Bestbuy offering TV ISF calibration.

[BradH]

I also remember an old Sony studio monitor that had photo cells looking at the back face of the CRT.

You mean like an internal light meter? Haven't heard that one but with studio tube monitors there's no telling. They were always the best for NTSC. For auto-calibration it seems you would always need a light meter on the face of the tube or screen. Automatically analyzing the various curves in a feedback loop could work I suppose but doing it in a factory would still be time consuming, a lot more time than they want to spend on an assembly line. Also, the faster the process went the less accurate it would be. I'm not sure how an internal light meter could work because it needs to be at the center of the display.

Don't I remember early color TVs with skin color problems (green or orange hues) then auto flesh tones were added, problem solved. Newer sets don't even seem to need the auto correction, stability has improved remarkably. Just apply the same thinking to grey scale.

That wasn't really an auto-correction, it was a permanent manufactured over-compensation. They were pushing the color temperature higher and higher because it looked brighter to consumers. That screwed up the grey scale and black & white movies looked like varying shades of blue. That's why a room looked blue when someone was watching television in the dark. You really notice when you pass by a house at night. This resulted in the green or orange skin tones you mentioned. Rather than correct the color temperature and lose the "whiter than white" mentality of bleach and dye companies, the manufactures "compensated" by designing color decorders shifted into the red so the skin tone problem would be less noticeable. This never stopped either, resulting in the infamous "Sony Red" problem. Lousy grey scale and incorrect color decoders are why NTSC has the reputation for Never Twice The Same Color compared to PAL and SEACAM. The reality is NTSC was arguably a better format than the other two but the manufacurers of consumer sets never followed the standard until the 90's with a couple of high-end models. The only other option was getting your hands on a pro monitor and those weren't cheap and certainly didn't qualify as "big screen". That's amazing when you think about it. The vast majority of viewers have never seen accurate NTSC.

You mentioned you thought color accuracy of the decoder was more noticeable than bad grey scale. Not to my eyes but fair enough. The thing is, you can't get accurate color under any circumstances if the grey scale is off. Also, one thing that's not commonly understood is accurate grey scale actually increases the number of colors the monitor is able to display. So I'm really big on monitors that allow you to adjust gamma and grey scale, it's like a godsend.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

You mean like an internal light meter? Haven't heard that one but with studio tube monitors there's no telling. They were always the best for NTSC. For auto-calibration it seems you would always need a light meter on the face of the tube or screen. Automatically analyzing the various curves in a feedback loop could work I suppose but doing it in a factory would still be time consuming, a lot more time than they want to spend on an assembly line. Also, the faster the process went the less accurate it would be. I'm not sure how an internal light meter could work because it needs to be at the center of the display.



That wasn't really an auto-correction, it was a permanent manufactured over-compensation. They were pushing the color temperature higher and higher because it looked brighter to consumers. That screwed up the grey scale and black & white movies looked like varying shades of blue. That's why a room looked blue when someone was watching television in the dark. You really notice when you pass by a house at night. This resulted in the green or orange skin tones you mentioned. Rather than correct the color temperature and lose the "whiter than white" mentality of bleach and dye companies, the manufactures "compensated" by designing color decorders shifted into the red so the skin tone problem would be less noticeable. This never stopped either, resulting in the infamous "Sony Red" problem. Lousy grey scale and incorrect color decoders are why NTSC has the reputation for Never Twice The Same Color compared to PAL and SEACAM. The reality is NTSC was arguably a better format than the other two but the manufacurers of consumer sets never followed the standard until the 90's with a couple of high-end models. The only other option was getting your hands on a pro monitor and those weren't cheap and certainly didn't qualify as "big screen". That's amazing when you think about it. The vast majority of viewers have never seen accurate NTSC.

You mentioned you thought color accuracy of the decoder was more noticeable than bad grey scale. Not to my eyes but fair enough. The thing is, you can't get accurate color under any circumstances if the grey scale is off. Also, one thing that's not commonly understood is accurate grey scale actually increases the number of colors the monitor is able to display. So I'm really big on monitors that allow you to adjust gamma and grey scale, it's like a godsend.

