BB calibration techs

This is a common question/thread here. The general consensus is that while you may get lucky and get a tech who's competent and actually cares, you're better off investing the money in an ISF-certified calibrator. Apparently, many of the "techs" the BB sends out to do calibrations 1) simply do calibrations within the user menu, not the service menu (i.e., you could do the same thing with a calibration disc such as Avia or DVE), and 2) get their "training" over a brief course from a "calibrator" who may or may not have attended an ISF training course.

There's a thread here listing ISF-certified calibrators and their areas of service. Their services will cost a little more, but if you're looking for the most accurate picture that your plasma can produce, it's worth the investment over what BB can provide. Doug Weil (droptheremote here on AVS) has calibrated 5 of my displays (2 plasmas, 2 projectors, and a DLP rear-projection HDTV), and generally spends about 3-6 hours/display, depending on my needs with regard to sources, inputs, resolutions, etc. I've obviously always been pleased with the results, since I've stuck with him through 5 displays. All the guys here are highly-competent, and even if they don't work in your area, they may know someone that they could recommend.

Take a look around the calibration forum and hopefully you'll find some more answers to your questions.

This is a false understanding. Entering the service menu is not any inherent part of calibration, and is often not necessary. Further, you can't do grayscale properly with only a test disc, that requires instrumentation.


Best Buy is actually ISF trained/certified in-house. However, how much a calibrator, BB or not brings to the table varies widely. I've seen both good and bad results from calibrators from BB and independent companies. It all depends.

correct, they are ISF certified, and many displays now have everything you need to calibrate in the user menu. Samsungs are a good example. Grayscale cannot be done with a simple test disc (thanks Chris)

try to find out who the tech is and call him up. ask him some questions. Like any other service, you have some techs who are passionate and competent, and some who are just there for a paycheck. They are required (for the base price) to calibrate a day and night mode for 2 inputs. Im not sure where you are, but here the price has temporarily dropped to $199 as a promo (normally $299) until Oct i believe

I wonder how much BB calibrators make. Are they making something like $12/hr while BB pockets the big profits, or are they being paid by the job?
I remember when I used to work at a car stereo shop the installer was paid half of what the store charged for install labor. That would seem more fair than a low hourly wage. That was back in the days of daily cash spiffs for salesmen selling certain items over others...

Greetings

they make in the range of $20 to $25/hr. Geek squad rates.

Some who took the BB ISF class were really enthusiastic ... while others didn't even want to be there. You will need to find out which of these types will be visiting your home.

regards

No such thing as ISF-Certified, only ISF-trained.
Attending ISF training does not make you a calibrator. It means you have a general understanding of calibration, its benefits and an introductory knowledge of the basic settings.
You're best bet is to read up on forums, such as AVS, educate yourself about your particular display and then interview your potential calibrator (Hopefully BB can accomodate this) Usually you can get a pretty good idea if this person is fluent on calibration, particularly with regards to your display, and if they conduct themselves with professionalism. Feel free to contact an independent professional, as well, to have a frame of reference. In the end, there are varying degrees of calibration specialists, from the hobbyist to the full time imaging science professional.

MODS can we make this a sticky? I know its going to come up again in another 2 weeks, and then another, and then another.....

And I thought it was just deja vu...

Advertising yourself as an ISF calibrator only requires that you sit through two days of instruction, pass an open book test and have the minimum required equipment. From what I have heard, many geek squad members aren't even attending the formal ISF training, but instead, are having the information passed down second hand from a co-worker that attended the training class.
Just like any other profession, there are many levels of competence. It is always best to educate yourself as much as possible and then interview potential calibrators before hiring them. As Michael stated, some individuals have a passion for their craft and will be sincere in their efforts. While some are just taking up space, your time and your money.

Let me rephrase the original question slightly. Just purchased a Panny 58V10 plasma from Best Buy. They have offerred free Geek Squad calibration and I accepted. While waiting for the TV to come, should I reconsider or be worried? Can calibration make things worse?

Our previous plasma was a 50 in panny plasma - did not calibrate it - took settings from this forum and was happy with the TV.

I will either adjust settings myself based on this forum or use their calibration.....

Thanks in advance...

It's very unlikely that the BB calibrator will be so bad as to create a less accurate picture then out of the box, or even what you can do by eye.

You may be better off just selecting the THX mode.
Read through the various experiences with BB calibrations that have been reported on this, and other forums. Yes, they can make it worse if they don't know what they are doing. I have cleaned up many a BB mess.
If it's truly free (granted they didn't bury the charge in the price of the set) let them have a go at it. You'll probably get a good idea, relatively quickly, if they know what they are doing. Keep in mind, they will need to access the service menu to adjust grayscale for the THX preset mode. If they don't do this I would decline service. THX mode is the only preset that produces an accurate color gamut.

Copying settings DOES NOT work. I just calibrated a 65V10. The client had settings from this forum, as well as CNET, and they were incorrect. With some adjustment parameters, very incorrect!

Believe me, if we could afford a certified professional ISF technician, we would. Unfortunately, we just spent a big chunk of change on a TV. Need another chunk for a new AV receiver, the cost of a certfied ISF just isn't in the cards right now.

The only question is whether or not to incur risk of making things worse, and it is sounding like you indicate that we'd be better off/safer if we just selected THX mode...

If you are not going to have a professional do it, then get one of the calibration discs and do the basic setup yourself. Not the same as a real calibration naturally, but at least you get a very watchable picture and a fairly accurate one as well.

