i'm planning to calibrate my new 32" westinghouse 32w3 using avia (i'm just a novice, so i think avia will be good enough to get me close enough). the issue is that i'm using an htpc which has its own color adjustment software. What's the proper routine to go about calibration with an htpc? i'm guessing that first i'd need to match the htpc color mix to the tv mix... that way when i run avia, it's not trying to compensate for shifts in the htpc (and simultaneously making the cable tv color worse)? if i'm correct on that hunch, what's the best way to match the cable tv and htpc signals? run pip and just eyeball it until they look similar?

i hope that makes sense... essentially my concern is that if my htpc has too little red and my cable tv is just fine... when i run avia from my htcp, it will adjust the 32w3 so that the htpc looks fine, but then the cable tv would be messed up.

jyee,

The best way to approach this would be to use a waveform monitor and vectorscope to analyze the output of the HTPC. We have found that the application used to playback video, the video card, the driver version, and several other factors come into play when trying to achieve accurate video from an HTPC. Unfortunately, a scope is quite costly for such a task... As such, I would recommend starting with the HTPC settings in their neutral setting and working back from the display. If you cannot get a test pattern to appear correctly on the display, try to make an adjustment on the HTPC to see if the error is coming from there.

You may find that it takes several attempts at both the display and the HTPC to get them where they should be.

Good Pictures! :)

Dave

Dave is spot on. You'll want to use DVE or other patterns that are full range to check that you're getting video levels, which will likely require avoiding overlay and using VMR9. You should be able to get things out of the PC correctly in this way, and most displays should be able to adjust to what's coming out of the PC. If not, then work backwards to the PC. Prefer the video card's controls rather than software controls which may be implemented poorly or at low bitdepth.

Thanks! i did a couple times back and forth and everything is looking great!