Setup: Sanyo PLV-Z4. PS3 Blu-ray. Toshiba HD-A1.
Screen: Carada Brilliant White (92"). Ceiling mounted 10.1' back.
Seating: First row 10'. Second row(riser) 15'.
Bulb: 400 hours. Not using Economy setting.

Calibrated using AVIA. Been using it for close to 10 years now and know I'm using it right.

Story:

I recently upgraded to a BW Carada screen. I previously had a Da-Lite HCCV (gray) screen. The reason for making the change was because I felt that since I am in a bat cave (total light control) that it didn't do me any good to have a gray screen and would be better with a white one since all my viewing is in the dark anyways. Also have been told in the past by a viewer that they thought this picture was a little dim. I've always explained to such viewers that you are used to displays that have their contrast control turned way too high and its not correct.

Now that being said.. I've had 3 different people over on three different occasions in the past several days. I would first watch a few scenes with it on a saved calibrated setting then replay the scenes with the contrast pumped up by almost 10 and gamma up a couple notches as well as the iris opened up more.

All three people had the same frickin reaction. Here are some of the things said:

Calibrated picture setting:
1. Too dim. Lacks punch.
2. Looks like rain, where is the storm?
3. I feel like I'm watching a movie during a nuclear fallout!
4. Like watching regular television

Contrast/gamma/iris overcompensation setting:

1. Wow! That looks 3-D.
2. The sun came out.
3. More realistic picture
4. This is HD at its best.


So I became really upset by all this but now I find myself enjoying the image that has boosted contrast/gamma and iris opened up more.

Why is this? Is it possible that AVIA disc is not correct in the contrast section? Maybe I'm not doing it right but I'm 100 percent sure I am. The right most gray bar should be slightly visible next to the one on the left, correct?

I'm someone that prefers more saturated and bright colors than the NTSC standard which is what AVIA uses. I always say, it is easy to calibrate yourself to your liking with today's technology...

What were the clips you watched and what was the source?

Source was PS3. Clips varied... First scene in Apocalypto. 2 scenes in Blood Diamond (one at the end where DiCaprio is sitting by himself on mountain, the other is an action scene where rocket missles are fired).

I am guessing these clips were the blue ray versions? If you used AVIA to calibrate your system, you calibrated it for standard definition but you showed high definition clips. It doesn't matter if your system upconverts, the settings are probably not the same for SD and HD material. Soon there will be AVIA or DVE for Blue Ray :)

Bob

This is not at all surprising...why do you think manufacturers always deviate from proper color??

You need to see a proper calibrated pic and watch it for about a week...once you go back to the fake overdriven colors, they will really bother you.

Ben

check out the screen reviews at projectorcentral.com on the carada.
Dallaire

I've seen it said by different people that the human brain PREFERS an inaccurate image. It's wrong, but it looks better.

When Randy Thomalsin (R.I.P) calibrated my TV, he centered the user controls, but the recommended settings he wrote down for me were the ones he said "looked better." I use the "better" settings than the "correct" ones, since I decided it's better to go with what a pro thinks. I've never actually even tried using the "correct" settings, which is probably a bit silly to not even try, but oh, well.

Everyone on this thread should do the following:'

1. Look up or find a photograph of a room with people and a TV in it.

2. If the picture on the TV resembles the high-beam off an F-150, yet all of the people and other objects are exposed normally, that should tell you all you need to know about the TV.

3. The internal(SM) settings on most TVs of any type are cranked so high that even the midpoint on the user settings is still waayyy to high.

This has been the case so long that of course a properly set TV will look "wrong" to the majority of people asked to review it. People are simply used to the settings dictated by the sales & marketing department that they have no idea how television - NT or ATSC is supposed to look! And then they tell you not to mess with the "factory" settings.

Imagine, if consumer sets were all calibrated to within 5% of broadcast standards you'd never hear Mom or Grandpa say "Don't sit so close, you'll burn out your eyes!". ;)

3. The internal(SM) settings on most TVs of any type are cranked so high that even the midpoint on the user settings is still waayyy to high.

LOL ... true. I once set up an admittedly cheap NTSC set for a friend and had to crank the user "contrast" all the way down to 2 clicks above "zero." Massively overdriven CRT.

Why is this? Is it possible that AVIA disc is not correct in the contrast section? Maybe I'm not doing it right but I'm 100 percent sure I am. The right most gray bar should be slightly visible next to the one on the left, correct?

With your digital display, the two moving white bars should remain visible. Increase white level until the white background begins to clip or colorshift into the white bars (which are below white). Then lower your white level just slightly to stay below this clip/colorshift point. With a digital display your white level should be as HIGH as possible to just before this point. The moving white bars should always remain visible, they are below reference white. Note that there is no peak white encoded on regular Avia.

This reminds me of equalizers that ship with built in white noise generators and microphones. You can put the microphone at your listening position, then use the equalizer to calibrate your speakers to a flat response.

