LCD HDTV Calibration?

[soberbyker]

My wife and I shared in the cost of a 47" LCD HDTV as our Christmas gift to each other, coupled with a Blu-Ray disk player. Incredible picture when playing a Blu-ray disk for sure. Some of the standard digital channels are pretty good too. I don't have any HD channels.

Our old TV was finally crapping out and with the federal mandate on digital broadcast coming up soon we decided it was time to make the switch. We actually bought the TV back in November. They told us we should have the thing calibrated after about 100 hours of use. We now have well over 100 hours of use.

My questions are, has anyone here had a TV calibrated, if so, did you noticed a difference, and is it worth the going price of between $250 & $300 to have the service done?

I talked to Geek Squad and there's a 3 month wait for a Saturday appointment. Anyone know of who, if I find it's worth it, I can go to in the Delaware County area?

Thanks,
Bill
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[tes151]

Did you try to Google how to do it? Maybe it isn't too awful hard for someone with some electronic experience. Personally, I've never heard of such a thing. I have a plasma TV and it must be different. Good luck.

[Philbert]

http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdt...libration.html

$300 to play with the brightness and contrast?

[mikey]

Unless you have the vision of a bald eagle, I doubt you will be able to see the difference. It is like the placebo pill, you might think it looks better, but only because you are trying to justify the cost. Buy more ammo, instead.

[soberbyker]

Did you try to Google how to do it? Maybe it isn't too awful hard for someone with some electronic experience. Personally, I've never heard of such a thing. I have a plasma TV and it must be different. Good luck.

Yea, I've looked at some Google links, some say it's worth it some don't on a few forums. I asked here well because you guys and gals are like family and I'd tend to believe the folks here more than a random Google link.

http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdt...libration.html

$300 to play with the brightness and contrast?

From what I've read it's a tad more indepth than what you can do from your remote. There is a "service" jack in the back that can access an internal menu not available thru the remote. Being my first HDTV I know nothing about this stuff.

Thanks for the replies.

Bill
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[soberbyker]

http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdt...libration.html

Thanks for this link, +105

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[Evolution]

Save your money. Calibrate it with the settings you have in the menu. All tv's are calibrated before they hit store shelves. many tv's have a service menu where you need to enter a special code on the remote to access it. Be careful what you do in there because you can screw up your set. Settings don't just randomly change after watching the t.v for so long. Unless you are unsatisfied with your picture, save your money. Also you only need the mandatory digital box to receive the signal if you receive your tv service via rabbit ears or a tv antenna. If you subscribe to cable or satelite you will be fine.

[TaurusGuy]

I have had my Toshiba 37" since October of 2007. As far as I can tell...the picture is still as amazing now as it was the day I got it. I have had nothing done to it other than me cleaning it now and then. I think they're screwing you for that money and if it was up to me, I wouldn't waste the time or money to pay them to do it.

[NineseveN]

Calibration is much, much, much more than playing with contrast and color controls. Calibration is a technique in which someone with specialized training and equipment (read intensive and expensive) adjusts the set to match the NTSC standards (the reference points for which directors shoot when they film and color correct).

Most people who think they've tuned their sets haven't got a clue. If they're happy with their picture, then that's fine, but it's definitely not accurate. What you see on film should approximate real life. Go outside, take a blade of grass from your yard and hold it up to your TV with a still shot of grass. They're not the same color, are they? Sure, they're both green, but most people push the vividness of their home sets to the point of making everything just shy of neon. Have someone put their face next to a still shot of someone else's face, one looks like real skin (color, texture, tone), the one on your set probably doesn't.

Now check for details in the shadows. Blacks should be "inky", they should have depth, but most people have the brightness on their sets turned up so high that shadows aren't really black, they're just really dark gray. Calibration sets the grayscale to industry standard so that shadows look more or less like real shadows and all of the definition inside of them that the director had included in the frame can be seen within the limitations of your set of course, not all sets can display a true black level, in fact, most can't, but calibration gets them closer than the user menu will. You can't really get that by simply playing with the menu controls.

Most people have their sharpness set to ungodly high levels, which may look pleasing to them, but it's far from accurate and introduces noise into the picture. On most current HDTV's, the sharpness on the menu should be at or near 0 (zero) in order to be accurate.

No TV is calibrated at the factory, two of the same sets can have very different values when tested during calibration. All TV's will generally have some level of color push, the white balance is pretty much always + or - of 6500 Kelvins (true white according to the ATSC standard), which introduces tint into the white spectrum of your TV, which again, is simply not accurate.

To fix all of that requires going into the TV's service menus, which a novice shouldn't really do IMHO, you can hose your set completely and the menu values are generally in some hex/code format. Best Buy isn't a good source for truly accurate ISF calibration, despite their certificates to the contrary. Neither is Circuit City. There are a handful or two of people in the business that are good professionals, but their services are mostly lost on someone with a 47" television (or even a 52" LCD as I have). The real benefit of calibration can be seen in rear projection sets (especially the older CRT-based units) and full projectors with 100"+ screens in light controlled rooms.

Here's more info on the topic: http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/art...1&print_page=y

Having said all of that, many people are pleased with their TV's, and not everyone will like calibration (the colors aren't as vivid by default, the image is generally much darker) and most of us don't care whether or not our sets are "accurate". Film buffs do, they want their sets to match the sources used to color correct film and television, but again, that's not most of us.

You can get your set very close with a DVE Essentials disc, it will at least get your set in the ballpark without having to muck around in the service menus, but again, one should decide if they really want an "accurate" picture. Look out of your window, then look at an outside shot of your favorite movie, if you prefer the pumped up vivid look that is almost undoubtedly on your set, then you may not like a calibrated picture.

If I knew the exact model of set you had, I could probably lift some solid setting from AVS Forum for you to tinker with. That would probably save you from needing the DVE Essentials DVD, as you'll probably use the settings as a reference and then adjust to your own taste from there.

If you've never seen a truly calibrated display, you cannot possibly know if it's for you, and you can't comprehend the actual difference. It's like trying to tell someone who only eats Rice Crispies and has never even seen cheesecake how much they're missing. If they're used to cereal and they've grown to like it, they'll never miss what they don't have and don't have any point of reference for. Of course, lots of people don't like cheesecake either.

I had an RPTV calibrated and it turned an okay picture into a truly stunning and accurate one, but I haven't had my LCD calibrated and I don't plan to. I did what I could myself (my unit has a reputation for a slight green push, which I corrected as best I could in the service menu) but the black levels are very solid from the factory (the best in LCD's, second only to the Panasonic and Pioneer Kuro Plasmas) and I used my own disc to dial in the sharpness, color temperature, backlight, brightness and the colors from the user menu. It's probably pretty close to being as accurate as a calibrated unit, except I have mine set a bit brighter and slightly more vivid than truly accurate.

Furthermore, since most people sit outside of the viewing distance and angle in which their eyes can actually resolve high definition, most of the time HD is only slightly better than upscaled standard definition in terms of picture quality. If you're sitting 10 feet away from a 47" set, your eyes can barely resolve the difference between 720p and 1080p. If you sit 14-15 feet away, SD looks about as good as HD in terms of resolution. The colors will look better, as HD discs have more color information on them, but the clarity and sharpness is likely not discernible between SD and HD sources given the same source material. http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/

http://myhometheater.homestead.com/v...alculator.html

[soberbyker]

Thanks for that explination 97, I had read some kind of info before I posed the question. After reading your summary, and not being a true to the form junkie, I think I'll just buy the Digital Video Essentials disk and go from there.

Thanks all for the replies.

Bill