My name is Sir T, and I approve of this post.

[pixelthis]

[QUOTE=Sir Terrence the Terrible]My name is Sir T, and I approve of this post.

You approve???

HOW WONDERFULL

[pixelthis]

some folks ARE just a bit too full of themselves, it seems.
What makes you think anybody gives a rats ass as to what you approve of?
You must live in an auditorium because that is the only place you massive ego would fit.

[pixelthis]

BUT really tho, if this calibration is straightfoward and reletively
inexpensive it might fly, but there is no sense in paying for a 300
buck calibration with a 990$ set is there?

[BradH]

BUT really tho, if this calibration is straightfoward and reletively
inexpensive it might fly, but there is no sense in paying for a 300
buck calibration with a 990$ set is there?

Something like that is definitely a high price ratio and gets into personal choices. I guess it would depend on how closely that particular monitor was capable of accuracy. Some monitors will need it more than others. But you could go the DIY route with that guide I linked to. Just don’t assume for a second that manufacturers will have already done it for you. They have a long history of selling to viewers who didn’t care about quality or just didn’t know it could be any better. Even a consumer tube monitor that has no chance of meeting strict NTSC specs looks better if it’s adjusted as closely as possible. I used to leave the back off my old Sony and tweak it occasionally with the Joe Kane laserdisc, no light meter or anything. That alone made a hell of a difference but I only knew a couple of people who really cared about that level of video quality in the 90’s. Everybody liked looking at it but assumed their own sets couldn't be made better and just accepted what was sold to them out of the box.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

[QUOTE=pixelthis]

My name is Sir T, and I approve of this post.

You approve???

HOW WONDERFULL

Pixel, all this time on this website and your stupid old azz still cannot figure out how to do a quote correctly. Why don't you just note the mistletoe located directly above my coattails you dumb old fool.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

BUT really tho, if this calibration is straightfoward and reletively
inexpensive it might fly, but there is no sense in paying for a 300
buck calibration with a 990$ set is there?

Its not, and you wouldn't be interested no matter what the price. You just do not know what a calibrated television looks like, and calibration means nothing to you because you would just screw around with the brightness so you can watch your cheap set in bright sunlight. Plus if you get even your cheap-azz set calibrated, then you lose the my LCD puts out more light arguement. A properly calibrated set comes no where near its peak light level whether we speak of CRT's, LCD or Plasmas. But of course you wouldn't know that because you are anal retentive little twit who will just argue a point even though you are wrong as two left shoes on a man with just one right foot.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

some folks ARE just a bit too full of themselves, it seems.
What makes you think anybody gives a rats ass as to what you approve of?
You must live in an auditorium because that is the only place you massive ego would fit.

I agreed with what he said stupid. And who cares about your opinion of me. Who gives a rats ass what you think of me? I sure don't. And don't talk about anyone ego ass wipe, and auditorium can't even hold your false sense of an ego. Your ego is all air, with absolutely nothing behind, not even a brain cell.

[hermanv]

The need to calibrate using the screen center is true for CRT, much less so for LCD, Plasma or DLP. The calibration applies to the whole screen while it can be made brightness (level) dependent it is not position dependent.

As to automated test time, I disagree strongly with the opinion that it would take too long. At the factory you light up the whole screen with red then green and then blue you measure the light level for each color and calculate the required correction factor. This process would take about 1 second for all three colors per level. I suppose you'd want to do it at low, nominal and bright so about 3 seconds or less total test time.

I've designed a lot of automated test equipment and properly done it is amazingly quick. Testing every function on a high volume device like a cell phone takes about 7 seconds total.

