Who called ISF to tune-up their TV's?

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by AussieCal

Hi folks,

Vinnay seems to question the whole Cal thing. And Blu-Dog seems to imply Calibrators are laughing all the way to the bank.

Yeah, that was over the top. I should have said, "wearing a delighted grin."

However, I will also say this:

Everything you wrote after that shows that, for the first time since I've been embroiled in this topic, someone has given a very clear baseline for an intelligent discussion.

Thanks for your iiluminating comments.

[ControlCAL]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

At this point, precious little other than very vague testimonials, from clearly unschooled and nontechnical users, is what I'm hearing about this topic.

I don't know the backgrounds of everyone in this Thread.. but I can give you links to reports from several educated owners in regards to their calibration HERE, HERE and HERE.

Are all these posters non-technical and unschooled owners..?

Those links don't cover the many DIYers that are satisfied with the improvements they made from their own calibrations..

[umr]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

Are you talking about the goofy user settings? I really dislike religious debates; are you claiming that the baseline service menu settings, from every manufacturer, are tweaked?

Or are you referring to the usual "Vivid, Pro, Normal" settings?



Man, you need to name names. I have two levels of skepticism here.

1. The "marketing department" has a separate spec from the "engineering dept". I'm going to assume that ISF calibration is using some set of specifications, directly from that manufacturer's engineering department. So yet a third group - the "manufacturing department" - is using bogus specifications to set up components? If so, where does ISF get the "real" settings from?
2. At what point do a bunch of guys writing brochures and hanging out with the girls at trade shows have the slightest clue what a monitor setting is? Engineers to this, man; we both know that. So ISF has a standard that is not the same as, say, Samsung or Pioneer or Sony's engineers? Very interesting.

The industry specifications are called Rec. 709 and they are the same for everyone with these products.

The problem is several fold. First, color is very difficult to measure and implement well. Second, people in stores like very bright displays because stores are bright. Third, accurate displays put less light out than there less accurate cousins. Since it would cost more to do it right and consumers would buy less none are sold that way. Even professional monitors which cost much more than what we are talking about here require calibration to achieve the desired results.

Add to this all of the mistakes that can occur outside of the display and most people do not watch an image that is even close to what was intended.

Some of us are engineers as well.

[DoubleBB]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

Interesting.

I own a BMW M Roadster, a C5 Corvette, a Mercury Marauder, and a Nascar F150 truck, and through the kids, various other performance equipment.

Every one of them was delivered to me meeting manufacturer specifications. They are all bone stock, to this day. No Brembo brake kits, or Dinan or Eaton or whatever blowers, no chip modifications, nothing. They all run like scalded dogs, at the turn of the key.

If something is out of whack with a subsystem, it's easily detectible.

Why the heck would I immediately take it to the shop to figure out how I'd been screwed, then tell everybody that would hold still that they needed to do the same?

This is ENTIRELY irrevelant. Car manufacturers, for the most part, don't employ tricks to get you to purchase their cars... there are SOME tricks employed though. Some cars have WAY too much of the throttle opening in the first 25% of accelerator travel. This gives the inpression that the car is "peppier" than it really is... and it leads to making the car annoying to drive after a while when you find it's not easy to make a gentle start from a stop.

Video display manufacturers exploit every trick in the book to make you pick their video display over some other brand. They over-sharpen the images, they manipulate colors to take advantage of the fact that when you, with your uncalibrated and optical illusion-prone eyes, see something with a light blue tint next to something that is accurately white, your eye accepts the light blue tint as being white and the REAL white becomes pink- or yellow-looking to your eyes. If a manufacturer were to create a truly accurate video display, when it was up there in the wall of video at big-box stores, 99.9% of the people looking at it would say it sucks compared to every other over-hyped, exagerrated, and inaccurate display in the video wall.

