Calibration questions.. (1 Viewer)

[JeffTimmerman]

I know you can hire an isf calibrator to come in and calibrate your tv. Since most tv's now have dedicated inputs for multiple devices, do you have to calibrate each input seperately? If that was the case, the calibration would cost as much as a high end tv? My tau alone has 6 dedicated inputs alone. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
jeff

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Well, not all televisions have separate adjustments for each input.

There is a series of adjustments that apply to all sources (focus, geometry, color-balance, color-temperature, etc.) and this takes 1-2 hours.

Since not all your sources are High Def, the calibrator will likely then use your highest-quality source to do the rest of the adjustments. A final pass through the DVD, VCR and CATV/Sat inputs will likely be done, but only a few minutes on these.

One calibrationist had a menu of prices/services. Some of the items were:

- Cleaning
- Installing Duvetyne cloth on the inside
- $xx to calibrate a standard-def source
- $xxx to calibrate a High-Def source.

A good, basic calibration was about $200 with a full-blown calibration with all the options for 4 sources at about $500.

But these are all things to discuss with the guy before you hire him. You are paying him for about 2-4 solid hours of work so a good 'guesstimate' of the fee would be about $100/hr. (About the same as a basic Car Mechanic, but you dont have to have it re-done every few sweeps/summer re-runs).

 

[JeffTimmerman]

Thanks for the info.

jeff

 

[Nick B]

I am wondering if any of these types of services are covered by my Best Buy "extended warranty"? When I purchased my Toshiba 50" RPTV, I was given a bit of a hard sell on the extended warranty. What pushed me over the edge was the fact that once per year, I could have someone come to my home and professionally adjust my TV. At the time of my purchase, I knew next to nothing about quality HT, so I had no idea of even the concept of professional calibration.

Besides your imput on whether or not this might be covered by the extended warranty, is it a "no brainer" to have this done? I have only plugged and played, with the occasional press of the "touchfocus" button. Thank you for your replies.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Nick, ISF calibration is definitely not included in your Best Buy warranty. As far as it being a no-brainer, it is a great way to eke out the very best of a display. But before you decide, make sure you get your set off of the "plug and play" setting immediately. The factory settings for contrast/brightness are frequently set to "torch mode" and if kept on this setting, burnin can result, as well as shortening the life of the set. Buy a calibration disk (Avia, Sound & Vision or Digital VE) and get those settings correct. This will also improve your picture, allowing you to see more detail and better blacks.

 

[Nick B]

Thanks, Jeff. The calibration disc is on my list.

 

[Ralph Summa]

Jeff "input" may be a misleading term. A better term would be scan rate. Although my Mits has several inputs, it only has three scan rates, 1080i, 480p and 480i. I just had my my Mits calibrated and one scan rate is included in the basic calibration package. I chose to have a second scan rate calibrated at an additional cost.

Hope the following explanation helps: The calibrations made to 480i scan rate cover my VCR, the SD output of my satellite and the internal tuner. Changes did not need to be made to three separate inputs. Of course one the corrections were made, I had to change brightness, contrast etc. on the individual inputs in the a/v menu.

Again, as said above not all TVs are set up the same.