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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?
Being THX or ISF certified means that you have had training, & PAID a fee to be certified. Not that you are better qualifed to perform the calibration. Need proof? Runco used to provide the answers to their dealers to the ISF test. All you had to do then was send in the filled out form/test and a check and VIOLA you were certified.
Now don’t get me wrong I did get trained while I was there, and the difference can be amazing. However I saw many dealers that just did not understand the process.
Bottom line an expeirenced integrator with the training, equipment & the Experience makes the difference, not just the piece of paper of which I have many and the not once did that peice of paper make me instantly better. Practice did just like a doctor that goes through residency, or any trade that has an apprentice program.
Well if you cant tell with your own eyes if a tv is properly calibrated…..then what the hell is the point of wasting $300 to have someone do it?
I used one of those DIY dvd’s for like 10 bucks and my picture looks great. My reds look red, blues look blue, etc. I can’t imagine a calibrator being able to perform some “magic” to make my picture look any better….especiallly not $300 better.
Yes, THX certified technicians are capable to perform THX calibrations on ANY display format…THX certified product or not. Just to clarify, the calibration is THX certified, not necessarily the product.
Hmmm…can a THX certified technician calibrate a display if it does not carry a THX certification? Do most higher-end TVs carry the THX certification? I just checked, and my PRO-151FD does….too late though, I already had mine calibrated. He was ISF certified, but not THX certified.
-Mark
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Ken just a response to your comment. Any consumer can buy a DVD and perform the proper user adjustments for contrast, brightness, tint, colour (decoding) and sharpness by following the tutorial. Your TV will look a lot better than it came out of the box. What you can’t do without instrumentation is set the grey-scale, and in turn get accurate colours. You can’t do it by eye with any kind of accuracy especially without a reference for comparison. It is kind of like asking me to draw a 12 inch line. I might be able to get reasonably close but it will never be exactly 12 inches long unless I measure it. Unfortunately when it comes to perceiving colour people have far less experience than judging distances. There is no magic, but setting the reference grey scale requires the right gear to take the measurements and as pointed out a great deal of experience. Having performed hundreds of calibrations the list of displays over the years that responded predictably and accurately was fairly small. A properly calibrated budget TV can easily outperform a miscalibrated top model. If you are buying a top of the line TV why would you you not want to pay a little extra for top performance?