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Correct Calibration?

600 Views 10 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  krasmuzik, 
S
What should be included in an ISF calibration of a DLP projector? Other than the AVIA or DVE disks, what other equipment / test gear should I expect a qualified calibrator to use?



Sam
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K
Adjustment of user controls (brightness/contrast/color/tint/sharpness) interactively with grey scale calibration (RGB gains/offsets/gamma) in a nutshell. AVIA PRO is the latest greatest disk until DVE PRO comes out - but others will suffice.


Any of the latest calibration tools from Sencore, ProgressiveLabs OpticOne, Milor/Colorvision are sufficient for front projection.


Some will use a signal generator to provide a reference signal - nice to know - but you want to calibrate to your sources.


ISF standard rate does not include CRT/RPTV specific adjustments but many calibrators offer that for extra fee.


ISF standard rate is $325 first input, $125 additional inputs.


If calibrators are familiar with your display and can get service codes they may do service menu tweaks (SVM, redpush, etc.)
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S
I just had an ISF certified calibrator here and he only used the AVIA disk and the plastic filters that come with it to calibrate my projector. He had a hard case marked with the Sencore logo, but he never even opened it. Did I get a proper calibration?


Sam
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K
Not if he charged full price.


I will do the AVIA only setup for half my ISF rate. Some displays people are happy with the greyscale defaults in the projector (I sell Infocus which is good in this regard) - and thus do not consider that an affordable option to sensor out. But I don't market a user control adjustment as an ISF calibration - I market it as an AVIA calibration.


Maybe an older ISF tech trained on RPTV thinks these new digital projectors don't need greyscale because they are 'digital' and thus correct - that could not be more wrong! Or maybe he has an old Sencore CRT sensor not approved for use on digital technologies.
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Thanks for the information! You've given me some questions to ask.


Sam
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Quote:
I just had an ISF certified calibrator here and he only used the AVIA disk and the plastic filters that come with it to calibrate my projector. He had a hard case marked with the Sencore logo, but he never even opened it. Did I get a proper calibration?
It depends what he charged, but I always assume ISF calibration to include grayscale properly, which requires colorimetry equipment. There is, of course, more advanced display-specific tweaks that can be done that will vary, which is why all calibrations, ISF or not, are not created equal.


You got the service that you could esaily do yourself after buying Avia or DVE, so you probably shouldn't have paid for more than the cost of the dvd if that's all he did...
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J
How do you calibrate an HDTV source, such as a cable box? Should you just use the DVD settings that you come up with using Avia? I've always been confused by this.

Thanks,

Jason
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C
No, the settings will be unique for each input. For some things you can't get test patterns from the source, so you may have to use a signal generator and hope that the source conforms to specs accurately and precisely.
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J
So it needs to be professionally done? There's no way for the layman to calibrate an HDTV input?
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Originally posted by ChrisWiggles
No, the settings will be unique for each input. For some things you can't get test patterns from the source, so you may have to use a signal generator and hope that the source conforms to specs accurately and precisely.
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There is, if you have a way to get test patterns through your HD box.


The other way, is to use your DVD player, set to 0IRE output to match HD output standards, to get close enough to what your HD box is probably putting out for signal levels, essentially using your DVD player as a signal generator. I hesitate to reccommend this, though, because both would have to be on-spec for this to work, and this is not always the case. However, individual channels can also be all over the map, so accuracy here may still net you a final picture that will vary from channel to channel, so it may be good enough.
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K
If you have an upconverting HD box - I use the OTA RF adaptor and use the DVD player over CH3. If you don't have an RF output they can be found on VCR's, DVD/VCR's - or any DVD RF modulator sold at RadShack etc.


This is better than the direct input method because it takes your source outputs and the input modulation circuitry into account.


But as Chris said it can be futile - there are some horrible stations out there with video engineers asleep at their monitors.
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