Only problem is... flat response doesn't sound the best. :)

This reminds me of equalizers that ship with built in white noise generators and microphones. You can put the microphone at your listening position, then use the equalizer to calibrate your speakers to a flat response.

Only problem is... flat response doesn't sound the best. :)

That's the result of marketing triumphing over science - for decades we've been "taught" that good sound is V-shaped. Same goes for video - over-colored, over-bright, artificially sharpened, blue-skewed grayscale, etc.. All it's done is create two generations of moths!

And to undo this damage will take decades more of pulling teeth.

:(

Why is this?
I have two possible answers to this: One has already been mentioned: A-B comparisons isn't really a good way to evaluate a calibration (or any kind of picture performance really). Not unless the uncalibrated picture is horribly wrong (I never had anyone say that the standard settings on their Pioneer tv's were better than the calibrated settings, in an A-B comparison).

The second option may make me very unpopular with you, but I'm dead on serious: No display can be calibrated better than the hardware is actually capable of. A Sanyo Z4 calibrated "properly" is simply not capable of throwing enough light on a 92" inch screen, not even a white one, to produce "accurate pictures". There is a trade-off between black level/overall picture quality, and light output. Because of this, even the calibrated setting isn't producing accurate pictures, so you're actually not asking people to choose between an accurate and a non-accurate picture - you're asking them to choose between two non-accurate pictures. As I said, I've never had people not preferring the calibrated settings on Pioneer tv's. That goes for higher-end projectors as well. However, on some Sony LCD tv's, and indeed lower-end LCD projectors, I have found that blindly following the measurements and test images, leads to pictures that are basically just inaccurate in a different way. Given the choice of a too soft picture, and a picture with visible edge enhancement, most people, and to some degree myself too, will prefer a sharp picture with visible artifacts over a picture that seems out of focus (I had this exact problem with one Sony LCD, and after talking to the customer we ended up using the sharper setting).

So, basically, when you crank up the iris and the contrast, to increase light output, you're actually _not_ getting further away from an accurate picture. You are getting _closer_ to an accurate picture in some areas, but further away in others.

All this is basically what makes calibration hard. It isn't always just following the numbers, _especially_ so on equipment that isn't actually capable of producing near-accurate pictures. You'll have to make some sort of compromise somewhere. Because of this, on hardware that's incapable of truly accurate pictures, actually trying to reach it anyway is sometimes not the best compromise. At least not in the sence that you can trust that when the test images look "right", then the picture is right. The more accurate the hardware is, the easier it is to calibrate in my opinion, because then you can mostly trust that accurate measurements results in accurate pictures.

To conclude all this: The purpose of test images is not to make test images look right. The purpose of test images is to make real images look right! To do this, you have to not just blindly follow the test images, but use them as a tool to reach the ultimate goal. That may include compromising in some areas to gain in others.

In my experience, _noone_ have said that they don't prefer an accurate picture, when you show them pictures that are truly accurate (which, in my demo's, equals a properly calibrated Samsung SPH710). I've actually converted a couple of people that where very convinced that there was no such thing as an "accurate picture", saying that PQ is always subjective, that they prefer over-saturated colors etc. When they saw the _accurate_ picture, funnily enough they felt the colors were quite enough saturated, with no need for further adjustment. It was only their perception of what "accurate pictures" actually is, that was wrong, because they had never seen it before. They thought accurate pictures meant dim pictures with washed-out colours, because that's what they had been seeing when trying to calibrate lesser displays.

The human vision system is VERY complex... our perception of colors, brightness, contrast is in many ways like a slowly changing firmware in our brain.
I see this all the time as an ophthalmologist: people with dense yellow cataracts swear that they see things white before surgery, but after I remove the yellow cataracts with surgery and replace a clear acylic lens, they say, "Wow, I really was seeing everything so yellow and dingy!" The yellowing and decreased contrast sensitivity came on so slowly the brain was able to compensate up to a point.
Our brains are capable of quite a bit of internal "white balance" and contrast control, with our minds filling in missing information and incorrect learned "preferences". That's why it can take a couple days to re-learn what normal looks like on a calibrated display, but the good news is that the brain can re-learn to prefer the calibrated image, with more long-term pleasing results.
Someone can also be "taught" to prefer a correct image by slowly walking them through correct (calibrated) and incorrect (oversaturated) displays, but it takes some hand-holding and explanations. This is all part of the very maleable brain and vision center -- a synthesis of anatomy on the photoreceptor level, the occipital vision processing center and the higher reasoning centers. Complex is an understatement!
The "Steaming Rat" method of display calibration is a very helpful explanation of this type of calibration for accurate and "realistic" flesh tones, green foliage, etc. For that guide, find the link in my TECH LINKS signature line.

Cheers,
Doc Rings
AVSForum unofficial Ophthalmologist