[pixelthis]

Its not, and you wouldn't be interested no matter what the price. You just do not know what a calibrated television looks like, and calibration means nothing to you because you would just screw around with the brightness so you can watch your cheap set in bright sunlight. Plus if you get even your cheap-azz set calibrated, then you lose the my LCD puts out more light arguement. A properly calibrated set comes no where near its peak light level whether we speak of CRT's, LCD or Plasmas. But of course you wouldn't know that because you are anal retentive little twit who will just argue a point even though you are wrong as two left shoes on a man with just one right foot.

YOU either need to lay off of the crack OR the booze you ignorant ass.
I do know what a "calibrated" set looks like, and it is not far off from
just setting the controls .
In NTSC days we were just fooling ourselves, noi way that you could get anywhere a decent pic with NTSC, kinda like putting lipstick on a turd, which probably a good description of when you were dating,
you old fartbox.

[BradH]

This process would take about 1 second for all three colors per level. I suppose you'd want to do it at low, nominal and bright so about 3 seconds or less total test time.

That would be "quick & dirty", so to speak, but better than nothing. My main point is that most manufacturers aren't going to spend a dime or a second on it unless there's a wide demand for it and they can work it into their marketing plans, jacking the price up, etc. In other words, I don't disagree with your first post about being offended by the attitude of the manufacturers, they've been offensive for decades. If you're going to buy a set that can't be calibrated or you don't want it done then yeah, by all means, buy one that's close. Point taken. But it's not as if the two are mutually exclusive. Personally, I would rather see what the set is capable of for myself rather than rely on reviews. But then, I won't be dropping $400 to have it done either. Besides, I love doing it anyway.

[BradH]

HA! Speak of the devil. I was poking around AVS and stumbled across this:

"I was told by some folks at THX that they are working on this with a manufacturer to develop a THX Certified auto calibrating display. I would guess it might be Pioneer since they do attempt some nice things with their Elite line of products. I am pretty certain this could be done, but it will not be cheap to do well. It could easily add $1000 to the price. The other problem is that we are dealing with a system. Calibrating the display in a vacuum is not going to solve all of the problems.

Many sources have their challenges as well. For example, I was working with a Pioneer Elite plasma recently and the client had the ability to route video through his XBOX 360 over component or from the PC over VGA. The client assumed VGA was the way to go. After a simple demonstration it was obvious the 360 route was much better. These kinds of problems along with various settings in the video sources make display calibration alone less than optimal for many situations.

This same problem is faced by the auto calibrating receivers. They only have control over the receiver and even if they are perfect they cannot solve many issues that appear in audio systems. These things include all the settings on the subwoofer, speaker placement and room acoustics. Add to this the fact that most of these systems are highly flawed and you have a situation where consumers think they have a good setup because they used the automated system, but instead they have very poor performance."
__________________
W. Jeff Meier


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&#post10237051

[hermanv]

Yes, if manufacturers would publish the set-up access codes and you could rent a photometer, you could do it yourself. It's not really difficult for anyone even moderately good in electronics mostly the process is a bit tedious. (Perfect for those of us who agonize over tiny details).

I did do my old CRT rear projection by eye with the video essentials test disk. Far from perfect, but better than the factory (Toshiba in this case) left the set. I haven't done my new LED DLP set, it looks pretty good from the factory. It's possible that LEDs have a more predictable light output level with fewer unit to unit variations.

It certainly is easy to fall into the trap of always finding the lowest cost item, only rarely does this also represent best value. I never did buy a Ford Pinto.

[pixelthis]

Yes, if manufacturers would publish the set-up access codes and you could rent a photometer, you could do it yourself. It's not really difficult for anyone even moderately good in electronics mostly the process is a bit tedious. (Perfect for those of us who agonize over tiny details).

I did do my old CRT rear projection by eye with the video essentials test disk. Far from perfect, but better than the factory (Toshiba in this case) left the set. I haven't done my new LED DLP set, it looks pretty good from the factory. It's possible that LEDs have a more predictable light output level with fewer unit to unit variations.

It certainly is easy to fall into the trap of always finding the lowest cost item, only rarely does this also represent best value. I never did buy a Ford Pinto.

Of course the worst thing is buying a pinto for mercedes prices.
BTW , are the LED DLP sets any "brighter"?
I had heard so.

[StevenSurprenant]

ISF stand for Imaging Scienec Foundation whcih set the standard for TV calibration precedure. It will calibrate TV color to 6500k temperature which is the industry and studio stanadard for TV color temperature.

Cost is $299 which include:

Calibrate your TV to ISF standards by ISF-Certified Elite Service Specialists (Geek Squad)
Adjust the surround sound levels of the A/V receiver to ensure all the effect speakers are working optimally
Review and check the speaker system; verify that all speakers are properly positioned and working
Ensure that all wires and cables are neatly dressed, using wire ties as needed

I must admit that calibrating TV to ISF standard can make night and day difference in TV picture quality, but $299 sound kind of steep to me. I wonder how much they charge for TV calibration alone

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1190677437119

The Best Buy near me have two Panasonic Plasmas sets set side by side. One was calibrated and one wasn't. I went to see the improvement and was surprised, but not how you might imagine.

The colors of both sets were very close. However, I could see a little more detail on the one to the left. It looked like the contrast was set differently. It also looked washed out. The blacks were not as black as the one on the right. The one on the right looked more 3D. All in all, a much better picture. The surprise came when the sales rep told me that the one on the left was the calibrated one.

He insisted that in a dark room, the calibrated one would look better. I found that hard to believe since the blacks on the calibrated set was more gray than black. He could be right, I don't know for sure, but from what I saw, I would buy the one on the right.

One thing these calibrators try to do is to reduce power consumption and that is where the problem is, I think? I know that on my LCD, when I lower the brightness of the back light to it's lowest setting, the picture gets washed out too. I usually set the power to the middle and the picture looks great.

I've heard other people complain about their ISF adjusted sets and readjusted them back after the service guy leaves. I have also heard people say it's the greatest thing since apple pie.

Does anyone know why there is such a great disparity between opinions?

[pixelthis]

The Best Buy near me have two Panasonic Plasmas sets set side by side. One was calibrated and one wasn't. I went to see the improvement and was surprised, but not how you might imagine.

The colors of both sets were very close. However, I could see a little more detail on the one to the left. It looked like the contrast was set differently. It also looked washed out. The blacks were not as black as the one on the right. The one on the right looked more 3D. All in all, a much better picture. The surprise came when the sales rep told me that the one on the left was the calibrated one.

He insisted that in a dark room, the calibrated one would look better. I found that hard to believe since the blacks on the calibrated set was more gray than black. He could be right, I don't know for sure, but from what I saw, I would buy the one on the right.

One thing these calibrators try to do is to reduce power consumption and that is where the problem is, I think? I know that on my LCD, when I lower the brightness of the back light to it's lowest setting, the picture gets washed out too. I usually set the power to the middle and the picture looks great.

I've heard other people complain about their ISF adjusted sets and readjusted them back after the service guy leaves. I have also heard people say it's the greatest thing since apple pie.

Does anyone know why there is such a great disparity between opinions?

What you call "washed out" is probably more realistic.
I got some flack when, looking at a screen capture someone posted
of his new plasma, I said that the pic seemed a bit oversaturated.
He got irate , but most sets in the world have too much color.
I have the red on my current set at 40.
AND if you set looks "washed out" when the backlight is turned down,
you need to turn down the contrast, try halfway, maybe the brightness
a bit too.
one of the things I like about my new Vizio is that its the first set I have
ever bought with the contrast set at the proper level.
Means they are paying attention, I have gotten XBR SONY sets
with the contrast set to "torch" mode.
IN SPITE of what sir talky says, I do know something about
this stuff, and true a pic set by "eyeball" can never be as accurate
as a calibrated one, but with a lot of experience it can come closer than the sellers of calibration want you to think.
ALSO you might not like a properly calibrated set, some do prefer a little color boost, and the set a bit too bright for decent black level.
Nothing wrong with this, some like to mangle their music with SET tubes,
and amps that look like something out of a 1940 Sears catalog.
It just isnt very "accurate" is all.
Probably why some prefer the pic of a plasma set, being created by a
volatile gas its not going to be as "sharp" as an LCD.
Fuzziness to them translates to "filmlike".

