ISF HDTV Calibration Discussion (Who, Where, Why, How)

[Yaamon]

Here is the grey scale graph after Michael did his work.


Not bad tracking considering that you only have drive adjustments. Still within 200k of 6500k. Most of the temp within 120k.

Here is the color tracking. The Blue and red color was way off.

[Al58]

Interesting... Let us know if you can notice a marked improvement with certain types of viewing.

I'm still on the fence and JVC has no stock but want a 61FH96 anyways, but was thinking when I do get mine I was gonna ask Michael about calibration since he is Calgary based.

Is the calibration affected if you unplug and move the TV? My initial plan is to put a set in my living room then move it downstairs when my basement is renovated.

Thanks,

[Yaamon]

No the changes in the service menu settings are stored in the tv even if you lose power.

Once you unplug the tv you will lose the settings of color tint, picture etc so my advise is that you write down these values. Those vales will be part of the calibration.

Tonight I will watch the tv and see if the results is what I like.

First impression is that the picture is not as bright as what Iam used to. Picture even in theater pro mode normally at 0 is set close to -20.

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Of course Yaamon knows exactly why the picture is not as bright as before.

At 0 ... or detente ... there is severe white crush of the image and extreme discoloration in the whites.

Bright and orange pink whites ... ick .... and bright and no detail in the bright stuff because it is all crushed out.

Taking contrast to -20 to -25 was necessary to remove the discoloration.

Just too bad the contrast is like that ...

Hardly too dim though ... merely not as bright as before. And bright does not necessarily mean better ...

Regards

[7FC]

I am interested in the settings he made.?? Would U like to share??

[zoomzoum]

Michael,

I understand how calibration will make a difference. My question is why do the manufacturers ship the product so far off the proper settings in the first place.

I would understand if calibration was needed to optimize the settings but in the comparisson chart above the B/W and Blue are so off that it's like they haven't even tried.

I also realize that every room will require certain adjustments but wouldn't it be better if the default setting would be more in line with the optimum setting?

Can a consumer request from the manufacturer that the TV be calibrated within certain acceptable industry standards? (Are there any?).

It's almost as if the default settings will prematurely damage the TV.

I was just wondering!

Thanks
Alan

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Ponder the statement ... "The marketing of a TV set has nothing to do with presenting accurate images." It has everything to do with selling more TV's.

If your market research team tells you that people will buy more TV's if you make the pictures green ... fill in the blank.

And that is how TV's are sold. A properly set up TV on a showroom floor is the only TV that looks wrong ... and won't sell.

Improper settings on the JVC and other similar digital settings cannot prematurely damage the TV ... only damage the image you see. The light bulb is still on and does not change in intensity whether you run with low contrast or high.

Regards

[zoomzoum]

Thanks for the reply Micheal

So much for having the consumers best interest at heart!

Regards
Alan

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

Oddly, they do have the consumers interest at heart here. The decisions to screw up images are based on tests with focus groups that represent the average joe.

If the groups say they like green images... then we get green images.

In our case ... they like blue images ... so make it so.

Hey ... 2+2 = 12 ... if we can make it 16 ...that would be better since 16 is much bigger than 12.

Regards

[grider]

Originally Posted by Michael TLV

Greetings

Oddly, they do have the consumers interest at heart here. The decisions to screw up images are based on tests with focus groups that represent the average joe.

If the groups say they like green images... then we get green images.

In our case ... they like blue images ... so make it so.

Hey ... 2+2 = 12 ... if we can make it 16 ...that would be better since 16 is much bigger than 12.

Regards

I don't agree. The main objective of manufacturers is to sell TV's. They configure thier TV's to "shout" louder than the others... They're usually set way brighter than they should be and in your face colour.

They wisely seek consumer input on how to achieve this, but don't mistake this for having "consumers best interest" at heart.

[Al58]

A question comes to mind that if TV Mfgs. do focus group studys and determine what is most popular settings, then sets up TV's accordingly......why bother to calibrate them??

Is it not kind of like setting up my car with all kinds of high performance accessories to get more horsepower because that is what the public wants is more performance..........then somebody coming along and removing all the changes???

[57]

Originally Posted by Al58

A question comes to mind that if TV Mfgs. do focus group studys and determine what is most popular settings, then sets up TV's accordingly......why bother to calibrate them??

Because those settings are for the incorrect environment - typically a brightly lit big-box store, using fluorescent lights.

The home environment is completely different and long term viewing is totally different from the "gee that looks vivid" purchasing that many people do.

Also, what the "masses" like is not what is "accurate".

Just because opinion polls say a certain product is "popular", it doesn't mean that is what YOU want.

[Yaamon]

Al another way to look at it is say your example with cars.

You modify a car it makes lots of pwer on the top end. Take the same car and modify it so that there is less HP on the top end power, but lots more torque in the midrange and lower end.

If you were to ask the average Joedo which car feels better he will prefer the lower hp car that has more torque than one that has more power and lower torque. This is what most car manufactures do. To a car manufacture the average guy drives normally and will rarely rev his car to redline.

I know a little about cars torque and hp. Here is a dyno of my car a few years ago with more work done after that My var has both flat torque and a bit more hp.


Same for a tv a proper calibrated tv will look like crap in a showroom. Compared to others it will not be as bright and the contrast will be lower. So the picture does not jump out and bite you.

It would be very nice if the manufactures would have a video setting that gives a true or very close to the 6500k color temp with the correct brightness and contrast settings. The Jvc theater pro is not bad much closer than any of the other settings but still if I remember on average to 7500'k with bias towards some colors.

[Al58]

That thing got a HEMI!!!.............SWEET!!

Thanks for the analogy, I'll probably look into having calibriation done when I finally decide what I'm getting.

[Mik]

I also had my JVC 61-FH96 calibrated. Michael TLV Chen did it...only took about an hour. He also found one stuck pixel! Arrgh!
Funny thing too...on my Denon 3910 DVD, we found that sending 720p over HDMI resulted in a slightly cleaner picture (smoother) than sending 1080i over HDMI. Interesting.
Anyway, I did notice the big difference that something as simple as reducing the contrast can make to improving the detail in a picture. My picture is better than it was before (and I really loved it before). And the brightness is still very fine indeed.
The After Calibration results looks spot on. He did concur that JVC doesn't allow us to fully tweak all the picture elements re: the color decoder and any "push" or "pull" of colours. I notice, for example, that anything green in the picture tended to be really over-accentuated. Alot of that has been resolved after calibration, but I suppose other brands of TV incl. Sony have Service Menu options to really tweak that finely.

Michael also leaves behind a neat "demo" disc, used to highlight some of the TV's features. Cool.

MM

PS I tried including the graphics in this post but these crude editors don't allow cutting-and-pasting of direct JPGs..so email me if you want to see the results.
Thx