I thought I'd give a brief report on my recent calibration experience.

The Particulars
Location: S.E. Michigan
What: Pioneer 6010FD w/ 2 HDMI inputs --- Motorola DCH3416 HD/DVR Cable Box, HTPC using NVIDIA 8600GT.
Who: Joe from Summit HDTV

The Results
Was it worth it? Yes & No.

On the YES Side:
Cost - The cal cost me ~6% of the set's purchase price. Considering the 3-3.5 hours Joe spent and the education I received, it was well worth the dollars spent.
Piece-Of-Mind - I spent more on this set than all my previous TV purchases combined. I could have done my typical subjective amateurish calibration using Avia or DVE, but I would have always wondered if it could have been done better. I know now that there is no comparison to what can be achieved by a trained professional using the proper equipment and making adjustments based on objective measurements.
PQ - The results were obvious to my untrained eyes and somewhat startling to me. I was not expecting the magnitude of the difference. My main interest in professional calibration was to buy piece-of-mind for not much money. The PQ results are a huge bonus.

On the NO Side:
In the past it would take me about 2 hours to watch a 2 hour DVD. Now it looks like it will take me weeks to watch the same movie because I will be pausing it every few frames to stare bug-eyed at the picture picking out details I never saw before.

Some ramblings on settings
I started with the 5010/6010 reference settings from a Pioneer thread in the Plasma forum. I recommend you use someone else's settings with a large grain of salt. There is always going to be set-to-set variability, personal preference differences, and viewing environment differences. In my case, the "borrowed" settings gave crushed blacks and strong red when viewing HD broadcast. Strangely enough, the settings for the HTPC ended up pretty close to the "borrowed" setting.

Conclusions
If you're thinking about having your set calibrated --------- Do It!
If you're in S.E. Michigan ------------ Call Joe from Summit HDTV!

Did he calibrate the Greyscale and Primaries / Secondaries?

Other ISF techs have reported Pioneer does not recommend adjusting the lowend offsets, it can damage the set on the non elite models like the 6010, did Joe adjust or leave them?

Did he adjust the Primaries / Secondaries to 601 or 709, it that even possible with a 6010?

It was my understanding that with the non elites the only changes that can be made, besides normal user menus things are is the RGB gains?

Joe read your post and sent me this comment along with my final report.

In accord with Pio advise, the service menu grayscale cuts (LOW or lowend offsets) were untouched and documented in the attachment. Use of these controls can cause unpredictable results…

This set does not have direct primary and secondary calibration controls (these are the red, blue and green color points on the color triangle I showed you) like the Pio Elite. Rather they are adjusted using the user color and tint controls to best fit for the display and colorspace standard. Improvement was made in the 601 color space as the majority of programming is made to this standard. The poster is correct in that the RGB gains and user menus are modified on this set by ISF calibrators.

Thanks for the update I was wondering just what can be changed in the service menu,
I just love the 6010 so far, and have only made basic mods to D-nices suggested user settings.

It sounds like the changes your ISF made resulted in even better image quality, thanks for reporting it.

Thanks for this information, I plan on ordering a 6010FD later this month, and will give Joe a call after about 100 hours of use.
Tom

I thought I'd give a brief report on my recent calibration experience.

The Particulars
Location: S.E. Michigan
What: Pioneer 6010FD w/ 2 HDMI inputs --- Motorola DCH3416 HD/DVR Cable Box, HTPC using NVIDIA 8600GT.
Who: Joe from Summit HDTV

The Results
Was it worth it? Yes & No.

On the YES Side:
Cost - The cal cost me ~6% of the set's purchase price. Considering the 3-3.5 hours Joe spent and the education I received, it was well worth the dollars spent.
Piece-Of-Mind - I spent more on this set than all my previous TV purchases combined. I could have done my typical subjective amateurish calibration using Avia or DVE, but I would have always wondered if it could have been done better. I know now that there is no comparison to what can be achieved by a trained professional using the proper equipment and making adjustments based on objective measurements.
PQ - The results were obvious to my untrained eyes and somewhat startling to me. I was not expecting the magnitude of the difference. My main interest in professional calibration was to buy piece-of-mind for not much money. The PQ results are a huge bonus.

On the NO Side:
In the past it would take me about 2 hours to watch a 2 hour DVD. Now it looks like it will take me weeks to watch the same movie because I will be pausing it every few frames to stare bug-eyed at the picture picking out details I never saw before.

Some ramblings on settings
I started with the 5010/6010 reference settings from a Pioneer thread in the Plasma forum. I recommend you use someone else's settings with a large grain of salt. There is always going to be set-to-set variability, personal preference differences, and viewing environment differences. In my case, the "borrowed" settings gave crushed blacks and strong red when viewing HD broadcast. Strangely enough, the settings for the HTPC ended up pretty close to the "borrowed" setting.

Conclusions
If you're thinking about having your set calibrated --------- Do It!
If you're in S.E. Michigan ------------ Call Joe from Summit HDTV!