[Duds]

More sewage from the spewage master.

go check out the testing sound and vision did between lcd and plasma....see who won

What you call "washed out" is probably more realistic.
I got some flack when, looking at a screen capture someone posted
of his new plasma, I said that the pic seemed a bit oversaturated.
He got irate , but most sets in the world have too much color.
I have the red on my current set at 40.
AND if you set looks "washed out" when the backlight is turned down,
you need to turn down the contrast, try halfway, maybe the brightness
a bit too.
one of the things I like about my new Vizio is that its the first set I have
ever bought with the contrast set at the proper level.
Means they are paying attention, I have gotten XBR SONY sets
with the contrast set to "torch" mode.
IN SPITE of what sir talky says, I do know something about
this stuff, and true a pic set by "eyeball" can never be as accurate
as a calibrated one, but with a lot of experience it can come closer than the sellers of calibration want you to think.
ALSO you might not like a properly calibrated set, some do prefer a little color boost, and the set a bit too bright for decent black level.
Nothing wrong with this, some like to mangle their music with SET tubes,
and amps that look like something out of a 1940 Sears catalog.
It just isnt very "accurate" is all.
Probably why some prefer the pic of a plasma set, being created by a
volatile gas its not going to be as "sharp" as an LCD.
Fuzziness to them translates to "filmlike".

[Woochifer]

The Best Buy near me have two Panasonic Plasmas sets set side by side. One was calibrated and one wasn't. I went to see the improvement and was surprised, but not how you might imagine.

The colors of both sets were very close. However, I could see a little more detail on the one to the left. It looked like the contrast was set differently. It also looked washed out. The blacks were not as black as the one on the right. The one on the right looked more 3D. All in all, a much better picture. The surprise came when the sales rep told me that the one on the left was the calibrated one.

He insisted that in a dark room, the calibrated one would look better. I found that hard to believe since the blacks on the calibrated set was more gray than black. He could be right, I don't know for sure, but from what I saw, I would buy the one on the right.

One thing these calibrators try to do is to reduce power consumption and that is where the problem is, I think? I know that on my LCD, when I lower the brightness of the back light to it's lowest setting, the picture gets washed out too. I usually set the power to the middle and the picture looks great.

I've heard other people complain about their ISF adjusted sets and readjusted them back after the service guy leaves. I have also heard people say it's the greatest thing since apple pie.

Does anyone know why there is such a great disparity between opinions?

If these sets were displayed on the brightly lit main floor, then anything using a higher brightness and picture level setting will look better. That's why TV manufacturers set the levels so high by default, so that they will stand out in that kind of uninviting environment. The sales rep was correct in indicating that in a darker room, the calibrated set would look better. You probably don't watch your TV at home in a room lit up with warehouse lights, so why evaluate a TV under those conditions?

ISF or not, judging by your post, I get the impression that you've never done any sort of calibration on your TV. I suggest you pick up a copy of Digital Video Essentials or Avia, and do your own initial calibration on the TV. This probably won't give you the exact reference levels, but it will get you very close. The calibrated levels are your baseline -- this is how your TV is supposed to look using the same reference levels that the studios mastering your DVDs and Blu-ray discs use.

Once you have your baseline, then you can tweak the levels to fit your preferences and specific room conditions (i.e., a calibrated setting does not assume that you have a bright room). Whether or not you go the ISF route, you really need to do some sort of reference calibration because the default settings on most TVs are way off. An initial calibration will get an end user as close to optimal picture quality as they can get by themselves, while the ISF calibration will handle any further refinements that are only possible by accessing the service menus and using more fine tuned equipment.

