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OSD Setup & Calibration
NEC never makes a display without a large and comprehensive OSD, and EX341R is no exception. There are many options you won’t find from other brands. NEC makes it a snap to integrate any of its displays into multi-screen setups and large enterprise installations.
The Luminance menu includes the expected brightness and contrast controls along with a black level option that can be used to increase shadow detail visibility. There are also settings for the front-mounted sensor that knows when a user is present and can measure the ambient light level. These settings can be tied to brightness and/or switch the monitor off when you leave your desk. There are six picture modes (DV mode) that correspond to different tasks, all of which are adjustable. Standard works fine for anything one might wish to do with the EX341R.
The second sub-menu has image geometry and positioning controls with options for aspect ratio and overscan. At the bottom is a uniformity compensation toggle. The feature is simply on or off; it doesn’t have the multi-level setting of its PA-series counterparts. We’ll show you how it affects contrast and uniformity in the benchmark tests.
The Color menu contains nine color temp presets, one of which is a low-blue-light option. The final one, Programmable, is a memory slot for the SpectraView II software. Option 4 corresponds to sRGB, which is where we performed our tests and adjustments.
The next menu has PIP/PBP for up to two sources. You also get DisplayPort options for multi-stream operation. Also included are volume and mute controls, response improve (overdrive), off and power save timers, and options for power LED brightness and USB port control for the KVM feature. This lets you share a single EX341R between two computers.
Menu Tools has the familiar language, timeout, and lock controls. Hot Key lets you program the function of the control keys for brightness, volume, and USB selection. This saves you a trip to the OSD. If your particular EX341R is acting as a master in a ControlSync chain, Data Copy sends settings out to all the connected screens.
Multi Display adds functionality to the ControlSync feature by letting you assign numbers to each monitor in the chain and controlling all or just individual ones from the master panel. You can connect up to 24 screens this way and share settings from a single master display.
Finally, we have NEC’s Eco Information menu which lets you know the exact power draw and carbon footprint of your EX341R. You can track costs in dollars or euros if you wish. The last OSD screen has signal information with horizontal and vertical refresh rates plus the monitor’s serial number.
Calibration
The EX341R comes set to its Dynamic DV mode and Native color temp preset. We changed to Standard DV and Color Temp 4 for our tests and adjustments. 4 corresponds to sRGB, but we still had to make a few changes. Gamma does not track entirely straight, and there are no controls to help fix that issue. Dialing in grayscale wasn’t too difficult and we achieved an acceptable result. We suspect the best performance will be found with a SpectraView II calibration, or you can use a third-party solution like CalMAN or Spyder. Please try our recommended settings if you don’t have the means to calibrate yourself.
| NEC EX341R Calibration Settings | |
|---|---|
| DV Mode | Standard |
| Brightness 200cd/m2 | 97 |
| Brightness 120cd/m2 | 49 |
| Brightness 100cd/m2 | 38 |
| Brightness 80cd/m2 | 27 |
| Brightness 50cd/m2 | 11 |
| Contrast | 40 |
| Color Temp 4 | Red 93.8, Green 91.1, Blue, 91.7 |
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