Personally, there is no way on earth I would let a Geek Squad person near my display. Their employees seem about as knowledgeable about televisions as a Taco Bueno employee. Perhaps less...

The color gamut is correct in THX mode, but the color decoding is a mess in THX mode in the G10, V10, LG PS60, JVC HD-750, and probably others.
For some reason there is a strong negative red in the color decoding. Opposite of the oft seen red push. Very measurable with the right software (CalMAN or other programs that show primary/secondary absolute luminance), easily visible with filters (I know, filters aren't very accurate, but they show it in a huge way), and very visible as a yellowish/greenish antique look (even after grayscale calibration). And I have measured this with various meters including the Eye One Pro and the Chroma 5.
There is also a strong magenta pull towards blue at least in the V10 and G10 THX modes.
For these reasons, I choose to calibrate Custom on the G10 and V10.

I first discovered this (negative red and magenta skew in THX mode) when I reviewed the G10, and have since seen similar performance from dozens of G10's and V10's THX mode.
Here's a link to my G10 review where I first came across it:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...php?p=16026547

I actually found on the V10 I calibrated that the luminance of blue was high in relation to all of the other colors. Magenta was ever so slightly pulled toward blue.
Pick your poison. Until Panasonic decides to offer color decoding or CMS controls a compromise must be made.

What version of the firmware was in the V10's you've measured as described above?

As pointed out in this thread, Panasonic recently released a firmware upgrade (available through VieraCast, at least in Europe) that completely fixes both the blue contamination of magenta and the color decoding error which resulted in the luminance of red being half of what it should be.

On this side of the pond only the V10 (and the Z11) have the THX mode, so I can't speak about updating the G10/G15, or any other models. However, the V10 actually perform very nicely (measurement wise) after the update. The ones I've seen over here are generally delivered with a version 2.004 software, and the updated version, with the correct THX mode is version 2.011.

Best regards

Interesting, and good news! The ones I have done have been very recent. I've been doing some for Cleveland Plasma and he's been getting them fresh from manufacturing as far as I know. I'll look into that.

Let me see if I can shed some light on this topic instead of people just spewing info on a topic that they don't have any idea about. I work for Best Buy as a Magnolia associate. In regards to our calibrations all the installers that do them they are all ISF certified. Now some of you are correct that some of the calibrators are going to be better than other based on their training. I will be honest with you when I set someone up with a calibration I have a specific installer that I use become I am familiar with him and I know the quality of work that he does (in fact I had him calibrate my Samsung 46A630).

For those wondering all Geek Squad installers should go into the service menu when calibrating a set along with using a SENCORE box to measure the light. A typical calibration from a Geek Squad installer will run about 1.5-2.5 hrs. There may be other companies out there that may spend 3-6 hrs calibrating a set but in reality if it is any better how much better will it be? And I also how much more are you going to spend.

The Geek Squad calibration will certainly be much better than the DVD/BD calibration discs that some people suggest on here and it will certainly make the Panasonic V10 model that you got look very very good (won't look as good as the Elite PRO-141/151 but not a lot of things will).

once again, there are many TVs now that do not require service menu adjustment. white balance, CMS, and gamma controls all in the user menu

I'd perfer to have a Thx certified calibrator for a display which has a Thx mode:
http://www.thx.com/training/find.html

What you calibrators neglect to mention is the first time you calibrate a particular display it may take considerable time. Of course you save your settings to use as a basis for the next display. The first time may take 6 hours but after a few calibrations it may only take 2 hours just to tweak a bit.

Of course the Magnolia technicians can share these settings between thousands of stores and know what works best. They also work as a team (not as competitors). So they seldom need to start from scratch or reinvent the wheel.
As a result of this efficiency they can now offer considerable savings at $199 vs. the $450 quoted here at AVS.
Logically this leads to animosity and impedes progress.

Alot of TV's don't require service menu access anymore. The Colorpro V is used for a lot more than measuring light output.

Well I figured I'd chime in since I am a calibrator for Geek Squad. In terms of the work, it really depends on the guy. My first calibration I sent out an email to all the ISF techs in my area and asked if we do CMS adjustments before I touched a guy's TV. I got question marks from half the guys. So most definitely, if you want a calibration from BB, get a work number to speak with the tech directly. You can find out really quick where your money is going and what kind of calibration your getting.

I have never heard of anyone from BB having the equipment and NOT attending the ISF training. The problem is the training really isn't long enough to fully understand everything you need to know. Funny thing is, I learned about half of my calibration knowledge from AVS and half on-site thru experience/ISF training.

Is it worth the money? In the hands of the right professional yes, whether they are coming from BB or AVS.

Just some useful info to have on hand. Get your model # of your TV and ask questions. When was his Colorpro V recalibrated. Will you be doing CMS adjustments. Find out how long he's been doing calibrations for.

I've passed off jobs to other guys that have more experience with certains displays (projectors in particular). It never hurts to ask questions and I can guarantee that they will be more than happy to answer them for you.

I guess you could use it as a hockey puck. Do you mind me asking what else you use it for?

CMS adjustments, white balance adjustments, and a hockey puck

Would you recommend it for any other uses? I wouldn't recommend it for heavy use as a hockey puck, the USB cable attached to it tend to slow it down during heated games on the ice.

I would not use the Colorpro V with a true CMS. It just isn't accurate enough.