What do you use to calibrate your TV set?

[kexodusc]

I'm just curious if you folks have gone the extra step of buying/renting a Home Theater setup disc like Avia, DVE, S&V, or if you just sort of "eyeball" it.
Maybe you don't see a need to set it, and think the factory settings must be best?

I have Avia and DVE, I think I like DVE just a bit better for the total package (and price), but their so close it's not a big deal.

This has traditionally been more of an "audio" site than video. Until my wife bought me a 51" HDTV last year, I never really cared about the video side of HT. 32" TV's with factory settings were good enough for me. Just wondering if anyone else is like that too?

[GMichael]

cal-i-brate? huh? These things need calibration?

The Sony I have, has several pre-set settings. Movie, normal and another I don't recall right now. I just went through them till I found the one I liked.

I will look into real calibration when I get my projector.

[L.J.]

I have a copy of DVE. I've played around with it, and got my JVC calibrated to the best of my ability. I'm waiting on the Spyder to see if it makes a diff or not.

[drseid]

Other... Professional ISF calibration.

---Dave

[ericl]

I'd like to get a pro isf guy in here, but i am too cheap to pay for it. maybe i can get the company to pay, then write an article...

[kexodusc]

Other... Professional ISF calibration.

---Dave
I have an opportunity to get an ISF calibration done for pretty cheap (build a set of inexpensive speakers ). I'm a bit hesitant to go this route because the only 2 ISF calibrated sets I've seen didn't really make a huge difference over the manual adjustments the users made. The sets looked great, but they looked great prior, too.
Did you find a big difference? Did you use a calibration disc before hand?

[drseid]

I have an opportunity to get an ISF calibration done for pretty cheap (build a set of inexpensive speakers ). I'm a bit hesitant to go this route because the only 2 ISF calibrated sets I've seen didn't really make a huge difference over the manual adjustments the users made. The sets looked great, but they looked great prior, too.
Did you find a big difference? Did you use a calibration disc before hand?
I had the set ISF calibrated shortly after I bought it, but did quickly manually callibrate it using Video Essentials first...

As for a big difference between the professional calibration and manually adjusting things using VE, I noticed a difference, but I would not call it major... I think it is a good idea if you are looking to extract that last 5% of performance from the set, but otherwise the $500 investment is a bit steep, IMO. I am not sure whether I would do it again if I had the opportunity.

---Dave

[kexodusc]

Thanks for you honesty, Dave.

Here they charge $320 canadian, maybe $280US or so. I seem to recall it was a lot more when I lived in Bangor, ME. The only thing visibly off on my set is the grayscale...just a tad, and because of that my greens aren't quite perfect. I've done a lot of the geometry and color adjustments myself already with a lot of help from some web forums. A bit beyond what DVE and Avia show. I'm sure my set isn't at 6500 degrees perfect, but oh well.

I told on some DLP and plasma sets it's almost a must.

[evil__betty]

I've come so close to buying one of those set up discs, but I always cheap out in the end. I just use the THX optimizer and it does a better job than me eye-balling it. Right now, I really don't care too much as I only have a 27" Sharp (CRT). But once I take the plunge and get the plasma I'm eyeing up, I think I will even consider bringing someone in to ISF it for me. I know someone in the ultra high end home automation business who might be able to hook me up for cheap. We'll see.

[MikeyBC]

if you have a video out on a computer you can use Everest Ultimate, this program works great, theres a lot of tests in the monitor diagnostics section.

[Woochifer]

A little late to the game (I thought this was an old topic that got bumped, but obviously I was mistaken!) ...

I bought the calibration disc initially for the audio tests, but I found that the biggest improvement was on the video side.

For my current 32" analog TV setup (as well as for the audio side), I've been going back to the Sound & Vision setup disc. It's the simplest one to use, and with the limited controls available on my TV, the extra color filters included with the Digital Video Essentials DVD aren't really put to good use. For one thing, the adjustments on my TV cannot optimize for all three color tests -- anytime I optimize the setting with one color test, it throws off the others. The S&V disc uses only the single blue filter tests, which are a lot easier to balance out.

When I calibrated my TV the first time around, the tests really pointed out how out of whack the factory settings were. The sharpness and brightness were set way too high, the color levels were very low, and the hue was off. And that seems to be common with the TVs that I see in stores.

However, when I start shopping for a HDTV, I do plan on bringing both the S&V and DVE discs with me to see for myself how well I can calibrate the TV using just the user-adjustable controls. From what I've been reading, that factor might sway me more towards the Pioneer Elite models because they include an "ISF" calibration mode as well as independent color level settings for each primary group. The regular Pioneer models have a more rudimentary set of adjustments available, as does my parents' LG plasma. With the cost of an ISF calibration and the fact that tinkering with the service menus can void the warranty, how well I can calibrate a TV with a simple DVD such as DVE will definitely be a consideration.

On other forums, I've read that the need for an ISF calibration will vary a lot between TVs. Some manufacturers' user-accessible controls can set the display close to reference levels, whereas others pretty much need service menu adjustments to bring the picture reasonably close to reference.

[tdst]

Wooch,

Just to let you know, I had a real nice Zenith 42" plasma that I dialed in with DVE, and it really did a great job. Alas, my "real nice" Zenith took a dump, and they replaced it with a refurbished LG 42" plasma that looked like sh!t! Once again, I dug out the DVE, and after fine-tuning, got it too look about as good as a refurbished set can look. Now you've got to realize, I'm no audio or video phile, but my point is, it was fairly easy to use for a layman, unless you wanted to get real technical, and it can do that too. And one other note- I called LG and told them to come get their piece of crap TV, and they're going to send out another model which is supposed to be much better, but I still bet I get some kind of refurbished thing... I've also been told plasma TVs are one of the few rare things where an extended warranty may be worth the money...