And your stock cars would get their doors blown off in a straight line or on a track by anybody who had half a brain (or who used a shop with half a brain) who tuned their suspension and motor to produce better handling and more power. It doesn't matter a whit how you maintain a stock car, it's still stock and there are a myriad of tuning opportunities that will make it perform far better in whatever way is important to you - from mild to all-out race car. So it is with calibration - if you want better performance (which means more accuracy in the context of video displays), you can have it.

You can sit there all smug (and self congradulating) with your inaccurate video display, or you can spend 100-200 hours or more teaching yourself all about calibration and spend from $300 up to many thousands of dollars on measurement equipment and calibrate your own TV, or you can spend $300 or so on a professional calibration and not invest the 100 hours or more of study and practice or purchase the instrumentation and software you need. Your call... 3 choices. Just because somebody else decides they want more from their video display doesn't make them a sucker or a fool. Any more than you are a sucker or fool for viewing an uncalibrated video display.

How many video displays have you measured right out of the box? I'm going to take a wild guess and say ZERO. A good meter quickly reveals that all video displays are far from accurate as they come from the box, even if you make some needed adjustments to various controls that make the video display much less screwed up than it was with the default settings. Facts are, no video displays are accurate as built/assenbled because the factory isn't going to spend the 3 to 6 hours it takes to calibrate a video display to be accurate. Nobody would purchase their TVs because they would cost $400 to $1000 more than competitors. For 98% of the public, viewing an inaccurate video display is their normal life. For the enthusiast who wishes to see movies exactly as they were intended to be seen by the producer, director, and cinematographer, calibration is their only recourse.

How many professional reviews have you seen where the out-of-box performance of ANY video display (including expensive projectors) is close to being accurate? The answer is ZERO because when they make the video display, they are trying to "beat" other manufacturers by exploiting the weakness of human vision and perception. They are NOT striving to produce a product that produces an accurate picture. We are damn lucky that some manufacturers are offering more and more controls to allow their video displays to be made surprisingly accurate. And we are lucky that many video displays have built-in modes that are FAR more accurate than displays of the past, even if those modes still have issues that can be corrected to make the images better still.

Video displays are very different than cars or toasters or air conditioners. In fact, video displays are a lot like Disneyland and Disney World. In a Disney park, at first glance, everything looks wonderful, but if you look closely, you find just about everything employs tricks... to fool your eye into thinking buildings are taller or larger than they really are. It's very expertly done and 98% of the people never notice. Same thing with video displays. If you don't educate your self about them, you end up missing all the problems. Just like you do.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by ControlCAL

Are all these posters non-technical and unschooled owners..?

Those links don't cover the many DIYers that are satisfied with the improvements they made from their own calibrations..

One thing I find absurdly easy to avoid are invitations from somebody to insult somebody else.

This "see this guy...this guy right here...are you calling him stupid?...see, he's calling you stupid" stuff...well, it's a waste of my time. Send me a PM if you want to discuss specific folks.

Anyway, take a look at the posts I've put up, if you have issues, or any interest. Two of my main points:

1. It doesn't take an engineering degree to calibrate/adjust a television.

2. Not every television needs professional calibration; if it does, let's just call it a repair and be done with it.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by DoubleBB

How many video displays have you measured right out of the box? I'm going to take a wild guess and say ZERO.

What the heck is going on, is it "calling all calibrators, skeptic in the house" or what?

Well, one thing's for certain: they all take wild guesses about me.

Not very scientific.

[ControlCAL]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

One thing I find absurdly easy to avoid are invitations from somebody to insult somebody else.

This "see this guy...this guy right here...are you calling him stupid?...see, he's calling you stupid" stuff...well, it's a waste of my time. Send me a PM if you want to discuss specific folks.

Of course, but you didn't need an invitation: "from clearly unschooled and nontechnical users"

I was addressing your strong statements in regards to those who post testimonials. I have the advantage to knowing specific owner's backgrounds on those lists. Perhaps you were posting specifically to one Thread, I wanted to provide additional reports.

I also posted links to specific settings including those in the SM and other protected interfaces including forums/threads where people are getting help with their own calibrations.

