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edtyct
11-24-2005, 08:51 AM
Okay, it's holiday time, and your significant others may be asking what you'd like for Christmas. The subject of video calibration has come up a number of times on this board, and disks like DVE, AVIA, and S&V usually pepper the responses--rightly so. But these disks, helpful as they undeniably are, rely on two imperfect instruments (besides the TV), your eyes (I should know; my eyes are extraordinarily imperfect instruments). Anybody who's had to toggle endlessly between the contrast and brightness settings on their TV to get black and white to cooperate, between color and tint (color filters in hand) to balance RGB, and between various test screens to determine overscan, resolution, and sharpness knows how trying the process can be.

Colorvision's Spyder TV purports to take all of the squinting and guesswork out of amateur calibration. Armed with a suitable laptop PC, test software supplied by the company, information entered by the consumer about TV type/controls, and a colorimeter that attaches to the center of the TV screen via a PC's USB connection (it looks like a spider), the apparatus assesses gray scale and color temperature to provide the optimal settings on the user menu. Though it falls short of a professional service-menu calibration with an expensive color analyzer by some unknown degree, Spyder TV's results, based on mathematical precision and an accurate database, stand to reduce the margin of error considerably.

The question is whether you want to drop $200 to try it out. I can imagine that some people who like the idea of calibration but hate the prospect of twiddling knobs and trying to follow the likes of Joe Kane as he explains video nirvana on DVD might pony up. A lot of other people might find the gadgetry fun, convenient, and informative enough to buy at that price, especially since re-calibration should be done as often as desired but at least every few months. Eventually, Spyder TV calibration will become quicker and easier than the manual labor of the DVD variety.

Anyone interested can do a google on it for more detail.

AVMASTER
11-25-2005, 09:55 AM
We had contacted them during the summer about possibly being a retailer for the spyder;They were suppose to ship us a demo unit but that has yet to happen. I think its' a great alternative to the calibration discs and far more cost effective than ISF but until I have one in the shop--------I'd be very curious to hear from anyone that owes one

Smokey
11-25-2005, 10:17 AM
We had contacted them during the summer about possibly being a retailer for the spyder;They were suppose to ship us a demo unit but that has yet to happen. I think its' a great alternative to the calibration discs and far more cost effective than ISF but until I have one in the shop--------I'd be very curious to hear from anyone that owes one

If Spyder can bring TV color temperature to true 6500k professional monitor, it might be worth it as most TV's color temperature on the market today are way off.

edtyct
11-25-2005, 10:17 AM
AVMASTER,

I'm going to try and score one. One nice thing about it is that it allows a comparison between a TV's prior state and its own results. So anyone who has already calibrated with DVE or AVIA should be able to get a confirmation, or disconfirmation, of the improvement (if any), using those two imperfect instruments already discussed.

Ed

edtyct
11-25-2005, 10:20 AM
Smokey,

I doubt that it can do that. I think that Spyder has to be regarded at best as a putatively more precise way of doing the kind of calibration that DVE and AVIA permit. Spyder doesn't go any deeper than the user controls.

Ed

Smokey
11-25-2005, 10:29 AM
Smokey,

I doubt that it can do that. I think that Spyder has to be regarded at best as a putatively more precise way of doing the kind of calibration that DVE and AVIA permit. Spyder doesn't go any deeper than the user controls.

Hmmmm....So if one have access to TV"s service menu, the Spyder won't tell him if color temperature is correct or not?

Achieving true 6500k is extremely hard by eye alone.

edtyct
11-25-2005, 10:52 AM
I believe that the database of Spyder's colorimeter is restricted to what mfgrs will allow consumers in general to see; they will not provide free access to their inner sanctum. Professional calibrators not only use service menus but also very expensive color analyzers to achieve an accurate grey scale. Spyder TV isn't at that level. The closer any TV is to D65, however, the closer will be Spyder TV's calibration to professional standards, if it works as claimed. Although you wouldn't know your set's color temperature by eye, published reviews of your set, or one in the same line, can provide that information.

Off the top, if Spyder has done its homework, I don't see why it can't succeed. Assuming that it does, nothing else short of an expert technical calibration would be better, or safer. A person could always obtain a service menu, a little help with the codes, and a relatively inexpensive comparator, and try to go deeper. But I wouldn't recommend it.

Smokey
11-25-2005, 11:05 AM
A person could always obtain a service menu, a little help with the codes, and a relatively inexpensive comparator, and try to go deeper. But I wouldn't recommend it.

Not to mention that going that route [without proper equipments] is extremely tedious work also. I accessed my TV's service menu to get rid of too much red push and have black and white picture show gray shade, and it took almost a month of tweaking to get it somewhat right.

But as you said, accessing service menu is not for everybody.

edtyct
11-25-2005, 11:12 AM
Smokey,

And don't forget that the red push is inflicted on the set in the first place to compensate for the fact that red, green, and blue are out whack enough to damage flesh tones, usually to make a set look brighter. Reigning in the red push alone won't bring the other colors into line, unless you happen to be lucky.

Ed

Smokey
11-25-2005, 11:25 AM
Smokey,

And don't forget that the red push is inflicted on the set in the first place to compensate for the fact that red, green, and blue are out whack enough to damage flesh tones, usually to make a set look brighter.

That is very true. And the Color temperature selections most TVs offer in their On Screen user menu is in every case useless. They either make picture too red, blue or some color we haven't seen before :rolleyes: