Get your set calibrated.

Been wanting to get mine done for a while now. Anyone recommended for Southern California? What is the usual price?

I highly recommend Jeff Meier aka umr on these threads. He does tours through out the country. I think he's overbooked for southern CA this time around so you may want to ask to be put on a waiting list. I would as he's that good. He did my set which I thought had an awesome picture to begin with. I was floored when he was done.

-xrispy

Anyone who is ISF certified will do the trick ; )

Call around or look online for repair shops or installers who have ISF certification.

I know Greg, president of LionAV.com and not only is he a exceptional ISF calibrator, but he is a terrific gentleman. I believe Greg personally travels to Southern CA.

-Robert

Anyone in Maryland or the DC Metro area?

I got quoted $350 CAN where I picked up my 37" Sharp AQUOS 1080p LC-37D90U LCD HDTV?

I'll stick to Digital Video Essentials...for now. LOL

Have you ever thought to calibrate the most important element you own? it's your eyes!
Go and get new pair of eyeglasses, you will see new HD you 've never seen to date .. it may sound stupid but you can not imagine how much's the improvement...

Ditto

I second that. Jeff (umr) calibrated my Sony 50" XBR1 SXRD and my whole audio set-up this past October. He is a great guy and does a fantastic job. I would highly recommend picking one of his audio calibration packages to go along with the video calibration. My whole system breathed new life when he left!

The best one is Craig Rounds. He is based in Chicago, but often does tours to the DC area. He is actually coming around Thanksgiving to this area and will be
retouching my display and adding a Lumagen HDQ VP.

His website is:

http://www.cir-engineering.com/

Greg has done my 50PHD7UY and he transformed a great set into an exceptional one. Sharper picture with much better contrast. Black level is outstanding as is the detail. Shadow detail is outstanding. The set ow has a complete 3d image. HD-DVD PQ s outstanding. I keep posting about this that you have no idea what this set is capable of until it is calibtrated by an expert. The colors a as perfect as they can be. People who think Pioneers have better color including green, have not seen this set calibrated. I know Grg does the east coast as well as Southern California. Expensive but well worth the cost!

When your set is professionally calibrated, as was done on my 65" Mit CRT RPTV, the jump from SD to HD wasn't that great.

Don't get wrong, the HD looks good, but it's not like watching a VHS tape and then a DVD!

Mine was first done by Craig Miller(retired) and lastly by Craig Rounds...2 of the best in the business!!!

Thanks. So Greg @ LionAV is highly recommned? Is it truly a huge difference once it has been calibrated? Any want to share personal experience?

Well, first you have to see a CRT that has been professionally calibrated. Once that is done, then you'll understand my post.

Not all ISF folks are equal by any means, nor are all the best folks all ISF certified (though most all are).

Not just "anyone" will be of the caliber as many of the fine folks you'll find around here.

My set, the Mits 65813 was calibrated by Craig Rounds too about almost two years ago. However, did he recalibrate your set by using the Toshiba HD A1?
Because the HD A1 is on the hot side of the greyscale, and the toshiba's input in your tv needs to compensate for this.
In my case Craig is coming to recalibrate and add a Lumagen VP, which allows to
add more calibration capabilities to my set.

This post is just my personal observation.
I've seen 2 identical plasmas set up in my A/V installers show room. One was ISF certified and right beside it was the identical set done using the AVIA DVD.
I looked at them both long and hard, so did my wife we noted the ISF one looked different but only just slightly and if they weren't side by side we would be hard pressed to notice anything I'm sure. The only difference I could see was in the color and it was subtle to say the least. These were done on 50" Panasonic Plasmas I don't have the model numbers but they were impressive sets. (all the same cables and equipment hooked up to each as well so to make it as equal and fair as possible the only difference been how each set had it picture calibrated)
If you read my thread I've been pretty pumped about getting my PJ ISF certified for some time. Now that I've finally seen what a properly calibrated image vs a ISF image is I just don't think its worth the $ anymore now that I've had a chance to directly compare them.
If your wondering why an A/V dealer would show a comparison like this (I did wonder outloud ) its because my installer doesn't do ISF and doesn't think 99% of people need them they were trying to show that a properly calibrated TV can be just as impressive. (They are selling their service just to "calibrate" at a much lower cost vs ISF in this case).
Anyways long story short I walked away a believer so their display worked in my case.

Greetings

This all works if every tv comes out of the box in exactly the same condition and everyone uses the same DVD player ...

Seen plenty of sets that actually come from the factory close in certain modes. Problem is ... if the end user does not know which of the modes is the most accurate, then it means nothing. Even an accurate set can be set to "vivid" mode ... which is very wrong. The owner of the set can proclaim all he wants that the image is accurate ...

Regards

No, CraigR did mine in Dec. of '05. I got my A1 2 months ago. When he gets down here in So Cal, I'll have him touch up mine using the A1 like you say. Maybe he'll have his little device ready for us that only have component.

Don't get me wrong, after he calibrated mine, watching SD's was like film at a theatre...the picture was super great! To me, HD looks super, but not a giant leap. You know as I do, we have the best TV's on the market, other than projectors, so we are lucky, plus you have the 9 inch guns!!!

One other thing, since I've upgraded to FW 2.0, my picture is on the dark side. I really think that 2.0 screwed it up. I hope they get out 2.1 soon and hopefully the slight darkness will go away.

Have you upgraded to 2.0 yet? If you haven't, make sure you make a comparision in darkness level...then you can wish you didn't upgrade like me!

greetings

Why not just use the HD DVD test disc floating around these days to recalibrate the HD from the player? It's results are a close match for HD signal generators.

Regards

Do you mean Kane's HighDefVideoEssentials is on the market?

Craig did my MIts 65813 last April. He does amazing work and very professional. I highly recommend him. Joe

Gregg is great. He calibrated my Panasonic Plasma. The poor guy is addicted to Diet Coke though.

Hi,

Yes my HD A1 has the latest firmware and with it the black levels did improve. The color decoder in the player is not perfect, and also it doesn't have any sort of adjustments. therefore, you really need to adjust it in your display. What TV do you have?