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Q: If I have my HDTV calibrated what should I be looking for to determine if the job is done correctly? What equipment would be needed? How would you check to see if you got your money’s worth? - Phil, Jacksonville, FL
A: HDTV calibration is quite a science and a complicated procedure. Start by making sure whomever you hire is ISF qualified. This is no easy qualification to achieve and should give you a good baseline on which to base the quality of the work.
Checking that a calibration has been done properly would require you to get a second person to do it and compare the results. Even then I would always expect them to be a little different. If it was easy to check the calibration yourself - you really wouldn’t need to call in an expert!
The reason why calibration is difficult is because it’s impossible to produce a 100 percent calibrated image. There are standards for where the different Red, Green and Blue colors should be on the chart, but due to whatever display technology you are using, changing the value of one item will have an effect on the other.
Calibration starts by taking readings from your display (with a meter) and then plotting these out. This will give the technician a good clue of how to go about optimizing the image. This process takes time because after each change you have to measure the image again to see how the changes you have made affect the whole picture. At the end of the day, the difference in “before” and “after” will largely depend on just how bad the picture was before you started, how many adjustment parameters the screen has and how responsive it is to these changes.
There are some steps you can take yourself to get a pretty decent calibration at home.
Settings: Delve into your display menus and make sure any form of dynamic contrast is turned off. Try to find one called “Normal” and avoid anything that is labeled as “Vivid.” I would turn off all the fancy picture filtering and noise reduction, despite the manufacturer selling the set on these features you may find the image looks better without them.
Test DVD: There are a number on the market which come with color filter gels and instructions on how to use them. Even following the first few steps of these will make a big difference. A number of DVDs which are THX approved often include some basic calibration steps and images. You might have one of these in your collection and not know it.
If you want to take it further, buy a Datacolor Spyder. This is a DIY meter from the same company that makes the professional kit. It costs $99 and will allow you to recalibrate your screen as often as you like. Remember, as a screen ages it will need calibrating again. This should give you pretty good results - but as the pro-version costs $3500, it isn’t the same as a full ISF calibration.
Related articles:
Using Your Computer to Calibrate Your A/V Gear
Adventures in Home Theater Calibration
What is the Best Way to Calibrate My Sound System for Movies?
Todd,
I agree that ultimately, if you’re not happy, you’re not happy, regardless of what the calibration report says. I also agree that there will be some people out there that are not happy w/ a properly calibrated display. They just “don’t think it looks right”.
But, for most people, who do want an accurate and calibrated display, calibration is fastest and easiest way to go. You won’t get to a calibrated result without actually calibrating. You may get lucky, and get something that you’re happy with, but it won’t be quite right. Also, for many TVs, there are certain adjustments that can only be made via service menu, which a calibrator will have access to. (Yes, you could buy something like ControlCal and get access to that info as well, but messing in service menus is probabl not a good idea for someone who is tinkering and eyeballing adjustments.)
My two bits,
-Mark
Mark, there is no aspect of TV calibration that cannot be eyeballed. After all your eyes are what ultimately matters. Calibration allows you to arrive at the optimum settings quicker than “monkeying” around.
Furthermore if you had your set calibrated but didn’t like the way it looked but were assured they were the “optimum” settings, what would you do? Leave it or tweak it yourself?
Wow, feeling a bit hostile, are we, Mr. Smith?
You can rail all you like against calibration, bu the fact remains, there are aspects of picture quality that simply cannot be eyeballed. You need a meter to correctly set greyscale, and get accurate colors.
Rick said it better than I could, just 3-4 posts back.
You don’t want to calibrate, then don’t. That doesn’t mean the process is worthless.
-Mark
I’m so tired of this calibration crap. I guess if you’re a 90 year old person who doesn’t know the first thing about how to make a tv picture look decent, it’s helpful..(and no offense to the elderly… I’m just saying..) but otherwise, just freakin play with it yourself and use your “eyes” for God’s sake! I bought a top of the line Samsung a few weeks ago and thought about the calibration… and I actually did several tests using one of the more popular instructional DVD’s and come to find out, the settings I had already chosen turned out to be perfect already. As far as rooms go, either you got a brightly lit (you have the freakin lights on) or it’s night time..(or you have the lights off and the shades drawn). In my opinion, the manufacturers should make the sets having the best picture quality already set….with the option of minor adjustments…for movies or sports, etc… When we buy the TV, we’re not then supposed to “finish” manufacturing the TV!! We’re paying for the best possible picture already and not to have to keep messing with it trying to “fix” it again! There is no reason you should have to pay an extra $300 just to get a better picture. It should come that way. As the purchasing consumer, it’s not our responsibility to finish building the TV. .. or paying someone else to finish the building process (talking about calibration of course). Companies will do anything they can to get your money, it’s rediculous. I’m all for paying for a higher end set. I absolutely fell in love with my Samsung and it’s certainly worth the money. Just play with the settings for a little and see what works best for you. I get tired of experts saying the turn the sharpness down. I tried turning mine down and it makes the picture so blurry and soft…a huge difference. There probably are some artifacts with it turned all the way up like I have it… but I don’t care because I can’t see them… except for maybe in a test. The picture looks 100% better to me with the sharpness turned all the way up. ... same for the contrast. If you don’t want the advantage of the lcd tv’s then just buy a 20 year old CRT for crying out loud. If you want to get the best picture you can possibly get, keep the color temp around the 6500k and use what looks normal to you. It’s not as hard as everyone makes it out to be.. and never ever have your tv professionally calibrated.
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Calibration comes down to wanting the television to display video content in the same manner in which it was engineered in the post-production house.
There are some good calibration discs to help you get close, but in the end a trained pro with the proper equipment is the closest way someone can get their televisions to display to the same level as the engineers’ displays that work in Hollywood.
There is no way around that and 6500k is meant to calibrate across the CIE chart and not at one single point.