Digital RPTV - $375

The latest breed of rear projections offer great bang for the buck and are often capable of stunning images.  The latest sets come in DLP, SXRD, LCD, D-ILA, and LCOS varieties.

The first order of business when I get to your house is to document and measure the current settings of your display, and also evaluate the viewing environment, cabling, and source equipment settings.

While most digital RPTVs have good focus from the factory, I have run across a few that benefitted from this adjustment. Similarly, occasionally the mirror or optics can benefit from cleaning, although with most designs this is unnecessary. Each procedure will be done when needed, and on those rare occasions they can make a huge difference!

Many of the latest DLP displays, particularly those from Samsung, have extensive CMS (color management system) controls, which allow incredibly precise color calibration. With these sets the color gamut will be correctly adjusted.  This assures that green grass is the right purity of green, and it also has a big impact on the naturalness of skin tones.

On the Sony A3000 series of SXRDs, there is a multi point convergence adjustment that allows me to correct the red, green, and blue overlap at many points across the screen.  This can have an impact on clarity, especially if you sit close to the screen.

Next up is finding the proper settings for the standard brightness, contrast, sharpness, color, and tint. If possible, I'll adjust them so that the default setting of the user control is the correct setting. When possible, I'll also make adjustments to the gamma, color decoder/CMS, brightness stability, edge enhancement, chroma delay, and dynamic picture/color controls. Often different brands have different strengths and weaknesses because of the thoroughness and flexibility of their service menus. For example, Sony XBR1, XBR2, and A2000 series SXRD sets have incredibly flexible gamma adjustments, allowing nearly perfect gamma response, while the latest Samsung DLPs have by far the most comprehensive color gamut adjustments.

Now we come to the heart of the matter- gray scale tracking. Very few TVs have a properly calibrated gray scale, due in part to sloppy or time restricted manufacturing and a desire for the image to scream at you on the brightly lit showroom floor. Poor gray scale performance can result in a colored tint to dark areas of the picture in addition to the inability to look natural no matter how the color and tint are set. Using a spectroradiometer, I'll adjust it as close as possible to the video standard of D6500.

Finally, I'll go back and fine tune all the controls. Then it's time to evaluate the picture! In a few situations, your display might look more subdued than before calibration, but vibrant colors and more lifelike details will come shining through. Picture problems like the caked on makeup look, bent lines, chronically sun burnt flesh tones, washed out images, and colored shadows will be greatly reduced or eliminated.

The time it takes to do a calibration depends on your display and how many sources and scan rates you send to it, but most fall between 2 and 5 hours. Do I mind if owners watch me do a calibration? Usually not- in fact, it's great to be able to explain what I'm doing; but there will be some long, boring time lapses (some with all the lights off), so have a laptop or something else handy! If something has been really messed up on your TV, or if someone got into something they shouldn't have, please warn me ahead of time.

Many people have wondered if performing an ISF calibration will make all displays look more or less the same. The reality is that while a calibration will get the most out of your display, there will still be significant performance differences. It's somewhat like the differences between 2 different speakers after they have both been equalized and optimally placed in a room.

The grayscale, color decoder, and other tweaks combine to make a significant improvement in the enjoyment of your set.  I've calibrated nearly all brands, including Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Sony, JVC, Hitachi, Samsung, Panasonic, and others.

Note: Not all procedures are available or necessary on every set.

ISF calibration: $375
 

• CMS - adjusts the purity of the colors
• color decoding - eliminates "red push", chronic sunburn, calibrate hue & saturation of red, green, and blue individually
• gamma adjustment - brightness ratio defining how bright the middle picture level is in relation to the peak brightness and dark shadows
• brightness stability - brightness locked in place with different average picture levels, bright scenes won't lose shadow detail
• reduce edge enhancement - gives picture much more natural appearance, reduces glowing around lines and objects
• center user controls - resetting user controls reverts to calibrated settings
• grayscale - foundation for accurate color reproduction, eliminating improper color tints in the grayscale, white will look white, black will look black, and gray will....well, you get the point
• all used inputs/scanrates calibrated - many TVs require separate calibration for different types of inputs, i.e. component, HDMI/DVI, 480p vs. 1080i scanrates

