Greetings Learned Forum:

It has been said (not by me, of course) that putting significant resources into projector calibration is unwise due to the fact that a burning bulb is like a moving target. It's light emitting characteristics change over time, often significantly. What is deemed to be "properly calibrated" at the 10 hour mark does not hold over to the 100 hour mark, etc.

Certainly this is not to suggest living with the settings that happen to be on the unit as it comes out of the box. Things must be calibrated initially, but it is to get the picture "in the ballpark," because the location of home plate keeps switching.

I am very interested to hear your comments on this line of reasoning. Thank you very much.

Nick B

Greetings

Do we only get one oil change for the car? One tune up? No tune up because things will keep changing as we use our cars?

Nothing is forever. As things age, there is drift. That is why re-calibration services are also things that exist and some take advantage of that.

Cost wise, the cost of recalibration is rarely the same as the original calibration cost. It can be anywhere from 25% to 50% of the original calibration cost.

Occurs every 12 to 15 months or sooner. Depends on the person. I have some clients that want their systems at top performance so I see them every 6 months when I come to town. Sure things drift ... but never as much as that first session where we start from scratch.

regards

Greetings Learned Forum:

It has been said (not by me, of course) that putting significant resources into projector calibration is unwise due to the fact that a burning bulb is like a moving target. It's light emitting characteristics change over time, often significantly. What is deemed to be "properly calibrated" at the 10 hour mark does not hold over to the 100 hour mark, etc.

Certainly this is not to suggest living with the settings that happen to be on the unit as it comes out of the box. Things must be calibrated initially, but it is to get the picture "in the ballpark," because the location of home plate keeps switching.

I am very interested to hear your comments on this line of reasoning. Thank you very much.

Nick B

Lamps are actually pretty stable in color over most of their life, except at the very beginning and very end. I usually recommend running a lamp a while before calibrating (this also is a matter of letting the client get used to the set and determine if there are specific issues that need to be addressed). A lamp will change slowly over time, and if one wants to maintain a calibration as closely as possible, regular calibration intervals as well as calibration after lamp changes are probably a good idea.

Why not calibrate to a standard initially, rather than a ballpark? When you get in the ballpark, then some aging occurs, you could be ending up with an image that is much farther from standard than necessary. One of the benefits of calibration is that you minimize the effects of variance in the system that may be out of ones control.

Your comments make perfect sense. Thank you.

Not getting a home theater calibrated does not make much sense to me. The difference in both audio and video performance is usually large. Also having someone look over your system who knows these things well can uncover many problems other than the projector calibration alone. I find a large number for systems with failed audio components (blown tweeters, bad amplifiers, subwoofers...) that can replaced under warranty. I know in my own system I would not be happy with either my audio or video if it was not properly setup using good tools and techniques.

Projector calibration will generally hold except for the gray scale and light output. It is possible for you to tweak those over time if you have some tools or have it recalibrated at a reduced fee at your discretion. I find the colors, gamma, brightness, contrast, deinterlacing and sharpness settings are stable. Audio is very stable over time if you do not change the room or gear.

How much "drift" there is in the projector as the lamp ages is also somewhat dependent on what YOU do as the lamp ages (and probably gets dimmer). If you do NOTHING to the projector at all as the lamp ages, you won't get a lot of difference, grayscale-wise. But if you use the Contrast control to make the image brighter to compensate for the lamp getting dimmer over time... what happens depends a lot on the individual projector. Some of them will tolerate almost any Contrast adjustment without affecting grayscale much. Others can have serious "issues" if you change the Contrast setting and you may upset the grayscale quite a bit.

Another issue is how long you keep using the lamp... some people replace "2000 hour" lamps every 1000 hours, others try to get 3000 or more hours out of them. The person who "stretches" the lamp life to get the most hours out of the lamp is more likely to see significan "drift". This is one reason those who find replacing the ~$300 lamp is trivial are more suited to be "projection people" than those who get into projection as a "stretch" and who find the $300 lamps are a significant expense.

It will be calibrated. Your comments have made this a done deal. I am just wondering how long, if at all, I should wait. lcaillo suggests that I let the thing settle in a bit. Unfortunately, the installer will be here helping with the set up at the inception. How many hours would you all suggest for the lamp to be stable before we tweak? In case it matters, the pj is a Panasonic AE3000. Again, thank you all very much for your thoughts and suggestions.

Nick

Nick,

50 hours on a new lamp should be "enough" that you won't have significant drift issues as hours accumulate. Though there's little reason to put off calibration if there are 500-1000 hours on the lamp and you expect it to last 1500 to 2000 hours as the calibration would be in the middle of lamp life. There's no real strong rule about when to calibrate a projection lamp display... except not when the lamp is "green" (under 50 hours) and not when the lamp is really old unless the calibrator will come back after the lamp is replaced and touch-up the calibration with a "fresher" lamp in the projector.