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

1. It doesn't take an engineering degree to calibrate/adjust a television.

2. Not every television needs professional calibration; if it does, let's just call it a repair and be done with it.

I agree with #1, not sure who posted otherwise. Now, there are several Engineers (even from the Broadcast and film industries) that are involved in the Professional Calibration industry.

If you are interested in viewing specific content as it is intended to be seen by it's creator, director etc, I disagree 100% with #2.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by DoubleBB

You can sit there all smug (and self congradulating) with your inaccurate video display, or you can spend 100-200 hours or more teaching yourself all about calibration and spend from $300 up to many thousands of dollars on measurement equipment and calibrate your own TV, or you can spend $300 or so on a professional calibration and not invest the 100 hours or more of study and practice or purchase the instrumentation and software you need. Your call... 3 choices. Just because somebody else decides they want more from their video display doesn't make them a sucker or a fool. Any more than you are a sucker or fool for viewing an uncalibrated video display.

Are you sure my display is inaccurate?

Hey, more to the point: Are you sure I'm smug? I don't feel smug; I just feel hungry. It's dinnertime.

Anyway, I think it's nice of you to define my three choices for me, which are:

- Spend 2.5 to 5 weeks learning this arcane art;
- Spend $300 on somebody who's done this study already (actually, this is a great choice, since some other poor devil on this thread was told it was $500...what's the real rate, pray tell?)
- Sit here all smug and hungry

Anyway, I don't think anyone who gets their set repaired is a fool. Did I say repaired? My bad. After all, there's nothing wrong with it. Or is there?

I'm thinking tacos, that sounds good.

[eddiscus]

After having calibrated many displays from 6 different major manufactures both LCD and plasma I can say not one of them had a mode that put it on the money to the desired spec of D65 and rec709.

The closest I have seen is 6350k on the warm side and 7000k on the cool side. The worst was 5800k and 7200k. With no user choice in between, the only solution was service menue adjustments. As far as CIE color points go some were real close and others were way off. Some displays are not worth even trying to change.

Of those that you can accuratly adjust I feel it worth your time. If you decide to do it your self it is definatly not going to be cheaper than hiring a calibrator but some of us like to try different things.

Unfortunatly the displays as you see them in the big box stores and as they default out of the box have been influenced by marketing rather than the technical engineers.

I would much rather watch a display that offers the most accurate reproduction of the original material rather than a fantasy world of colors.

Also as UMR said the other very important aspect of the home theater is audio. Much more can go wrong on this side and be harder to detect and correct. But having it all come together makes the movie watching experience that much more enjoyable.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by ControlCAL

If you are interested in viewing specific content as it is intended to be seen by it's creator, director etc, I disagree 100% with #2.

Holy smokes. I went through this about two weeks back, wound up getting the thread locked, so I'll keep this simple:

If you and I sat down for ten minutes, we'd come up with at least 20 factors that would affect how content is seen, no matter who did it. I listed a bunch of these factors, don't need to go through the whole list.

But...

Source bandwidth
Power fluctuation
Stability of all circuits, all devices (warmup time)
Ambient light in the viewing area
Condition of conductors
Viewing distance
Viewing angle

Sheesh the list is a mile long, and I'm certain an ISF calibrator is going to know about them; it's mentioned everywhere.

I really have lost much interest in arguing the whichness of what with guys debating their livelihood in calibration; the noise level transcends anything I've yet seen.

So, I go buy a $5K Pioneer, get a $500 calibration, hook it up to my local cable station and watch HBO, and it's going to look like just the most amazing thing exactly the way the director/creator wanted, yeah right.

Or hook it up to one of these cheap Blu players from WalMart or whatever, you see where I'm going with this.

Or it will be the same picture with component as with HDMI (theoretically possible, I hear) and that's not a problem.

Or when the washing machine kicks into spin cycle, nothing changes.

But let's talk lab environment - everything being the same, except the magic calibration. Will it make a difference? Obviously. Can that difference be done without the magic touch? I don't know; neither do you. $500 gets us the answer, and that, my friend, is where I begin to lose my temper with whoever put us in this position in the first place.

And, of course, who cannot tell me how often I will find myself in this place again. According to one chap, in as little as 2,000 hours, I've got to pony up another $500, just for a checkup.

What's wrong with this picture.

[ControlCAL]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

I really have lost much interest in arguing the whichness of what with guys debating their livelihood in calibration;

Well, we can continue the discussion then... my livelihood is not from calibration. ControlCAL, CalibrationForums.com, DIYCalibration.com merges several of my interests, hobbies and passions.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by ControlCAL

Well, we can continue the discussion then... my livelihood is not from calibration. ControlCAL, CalibrationForums.com, DIYCalibration.com merges several of my interests, hobbies and passions.

Cool. And DIY Calibration sounds interesting.

[AussieCal]

Hi Folks

I answer to Blu-dogs questions (I hope)

1) No you don't need to be an engineer to be able to calibrate. But IMHO no one can do a calibration course and be a calibrator of any decent capability. I have been doing this for 3 years now and I still stumble and sweat. I am still learning and this is by no means easy. To do this WELL this is a complex subject and the vagueries of all the different products, manufacturers and their constantly changing nomenclature makes this tough. Anyone can have a crack at it and it is fun but it is fraught with difficulties too. I defy any true professional to tell me they haven't spent HOURS in front of some particular TV or projector battling to get it right. If they haven't then I doubt they have been doing it long or know what they are doing.

2) Yes - Every TV (that I am aware of to date) is setup from Factory to give an unrealistic and inaccurate image. I think each indvidual of course has the right to determine if they want/need a calibration. If it is important to you then go ahead.

BUT it would be fair all were given the knowledge so they can decide for themselves instead of being given the impression that a TV is perfect out of the box.

You only need to stand in a store and look at a wall of TV's and spot a grey part of an image (stone statues are good) and you can see a cast range of red green blue and other tinges in each different panel. If they are getting the same signal and they are all "accurate" then why the difference?

Finally, I seem to understand Blu-Dog wanted to know how often a panel needs calibrating.

Well a Pioneer (6 and 7G Panel) shows massive degradation after 3 years. Very faded and pink. ISF recommends every 12 months. From experience 18-24 mths is probably realistic. We call our clients after 12 months and ask them if they want us to check their TV. It only takes a few minutes to test. Then if it is way out and they want us to proceed we go ahead.

Most panels after 12 mths need a tweak but it comes down to the individuals care factor and budget. Like all things.

I can see Blu-Dogs points and he is obviously thinking clearly. There are simply too many factors and this makes a good calibrators job a nightmare. If they care enough. I try to deal with as many factors as I can.

It will never be "perfect" but I know I can make a good TV that starts with a crappy picture look great. I can't (or don't want to) fix the issue with the washing machine spin cycle, or I might as well move in with the client. But I will do my damned best to extract the best possible image I can. If I can't I will politely pack up and leave - No charge.

As a professional I care enough not to try and make someone who doesn't smoke appreciate a "great cigar". But I will tell them I like it (or would if I smoked) :-)

Does this answer any questions?

Rgds


A

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

Are you sure my display is inaccurate?
....
Anyway, I don't think anyone who gets their set repaired is a fool. Did I say repaired? My bad. After all, there's nothing wrong with it. Or is there?

I agree with you're first statement, how can anyone be sure that a given person hasn't been able to calibrate the set themselves to a comparable or identical level to what a qualified ISF tuner would be able to do. I personally trust my own eyes, and care ho I percieve the image more then I do about anyone elses opinion of it. I personally have seen calibrated sets and found them no more impressive then when i've calibrated my on set-up. Does these make them identical, goodness no, but it does show that at the very least some will prefer there calibration.

That bieng said the second part I quoted from you is a bit over the top. No, i'm not convinced the tune up is worth $500 (that's more then it cost me to build a full HD projector), but worth is in the eye of the beholder.

