Calibration: Should you pay someone or not. The final answer here??

What are your settings?

Merry Christmas to you too, Kevin!

i know maybe some people dont feel that its necessary to get their set isf'd. thats because they know what their doing with calibration. Chances are, if you get a night and day difference with isf calibration, you probably didnt know what you were doing when calibrating it yourself.

There is not much you can do to calibrate a display yourself. Tweaking with DVD's like Avia and DVE help, but a proper calibration requires expensive equipment, software, and training.

I invested in all 3 as a hobby, not for business and have calibrated a few displays, besides my own, for friends/acquaintances. They were all impressed by the results.

Kevin Miller calibrated my TV also. I recommend him. Well worth the money.
If anyone can afford to get this done they should.

Calibrating with discs can help but nothing beats the equipment the
professionals use.

What exactly is the difference that you guys see?

Is it mostly on SD or HD or both?

Are you seeing what -- sharper picture? Better colors? Correct colors ?

Is the difference something that an AVERAGE person will notice right away -- or something that a super-sharp eyed AVS member is going to see if told to look at the screen halfway up, over to the right, see that black border there?

I might consider getting someone, once the holidays are past and my job situation cleared up.

Off topic Rant:

This is a completely inappropriate question. You're asking him to give you for free what he paid $350 for?

Why not tell him to go ahead and copy his whole DVD collection and send them your way?

I hope we never get to the point where ISF settings are posted by those who pay - it would put a lot of calibrators out of work and would be stealing, in my opinion.

Not to mention that one size does not fit all. Every TV is different (even among the same model).

I am amazed that we spend all that cash on a TV and have to have someone come out and make it look good. But I have to agree that when you spend all that money on a TV that a few hundred more is not much. But still it just dont seem right.

My Aquos LCD looks great to me and I do not plan on having anyone do anything to it. Maybe I just dont know any better or perhaps I am not that picky.

Not to mention alot of the settings are modified in the Service Menu anyway.

Giving someone the generic "settings" post calibration wouldn't help them anyway, tdavis. All the real procalibration magic takes place in the grayscale. And even that is very unit-specific ie; the grayscale settings on my 42" Sammy won't necessarily benefit someone else's 42" Sammy. Why? Because the source material is most likely different.

And even if the source material was EXACTLY the same - same year/month/make/model of DVD player, exact same make/model of cable box, exact same carrier of the signal with same HD channels, etc. - chances are VERY good that you won't get the exact same picture quality results. There are still to many variables between the 2 sets.

Those generic settings post-calibration are arbitrary numbers, too. They could be set to any figure that comes to mind - because they now relate to the new settings done in the grayscale. For example: post-cal my settings are all pegged at "50". They could just as easily have been set at "75" or "25" or even "42" fer chrissakes. It makes no difference now.

So ask away, good people. Eggpants, go ahead and put all your settings to "50", then stand back and marvel at what has been wrought. Not very nice, is it? Whaddya expect for free?

Doing this won't put your pre-cal sets any closer to the true beauty of a professionally calibrated unit. A unit that'll take your hdtv picture to the next level. The best level, where the killer blacks with definition in the shadows live, where the colour saturation is as God and nature intended - in short, a looking-out-the-window type of display.

When a pro-cal is completed, you'll be left with a set of charts and graphs showing pre and post calibration settings that will tell the tale. And you'll be stunned at just how out of whack your settings really were - straight from the factory. I swear, the settings these clowns let their sets leave the factory floor with borders on criminal. Just criminal.

And isn't that what this is all about? A crystal clear, lifelike pic? For 10% of the cost of your hdtv, you will experience a 110% improvement in your display. Of all the thousands of dollars spent converting a room in my house into a nice and cozy home theatre, that $300.00 spent on a pro-cal was the single best investment that I could have made.

I'm fully aware of what a professional calibration entails. Some displays keep grayscale adjustments in the user menu (like my NEC), so there's nothing hidden about a calibration.

Also, when people ask for settings for an ISF calibration, I always interpret it as "give me the grayscale too". Maybe others don't. It's easy to find out how to get into the service menu and copy down some numbers.


I'll give you that, to a point, but most source devices are calibrated to standards from the factory - or at least higher-end sources are. Correct me if I'm wrong, ISF pros.

No it wouldn't....every TV set is different and settings for one TV won't work as well on another.

We post menu settings all over the place and how many people copy them for their own sets? Most are just curious, a few use it to double-check that they're within 'the range.'

I like mine and don't believe they can be improved, but i am curious where others have their set. I find it funny that the OP is unwilling to share his

My panny has a serial port and apparently the display can be controlled with it. Couldn't a software program be written that connects via the serial port to make adjustments based on reference data and input sources?

I mean at least in theory? Or does such a thing already exist?

-Mark

Read and comprehend, eggpants. It DOESN'T MATTER what the OP's or my post-cal settings are now - they are irrelevant to your pre-cal set. As I said in my post - all my post-cal settings are now "50".

Feel free to use them as you like. I'm giving to you for free. And anything that is free is worth just about what you paid for it.

There is some truth to this, but for digital displays running the same hardware and firmware, differences should be minimal.


Right, but no one's livlihood depends on people's personal menu tweaks. Sharing settings that required an ISF calibrator's equipment, time, and expertise is like sharing an artist's work without payment or consent.

I was referring to the OP, not you, so stay out of it. Your insipid rantings are of no interest to me.

This is a board to share information and it's not my intention to get anything for free. Knicksfan will probably have his own requests for information in the future from board members and I'm sure he will want other to share with him. In the meantime, stay out of it

Rants? I think he was very informative.
I think most ISF pros would say, go right ahead. Copy anything you want as it will not give you what 'I' can give you with my equipment.
Maybe you get lucky and get within 10% of optimal. So what.
As with many things in life, you can take a free shortcut but if you want it done right, get a pro.
I don't think they need to be worried about information sharing. That is what this board is for. If somebody pays the ISF fee, he now owns that information and can do as he pleases with it.
You can not control information like that.

You assume I'm trying to get something for free which isn't the case. I understand the benefits of a pro calibration and that some else' settings could look different on my set for any number of reasons. But considering that there are thousands of settings posts on this forum asking the guy to share his isn't a violation of protocol. He is under no obligation to share anything, but he may feel different if he ever has a question himself

I AGREE.

When you ask for information and get it for free that is 'getting information for free'.
I don't have an issue with that at all.
Why pretend you don't want it for free?

I paid $1150 for my Panny 42 9Uk.... and can't see spending $350 for calibrations.

I would like to experiment with other settings from people with the same set up. It's just setting controls on a tv set, and this in no way would infringe on copyrights.

I'm sure a pro can do wonders and would be a good value for a poor PQ, but I would like to try and tweak some settings myself.

When I look at D-Nice's settings it's out of curiosity, not an attempt to steal his work. I like my current settings and there is probably nothing that would change them. If someone doesn't want to share then fine, but they should also refrain from asking anyone else for advice.

The reason of 'curiosity' changes nothing.
Also, this 'get info' vs 'receive info' policy of yours is a little strange.

I think you are confused. Get info and receive info is the same thing. The concept is those that ask for information should be willing to provide information.

Yes, that is a typo and I, of course, meant give instead of get.
Nice sidestep of the topics though.