Got my TV Professionally Calibrated. WOW!

[Tygerwoody]

I can't even put into to words how CLEAR and PERFECT the picture is now. It was good before. Hell even GREAT before. I Calibrated the TV myself from reading a few manuals and I thought it turned out awesome. Boy was I wrong. I am not trying to brag at all(ok well maybe a little), but I have never seen a TV as crisp and clear as mine now. The guy who calibrated my TV does AMAZING work(he has 10+ years experience and owns the company that serviced my TV).

To anyone thinking about paying someone to professionally calibrate your TV, DO IT. The difference is AMAZING!

BTW, I own a RPTV CRT. I would take pictures, but its really hard to take pictures of CRT televisions so it won't come out right. And for the record, my TV is "only" 720p/1080i. 1080peee can shove it. I'll put my TV against damn near any TV on the market now(that hasn't been calibrated. :D).

No evilchris. Not against your TV. Thats why I said "damn near". I'm so happy :D

[Revs]

Didn't even know that could be done. Can it be done on all TV's? Mine's a 32" standard res. Toshiba flat screen CRT. Looks fine but there's always room improvement :D

[Tygerwoody]

Didn't even know that could be done. Can it be done on all TV's? Mine's a 32" standard res. Toshiba flat screen CRT. Looks fine but there's always room improvement :D
I wouldn't bother with a standard res TV. Its a $200-$400 job to calibrate a TV.

I know that may sound expensive, I thought it was too. However I have to say its worth it. I may try to take a picture of my TV, but no promises as CRT's again are hard to take pictures of due to refresh.

[evilchris]

Cal FTMFW! Grats!

[Revs]

I wouldn't bother with a standard res TV. Its a $200-$400 job to calibrate a TV.

:eek:

I know that may sound expensive, I thought it was too. However I have to say its worth it. I may try to take a picture of my TV, but no promises as CRT's again are hard to take pictures of due to refresh.

Is OK TW, I beleive you :D Sounds good!

[evilchris]

Did you get audio done too?

[Tygerwoody]

Did you get audio done too?
No.

Right now I don't even have a surround sound setup for my TV. I have never heard a great audio setup for a TV, so I don't know what it sounds like. Everyone I know with a home theater setup has it sounding like garbage. I'm a complete audio noob. Maybe if I heard a good audio setup I would become entranced by it and do it myself. However, thats never happened.


Just TV speakers. Yea i know...

[shabby]

Hmm i think i might have to do the same thing. I have a sony 60" sxrd, while 1080p stuff looks good, i was just at best buy and saw an lcd running 1080p and couldnt believe how crystal clear and sharp it was. Mine looks like it has a blur filter running.

[evilchris]

Hmm i think i might have to do the same thing. I have a sony 60" sxrd, while 1080p stuff looks good, i was just at best buy and saw an lcd running 1080p and couldnt believe how crystal clear and sharp it was. Mine looks like it has a blur filter running.
HD should have NO "enhancements" running. No Edge Enhancer, DRC Pallete, etrc etc tec etc. best Buy also had the thing on Torch mode which is bright and looks "OMGGMGG LOOK!!!" but once you watch it awhile you get tired of orange people.

[npras42]

HD should have NO "enhancements" running. No Edge Enhancer, DRC Pallete, etrc etc tec etc. best Buy also had the thing on Torch mode which is bright and looks "OMGGMGG LOOK!!!" but once you watch it awhile you get tired of orange people.

Agreed 100%. Switch absolutely everything off, it only adds noise and "Wow/Bling-factor!". Its ridiculous to think about it now considering the picture settings I use but when I got both my Sony HDTVs they came out of the box in Vivid mode. It looked absolutely ridiculous, everyone looking like some sort of oompa-lumpa after a few trips to the tanning salon...

[Tygerwoody]

HD should have NO "enhancements" running. No Edge Enhancer, DRC Pallete, etrc etc tec etc. best Buy also had the thing on Torch mode which is bright and looks "OMGGMGG LOOK!!!" but once you watch it awhile you get tired of orange people.
I have sharpness set to 50%. Would that be considered an "enhancement"? I think it looks wonderful at 50%. However, any higher than that and you start to see grain.

I really need to find my camera....

[bacon12]

I think I need to get professionally calibrated. :naughty:

[Rakeesh]

I think I need to get professionally calibrated. :naughty:

Just remember that if you pay less than $60 you'll probably get more than you bargained for. ;)

[npras42]

I have sharpness set to 50%. Would that be considered an "enhancement"? I think it looks wonderful at 50%. However, any higher than that and you start to see grain.

I really need to find my camera....

I think it depends on what TV you're using. When viewing HD content shouldn't sharpness be set to zero because anything above this is adding artificial sharpness to a 1:1 pixel image? It certainly is that way on an LCD.

