the brightness control with BDP.
@DaveF I see a difference in the BD brightness control depending on the Colour Mode I set in the OSD.
If I set DCI-P3 then the maximum brightness available is lower than the maximum the panel can achieve with the R1811 set to User colour mode.
If you are also using P3 then that might affect how bright the DZ-LP0818 might perform???
I certainly haven't felt the need for additional brightness...
I see a linear upward brightness from min to max, no dips.
This is with the older 04 firmware.
If I set DCI-P3 then the maximum brightness available is lower than the maximum the panel can achieve with the R1811 set to User colour mode.
If you are also using P3 then that might affect how bright the DZ-LP0818 might perform???
I certainly haven't felt the need for additional brightness...
I see a linear upward brightness from min to max, no dips.
This is with the older 04 firmware.
Yep. I get 500 lux peak as is. And now in my home office with bay window, it’s fine. I can dim it down with I’ve got BDP working again.
Next step, for software control, is figure out how to make BDP control brightness from 0% to 100% over full softwaree range instead of bouncing around like it does for me now.
Has anyone had success controlling the R1811 driver board with DDC features? I'm using HDMI (and not USB-C) if that matters.
I can't get BetterDisplay to drive the board's absolute brightness below 30 (down to 0) for ideal control. And getting it to drive it to 100 max is imperfect. DDC controls want to overdrive to 255. If I set the DDC max to 32, that fakes the max DDC value to about 99. But still no way to get the min value to 0 instead of 30.
I've asked on the BetterDisplay (GitHub) forum. And I've searched this thread. I can't find anything at all about control the R1811 with MonitorControl or BetterDisplay Pro.
I'd really benefit from some experienced suggestions on this bit.
I can't get BetterDisplay to drive the board's absolute brightness below 30 (down to 0) for ideal control. And getting it to drive it to 100 max is imperfect. DDC controls want to overdrive to 255. If I set the DDC max to 32, that fakes the max DDC value to about 99. But still no way to get the min value to 0 instead of 30.
I've asked on the BetterDisplay (GitHub) forum. And I've searched this thread. I can't find anything at all about control the R1811 with MonitorControl or BetterDisplay Pro.
I'd really benefit from some experienced suggestions on this bit.
Attachments
@DaveF I can't replicate any of that behaviour, but I'm using a USB-C to DP cable.
The thing that changes my R1811/V04 behaviour is the 'Color' PCM setting.
What Color>PCM setting is your R1811 set to?
Setting this to 'Native' gives the brightest screen I can achieve - similar in brightness to 'HDR', but the HDR setting isn't colour accurate enough to be of any use.
If I set both the Mac and the display to 'DCI-P3' I get reduced maximum screen brightness, but the display overall is probably more accurate.
In any setting the brightness goes from completely black to full brightness in more or less even steps, although in Native mode the steps at the brightest get a noticeably smaller brightness-increase each step.
I haven't touched anything in Better Display...
The thing that changes my R1811/V04 behaviour is the 'Color' PCM setting.
What Color>PCM setting is your R1811 set to?
Setting this to 'Native' gives the brightest screen I can achieve - similar in brightness to 'HDR', but the HDR setting isn't colour accurate enough to be of any use.
If I set both the Mac and the display to 'DCI-P3' I get reduced maximum screen brightness, but the display overall is probably more accurate.
In any setting the brightness goes from completely black to full brightness in more or less even steps, although in Native mode the steps at the brightest get a noticeably smaller brightness-increase each step.
I haven't touched anything in Better Display...
Color Profile: H2.1 5K DSC (but Color Profile doesn't have anything to do with how the backlight is driven.)
10 bit Full Range or Limited Range from the menu bar tool.
HDMI or USB-C to USB-C connection.
I don't have a DP cable, haven't tried that.
When you go to minimum brightness, what is the Backlight setting under the Picture menu of the R1811 OSD, like in my photos above? I can't get any DDC control to take it below 30.
Do you have HDMI or USB-C connections to try out? I could order DP cables and try that. But that's a couple weeks ago, including dismantling my monitor. And I was hoping to not use a USB-C connection for the display connection. :/
10 bit Full Range or Limited Range from the menu bar tool.
HDMI or USB-C to USB-C connection.
I don't have a DP cable, haven't tried that.
When you go to minimum brightness, what is the Backlight setting under the Picture menu of the R1811 OSD, like in my photos above? I can't get any DDC control to take it below 30.
Do you have HDMI or USB-C connections to try out? I could order DP cables and try that. But that's a couple weeks ago, including dismantling my monitor. And I was hoping to not use a USB-C connection for the display connection. :/
OK. There are a number of things going on... 😵💫
I haven't used BD until my recent M4 (my old M1 used Monitor Control) and I have left everything at BD's Default, so I am probably not altering things as much as your settings above do - I haven't found it necessary.
But the Color>PCM mode can affect other settings - all the Preset modes, sRGB, Adobe, DCI-P3 and HDR override the OSD settings, and disable a lot of the various sliders.
Only in User and Native modes can the Backlight slider, and others, be operated.
Better Display takes over control when it is running.
So it controls the screen brightness independently of the LED backlight actual brightness.
So by fiddling with the OSD Brightness setting (in User mode) I can set it to very bright, but Better Display can still take the panel brightness down to complete black (with a lot of full-backlight bleed...).
This happens whatever the OSD Brightness setting is showing, as it is inactive.
When I then increase the brightness with the keyboard buttons (ie via BD) then I too get the momentary sudden change (dip, then brighter) in the screen brightness when using the F2 key.
So the problem seems to happen when the OSD and the BD controls are fighting each other.
So to minimise this conflict, I think it is best to disable BD, then set up your screen using only the OSD.
When everything looks the best it can, then activate BD, (and I guess it's probably best to Reset BD, and start from scratch), and see how everything behaves, only changing those settings that you do need to control from the keyboard.
As to your board's ID, there were no R1811's earlier than V4 ever sold AFAIK. V3 seems to have been only a development prototype. The dates from your board are similar to mine (but not exactly the same).
I think it's down to the firmware, and 04 is the latest one prior to the most recent RealTek version.
I haven't used BD until my recent M4 (my old M1 used Monitor Control) and I have left everything at BD's Default, so I am probably not altering things as much as your settings above do - I haven't found it necessary.
But the Color>PCM mode can affect other settings - all the Preset modes, sRGB, Adobe, DCI-P3 and HDR override the OSD settings, and disable a lot of the various sliders.
Only in User and Native modes can the Backlight slider, and others, be operated.
Better Display takes over control when it is running.
So it controls the screen brightness independently of the LED backlight actual brightness.
So by fiddling with the OSD Brightness setting (in User mode) I can set it to very bright, but Better Display can still take the panel brightness down to complete black (with a lot of full-backlight bleed...).
This happens whatever the OSD Brightness setting is showing, as it is inactive.
When I then increase the brightness with the keyboard buttons (ie via BD) then I too get the momentary sudden change (dip, then brighter) in the screen brightness when using the F2 key.
So the problem seems to happen when the OSD and the BD controls are fighting each other.
So to minimise this conflict, I think it is best to disable BD, then set up your screen using only the OSD.
When everything looks the best it can, then activate BD, (and I guess it's probably best to Reset BD, and start from scratch), and see how everything behaves, only changing those settings that you do need to control from the keyboard.
As to your board's ID, there were no R1811's earlier than V4 ever sold AFAIK. V3 seems to have been only a development prototype. The dates from your board are similar to mine (but not exactly the same).
I think it's down to the firmware, and 04 is the latest one prior to the most recent RealTek version.
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The issue is that the R1811 v4 doesn't allow full range DDC control of the backlight.
The backlight ranges from 0 to 100 in the firmware.
The DDC control allows it to drive from 30 to 100 using DDC values 0 to 31.
This is found with BetterDisplay get -ddc -vcp=luminance while manually controlling the backlight setting.
I see this no matter what PCM mode is used (I've tried Native, User, and DCI-P3).
Additionally, BDP will by default try to drive the R1811 with values 0 to 255. This overdrives the R1811 to values above 100 causing the brightness to bounce around for the upper settings with the macOS software controls.
If the R1811 could be DDC controlled to use the backlight down to 0, it would have better and smoother control over its full range of brightness (using the software and hardware combined brightness method).
Maybe it's different using DisplayPort? Maybe I've got a defective board?
This is my discussion with the BDP developer on it.
How to set min / max range for LCD backlight level (0 to 100, not 0 to 255) · waydabber BetterDisplay · Discussion #3845
Have an iMac 2017 27" conversion with the R1811 driver board. I use HDMI, running 5K and 10 bit color. The R1811 firmware supports Backlight levels from 0 to 100. BetterDisplay drives it from 30 to...
github.com
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The performance of your board can only be judged if you don't use BD, but check it's operation only using the OSD.
If all is not OK contact StoneTaskin.
But if it is generally working, then gradually introduce BD control, one parameter at a time.
If you find the board having problems using BD, and identify the incompatibilities with the DDC, then you can discus that with StoneTaskin from a position of having defined the problem.
If all is not OK contact StoneTaskin.
But if it is generally working, then gradually introduce BD control, one parameter at a time.
If you find the board having problems using BD, and identify the incompatibilities with the DDC, then you can discus that with StoneTaskin from a position of having defined the problem.
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I'm first trying to see if anyone else here has used BDP with the R1811 and if they've seen and/or overcome these quirks. If this is just how the board behaves.
My impression is you also see these behaviors, but prefer to set the display with a fixed backlight level and let BDP only adjust software simulated brightness levels around that. And I think you're saying you've also seen the overdrive behavior in the upper ~40% of macOS range when you did allow BDP to control hardware brightness.
I've tried the H2.1 5K DSC Colour Profile in the Mac's System Settings.
The colour is slightly different, but the behaviour is the same.
When I quit BD (Free) and adjust the OSD, the Backlight slider goes from about 30% backlight brightness when the setting is 0, to 100% brightness when the slider setting is 100.
So the R1811 cannot reduce brightness below 30% on its own, and only BD software can reduce the LCD down to black.
