Get it together newbies. Calibrate your stuff! (1 Viewer)

[Jason Wilcox]

i'm pretty new to HT and i tried calibrating my tv with THX optimode. i can't believe how much i was missing. only part i'm confused about is sharpness. i've heard that you should turn it far down or even off. but, then all text becomes extremely blurry.

oh yea, i plan to borrow a copy of video essentials from my friend and see if that makes more of a difference.

 

[Rod Melotte]

I purchased from BEts Buy a DVD called Home Theatre Test and Set-Up disk. It was the only one they had. It was $9.99 and it totally SUCKS!

Looks like I'll have to get the good DVD by Avia!

 

[Brian Harnish]

Jason Winston wrote:

i'm pretty new to HT and i tried calibrating my tv with THX optimode. i can't believe how much i was missing. only part i'm confused about is sharpness. i've heard that you should turn it far down or even off. but, then all text becomes extremely blurry.

You should turn sharpness off or at most five ticks up from zero. On my WEGA, I found that adding two or three ticks to the Sharpness value (up from zero) helped the picture (rather than hindering it). What sharpness does is it adds artificial information to the edges of people and objects in the picture, making them "stand out" if you will. This is what's known as Edge Enhancement, and can affect the picture quality in a negative way.
I'm sure that once you get used to it, you will find that this way is much more natural. Congrats on your new calibrated setup!

 

[Scott Page]

The AVIA disk has a test pattern to properly set sharpness; to little is bad too. As a rough guide set at 1/4 to 1/3 of the range. At first the picture will appear soft to you. But with time, you will realize that it is better and results in better true resolution and a more "real" image. It just takes getting used to. Personally, I don't think turning it off is the answer, but of course this all depends upon the TV being calibrated as they will all be set differently at the factory.

 

[Richard Harvey]

There are cheaper alternatives. First, ask around your friends and co-workers. More than likely someone you know already owns some or all the tools you'll need, and you can borrow them.

If this doesn't work, browse your local video rental store. I've found some that rent Avia or Video Essentials. Once you calibrate, you can pretty much leave things alone unless you swap or upgrade a component. Instead of paying $35-$45, just pay $4 (if you are on Netflix, I think you can rent from them too).

As for the SPL, the analog version of Radio Shack runs $39, and by all means it is just as functional and accurate as their 'digital' version which costs $59.

If your receiver has a 'test tone' feature built in, you should at least balance the speakers by ear using this tone. It's not perfect, but at least for YOUR ears the room will sound balanced. In these cases a disc is most important just to make sure your wiring polarity is correct, and all components are working as expected. An SPL will balance all the speakers to a specific dB so that your output levels match.

But, by far, the most 'dramatic' change I saw was using a disc such as Video Essentials to balance my TV. With sound it is fairly easy -- you adjust the volume of one speaker to another, and you are pretty well set. With a TV, however, there is a very complicated relationship between color, tint, contrast, brightness, sharpness, etc. to make a balanced picture. Trying to adjust one without a reference point is a disaster in the making -- i.e. if you know a movie has a red car, adjusting your set to make it look 'red' to you may totally whack your color or contrast for other scenes. And, if you have a rear projection set, it is critical for you to set your contrast correctly; if you don't, you could be damaging your set and causing premature burn-in. You'll also want to make sure your black levels are balanced correctly for the best results with DVD/LD material.

Just my 2 cents.

Rich

 

[Mikey L]

in terms of calibration, is anyone familiar with the section of the Terminator 2 disc that walks you through this? is this an acceptable means of calibration or a poor substitute for the equipment listed here?

 

[Jason Lovely]

Would the AVIA disc do any good on a regular 32" Toshiba TV?

 

[Tommy G]

Jason, I used the AVIA on my Sony 35" and it worked great. Like mentioned before, make sure you warm up your TV first and also wait it out. The picture might seem dark and soft at first but if you wait it out, you'll be happy overall with the picture.

