Bob Jones came down in May for a Southern California calibration tour which was a big success! This was the second calibration for my Mits 65857 (a 2001 model). I had the privilege of getting one of the last of the Craig Miller calibrations in Oct 2001 before he retired. Out of the box, my set had all kinds of issues including geometry, overscan, grayscale, etc Craig did a real nice job and was an outstanding individual. Alas, it has been almost six years since that initial calibration, so I jumped at the chance to have Mr Bob out to put my set through the motions.
Bob visited several of us here in SoCal and I was first up on the itinerary. After picking up Bob from the airport, we had a nice conversation concerning how properly calibrated RPT's stack up to the new fixed pixel technology in terms of quality and value. Once we got back to the house, I gave Bob a test run of my set. He immediately went to work on the optics which were indeed covered with a nice coating of dust. He also wiped clean the internal mirror until it was sparkling. This made an instant difference in the brightness of my picture and it was nice to see this improvement right off the bat. I was fortunate that things hadn't drifted too far out of whack since my Craig Miller calibration, but Bob was diligent to go through all the motions on both my 480p and 1080p scan rates. The most notable difference came from the overscan reduction procedure. Anytime I watched the HD broadcast of 24, the station watermark would barely touch the bottom edge of the screen. After Bob was finished I had a good inch of space between the logo and the screen edge. Hard to believe I was missing so much picture! All in all Bob was very professional, especially with all my questions, as he took his time to explain the different methods. He takes great pride and enthusiasm in his work and it really shows through in the final product. After his work was wrapped, we enjoyed that night's episode of Boston Legal which just popped off the screen.
If you have talked to Bob or read his comments in the forums, you will know he is a big advocate of sitting around 8-9 ft from a 65 screen. I put his claim to the test and moved my easy chair to 8 ft from my normal 12-13 ft viewing distance and it made a huge difference! The CRT image is amazing at 8ft, especially on Blu-Ray movies and overall it was a much more immersive experience. 480p still looks great too. The wife gets a kick out of me sitting in my chair in the middle of the room while she reclines on the couch. I have a hard time believing a plasma or LCD would look that good from the same relative distance. In fact, Bob gave me some great ammunition to needle a good friend of mine who is always preaching the virtues of his Pioneer Plasma.
A couple weeks after the calibration, I did notice a very slight geometry error toward the utmost bottom edge of my screen that we missed during the initial calibration inspection (it likely popped up due to the overscan reduction). It was a very minor thing, but as many of you can attest to, once you see something your eye is drawn to it constantly. I am also very particular when it comes to geometry. Bob was extremely gracious to coach me over the phone on entering the service menu and adjusting the HD grid (a first for me). He even called back the next day to follow up and make sure I was happy with the final result. I really appreciated this! One word of caution to other amateur tweakers - take the time to write down all your starting values before making any changes!! I thoroughly botched all my geometry while getting the hang of how the adjustments worked. If I hadn't jotted down all of Bob's settings at the outset, I would have been completely screwed. Thankfully, I was able to reset everything and fix the initial issue very quickly thereafter.
All in all, Bob did a fantastic job. With his TLC, I am hoping to get another great 5-7 years out of this set. Not to shabby for a $2,800 initial investment in 2001 and some additional expenses for calibrations. I have watched others spend way more for smaller sets that cant match my PQ. If you have an RPT and have never had a calibration, I strongly recommend it.
Bob visited several of us here in SoCal and I was first up on the itinerary. After picking up Bob from the airport, we had a nice conversation concerning how properly calibrated RPT's stack up to the new fixed pixel technology in terms of quality and value. Once we got back to the house, I gave Bob a test run of my set. He immediately went to work on the optics which were indeed covered with a nice coating of dust. He also wiped clean the internal mirror until it was sparkling. This made an instant difference in the brightness of my picture and it was nice to see this improvement right off the bat. I was fortunate that things hadn't drifted too far out of whack since my Craig Miller calibration, but Bob was diligent to go through all the motions on both my 480p and 1080p scan rates. The most notable difference came from the overscan reduction procedure. Anytime I watched the HD broadcast of 24, the station watermark would barely touch the bottom edge of the screen. After Bob was finished I had a good inch of space between the logo and the screen edge. Hard to believe I was missing so much picture! All in all Bob was very professional, especially with all my questions, as he took his time to explain the different methods. He takes great pride and enthusiasm in his work and it really shows through in the final product. After his work was wrapped, we enjoyed that night's episode of Boston Legal which just popped off the screen.
If you have talked to Bob or read his comments in the forums, you will know he is a big advocate of sitting around 8-9 ft from a 65 screen. I put his claim to the test and moved my easy chair to 8 ft from my normal 12-13 ft viewing distance and it made a huge difference! The CRT image is amazing at 8ft, especially on Blu-Ray movies and overall it was a much more immersive experience. 480p still looks great too. The wife gets a kick out of me sitting in my chair in the middle of the room while she reclines on the couch. I have a hard time believing a plasma or LCD would look that good from the same relative distance. In fact, Bob gave me some great ammunition to needle a good friend of mine who is always preaching the virtues of his Pioneer Plasma.
A couple weeks after the calibration, I did notice a very slight geometry error toward the utmost bottom edge of my screen that we missed during the initial calibration inspection (it likely popped up due to the overscan reduction). It was a very minor thing, but as many of you can attest to, once you see something your eye is drawn to it constantly. I am also very particular when it comes to geometry. Bob was extremely gracious to coach me over the phone on entering the service menu and adjusting the HD grid (a first for me). He even called back the next day to follow up and make sure I was happy with the final result. I really appreciated this! One word of caution to other amateur tweakers - take the time to write down all your starting values before making any changes!! I thoroughly botched all my geometry while getting the hang of how the adjustments worked. If I hadn't jotted down all of Bob's settings at the outset, I would have been completely screwed. Thankfully, I was able to reset everything and fix the initial issue very quickly thereafter.
All in all, Bob did a fantastic job. With his TLC, I am hoping to get another great 5-7 years out of this set. Not to shabby for a $2,800 initial investment in 2001 and some additional expenses for calibrations. I have watched others spend way more for smaller sets that cant match my PQ. If you have an RPT and have never had a calibration, I strongly recommend it.
