Calibration Tools

[Xerios]

Is it better and more accurate to:

Read Reviews online of what other people do
Buy one of the blu-rays that walks you through it
Pay a professional out the @$S (i dont mean a BB employee i mean a real 1)
Play with the settings to find whats right

[austin126]

Pay a professional out the @$S


your room settings are not the same as the next guys are and your tv, although the same model as some one elses can perform a little different. shell out the cash and have it professionally done. It is WELL worth it in the end. btw, best buy does use all the same equipment as a "professional ISF calibrator" and they are shown on ISF website as a dealer of said calibrations. dont count them out just because they only charge 250 to a private companies $400 price. they go through the same training on how to use the equipment. a friend of mine is an ISF certified installer with best buy and he knows more than i ever will know about it. he calibrated my tv and it shows huge improvements!

[jsteinhauer]

Originally Posted by Xerios

Is it better and more accurate to:

Read Reviews online of what other people do
Buy one of the blu-rays that walks you through it
Pay a professional out the @$S (i dont mean a BB employee i mean a real 1)
Play with the settings to find whats right

If your display has a service menu with grayscale or color management settings, then a professional can do more than you can. I am sure, as with in all professions, the individuals at Best Buy vary in their abilities. If you're going to pay $400, find someone with references. AVSForums has a thread for finding local ISF calibrators.

If you don't want to spend that much, the DVE or AVIA disks and your eyeballs can still result in a HUGE improvement over out of the box settings for most sets. This is what I lived with for a year, and I was happy with it. Though, some of the newer sets have pretty good picture mode settings.

If you are like me, hands on and like to know what's happening, even if you do hire someone, a colorimeter, like iOne Display 2 or the Spyder are not that expensive, and HCFR software is free for download. Calman will provide more guidance, but you have to pay for it. I bought an iOne, and I will estimate that with that, HCFR and DVE, I can achieve about 95% of what I pro might. It takes a LOT of time, though, and I still won't access the service menu, so there are limits to what I can achieve. If you find doing that sort of thing fun, it's worth it, if you find it boring and tedious, it's not worth spending half of what you would pay someone.

I still plan on hiring someone, anyway. I want my picture to be as accurate as possible, and I want to know how well I did on my own. I also want to see how a professional would do it.