 

[nolesrule]

Video calibration should be done on every TV. Never trust the default settings to be optimal.

 

[Jason Lovely]

Hehe...I bought an AVIA disc about a year ago and forgot I had it.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Would the AVIA disc do any good on a regular 32" Toshiba TV?

I have used Avia to calibrate a 25-inch Sylvania, 27-inch Sony, 32-inch Sony and 56-inch 16x9 Toshiba (to tide it over until it was ISF-calibrated). In each case, the picture was noticably improved over what I could do by just eyeballing it.

You also may be surprised at the difference between trying to calibrate your speakers be ear vs. using an SPL meter. I thought I had mine set close to perfect before buying a meter, but I was way off. The system sounded much better after a proper speaker calibration.

Renting or borrowing the necessary tools can save some money up front. However, if you plan on playing around with speaker placement or upgrading equipment often, it's probably better to own a calibration disc and SPL meter. You will end up using these tools quite often, since a system should be recalibrated after any significant change.

 

[John ODonnell]

It amazes me when I see things being sold on Ebay for more $ than what you can find them for at some online retailers (as long as you do a little homework)! People are so caught up in the whole auction thing, they forget what they are spending. I MUST WIN THAT AUCTION!!!!

John

 

[Brian E]

It amazes me when I see things being sold on Ebay for more $ than what you can find them for at some online retailers (as long as you do a little homework)! People are so caught up in the whole auction thing, they forget what they are spending. I MUST WIN THAT AUCTION!!!!

????????

 

[Mark Rodrigues]

Great thread!
I have been thinking about buying the Video Essentials disk from the time I bought my HT, but one thing has always held me back ...
I live in Australia and have a PAL (Sony) TV.
The Video Essentials disk only comes in NTSC playback!
Now my TV will play back NTSC but I wasn't sure whether I would be getting the best result for my set up if I used the NTSC calibration disk.
Any reassuring words may just push me to make that purchase
Mark

 

[Daniel Mc]

I may sound like I'm from the stone-age, but because of a limited budget, I'll have a RPTV before I get a DVD player. Are there any basic but important adjustments I can make without having a calibration disk that will hold me over until I get a DVD player?

 

[Ted Lee]

daniel -
i think one of the most important adjustments you can make is to turn the brightness down. many sets come out of the box too "hot" (also known as torch-mode ) - this is typically done to make the set more appealing on the show-room floor.
also, adjust the colors so that you get natural skin-tone colors. you don't want anything overly (sp?) bright or saturated.
make sure you warm up the tv first, then do all the calibration in the lighting environment you'll be using. for example, i calibrated my tv in a darkened room - since that is how i typically do my critical watching.
fyi - sound and vision makes a calibration dvd that's only 15 bucks or so...

 

[AvinashM]

hi

when using the SPL meter to adjust your stereo. should

you point it at the speaker that you are calibrating ?

what about rears? should the meter face back or face

forward?

thanks in advance.

Avinash.

 

[Ted Lee]

avinash -
you should have the meter pointing straight forward - it should not be pointed at any speaker.
position it where your head would be - this is called the listening position.
some say to hold the meter straight up, but i hold mine at a 45-degree angle.
if possible, use a tripod to hold the meter - that way your body does not get in the way of the reading.
also, check out this link for more info on sound calibration:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...553#post650553

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Scott: Please feel free to add links/addresses to ANY other legitimate HT site. We actually ENCOURAGE this.
We only get upset if the link contains un-ethical information like how to defeat copy protection, how to order bootleg movies, etc.
Things like "How to enter Service Mode" is somewhat of a grey area topic. We just dont want people to mess up their new HDTV and then tell the service guy "I learned how to do this on the HTF website". So dont post the codes, but posting a link should be fine.

 

[Scott Page]

For Mitsubushi bigscreen owners: I suggest visiting www.hometheaterspot.com. That site has the best info on Mits bigscreen calibration. More info that you can imagine including how-to re-write the eeproms to "correct" the faulty factory settings.