(One thing that bugs me is how does the 'industry' and ISF callibrators know what the director wanted certain scenes/movies etc to look like, or is it no more then a blind guess? [especially when some directors are deceased so there opinion/truth certainly cannot be known]).

[snomun]

Just chiming in...

I own a A/V integration company. We design and install home theaters, home control systems, lighting control systems, motorized window treatment systems and all else native to the home in low voltage.
I find most of what I install does not need to be installed, we do our work when people want it. I took The THX certification class last year because I felt I owed it to my clients. As all things that I do, it is a service though. I have thousands invested into it already. Doing calibrations is by far one of the least enjoyable and hardest things I do. Maybe this is because I am new at it, but I think the following is closer to the mark. Doing a video calibration challenges me more than anything I do. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that when I charge between $200 - $400 for my services calibrating they will get what they paid for. I charge $80/hour for all services in our stable. Not unlike a garage mechanic who charges the same or more, I have easily as much invested in tools and training. Unlike a mechanic, I have to travel to the clients house. I do have a showroom that costs me $4000 a month but calibrations have to be done on site. All the attributes of a room including color of the room and light levels for viewing dictate this. So by the time I add in my tools, training, travel time and the time actually doing the calibration, it is the least profitable thing I do.
The only thing left to answer is does the client need my calibration services?
I go back to the top of my post for this. If they want my services, I do it. I usually give the first calibration away if I sell a 50" or above. It is a reason why clients buy from me instead of a major retailer. I also pick the display technology based on their room because I am in ther home.
If the display is in poor condition and cannot be calibrated, there is still a one hour service charge. Show me a person that works for free, I will show you a person that cannot run a successful business. I certainly do not tell clients they have to calibrate their displays. I have calibrated sets, come back on the job and found the displays back in torch mode. In calibrating, I offer a service that some say is neccessary, others will never see the difference. I do have to say though, there is nothing quite like the high when a set calbrates perfectly and also nothing more frustrating than when I can't acheive this. The calibrators job is a quirky, tough form of art and I have nothing but respect for those who have been doing it for ten or more years. Instrumentation and software is much better now and allows us of the newer generation to come up to speed a little quicker. Nothing replaces experience though.
The final question. How much is your time worth. Most of my clients make considerably more than me and also understand that if you do something for a living, you can usually do it more efficiently than someone who does not. My taking care of it vs them wondering if it needs to be done is usually a fair exchange.

[ADRiiAN`]

I would love to do an ISF, I have an LG HDTV, So I need to do an ISF-CCC?

As well, Anyone know any ISF pros in Ontario, Canada? (Preferrably the GTA area)

[micks_address]

i had my sony 40w4000 (w4100 US model) calibrated last year.. it does look incredible to be honest... but the calibrater said it wasnt to far off to start with. What i know now though is that its as good as it can get so i feel no desire to tweak the picture controls on my tv whatsoever. I got mine done by an experiences ISF calibrator in the UK who's also a keen photographer... i'd value his work a lot more than someone just starting out with a colormeter and laptop with some software. I had tried that route before myself wiht my previous tv but i didnt get nearly as good a results as he did!

Anyway - my take on it is that its worth doing if you've made a relatively significant investmnet on your tv... my ISF cost about 1/4 the price of my set.. i could have put that money towards a more expensive set maybe.. but at least now i am content with what i have and dont see the need to upgrade for a few years at least.

[jsteinhauer]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

1. It doesn't take an engineering degree to calibrate/adjust a television.

2. Not every television needs professional calibration; if it does, let's just call it a repair and be done with it.

Your points are well know by now, but little has been done to substantiate the position that a display does not "need" calibration. The "need" is defined by the user. And I would have to argue that adjusting a television is not the same as calibration. I adjust my set all of the time. During the day, I often adjust the backlight upward. If often adjust the motion control settings depending on the source, but calibrating the set every day would be unreasonable, and even a professionally calibrated set, as you have argued, will not necessarily be (near) perfect for all scenarios.

