Oh Sage And Wise Woodman . . .

[Hairsonfire]

Thank you for all of your excellent advice from your well earned years of experience in this wonderful activity. With regards to calibrating a set with the AVIA disk (or Video Essentials, take your pick) I still find myself tweaking the picture settings as hardly all disks are uniform in the engineers intent. What are your thoughts on calibration? I have a Sony 57 HDTV - RPTV which I am on the whole, very satisfied with - especially with HDTV. However, I find that some DVD's tend to be a bit dark - even with my attention to creating the best environment for viewing, i.e. very dark room. How do you feel about ISF calibration? That's seems to be an awful lot of money ($500 last quote). Sincerely appreciate your thoughts on this.

[Slosh]

Not Woodman but . . .

If your TV is properly calibrated and a DVD looks dark, most likely it's supposed to look dark. Your TV has four or five user adjustable picture pre-sets. Keep one at the technically correct set-up and make another for dark movies if it bothers you that much. Simple, eh? :)

[woodman]

Thank you for all of your excellent advice from your well earned years of experience in this wonderful activity. With regards to calibrating a set with the AVIA disk (or Video Essentials, take your pick) I still find myself tweaking the picture settings as hardly all disks are uniform in the engineers intent. What are your thoughts on calibration? I have a Sony 57 HDTV - RPTV which I am on the whole, very satisfied with - especially with HDTV. However, I find that some DVD's tend to be a bit dark - even with my attention to creating the best environment for viewing, i.e. very dark room. How do you feel about ISF calibration? That's seems to be an awful lot of money ($500 last quote). Sincerely appreciate your thoughts on this.

Thank you for the kind words ... it's much appreciated.

In response to your questions:

1. With regards to calibrating a set with the AVIA disk (or Video Essentials, take your pick) I still find myself tweaking the picture settings as hardly all disks are uniform in the engineers intent. What are your thoughts on calibration?

"Calibration" with a disc such as Avia or Video Essentials is not merely a good idea, it should be mandatory for everyone that buys an RPTV.

2. I find that some DVD's tend to be a bit dark - even with my attention to creating the best environment for viewing, i.e. very dark room.

Slosh already gave you the best possible "solution" for your problem ... setup one pre-set for the correct settings with your "calibration disc", and setup another one with the brightness level increased a bit for the "too dark" movies on DVD. There is no better solution.

3. How do you feel about ISF calibration? That's seems to be an awful lot of money ($500 last quote). Sincerely appreciate your thoughts on this.

That's waaaaaay too much money for what benefit it would give you is what I think of it. IMO, that's something for video CONEs with more money in their pocket than common sense. In any event, an ISF calibration would do absolutely nothing to alleviate your problem with "too dark" movies.

[kfalls]

You don't say when you are viewing the movie. Part of an ISF calibration is calibrating your display device for day and night viewing, there is a difference. I just went through an ISF calibration class, strictly on my own as a video enthusiast and can tell you there is a definite value to having an ISF calibraion. I'm not currently performing calibrations for cash, so I have no vested interest in ISF. I do plan to eventually start a business for retirement calibrating high-end video gear, but only because I see a real value in the process for the end user.
You only need to look at the manufacturer's "standard" settings to see they are more interested in being brighter, more vivid and more flamboyant than the next TV in the store. Contrast is cranked up as well as brightness. Also, many display devices utilize some type of edge enhancement which adds "noise" to the image. You may see it as a "halo" or white or edges high-lighting portions in the image. ISF calibration not only improves the video quality, but also protects you HDTVRPTV/LCD/DLP... investment by prolonging the life of your display by properly adjusting contrast, brightness and sharpness. It reduces the possibility of LCD burn-in as well as protecting the phosphors(sp) in CRTs and RPTV.
If your happy with your present display, cool, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but if your brights look "bloated", your reds look overly saturated and you feel you're losing detail in your "darker" scenes, you're are a candidate for ISF calibration and will definitely see the benefit.
It can be expensive if your interested in calibrating every input, but if you primarily use an HDTV , standard TV and possibly a DVD input, it's not that expensive. It's important for the consumer to understand what they want and verbalize it to the technician.
Something I took away from the class is all manufacturer's crank the settings where nothing is set to standard, so unless you're purchasing a calibrated broadcast monitor, you will benefit from a professional calibration. You need only go to a major appliance center and look at hte TVs to know I'm right. It should be considered as important as cleaning the display, so that all the video information available is presented in its best state and not veiled by noise or improper settings.
If you're concerned about keeping the settings after calibration, it's important to understand an ISF calibrator is interested in making the dispaly perfect every time you watch, most often the calibrator will provide a "one button" solution for all your needs (a setting for day and night should be all you need). Once calibbrated all you should need is a tune-up after many hours of "blissful" watching since the phosphors dim over time. This is just my $.02, but it's an informed $.02.

[Hairsonfire]

Very kind of you to take the time to reply. I will look in to ISF Calibration and report back here.