Customer Reports About Their Professional Calibrations - Page 4

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I just had Chad Billheimer calibrate my Hitachi F57 crt on wednesday. Chad showed up exactly on time and was very easygoing and proffesional.
I have been following the tweaks thread for this model for a while, and while I am certainly no expert, I was fairly happy with my picture. But I just knew it could look a little better, so I contacted chad at hdtvbychad.com.
He spent almost six hours working on my set, answering all my questions that I'm sure he's heard a million times.
The end result was way more than what I expected. I thought my tv looked good before, but now it's like a whole new set! The colors, the fleshtone, the black detail all have been improved significantly. Movies in Bluray look 3 dimensional, even my crappy local cable looks watchable.
I highly recomend ChadB as a calibrator. His fee is very reasonable, and there are no travel charges. Even way up in no man's land Minnesota where I'm at.

Sorry about that. I did read that it was better to post this in the owners thread, but the one for mine seems to have disappeared.
The tweaks thread is still alive, but I didn't want to go off topic there. (although this was the ultimate tweak)
Also, to aswer your question, yes my hitachi CRT F57 is a rear projection unit.

My wife and I somewhat reluctantly purchased a calibration service from Best Buy (Grand Rapids, MI) in August when we bought a new Samsung 52' LCD. I wasn't sure if it was necessary or just a 'dealer pack' to get a few more dollars in the sale. The salesman we had was very nice and helpful and we enjoyed spending several hours with him as we purchased our TV and home theater equipment so we decided to trust him on the calibration as well. Well, yesterday, Aaron (from the Muskegon, MI store) came out and performed the calibration and I was very happy with the service. Aaron was very professional, explained everything, and answered all my questions. I had been reading a great deal in these forums about our new TV, home theater, and calibration, so I had an idea of what to ask and what to expect. The before/after was dramatic although some of the real significant changes were not perhaps as visual. The temp change, white balance were way off the 'standard'. Overall, I was very happy with the calibration and would recommend it to my friends in the area.

Last night I had the priviledge to have Jeff of www.accucalhd.com (UMR on the forum) over to my house for both a full ISF calibration on my Samsung 61A750 LED DLP and a full audio calibration (which was equally, if not more amazing). The difference in the set before and after his work is absolutely stunning!! This is not a minor improvement. Colors were way off from way they should be and it took him multiple hours to truly dial in the set. It is now a different TV. I promise you I am not over hyping this. I can assure you that you would feel the same way.

We were able to achieve colors basically on par with the newest Pioneer Elite Plasmas The Pioneer plasma still obviously has better black levels but that is not something that is adjustable. This calibration truly allows DLP technology to shine. For the few hundred dollars it costs to get this done, it is an absolute no-brainer and the best investment you can make in this set. Even with additional cost of the calibration you are still thousands of dollars below a plasma of similar size, and now very close in performance. I am hopeful Jeff will respond here with some of his graphs and data to further show you what I am talking about. Turst me, do not even think about it, just do it.

Enough cannot be said about both the caliber of work Jeff does and the caliber of person that he is. Obviously, please add me to the list of extremely satisfied UMR customers
and here is some data from his trip:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...7#post14884627

I'm in Minnesota looking for a calibrator. The website you mentioned is just a site full of advertisments. Can you post his contact info here or send me a PM? Thanks!

Travis

I bought a TH50PX80U a few weeks ago and included the calibration service from Circuit City. I hung out with the calibrator for a while but didn't get that much out of it. He was very impressed with his job (which took well under an hour.) Then I came here and started playing around with settings that other people are using. WOW, what a difference - everything looks SO much better now. What a waste. I'm thinking about calling them up to complain but I probably won't bother getting around to it.

go to http://www.isfforum.com/ to find one.

Regards

There's a typo in the prior posted address. Chad's site is http://www.hdtvbychadb.com/index.html

While I don't know Chad personally, I have participated in beta testing for CalMAN Pro with him. His contributions were considerable and quite knowledgeable, so I would expect his calibrations to reflect what I have observed. I would use him without reservation.

Bob

This just came in over at the Don't Dump your CRT RPTV thread -




Rob was an incredible host during this event, which took so long he had to put me on his couch that night, to finish up late the next day! That's how long it takes to really stem to stern a 710, same kind of time it took to do the 710 I did in Albuquerque earlier that week. But worth it!

I was sorry we had not taken before and afters of the images, as the green in the blacks was literally obnoxious, the blue in the whites only slightly less so, and the overscan left him only shards of the writing at the top and bottom of his screen.

After the job, everything was available for watching, nothing was cut off anymore, the picture was so tight and crisp you could now sit his 8' away - for a huge picture - and watch the grain of the film used to shoot the movies watched on his Elite BluRay. The color was absolutely sizzlingly lifelike now, there was depth and transparency he had not seen since it was new, and he doesn't have to push his Black Level up above zero anymore! AND I got a ride to dinner in his pride and joy, a Porsche they didn't even have 3 years ago!

Thank you again, Rob, it was my pleasure -




Mr Bob

This came in recently about my trip to Albuquerque, where I did Ken's Pioneer 710:

Bob, the TV set looks great! What I have noticed so far is that the whites are whiter and brighter, and the blacks are blacker. Colors are different than they were too. The menu colors are more subtle, with more hue gradation.
But it is the whites and blacks that really make the picture look better, I think.

The two restaurants in Oakland I mentioned are:
Bellanico (Park Blvd. about 1/2 mi. from 13): http://www.bellanico.net/
Pizzaiolo on Telegraph: http://www.pizzaiolooakland.com/

They're both excellent and not too pricey.

Ken S

I just ran across one from '07 from Trigger 445, at this link:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...33#post9401033, post #879:


"I have owned a Pro-510HD for about 5.5 years. After about 5 years, I had the "blue flash" and I fixed it myself, using instructions from this website--otherwise I may have simply gotten rid of the set. Well, I have always been impressed with the HD picture, and thought the SD picture was OK, until yesterday. I had calibrated it myself fairly well with the Avia disk, and had surface cleaned my optics once. However, now, all I can say is "wow, I never knew what I was missing"--I am amazed. Why? Well, yesterday, Mr Bob came and calibrated the set, cleaned the optics, and did an overscan reduction on my TV.

The basic cleaning of the optics is included in his basic calibration package (wiping off the top of the lenses and mirrors)(I had done this once before myself about 1 year ago, and it made a nice difference then, but was filthy again), but I also opted for the deep cleaning (removing the lens and cleaning the bottom of it and the convex below the lens)(wow, it was really dirty). I think this made the most "bang for the buck" difference, as the colors are now much more vibrant and alive than ever! If you have only a limited amount of money, at least contact him and at least have him "consult" with you on doing it yourself, or if you can, fly him and and have him do it--you'll be amazed.

The next best thing in my opinion was the calibration itself, which included mechanical focus of the lenses. My red and green were off a bit, and the blue was way off. Using his cantelever technique, he adjusted the red and green lenses to a sharp focus, and got the blue where it needed to be. Once the lenses were focused, he adjusted the convergence and at the same time took in the overscan reduction (overscan reduction was for additional price). With the overscan reduction, I have about 2 more inches worth of picture on the top and sides, and no longer is the scrolling box scores and headline news ticker cut off--it is like zooming out on the picture that is already there, effectively giving you more "pixels" on your fixed screen size. The overscan reduction took quite some time for him to align everything along the perimeter, as it takes in all the errors that are inherent at the perimeter in the design (which is why they overscan the picture to begin with, so you don't see the errors). Finally, he adjusted the greyscale, getting it much more of a true gray and the color/brightness/contrast/sharpness. The basic calibration (everything in this paragraph, except the overscan reduction) was the "second most bang for the buck" in my opinion, and the overscan reduction is a nicety, but certainly not required if you are trying to save a buck.

He was at my house for about 7 hours, and the picture I have right now on HD is absolutely amazing--far better than before (and I thought it was great to begin with)--breathtaking and truly vibrant, and the standard def picture is now great too. Even though he concentrated his effort on 1080i full screen as my primary "scanrate" for the overscan reduction/geometry adjustment/color alignment, the optics cleaning and the focus are both universal in their "help" to the other scanrates (480I/P). I now see why everyone says the CRT is the best out there--I thought they were all crazy until I had it ISF calibrated professionally--Thanks Mr Bob!"


Here was my reply:

"One of the side benefits Trigger got was that his grayscales on 480i and p got done in the process of doing the HD, even tho he didn't pay for any work on 480. Pioneer HDreadys are built on a "layered" grayscale and colorations system, where STD - S-video - is the basis, and affects all other modes - like the 1080i, 480p and component vs. S. The grayscale for STD is done first because it sets all the others in the process, then I did the HD as well, which is built on top of the STD settings.

The grayscale and color/tint for HD also apply to 480p, so he got those as perks. We didn't do the geometry/convergence on 480, but he can correct that at will in his user advanced grid, at least on red and blue.


After I was done I said, "Let's slide these viewing chairs up a bit." I believe they were at 8' and went to 6', but I'll let him correct me on that if need be. When we did, he sat back and said, "It's remarkable, the picture looks just as good up here." What's that, a 25% increase in viewed picture size? I don't know if he'll keep it that way, as the room ergonomics may not allow for it, but he at least knows he CAN if he wishes!

It was quite a fun job, and the meal his wife served all of us was just absolutely mouth watering, please convey that to her for me, Trigger.


And thanks for the nod! If between us we can save just a few more Pioneer HDreadys owned by people who are at present still on the fence about whether to keep or trash their sets, your words will have been more powerful than you know."



Mr Bob

Thanks, HT. You're doing a really valuable service here!




Mr Bob

I wanted to post a report about a calibration I got on Saturday; can I do it in this thread, or is there somewhere more appropriate to post about it?

Sure, I have a Sony 34xbr960, and here's a direct link to my calibration experience with Chad Billheimer. I'm afraid I only had positive things to say about this one! http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=6168

I just had my plasma calibrated last week by an ISF tech I found on avsforum and with good credentials. The only equipment he used was a spectroradiometer to set the white balance. Everything else he did was using his eyes and test patterns. He brought another machine with Sencore on the bag but he didn't use it. He said he knew the color was right in the custom space. Is this normal?

Yes, I think that could be OK provided he's familiar with your display, which it sounds like he is. On most displays there is not much sample to sample variation with color space and decoding, especially if it's a simple question of "wide" vs. "custom" or something like that.
Using the spectro for grayscale will also tell you the luminance and gamma, and he may have measured the color gamut with it as well. Color decoding can be done either by the visual method or by measurements, depending on your display and if it has color isolation controls.

Not unless you adjust it.

Hi SJKel
Not enough information to give you final opinion.
He used spectroradiometer so he could gather all information about your display he needed. You didn't mention model and type of your plasma, so we don't know if your plasma has CMS or any color decoder control. If it doesn't - he couldn't do anything anyway.
Some setups are known well to calibrators. For example if your set has color space 1 and 2 and no CMS - calibrator has two option only and knowing your plasma he knows which one is closer to Rec709
In Sencore bag it could be just his backup equipment (or audio equipment).

The set is a Samsung Plasma PN50A650. I believe there are 3 possible choices for color space: auto, native and custom. Within custom, I believe one can individually adjust the red/green/blue, but my calibrator didn't change anything once he chose custom, after watching each choice for a while.