Dog, have you ever compared a calibrated display to a non-calibrated one? Even one calibrated by an amateur, or DIYer, like myself? Have you ever compared the picture on your display using input devices off two different makes, say a Sony vs a Panasonic BD player? You may very well find that what works for the Sony does not work so well for the Panny.

You point that it does not take an engineer (or even a professional) to calibrate a display is accurate (though I qualify by revealing that I do have an MSE, but I don't work in the field), but it does take the proper equipment, which is going to set you back as much as a professional calibration. It also takes a great deal of patience, trial and error, research (if you call reading the internet research). I have spent at least 12-15 hours in the dark with my PC, Eye-one D2, DVE and other sources trying to get my display as accurate as possible. It is not something that could have been done by eye, and it is not something that could be done using only the user menu of my display. I don't know very many people who are willing to take that kind of time performing monotonous tasks by themselves. Even those who are not wealthy may have better things to do with their time and find 300-400 dollars worth it.

Even though it does not take an engineer to perform this task, the degree of technical "savvy" it takes is in my opinion far higher than what the average or even the above average consumer possesses, especially most of those who can afford premium home entertainment electronics (people in the 40 and above age range). As a well-educated professional, I am very well acquainted with many other well-educated professionals, but they are not engineers. I have the near daily privilege of guiding hands to help people like myself transfer photos from digital cameras to PC's move files from workstations to servers, use software packages like Quicken or Excel, change default printers, etc. I had a business partner recently try to view a webcast sporting event on their television and despite making the proper connection could not get the picture to display on the television screen and in the act, deleted all of their home network settings (I don't know how) and had to spend the evening on the phone with their ISP getting every back. I seriously don't think this type of individual would even know what to do with the user menu in their television set. I do see, however, how they might be interested in an accurate picture and might be interested in spending 300 dollars a year in maintaining that picture.

Now, there are many who have no interest in an accurate picture. You see all kinds of posts from individuals who want their Blu-rays to look just like the display in the store. That is after all why they bought the HDTV and Blu-ray player, because they like that look. More power to them. They have every right to be happy with that. I just don't think they should argue that their picture is accurate or that we who are interested in accuracy are wasting our time or money.

I also don't think it's correct to go around saying that you will be looking at "crap" if you don't have your set calibrated. A few minutes in the user menu of many displays can result in a decent, albeit still inaccurate picture.

Sorry if I waxed.

[bhampton]

I got my first projector in 1999 and now I think the projector I have is my forth. I've always done my own calibration. It's fun,... I'm not going to let someone else have my fun for me.

I bought my own color meter but with a CRT Front Projector grey scale is just a tiny portion of the work that needs to be done to set it up right. All three primary colors have to have optical and electrical focus and geometry as well.

I enjoy it.... It's part of the fun for me so I wouldn't pay someone else to do it.

-Brian

[ControlCAL]

Originally Posted by ADRiiAN`

I would love to do an ISF, I have an LG HDTV, So I need to do an ISF-CCC?

As well, Anyone know any ISF pros in Ontario, Canada? (Preferrably the GTA area)

Here you go

CANADA
Michael Chen at The Laser Video Experience / Lion AV Affiliate - ISFccc [8G] [9G] [M] - Tours - Calgary & Edmonton and Central / Southern Alberta and the adjacent Provinces.
Michael Osadciw at The Highest Fidelity - ISFccc [8G] [9G] [M] - Serving Southern Ontario Canada, Stoney Creek based (Call 905-730-5996).
Richard Stokes at Finely Tuned - ISFccc [8G] [9G] [M] - Serving Vancouver BC Canada.
Mark Kaye at AVFusion - ISFccc [8G] [9G] [M] - Serving Eastern Ontario & Western Quebec.
Paul Thorsen at Experience Home Theatre - ISFccc [8G] [9G] [M] - Serving Vancouver lowermainland, Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island, Okanagan, Sunshine Coast and Whistler BC Canada.