I got my LG 42LK450 CCFL-LCD TV professionally calibrated about two weeks ago. I've attached the calibration report for the ISF Day and Night modes below and have some questions and concerns regarding the calibration in general.
1. Despite bringing a Photo Research PR-650 Spectrometer with him, he only used a Klein K-10 Colorimeter to do the calibration. When I asked why he did not profile the K-10 off the PR-650 on my display before starting the calibration, he told me the difference would be slight at best and that CCFL lighting is similar enough that profiling is unnecessary. Naturally, I wasn't happy about this since I've read time and time again from experts on this forum that profiling a colorimeter with a spectrometer must be done on the actual display at the time of the actual calibration session AND that the profiling must be verified at the end of the calibration by taking post-calibration readings directly with the spectrometer. I did express my concern about this to my calibrator at the time of the actual calibration and later on this week after I received my calibration report and settings. He did not feel his approach was less than ideal nor did he like my mentioning the matter at all, since apparently I was questioning his methods.
2. A total video system calibration was not performed in the sense that he used a Sencore VideoPro 403 pattern generator to do the entire calibration. I paid for a single input calibration of my PS3, which was being used as a BD player. He did not bring any DVD or BD discs to calibrate the PS3 and his reference material was on a portable media device that had some movies and test patterns ripped to a hard drive. So, he did not actually check anything with my PS3 until I mentioned I had a copy of the AVSHD709 Disc, which he then reluctantly used on my PS3 to make sure it was passing video levels and not PC levels. According to him, the only check needed with the PS3 or any other HDMI source device is checking that video levels are used instead of PC levels. Component vs. RGB (HDMI Colorspace) doesn't matter nor do any other settings on the PS3. In a nutshell, one HDMI input on my TV was calibrated to agree with his pattern generator and nothing was done to verify the calibration on the PS3 aside from checking it was outputting video levels only after I mentioned it several times.
3. The backlight setting on this TV does introduce some color shifts in grayscale and gamut if it is changed after setting grayscale and gamut. All grayscale and gamut calibrations (for both modes) were done with backlight at 100% (maxed out) and then backlight was adjusted before the post-calibration readings were taken. This meant the dE's went up for grayscale and gamut the moment the backlight was dialed down, especially for Night mode as it used a very low backlight setting of 22% (Day mode used 52%).
4. This part corresponds to the calibration report and other attachments. Peak white was supposed be 30 fL for Night mode and 60 fL for Day mode, as those were the figures we agreed upon at the time of the calibration. Last week I decided to see how close my C6 colorimeter matched the K-10 and while I know the C6 can't be trusted for color readings, the luminance values should be consistent with the K-10 for bright test patterns. The calibration report shows about 25 fL peak white for Night mode instead of the 30 it was supposed to be and 60 fL peak white for Day mode, which is as expected. My C6 measured the same 60 fL for Day mode, which is expected as well as pretty flat gamma (+/- .05). However, for Night mode it measured around 20 fL and showed a pretty high spike in gamma around 90% gray or so (see the ISF Night Grayscale screen capture). Since my C6 measured Day mode spot on, the issues it picked up in Night mode were surprising until I received the calibration report today and noticed it shows a similar trend in gamma and peak white, though it is somewhat less drastic on the calibration report with the K-10 being used. His response to what my C6 showed was that it is simply wrong because my meter costs $700 and his K-10 is $7000. Also, he says the setting he left it on (22% backlight and 25 fL peak white according to K-10) was too low to him and he wanted to raise it, even though I clearly said I wanted it at 30 fL and he agreed it was good for a dark room.
5. I noticed several typos/errors in the recorded settings (by comparing those values to the ones on my actual TV), which was a bit unsettling for a professional job. Even while he was recording the settings down during the calibration I saw that he accidentally changed some values in the TV while scrolling through the menus.
6. He was not one of the calibrators who actually educate as mentioned here. While he did answer the questions I asked him, he didn't explain anything he was doing on his own or tell me what he was doing from step to step unless I kept on asking question after question. He also didn't not reply to most of my e-mails both before and after the service and when he came to my home was only planning to do one mode on one input when I had clearly specified in two e-mails the previous day that I wanted both day and night modes for one input. In the end, he did do both modes (second mode was Night) for the same $375 base fee, but as you can see with the attachments it was not dialed in nearly as close as Day mode since he basically rushed it.
Overall, the point of my post is to see what experts on the forum and other customers who have had their display(s) professional calibrated think of this calibration and whether my concerns are valid or not. I have already contacted him about my various concerns and they were all dismissed and he has no intention of coming back to make any tweaks to the Night mode.
