Hi! I'm the author of the guide and the webmaster/forum admin of curtpalme.com. Glad you like the guide! I would ask however that it not be copied or published elsewhere in any form. Instead, I ask that anyone wishing to share the guide simply link to our page. This ensures that everyone has the most up to date version as well as it is constantly tweaked to make it better Kal
I have a w series sony 52" lcd tv and would this really improve the quality of picture. I am floored at the picture now esp with certain blu-ray titles and certain hd broadcasts. Roy
Roy, I'll improve the picture on any display. Most people that see the before and after never realized how off their display was to begin with. Everyone loves their display until they learn more about how incorrect it actually is. There are companies and indivuduals that do nothing but do greyscale and colour calibration for a living because of this. Kal
Kal, I have looked into the isf technicians to come and calibrate my tv but when I saw the price i was amazed. 1200 for each of my hdtv's. How easy is it to use the software and actually do this. how much time do you think it would take for the first timer. Roy
Personally I find it very easy to do. Start reading the guide and decide for yourself. If you're able to follow the instructions you'll be fine. What'll take you the longest is reading the guide. If you just do what you're supposed to, it's about an hours worth of work. Kal
I am actually going to buy the items off amazon today. I will let you know how it turns out. but I do have one last question. I am doing this because I am trying to get the most out of purchases and I want the best output possible. How does this method compare to what as ISF tech does or is this exactly what he does. Roy
As far as greyscale and colour calibration goes, this is exactly what an ISF tech *should* be doing. I say should because being "ISF certified" doesn't necessarily mean you know what you're doing or will do these sorts of calibrations. Many will not even venture into the advanced colour management adjustments as they're very display specific. At the very least they should be setting brightness, contrast, and greyscale properly as per my guide. The problem is that anyone can pay the $$ to take the ISF course. That's pretty much all that being "ISF certified" means. It doesn't mean you're any good at what you do or even know how to calibrate properly. You paid for a course. You don't need to pass a difficult test (it's in their best interest that as many people be "ISF certified" as possible), you don't need to re-certify after X years, you don't even have to use "ISF certified" equipment. Seeing the words "ISF certified" after someone's name doesn't mean they know what they're doing or have the proper equipment. Long story short: The term "ISF certified" is pretty meaningless. Experience means everything, the title means nothing. There are ISF certified techs who are next to useless. There are non-ISF certified techs who are excellent. There are of course ISF certified techs who are excellent too. Depending on the display, a good calibrator may also do other work too. For example, for rear projection setups they will often clean the mirror and the optics, move the lenses closer for less overscan, disable SVM, and so on. All this takes time so it costs money. If you get a quote from an calibrator, make sure it includes an itemized list of exactly what it all means. And very important: Make sure you ask what each of the items means. If they don't want to explain it to you, walk away. The other thing is that today most displays are digital which use bulbs. These bulbs shift in colour temperature over short periods of time meaning that recalibration (or at least a quick tweak) is required from time to time. Nobody wants to pay someone to come out every 6 or 12 months to do this. People may get the impression that I don't like calibrators. Quite the opposite: I have far too much respect for the GOOD ones so I want to show the layperson how much work is involved. There are far too many bad calibrators out there taking money simply because they got "ISF certified". They do a poor job and do a disservice to the excellent calibrators out there. Kal
I can tell by your setup you really LOVE the audio/video. I was into car audio but now switched to home theater. With having 3 kids and todays economy its hard to "play" with other necessities first. But thanks very much.
With 2 (young) kids myself, HT is about the only hobby I have any time for myself as well as I do it late at night when the rest are in bed! Kal
sorry but i have one last question. I have a couple people that want me to do this for them as well as myself. one person just has a dvd player so if I was to buy the dvd disc that your guide talks about ( not the blu ray one ) is everything in the guide. and my brother wants me to do it for him but he has a projection. how do I set up the colorimeter for that. I see in the guide it only talks about rear projection, lcd, and plasma where the colorimeter hangs off of it or using the tripod about 3-4 inches away. I am asking this because those tvs the projected image comes from behind the tv and the other is in front. If I use the colorimeter and place it in front of the screen with a tripod wont that cast a shadow and just get the natural color of the white screen. Roy
Roy, You have gotten into the realm of requirements and procedures for specific tvs. I myself was hoping for the same informaton but this instrtuction is for general instruction procedures, though all-be-it a quite throughall instrtuction. I think you are asking for specific instructios for specific tvs. It's like me wanting specific instrtuctions for calibrating a Sharp LC-52D64U(I'm hoping!)
Yup. Everything's in there. You may have to hunt for the test patterns however as the steps to find the test patterns that I list are for the DVE: HD Basics (Blu-ray or HD DVD) versions. Easy enough however as you'll know what you're looking for and I have pictures of what to look for. Read the section on sensor placement for front projector setups again. Long story short: If he's ceiling mounted, place the sensor below the center and point it slightly upwards. When you then adjust it for maximum light output (steps 1.12 - 1.14) you won't be seeing the shadow as that wouldn't result in the maximum light output FWIW, you'll likely never see a guide with this much detail for one *specific* model of TV. Doing so would be insane given that there are litterally 1000's of models out there with hundreds of new ones added every year. To make this guide work with any display you simply need to figure out where a couple of controls are for your specific display. Everything else is the same. Kal