The first time I used a calibration disc, I was shocked at how much better the picture looked -- the default/torch settings on the TV way overshot the brightness and sharpness, and the colors and tint were also wrong. Once calibrated, I made some minor adjustments to suit my preferences, and pretty much left the settings alone (with occasional checkups to make sure that they did not deviate as the TV got older). Once you get used to a calibrated picture, you can't go back. The default settings that most TV manufacturers use will make the picture look fake, washed out, and overly bright by comparison. As much as I like my new Panny, the default settings and the "Standard" mode looked awful.

[pixelthis]

My new Vizio was the first set I HAVE BOUGHT IN 20 YEARS
that didnt have the contrast set to "torch" mode.
it was also the best looking pic outta the box.
JUst NEEDED TO ADUST the green temp a bit and that was it, and turn down the backlight, of course.

[StevenSurprenant]

Duds...

I really wasn't comparing LCD with Plasma. However, I did read the Sound and Vision article you suggested. I agree that the best Plasma is better than the best LCD that I've seen to date. Myself, I own an LCD for several reasons, lower power usage and lower heat output. If it wasn't for those two issues, I would own a Plasma, or at least a top of the line Plasma.

Woochifer...

Actually, I have two different calibration disks and have run both of them. They come with the color lens. What you might find interesting is that when they display the different color bars and I used the color lens to make two colors disappear, I could only do that with one of the colors. I assume that my sets needs calibration through the service menu, which I cannot do.

When I first got the set, I was using the Dynamic mode and then went to the Standard mode and finally settled on the Movie mode which has the best picture overall. So, I had the same results as you.

My TV also has 5 setting for power usage (back light), off, low med, high, and auto. I usually use low or medium. Off is too bright, low and med is good, High power saving cause the picture to looked washed out like the ISF adjusted Pannie I saw in the store. Auto looks about like the off setting.

I do realize that the LCD sets in the stores are set to Dynamic with the highest brightness setting. They certainly look good in the stores, but at home this setting is awful.

Back on track...

I wasn't comparing my TV with the Pannies in the store. I was more concerned with the ISF calibration differences of those two TV's.

I was considering ISF calibration for my TV, but I am gun shy about doing it since I've read posts by people who were less than happy with the results. As I said earlier, other posters were extremely pleased with the results, especially those with the old CRT rear projection TV's.

As for which type of TV is better, it all depends. Side by side with top of the line TV's I would say the best Plasma's are on top by a small margin. With dark pictures, the Plasma is hands down better. With bright pictures, I like the LCD. Everything in between is a toss up. There is no clear winner.

I think that the signal quality is of greater importance than the difference between TV's.

Disclaimer...

These opinions may change drastically at a moments notice.

[BradH]

I was considering ISF calibration for my TV, but I am gun shy about doing it since I've read posts by people who were less than happy with the results.

Most people like high contrast and bright screens in their homes. They've been doing it that way forever. It's flashy, it's an eye grabber, they paid for the set and naturally want to get their enjoyment out of it. But technically this is the video equivalent of a smiley face on equalizer. People who get used to listening in those conditions usually have a negative reaction with their first exposure to a well curved frequency response whether it was achieved with room treatment or electronically or whatever. They're not sure what the big deal is. It's usually recommended to view a calibrated monitor for at least a week before coming to a judgement. Once you get used to seeing detail in the blacks you miss it when it's disappeared into the black hole of a high contrast picture that seemed impressive before. But I'm not sure what you mean by "washed out" on the set you saw. There's always the possibility the salesman didn't know what he was talking about. (Shocking, I know.) There's also the possibility that an employee tweaked it to their heart's content after it was on the floor. Or it may in fact have been properly calibrated. Hopefully you saw it in one of their so called "dark rooms", what I call the Commission Cave. That's not optimum conditions but it's better than viewing it under the flourescents. There's an entire SMPTE white paper on viewing conditions and you can bet you won't see those conditions at Best Buy and probably not in the homes of customers who are dissatisfied with the results of calibration. If you have it done then give it a week under good viewing conditons because Wooch is right, once you get used to knowing what it looks like, nothing else will do. It's not like audio where you sometimes wonder what speakers were used during mixing and mastering. With video program mastering, there's an enormous amount of effort made to adhere to THE standard so that, with some effort, viewers can see what was intended.