If I enable BD at any low BL setting, then pressing the keyboard F2 (+ Brightness) immediately jumps to the different BD brightness, as the two settings are different for the OSD or keyboard F1/F2 controls.
It is maybe this anomaly that in some way accounts for the dip in your blue-line graph above?
The colour is slightly different, but the behaviour is the same.
When I quit BD (Free) and adjust the OSD, the Backlight slider goes from about 30% backlight brightness when the setting is 0, to 100% brightness when the slider setting is 100.
So the R1811 cannot reduce brightness below 30% on its own, and only BD software can reduce the LCD down to black.
If I enable BD at any low BL setting, then pressing the keyboard F2 (+ Brightness) immediately jumps to the different BD brightness, as the two settings are different for the OSD or keyboard F1/F2 controls.
It is maybe this anomaly that in some way accounts for the dip in your blue-line graph above?
Thanks! That's exactly what I've observed on my kit. That's really helpful to know it's the R1811 and not specific to my board.
It's livable. But if the board could be driven down to Backlight 0, it would provide a more robust user control for brightness from the macOS software system.
For reference, in case anyone searches for this in the future:
R1811 v4 driver board
DisplayMonitor and BetterDisplay Pro apps
Set DDC value range maximum value to 31 (30 - 33) to get maximum backlight for maximum macOS brightness setting. This enables the backlight to be commanded from 30 to ~100. This driver board cannot be DDC commanded to below 30: the 0 - 29 range can only be commanded with its OSD in the firmware controls. And if you set a level below 30, commanding brightness with the apps will jump it back up to 30 minimum.
This has been tested for HDMI, USB-C and DisplayPort inputs to the R1811. It's been tested for multiple PCM color settings.
I haven't found any better settings for contrast or neutral values in the apps.
If anyone has contact with the board developers, this would be a great firmware improvement for a v5 especially if that could be distributed for user upgrades.
Detailed discussion here.
github.com
R1811 v4 driver board
DisplayMonitor and BetterDisplay Pro apps
Set DDC value range maximum value to 31 (30 - 33) to get maximum backlight for maximum macOS brightness setting. This enables the backlight to be commanded from 30 to ~100. This driver board cannot be DDC commanded to below 30: the 0 - 29 range can only be commanded with its OSD in the firmware controls. And if you set a level below 30, commanding brightness with the apps will jump it back up to 30 minimum.
This has been tested for HDMI, USB-C and DisplayPort inputs to the R1811. It's been tested for multiple PCM color settings.
I haven't found any better settings for contrast or neutral values in the apps.
If anyone has contact with the board developers, this would be a great firmware improvement for a v5 especially if that could be distributed for user upgrades.
Detailed discussion here.
How to set min / max range for LCD backlight level (0 to 100, not 0 to 255) · waydabber BetterDisplay · Discussion #3845
Have an iMac 2017 27" conversion with the R1811 driver board. I use HDMI, running 5K and 10 bit color. The R1811 firmware supports Backlight levels from 0 to 100. BetterDisplay drives it from 30 to...
github.com
I tested my iMac Pro. With brightness all the way down, I can still read the text on the screen. So I doubt it is supposed to go to a completely black display.
The iPhone adjust the brightness, but I believe it still might be of help to see the comparison.
Brightness 0%
Brightness 50%
Brightness 100%
The backlight doesn’t turn off at 0. But if it could be driven to 0 instead of only 30, BDP could be tuned to create a better range of brightness control with more hardware range and using less software range with its combined brightness system (which is designed to overcome problems and weaknesses not otherwise present in the iMac display, from what I can tell).
If you have an Intel Mac, then you can use AllRez to dump DDC info for the display including supported range and current value for every setting.
Can BetterDisplay get the same info?
It might be interesting to compare outputs for different values of the brightness set from BetterDisplay or from the OSD.
BD should show the detected info (by reading the DDC capabilitites string and querying supported VCPs for current and max values) under `DDC Features…` after performing an auto detection/configuration.
One can also get this using CLI:
This will present a report based on what the app could parse from the display/board.
To get the raw capabilities string only (without querying current/max values and creating a report) this can also be used:
During auto-configuration (using the app UI) the app sets up supported DDC commands and configures the value ranges. From what @DaveF mentioned, I think the board incorrectly reports 255 as max value, that's why BetterDisplay set the control range to 0-255 (instead of the app default 0-100) during auto-configuration, while the actually working range is 0-31 for the board (which translates to 30 to 100? in the OSD).
One can also get this using CLI:
Code:
betterdisplaycli get -n=DISPLAYNAME -ddcCapabilitiesThis will present a report based on what the app could parse from the display/board.
To get the raw capabilities string only (without querying current/max values and creating a report) this can also be used:
Code:
betterdisplaycli get -n=DISPLAYNAME -ddcCapabilitiesStringDuring auto-configuration (using the app UI) the app sets up supported DDC commands and configures the value ranges. From what @DaveF mentioned, I think the board incorrectly reports 255 as max value, that's why BetterDisplay set the control range to 0-255 (instead of the app default 0-100) during auto-configuration, while the actually working range is 0-31 for the board (which translates to 30 to 100? in the OSD).