Calibration
 

How important is the Calibration of an HDTV. I have read a few articles and I am getting all sorts of varied opinions.

The guys at Best Buy have given me $200 worth of GEEK SQUAD. I think they charge $200 to Calibrate a new HDTV to its optimum settings. So it would only cost me $50 to do it.

Totally new to the HD world.

Thoughts?

Thanks

how does that work? it cant be $200 to fiddle with the brightness and contrast surely?

Google "ISF Calibration". They have to be specially trained and use very expensive equipment.

It's definitely worth it, but start by searching for your model on AVS or AV Forums where usually someone has had theirs ISF calabirated and posts the results. Then you need to tweak them a little to suit your rooms lighting conditions.

As a rule, start by turning off any 'advanced' settings like contrast enhancers, edge enhancers etc. as they all usually ruin the picture.

They go into service menus and fiddle with major sh1t, there's more options in there than you can shake a lovely white stick at.. it's meant to be good HOWEVER I'm too tight to pay upward of £300 notes...

Considered it for my projector but as the lamp dims (noticable 1200hrs in) I can't see the point.

There's some good tutorials out there, AVForums has a nice thread on it and the software, you'd need something like the Eye-One or Spyder and some patience but it's cheaper than getting the ISF guys to do it, what's considered optimal isn't always the most pleasing to the eye.

Why wouldn't the TV come calibrated at the correct settings?

Pioneer's newer Kuro sets are supposed to come pre-callibrated in their 'pure' mode and for many it will be good enough, factors such as lighting, enviroment and differences in the sources apparantly come into play however and so the only way to get the correct output is to spend time and money on it.

I think the main factor is store demos. When a store unpacks a unit to demo, they want it to attract attention. Overly saturated colors and extreme brightness/contrast will look good to a customer in a best buy showroom, and thus make the sale. While it may look nice in the showroom, it isn't an accurate representation of the source material, and fatigues the eyes as well.

Its not unlike the "loudness" setting on many car head units, which boosts treble and bass. It sounds great...at first. But it isn't an accurate reproduction of the music.

Of course, many people could care less, but after you've seen an ISF calibrated HDTV its tough to go back to your own set.

Obviously there are other major factors, such as the room's lighting, and TV's positioning that prevent manufacturers from giving better default settings. . I do believe that the sales aspect is the driving force behind the factory settings, though.

Just a minor annoyance to people, it's "could not care less" or "couldn't care less".

Just go pick up a copy of Digital Video Essentials for HD.

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Video-.../dp/B000V6LST0

It's all you truly need for an outstanding picture quality.

But my TV came with several settings, movie, sports, vivid, standard, etc, how are these different than ISF calibrations?

ISF is a TV calibrated for the room w/ it's light levels. The the settings from the manufacture don't take into account different light levels or variations in the TV's off the assembly line. ie, a TV might have a slightly brighter back light then another of the same model.

http://www.cnet.com.au/tvs/plasma/0,...9273712,00.htm

It can make a difference. Unless you're a videophile you probably won't notice the difference between that and tweaking the settings to your liking. But if its only going to cost you $50 go for it.

And what if he could care less ? http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo.../confused1.gif

Jesus what's next , we need to clean the T.V ourselves http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo.../confused1.gif "Little Britain style" Yea I know !..

If he could care less that would mean that he actually had some amount of care for the point he was trying to make, which is that people could not care less so he would be contradicting himself.

Ya'll gotta give me a break. I'm from Texas. We don't exactly pride ourselves on grammatical accuracy [thumbup].