Video Asylum

Posted by Dalancroft (A) on September 27, 2002 at 11:14:11

In Reply to: Professional calibration or Video Essentials ??? posted by elliot on September 27, 2002 at 07:31:12:

A good calibration DVD will run you about 40 or 50 bucks, a good and thorough ISF calibration will set you back anywhere from three to six hundred dollars. Here's the approach I would take:

1) Research the set extensively to see if there are any design flaws or tendencies you can correct or improve with user-controllabe settings. For example, the color balance of my Panasonic 47WX49 47" widescreen TV was about 8,000 to 10,000 degrees Kelvin above the standard of 6,500. But you may find yours is very close, at least by choosing "warm" or "cool" or "standard/neutral." Or if your TV isn't doing well with, say, blacks, you may be able to choose a "blacker and black" PLUGE throughput on your DVD player that fixes the problem.

2) Buy the calibration DVD and take an hour or two to tweak every user-adjustable setting.

If you're happy, stop here and save yourself some money. A friend of mine has a 32" top-of-the-line Sony WEGA (bought 2 years ago) and I think his picture is stunning. Can't see how an ISF calibration could improve it much. BUT . . .

3) If you're still unhappy, hire an ISF guy. My Panny is known to look terrible out of the box and only fair after Avia or Video Essentials. But Gregg Loewen, a highly regarded ISF guy who does "calibration tours," told me that after calibration it would look comparable to a Pioneer Elite set. And while I have no frame of reference by which to compare, all I can say is that it was worth every single penny I spent on it.

Hope this helps and as always, YMMV . . .