I just wanted to acknowledge what a phenomenal job Chad did with my Mitsubishi 52628 DLP set. Chad arrived promptly at noon this past Saturday (April 29, 2006) and began work on the set. He cleaned the mirror and screen before doing any grayscale, color, or geometry adjustment. Chad spent six hours working to make sure my Mits can put out the best it can do. Not surprising with the initial preadjustment graphs the blue was way off the chart. The green and red were not that much better. After the calibration Chad achieved an almost flat line with all three colors. Gray scale, was corrected, geometry was pretty good out of factory but he made slight adjustment on that as well.

Chad calibrated both my HDMI inputs on the TV for my Dish Network HD receiver, my Denon 3910 DVD player, and my Oppo DVD player. (Dish and Denon run out of my AVR 3806 receiver into my HDMI 1 in) and Oppo runs directly via DVI out to HDMI 2 in on TV)

After six hours the results are stunning! Chad is such a great young man. Very patient, and willing to explain all that he is doing. I highly recommend him for knowledgeable calibration.

-Alfbinet, AVS forum

-DarinA, AVS forum

Chad showed up on time and ready to work. He is very intelligent and easy to talk to. A lot of tech. specialist type people come with an attitude of “I know more than you ever will” and try and talk down to you. This is not the case with Chad. He welcomes your questions and answers them with thought and consideration (even though he has probably heard them all a million times). I was a little nervous that I might be wasting my money. I am not wealthy and $375 is certainly not pocket change for me. I have cruised the forums picked up a couple tweaks, run through Avia and thought I had dialed my set in pretty darn good. I was wrong on all accounts.

Chad was impressed with my set. Not for what I had done to it for sure, but he said it was one of, if not the best samples he had seen, especially regarding uniformity. He didn’t find any problems really aside from the convergence was just slightly off (blue) and some minor issues with chroma delay.

Chad works methodically to optimize each input. He takes his time and it’s a lot of back and forth between test patterns and service menu adjustments (and man can he fly around that service menu). He is meticulous in his work. Another added benefit with Chad is the fact that he himself owns an SXRD a 60XBR1, so he has countless hours playing around with our particular style of television. He has found some really neat “tricks”. He has an adjustment he does with the Advanced Iris and gamma levels that improved my black levels incredibly. I was blown away. Now on a black screen it is hard to tell if it is on or not! Also, with programming with black bars, the bars look black now. Before when watching source material with bars, the bars were extremely evident and if the source would go black they seemed different shades from one another. Now when the source goes black there is no telling where the bars begin and end. The whole screen is a dark even black. Another trick he had was to insure that faces looked proper when brightly lit with no “clay facing” and preserving detail and realism. He took his time to ensure the grey scale was dialed in. It has been stated many times the importance of proper grey scale, and boy it is the truth! He made sure the colors were balanced properly with one another and made adjustments to guarantee the full resolution was resolved at every level. He spent a lot of time working on the input for my PS2 even though I had told him it was soon to be replaced with a PS3. He definitely does not cut corners. My appointment was at 5:15 and he left right at 10pm or a little after.

The end result…….A much more natural looking picture with added depth and clarity. I didn’t realize the colors were so off, but now they look as they should. Flesh tones are accurate, clouds look real, and vegetation looks lush and vibrant (watched 2 episodes of Planet Earth I had recorder from Discovery- couldn’t stop watching). As I mentioned before black levels have greatly increased while still preserving fine shadow detail. Before some night/dark scenes would look washed out, not anymore! The viewing experience is much more immersive now, truly making you feel as though you are there. SD viewing was greatly improved as well. 480i through HDMI was dark from my HD DVR and he made adjustments in the service menu to compensate for this. All in all, a great experience. It was neat just sitting back watching him work his magic with such intensity. I would recommend his service to anyone who wants to take their television to the next level.

Don’t know if you might read this, but thank you Chad for helping my set reach its full potential!

-David , AVS forum