[StevenSurprenant]

Most people like high contrast and bright screens in their homes. They've been doing it that way forever. It's flashy, it's an eye grabber, they paid for the set and naturally want to get their enjoyment out of it. But technically this is the video equivalent of a smiley face on equalizer. People who get used to listening in those conditions usually have a negative reaction with their first exposure to a well curved frequency response whether it was achieved with room treatment or electronically or whatever. They're not sure what the big deal is. It's usually recommended to view a calibrated monitor for at least a week before coming to a judgement. Once you get used to seeing detail in the blacks you miss it when it's disappeared into the black hole of a high contrast picture that seemed impressive before. But I'm not sure what you mean by "washed out" on the set you saw. There's always the possibility the salesman didn't know what he was talking about. (Shocking, I know.) There's also the possibility that an employee tweaked it to their heart's content after it was on the floor. Or it may in fact have been properly calibrated. Hopefully you saw it in one of their so called "dark rooms", what I call the Commission Cave. That's not optimum conditions but it's better than viewing it under the flourescents. There's an entire SMPTE white paper on viewing conditions and you can bet you won't see those conditions at Best Buy and probably not in the homes of customers who are dissatisfied with the results of calibration. If you have it done then give it a week under good viewing conditons because Wooch is right, once you get used to knowing what it looks like, nothing else will do. It's not like audio where you sometimes wonder what speakers were used during mixing and mastering. With video program mastering, there's an enormous amount of effort made to adhere to THE standard so that, with some effort, viewers can see what was intended.

What I mean by washed out is that on the ISF calibrated set, I didn't see any real blacks, only grays. The noncalibrated set looked more 3d. However, I could see slightly more detail on the calibrated set.

Anyway, I understand what you mean about the smiley face.

I haven't used an equalizer for audio since about 1975. Every time I have tried, the audio image looses detail and sounds unnatural. The only use I would have for an equalizer is to compensate for speaker and room irregularities. I had to laugh when you said, "you sometimes wonder what speakers were used during mixing and mastering." I'm glad that I'm not the only one that thought about that.

Perhaps you're right. I should give it a chance. I did it with audio and have been happy ever since.

[Duds]

I'm guessing it was a poor calibration.

What I mean by washed out is that on the ISF calibrated set, I didn't see any real blacks, only grays. The noncalibrated set looked more 3d. However, I could see slightly more detail on the calibrated set.

Anyway, I understand what you mean about the smiley face.

I haven't used an equalizer for audio since about 1975. Every time I have tried, the audio image looses detail and sounds unnatural. The only use I would have for an equalizer is to compensate for speaker and room irregularities. I had to laugh when you said, "you sometimes wonder what speakers were used during mixing and mastering." I'm glad that I'm not the only one that thought about that.

Perhaps you're right. I should give it a chance. I did it with audio and have been happy ever since.

[BradH]

Anyway, I understand what you mean about the smiley face. I haven't used an equalizer for audio since about 1975. Every time I have tried, the audio image looses detail and sounds unnatural.

A better example I could've used would be the Loudness button on old receivers.

I was reading a post somewhere from a Best Buy employee about how they set up two different models and "calibrated" them and compared them side by side in the store. I'm thinking, really? They broke out a colorimeter and did it right there? It's possible. But the word "calibrated" is used rather loosely imo. I'm guessing they used a test disc and eyeballed it. That's what we called a "color set up" back in the day. So, a salesman could say a set was calibrated and the gamma could still be off, having a major effect on black levels.