interesting thought on pro tv calibration

scottyboy76

With pretty good 50 in tvs available now for ........600bucks?

Not as many people are likely to spend the 3-400 bucks to have someone professionally calibrate that tv.

Some of those technicians instruments can cost 10,000 bucks from what i hear.

Many people are more likely to get a calibration disc and live with what they can do.

Or, like me, after buying my latest 50 in. panny for 650, i looked up several home theater forums, got settings that others paid a tech to set the same model to, set mine to those and tweaked it from there.

Either way, these guys might be going the way of buggy whip makers.

tonyb

I did the same thing with mine. Got all the settings for the same model from a guy who calibrates for a living. Wonder if they realize putting this stuff on the net is putting them out of buisness.

scottyboy76

And, the customer who paid the tech is who provided the settings i used, but i have seen techs post for others to use also.

I think a lot of these guys do ht installs and its just a part of what they offer.

thsmith

My isf calib guy got out of it 3 or so years ago. He said today's tvs are 92%+ there and felt it was not worth it. My 73" mis rphdtv still looks great but I am sure it could use some minor tweaks.

cstmar01

The fact of just posting the settings isnt everything a Cali does. Why do you think they show up with 10k worth of gear and not a 50 buck disc. And sorry but a 500 tv is that for a reason most are a 720p plasma and lack what some of the higher end offerings will do and look in terms of performance.

Just because you don't think it's not worth 200 buck doesn't mean someone that spent 2-3k on a better tv or projector feels the same way.

Glowrdr

Though I've never had my TV "professionally" calibrated, I did find it interesting to actually see the differences in different sets. I tried to calibrate a buddy of mine's cheapy TV and some of the cali tests wouldn't even display correctly - for example the black/white bars test usually would not show all of the bars, even if I cranked the brightness all the way up.

thsmith

When my Mitsubishi dies I plan to get the biggest nicest plasma I can afford and will have it isf calibrated.

I have tried the various disk and they get you no where near isf.

scottyboy76

cstmar01 wrote: »

The fact of just posting the settings isnt everything a Cali does. Why do you think they show up with 10k worth of gear and not a 50 buck disc. And sorry but a 500 tv is that for a reason most are a 720p plasma and lack what some of the higher end offerings will do and look in terms of performance.

Just because you don't think it's not worth 200 buck doesn't mean someone that spent 2-3k on a better tv or projector feels the same way.

waaaahaaaaaa, stop it your too funny, your just a funny guy, really stop it, stop, really!

cstmar01

scottyboy76 wrote: »

waaaahaaaaaa, stop it your too funny, your just a funny guy, really stop it, stop, really!

And your problem is? Using a disc is good it's a start. It's no where near what a pro with his tools will do. Do you have accurate color tracking? If so how did you get there. Isf has the tools and that is a reason why it costs so much. Yeah someone can go to best buy and grab a tv for 500 bucks. I can also grab a htib for 200 bucks. We all know it's not the same as a real ht setup and the same goes for tvs.

cstmar01

And I've used discs too and like the result but a full Cali is still better. Also there are still people that use CRT projectors. Have you tried to calibrate one? Or know how to set them up? There is still a reason why isf is still around and people buy the service

maggiefan

Here's a website for tweaking.

http://www.tweaktv.com/

BlueFox

If a TV is worth a crap then it is worth calibrating. They use the manufacturer's controls which are not accessible by the end user. When I had mine calibrated the difference was day and night. He spent hours tweaking settings since when you change something at one end, it throws off the other end. It is a fine tuning balancing act to get everything as close as possible to the correct settings.

While it certainly would be nice to have TVs that could auto calibrate themselves to the video standard, until that happens I will get any TV I buy calibrated.

mantis

I'm ISF certified and most Tv's benefit from a calibration.
I do find LCD's to be a challenge to get right. They usually have a red or blue push. Mostly red. When you dial in red Green and blue go way out, I sit there for hours trying to get a good picture out of them.
Plasma Tv's calibrate much easier and usually fall very close to Spec. Pioneer Elite's cover the IRE scale fully which bother else does. Panasonic Professional and Fujitsu are the only other 2 I have calibrated that even came close.
I have not calibrated a Samsung Plasma yet but I'm eager to do so. I'd like to see what I can get out of them. They have a very nice picture quality out of the box. LG Tv' as once I talked highly of now are basically on my s@#t list. They are kinda terrible. They look real sexy but man Lets get out of grey please.

piker

I have never paid for a professional calibration yet, but I really would love to get one on my new tv. I'm always used the calibration discs and have been fairly happy with how those turn out, until recently. On the last couple TV's I have purchased (almost once a year it seems) the calibration discs don't work well. I'm not sure why, but the contrast and brightness test patterns don't work on the newer sets I've tried.

I know there are lots of service menu's and things that the professionals get access to and use their equipment to fine-tune everything. I think it's worth the money if you have a higher end television. I've seen some calibrated sets and they are always outstanding.

jon s

A little off topic... The new Sharp Aquos Quattro LCD sets (including the new Elite) uses four colors (red, green, blue and yellow) for "supposedly" more accurate colors. Found out that the yellow is used when the display is set to vivid mode to compensate for the excessive blue temp.

When the Sharp is ISF calibrated in custom or THX mode, the yellow pixels are actually disabled to get a more accurate color as the yellow is no longer needed ...

Glowrdr

Yeah, I've read that too. You end up paying "extra" for this yellow, just to have it disabled in THX (or ISF) modes. lol

pdxfj

Getting your TV or Projector ISF/THX calibrated does make a very noticeable difference. Is it worth it on a sub $1000 display? Likely not, but spending the $25 on a calibration disc (AVS, WOW, etc) can help quite a bit.

One can also poke around and usually find the calibration information on other message boards. I did this with my Panny plasma. The Pro calibrator gave instructions on how to properly break in the set, then posted the necessary info to alter the service menu settings.

While it wasn't an actual calibration done on my set it was close enough for me and it was a night and day difference. A number of people I know who were hell bent on buying a LCD TV and generally turned up their noses at a Plasma changed their minds after seeing what a properly adjusted one looked like.

Drenis

While some have their opinions about the Sharp Quattron's. I am very happy with mine. Used the AVS calibration disc and the results and black levels are good for our liking. My girlfriend is a graphic designer as well as an artist so color was very important to her. She wanted the Sharp.

Check out these videos; I found them a few months ago and it's certainly a good debate.

http://revision3.com/hdnation/colorwheels#rev3Player - 3:28 in
http://blog.asmartbear.com/color-wheels.html - Link from video

See what the new Sharp Elite series brings to the table.

specd_out

jon s wrote: »

A little off topic... The new Sharp Aquos Quattro LCD sets (including the new Elite) uses four colors (red, green, blue and yellow) for "supposedly" more accurate colors. Found out that the yellow is used when the display is set to vivid mode to compensate for the excessive blue temp.

When the Sharp is ISF calibrated in custom or THX mode, the yellow pixels are actually disabled to get a more accurate color as the yellow is no longer needed ...

I have the quattron and had it isf calibrated and he didnt kill the yellow. It was cut back some but not as much as i thought it would be.