[Tygerwoody]

I think it depends on what TV you're using. When viewing HD content shouldn't sharpness be set to zero because anything above this is adding artificial sharpness to a 1:1 pixel image? It certainly is that way on an LCD.
CRT

[npras42]

CRT

Yeah, sorry, you say that like a few times in your first post... I wouldn't have thought my advice would really be correct in your case.

[Ruined]

I think it depends on what TV you're using. When viewing HD content shouldn't sharpness be set to zero because anything above this is adding artificial sharpness to a 1:1 pixel image? It certainly is that way on an LCD.

FYI for Sony TVs zero sharpness is actually around 35. Below 35 and it artificially blurs the picture, above it and it artificially edge enhances it.

[npras42]

FYI for Sony TVs zero sharpness is actually around 35. Below 35 and it artificially blurs the picture, above it and it artificially edge enhances it.

lol. Considering the sharpnes on my TV goes from 0 to 20 there is something amiss there.

EDIT: 0 to 30 sorry, I just checked.

[Ruined]

lol. Considering the sharpnes on my TV goes from 0 to 20 there is something amiss there.

EDIT: 0 to 30 sorry, I just checked.

Sony TV? Thats odd, the older ones generally didn't have numbers on the scale IIRC (and you had to figure out 35% by the # of notches), while the newer ones are 0-100.

The new Toshiba REGZA models also blur the image under a certain number, like 45 i think. Its not the same as it used to be where 0 = no edge enhancement. You need to use something like DVE test pattern to see where the cutoff is.

[npras42]

I'm in the UK so the models and menus may be different to NA.

I have 2 Sony LCDs. One of my TVs is about 12 months old (i.e. when the model was released) and I got it about 9 months ago (46" 1080p model). The other is about 18 months old and I got it 12 months ago (40" 720p). They have roughly the same menu system, with numbers.

Its a blue background system with white text overlaid and solid orange bars that fill up. Looks much nicer than the old green bars that I think you're talkin about with no numbers.

When I check it I think it looks best with the Sharpness set to Min on HD content. I haven't checked with a DVE test pattern or anything. If you start to raise the sharpness you can start to see solid white edges being added to the picture. You don't really start to get artifacts in the surrounding image until about 10-15.

Maybe they removed that 'negative-sharpness' part of the scale on these models.

[Ruined]

Perhaps.

For the record the two I used that were ~35% before starting to blur detail on test patterns were the Sony KP-57WS520 (2004 model) and the Sony KDS-60A3000 (2007 model).

[FastRedPonyCar]

I got my 50" panasonic plasma hooked up yesterday. Looks phenomenal. I backed down a lot of the color/brigghtness settings as they come all vivid and as npras said, people looked all oompa loompa.

I did a pseudo calibration using owner settings from the AVS forum and then tweaked it watching finding nemo and then watching bourne supremecy and got a good balance between the exaggerated colors pixar uses and natural colors of the real world movies.

I've had the TV doing the burn in (it's a plasma thing) for about 15 hours so far. I'm going to let it run during the day while we're at work and while we sleep for a week (trying to hit the recommended 100 hour mark) and then tweak the settings again.

Luckly for me, the panny plasmas all seem to be pretty uniform when it comes to the panels looking the same, as in, the owners all seem to end up pretty much with the same color settings so there are a few guys who have had professional calibrators tune their TV's and the folks using these settings seem to like them the best and that's more or less where my settings ended up after about 20 minutes of tweaking the colors.

[MowTin]

I wouldn't bother with a standard res TV. Its a $200-$400 job to calibrate a TV.

I know that may sound expensive, I thought it was too. However I have to say its worth it. I may try to take a picture of my TV, but no promises as CRT's again are hard to take pictures of due to refresh.

Wow you're rich :wonder:

Can I borrow some money? I only have an 8800 GTS and my Crysis frame rates are so bad :cry: ("The Jerk" starring Steve Martin (Guy begs for money for new leather seats on his plane)

[Zapablast05]

If you start to raise the sharpness you can start to see solid white edges being added to the picture. You don't really start to get artifacts in the surrounding image until about 10-15.


My Sharpness is set to 45. It's all default. I didn't bother messing with it because it's an HDTV, lol. Mind giving me some advice on how to calibrate my TV? It's only a month old if that helps.

[npras42]

Which model of TV is it?

@Ruined: Just for clarification, are we talking about the same thing? Both the TVs you stated are RPTVs and I'm talking about flat-panel LCDs. I only say that because about 4 days after your post my bro bought a brand new Toshiba Regza 42Z3030D 42" 1080p LCD (which was released here in the UK around Oct 07) and the scale goes from -50 to +50 and the same thing still applies. 0 is default and it is adding artificial sharpness. The set looks best at -50.