Had my Panasonic TH58PX600U calibrated professionally...

[dufferdan]

And it looks awesome! I don't know what he did exactly. I prviosly had used an Avia disck to get it in the area, but post pro calibration, it was a world better.

I had a credit at the store I bought the TV from, so used that.

Highly recommend the process. Apparantly, according to the discussion he had with my wife, Panny's are given a lot of blue push out of the factory. I do know that watching the Vancouver/Dallas game last night on BEV HD was an awesome experience.

[hugh]

Congratulations! Many will discount the value of calibration but my experience has always been positive. Glad your enjoying your set.

BTW, for anyone bringing home a new Panasonic plasma, the first thing you should do is change the picture settings. There are three settings with Panny plasma's and the factory default is dynamic.

Change it to the second mode which I believe is called Cinema. This is the best picture you will get without going to the next step in calibration.

[Cap]

vivid, standard, cinema, are the three...they are all set to vivid at the factory...

[sgoodsell]

What's the typical cost of calibration?

[57]

That depends on the person doing it, their capabilities, their methods, inputs done, location, etc.

For example, some people do it themselves with a setup DVD - cost typically under $50.

I have a service where I do a user menu calibration as part of the overall setup of your home theatre for about $100. It's important from an overall HT experience that the other equipment is properly optimized (STB, DVD player, AV Receiver, etc), as well as your TV.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=40306

I believe that JohnnyG will do a TV calibration, which would be a service menu or ISF calibration for about $175 to $275, depending on the TV (for forum members).

A "full blown" ISF calibration would likely cost more than that and would depend on what you want done:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=17713

It'd be nice to know from dufferdan roughly what he paid (what the store credit was worth) and what was done (service menu? Various inputs? etc).

[dufferdan]

I'll let you know when I know. I know what my credit was, but I was quoted higher and the tech did not ask my wife for money ( :0 )

I also want to talk to the tech to see exactly what he did. I will pass on info when I know.

[dufferdan]

Chatted with the tech. It was done through the store I bought the TV from, and the tech is an employee of the store.

They came Monday afternoon. My wife helps them pull the component stack out of the closet. One guy looks at the other and then asks my wife "who did this?"
Wife says.."My husband, he's a bit of a geek"
Tech: "More guys like your husband out there and I'd be out of business"

On to the calibration. Details may be foggy as a lot of it I didn't understand.

He calibrated 3 items:

BEV 9200 PVR to HDMI 1
Pioneer Elite HDD/DVD PVR to component 2, 480i resolution
Denon 2200 DVD plyer to Component 1, 480P resolution

He brought his "equipment" and when calibrating, hooked it into the PVR via a separate input (can't recall which one, sorry) and calibrated the PVR to the TV directly by creating his own channel for the test bench

The Pio Elite PVR, plugged into Composite in on the front panel to set the output to 480i (matched the input signal from the cable input)

Since the DVD player did not have an aux in of any sort, he calibrated to the Video Essentials DVD.

He calibrated each TV input on the "Standard" setting after resetting factory defaults.

He calibrated the following (which may have some items missing, sorry)

Contrast
Brightness
RGB
Cuts
Drys
Separate colours (Red , Green, Blue)
Sharpness (set at 7 for my TV, btw)


Wife tells me he was there for about 2 or 3 hours.

His first question was "did you notice a difference"

"yep, I did. Wife, not so much, but I certainly did"

As I said, I haven't seen the bill yet, but if anyone wants to PM me, I am happy to pimp the store I got everything at.

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Typical "ISF" calibration of a plasma set starts from a US recommended price of $250. So in Canada ... figure it is $300 ish. Additional grayscales usually cost extra ... and to the tune of $125 per additional.

So if a person wanted both his DVD and his HD cable optimized ... it would be $300+$125 = $425

Pricing is variable and can fluctuate depending on the calibrator in question and how every one gets along. Some will throw in the extras ... for much less or even free ...

Regards

[DavidY]

Michael_TLV,

When should a LCD or plasma be calibrated? Does the typical 100-150 hour guideline still apply?

Dave

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

The biggest concern over calibration by a professional ... is to get it done after you know for certain that the TV is not a DOG ...

Best to let the TV break in for a month or so and then go the pro route if that is what you want.

However ...!!! If you just want to calibrate with a test disc yourself ... then do it immediately when the set is new ... and then repeat as required.

(When it comes to plasma sets, I have calibrated some literally minutes out of the box ... and then returned 6 months later to find virtually no change to the settings.)

Regards

[dufferdan]

As mentioned, I used Avia to do it out of the box, but obviously was wayyy off in comparison to the instruments used. Frankly, the calibration had the effect of giving the picture more pop and vibrance, and more realistic (not pop and vibrance as per the Vivid setting, where blues were way overblown).

Your pricing is right on the money. He calibrated 1 HDMI, and two component inputs via the gear itself, so the gear was matched to the TV.

[JohnnyG]

Yup, an AVIA etc. calibration simply cannot compare to a professional calibration. I've been painting our house lately, so a reasonable analogy would be painting a light colour over a dark colour - the dark colour will alter the appearance of the light colour. Lay down a coat of primer first and the paint's true colour will now show.

Also, if the previous paint was a gloss finish, sand first