1. Despite bringing a Photo Research PR-650 Spectrometer with him, he only used a Klein K-10 Colorimeter to do the calibration. When I asked why he did not profile the K-10 off the PR-650 on my display before starting the calibration, he told me the difference would be slight at best and that CCFL lighting is similar enough that profiling is unnecessary. Naturally, I wasn't happy about this since I've read time and time again from experts on this forum that profiling a colorimeter with a spectrometer must be done on the actual display at the time of the actual calibration session AND that the profiling must be verified at the end of the calibration by taking post-calibration readings directly with the spectrometer. I did express my concern about this to my calibrator at the time of the actual calibration and later on this week after I received my calibration report and settings. He did not feel his approach was less than ideal nor did he like my mentioning the matter at all, since apparently I was questioning his methods.
2. A total video system calibration was not performed in the sense that he used a Sencore VideoPro 403 pattern generator to do the entire calibration. I paid for a single input calibration of my PS3, which was being used as a BD player. He did not bring any DVD or BD discs to calibrate the PS3 and his reference material was on a portable media device that had some movies and test patterns ripped to a hard drive. So, he did not actually check anything with my PS3 until I mentioned I had a copy of the AVSHD709 Disc, which he then reluctantly used on my PS3 to make sure it was passing video levels and not PC levels. According to him, the only check needed with the PS3 or any other HDMI source device is checking that video levels are used instead of PC levels. Component vs. RGB (HDMI Colorspace) doesn't matter nor do any other settings on the PS3. In a nutshell, one HDMI input on my TV was calibrated to agree with his pattern generator and nothing was done to verify the calibration on the PS3 aside from checking it was outputting video levels only after I mentioned it several times.
3. The backlight setting on this TV does introduce some color shifts in grayscale and gamut if it is changed after setting grayscale and gamut. All grayscale and gamut calibrations (for both modes) were done with backlight at 100% (maxed out) and then backlight was adjusted before the post-calibration readings were taken. This meant the dE's went up for grayscale and gamut the moment the backlight was dialed down, especially for Night mode as it used a very low backlight setting of 22% (Day mode used 52%).
4. This part corresponds to the calibration report and other attachments. Peak white was supposed be 30 fL for Night mode and 60 fL for Day mode, as those were the figures we agreed upon at the time of the calibration. Last week I decided to see how close my C6 colorimeter matched the K-10 and while I know the C6 can't be trusted for color readings, the luminance values should be consistent with the K-10 for bright test patterns. The calibration report shows about 25 fL peak white for Night mode instead of the 30 it was supposed to be and 60 fL peak white for Day mode, which is as expected. My C6 measured the same 60 fL for Day mode, which is expected as well as pretty flat gamma (+/- .05). However, for Night mode it measured around 20 fL and showed a pretty high spike in gamma around 90% gray or so (see the ISF Night Grayscale screen capture). Since my C6 measured Day mode spot on, the issues it picked up in Night mode were surprising until I received the calibration report today and noticed it shows a similar trend in gamma and peak white, though it is somewhat less drastic on the calibration report with the K-10 being used. His response to what my C6 showed was that it is simply wrong because my meter costs $700 and his K-10 is $7000. Also, he says the setting he left it on (22% backlight and 25 fL peak white according to K-10) was too low to him and he wanted to raise it, even though I clearly said I wanted it at 30 fL and he agreed it was good for a dark room.
5. I noticed several typos/errors in the recorded settings (by comparing those values to the ones on my actual TV), which was a bit unsettling for a professional job. Even while he was recording the settings down during the calibration I saw that he accidentally changed some values in the TV while scrolling through the menus.
6. He was not one of the calibrators who actually educate as mentioned here. While he did answer the questions I asked him, he didn't explain anything he was doing on his own or tell me what he was doing from step to step unless I kept on asking question after question. He also didn't not reply to most of my e-mails both before and after the service and when he came to my home was only planning to do one mode on one input when I had clearly specified in two e-mails the previous day that I wanted both day and night modes for one input. In the end, he did do both modes (second mode was Night) for the same $375 base fee, but as you can see with the attachments it was not dialed in nearly as close as Day mode since he basically rushed it.
Overall, the point of my post is to see what experts on the forum and other customers who have had their display(s) professional calibrated think of this calibration and whether my concerns are valid or not. I have already contacted him about my various concerns and they were all dismissed and he has no intention of coming back to make any tweaks to the Night mode.
1.pdf 134.060546875k . file
