I have a Pioneer 4280 which I had calibrated last year. I am now going to buy a blu ray player. Do I need to have the input that the player will be hooked up to calibrated for the best picture quality or wont it matter much with blu ray.

Greetings

Different players usually mean the possibility of different settings.

Maybe the changes are small and you can't tell the difference ... and maybe the changes are not so small. Won't know until you plug it in and run some test patterns. (and then some)

regards

Maybe. Were you connected HDMI before as well? If so, and the player was properly outputting video levels, and if the new player is properly outputting video levels, and if your display was properly aligned to video levels, then it should be the same. But you see the number of "if"s in that sentence is significant, you should check with patterns to verify that your black and white level settings are correct, among other things.

That all being said, digital doesn't really 'float' around like analog, so it's far more likely to remain the same than in analog days where you would assume things were different...

I have a Pioneer 4280 which I had calibrated last year. I am now going to buy a blu ray player. Do I need to have the input that the player will be hooked up to calibrated for the best picture quality or wont it matter much with blu ray.

Do you mean calibrated as in for the first time or recalibrated because the component on that input is changing from an SD device to an HD device?

There may be too many variables here to know what the right answer is...

It has been a while since I did an xx80 Pioneer, but if I remember right, their calibration is "per mode" rather than "per input" - meaning if you select Movie mode (presumably that was the mode the calibrator used), you get the same calibration for every input. If you select a different mode, you could have a different calibration - but, overall, Movie is the best-looking mode and the other modes would sacrifice quality.

How your calibrator calibrated Movie mode (making that assumption again) will affect how your display looks with a Blu-ray player - whether there are any components between your former disc player and the Blu-ray player could also affect the outcome. Your TV converts SD to HD pretty well - grayscale calibration shouldn't change much if at all since SD and HD have the same target point for gray/white. Your TV has no CMS (color management) controls so there's nothing you can do to make the colors better (or worse).

If your previous disc player had problems and the calibrator made adjustments to compensate for those problems, and the Blu-ray player has no problems... the calibration won't be right for the Blu-ray. Similarly, if the previous disc player was accurate and the calibrator used that disc player or his signal generator to calibrate the TV and the new Blu-ray player has problems, then the calibration won't be right for the Blu-ray player either. The only way the calibration will be "right" for the Blu-ray player is if the old player and the Blu-ray player are both "good" (meaning they don't change what is on the disc - and they match the video signal generator very closely).

If the old disc player was connected by component cables and you will use HDMI for the Blu-ray... could be a problem or not, no way to know without being checked out.

When you get the Blu-ray player, check out the setup options carefully. Some have settings that DO mess with the data on the disc. Sony Blu-ray players, for example, may have 3 selectable modes... Theater Room, Standard Room, Bright Room. These settings are WORTHESS. Theater Room and Bright Room both alter the data on the disc severely. Only Standard mode passes the data on the disc without messing with it. It's hard to know what is going on with any given player unless it has been measured and shown to be "good" or inaccurate enough to require some adjustments to the display to make it look as good as possible.

Bottom line... there's no way for you to know for sure whether the new Blu-ray player will be as good as it can be without having it measured - that is unless there are huge and obvious errors which are unlikely. There are just too many variables.

It will be hooked up via HDMI. I have direct tv and a dvd recorder that the set was calibrated for so this will be a new piece of equipment on a new input in back of my receiver. The dvd recorder is older pioneer so hooked up via component. I was lucky enough to have Kevin Miller be the calibrator in my area and he is supposed to be one of the best. He spent a good amount of time doing it and answering my questions.

The Blu ray player is an LG BD90. Overall the Pioneer does a great job on my regular DVD's as well.

Greetings

Use the calibrated Direct TV settings as a starting point ... hope he calibrated that to an HD signal generator ... and then cross your fingers more and hope the LG BD player outputs something close to what the generator sends out.

Should be a better match than an SD video based on component input.

regards