What is involved in proffesional TV calibration (1 Viewer)

[RayKk]

IM thinking of getting a pro TV calibrator for my Sony 36" XBR450 direct view, what is involved here and what does the guy do and how much difference will I see??

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Ray: I'm going to move this over to the "Display Devices" fourm where lots of people who have had this done hang out.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Ray: There's no substitute for a professional-level calibration. You will achieve the most accurate picture that WEGA can produce, and it is worth it. The biggest benefit: a close-to-linear-tracking grayscale that hovers near the 6,500D standard at all brightness levels. And Sony models really, really need that, as, out of the box, they run at way too high a color temp, even with "Warm" selected. Call your ISF representative soon. You want to see what that XBR can really do.

 

[RayKk]

Thanks Jeff for the reply the guy just finished calibrating my tv today and it looks great.
I got a folder with all the settings and temps before and after calibration, the guy was ISF certified and did a great job, the change was unbelievable WOW.
People spend the cash its worth it.
By the way the cost was $200.00 CDN and worth every cent
(just tell the guy you will pay cash and save on tax so you can spend it instead of the government.

 

[Brian Johnston]

Interesting, I too have a Sony 36XBR450, and I have always thought that ISF calibrations only made sense with rear projection televisions. Guess I was wrong, could you say a bit more about the improvements you saw?

I imagine that this type of calibration would void any warranty (assuming here that adjustments are made through the service menu). How is the calibration done, is a DVD with test patterns used? If so would the settings only be useful until you changed DVD players or only with DVD sourced material? Excuse my ignorance, just wondering how a non-source specific calibration would be done.

Thanks,
Brian.

 

[Bill Slack]

The biggest change (that you can't do yourself) is setting the color temp to D6500. Then there is the correct setting of front panel controls, color decoder correction (if possible/needed) and geometry corrections.
$200CDN is cheap, but sounds like a fine job was done! And Ray, you sure don't wait around after getting advice, that was quick!
Shouldn't void the warranty either. That should really only be an issue with exotic changes. They may balk, but only if you tell them, otherwise they're really not going to know. (What is Sony going to say? No way do our sets look that good, you must have modified it!!?)

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

It voids the warranty as much as getting your car's oil change at Jiffy Lube voids your GM warranty.

It is desirable to do the grayscale calibration based on test patterns through your DVD player of choice. Changing players will invariably result is slight changes to the overall grayscale of the TV since players have differring output characteristics.

Using your player makes sure we account for the errors that the player introduces to the image.

changes introduced by a new DVD player are usually small, but in a small % ... it may be much more and usually an indication that a problem exists with the new player.

Regards

 

[RayKk]

Brian Johnston, the change was absolutely great, the guy gives you a folder with all the settings and results before and after calibration, he answered many questions I had and also learned that certain stores will calibrate TVs with the highest profit margin etc etc, I learned a little about everything calibration can do especially sell TVs, but most places such as big box stores don't do it, Brian go for it on the calibration.
The colors where nicely separated, pic was more crisp almost jumping out of screen eg most red headed people have fair milky skin, before calibration the skin had a sort of pink ting to it now it looks real, foliage on outdoor scenes where there is grass, bushes and different type of trees, the different shades of green where separated from each other, if your in Toronto area leave message on site message center and I can tell you who the calibration guy is.