What is a real ISF calibration?

[chuckken]

2 Years ago I had a RPTV calibrated for $250.00 and to tell you the honest truth, I felt ripped off. After the tech left I set it according to my liking. So in essense, I threw away $250.00...I was under the impression that calibration was some highly skilled deal where the tech was going to go inside the tv and mess with a bunch of intricate settings inside the tv...If I had known that calibration was just a big word for setting your brightness, contrast, color, tint, and the like I would have saved my money and done that myself...(oh well, lesson learned)

[AlanBrown]

Chukken,

It appears you have never had a TV of yours professionally calibrated. If all the individual did to your TV (when you paid the $250.00) was to adjust the user controls, you were way over-charged! Did he not use a color analyzer or optical comparator to make adjustments in the set's service menu? You make it sound like he only used a test DVD and adjusted the consumer-level controls. That's not a professional gray scale calibration and not a legitimate representation of what the ISF teaches or stands for. It does not sound like you have ever had the opportunity to see what a reference video image can look like.

Concerning subjective picture preferences: you may think a great painting would look better with more pink in it. The artist would likely disagree. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers has labored long and hard to establish and promote standards and practices in the professional production community. They have done this to preserve accuracy and consistency all along the production chain. The goal is to assure that the program consumer will view what the program producer intended.

Video monitors are calibrated as often as on a daily basis in broadcast and production facilities. I'm not talking about only adjustments to the usual picture controls, but with instruments that set the gray scale properly, etc. These monitors are adjusted to industry standards, not the personal preference of the technician or the producer. It's the producer's artistic prerogotive to adjust set lighting, makeup, wardrobe, set design, etc. to acheive his prefered coloration to picture content. HE NEVER CHANGES THE MONITOR!

If you want to get as close as possible to experiencing the picture a program producer intended for you to see on your TV, it must be calibrated according to INDUSTRY STANDARDS. Your personal preference is only meaningful for you. The rest of the video consumer world was intended to see what the program producer saw on his calibrated monitor. Pardon the pun, but do you see the picture now?

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

[chuckken]

Alan Brown...As far as I'm concerned, I have calibrated my tv better than anyone in the world can calibrate it. Found this on the internet...

How to Calibrate Grayscale:
There are a number of ways to calibrate the grayscale of a TV. It can either be done by eye or by measuring the light from the TV with a color meter (Spectroradiometer or Tristimulus Colorimeter). Whatever the method, it will involve using the service menu and requires an understanding of how to navigate through a vast array of numbers and symbols along with knowledge on what parameters to change and which to leave alone.

When using Avia DVD, the process is relatively simple. You navigate through the menus of the DVD to select the correct grayscale window which range from 0-IRE (black) to 100-IRE (white). In a dark room, with minimum lighting and resulting reflections, you carefully go through each gray window from black to white, and use your eyes to see if the image appears to be gray or have color intrusion. The most common color intrusions seen are red in the darker images and blue push in the lighter images, but please remember this is NOT Red Push or Blue Push. Red Push is related to color and hue, not grayscale. While in each window (black to white), it may be easy to see colors bleed through. If colors are visible, you access the service menu and adjust the correct setting to reduce that color. In some cases, colors may need to be increased in order to make gray look gray.

[seth]

As a calibration instructor I am obviously in support of these services, but once again we need to recognize peoples differences. In our attempts to meet standards we try to conform as best possible. This means that we calibrate a setting that is correct for a correct viewing environment as to specification. But then when we leave, the customer may decide that they prefer to watch with some or more ambient light than was used during the calibration. Now they suddenly have a dark image in comparison to the relative lighting of the room. This was the leading complaint that I had in the early years of calibration, which led me to start doing day and night settings. The ISF recognizes this as a shortcoming of many current displays and has put the challenge to the industry to provide a day and night memory for every input on the TV.

For the record, an ISF calibration is far more than adjusting the user controls. As was stated, the grayscale must be done in the service menu. This is not subjective, there is a target to reach that does not vary according to time of day. Also, when available, the color decoder must also be set correctly. When it comes to the user controls, they are certainly not set and forget, they need to be accessible. The best thing you can get out of a professional calibration would be to learn how the calibrator adjusts these according to the current conditions, and reset them according to any changes in environment or image source. These front panel controls can also be the subjective ones, so you can fine tune these to your tastes if you prefer, but this still isn't affecting the grayscale much so it's not like the professional calibration is being altered out of spec. Some parts of a calibration are purely scientific and should not be fussed with, such as grayscale. But many other aspects are just as varied as the differences in how each one of us perceive color. That is why these controls are used for "fine tuning". I had a long discussion about this with a customer, only to find out after about two hours that they are slightly color blind, you don't want to know how their fine tuning came out.

[AlanBrown]

Chukken,

It sounds like you have more familiarity with display calibration procedures than was discernable from your previous comments. However, precise gray scale is typically not recognizable without a true gray reference for comparison. You may be one of a rare minority with "perfect pitch" in this category. This usual difficulty is due to the adaptive nature of the human visual system. If the goal is accuracy, a gray reference must be used in a strictly "by eye" adjustment procedure, as a matter of standard method. To suggest to the average person that they can rely on their judgement for accuracy, without a true gray reference, is folly. Should "looks great to me" be sufficient for you, no gray reference is needed. Some of us don't trust our eyes and want to see what the program producer's eyes saw in post production. It's really all about the art, as Joe Kane is known to say.

There are many misconceptions among video consumers about display issues and calibration in particular. This is one of those forums we would like to serve as a reservoir of accurate information on these topics. Often, this requires open discussion, debate and some degree of confrontation. No one knows it all and sometimes statements can be misunderstood. We simply want the best pictures our HDTVs can deliver.

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

P.S. Seth made many vital points. Most impactful was the issue of ambient lighting. If the owner of a calibrated TV does not understand the dramatic effect that room lighting can have on display appearance, they can think a calibrated TV is too dark. Many TVs are calibrated for optimum viewing conditions. That means a dark viewing environment. If there has been no "day mode" setting provided in a memory for alternate viewing in bright conditions, the customer will have to adjust the picture controls to compensate.

[Richard]

2 Years ago I had a RPTV calibrated for $250.00 and to tell you the honest truth, I felt ripped off. After the tech left I set it according to my liking. So in essense, I threw away $250.00...I was under the impression that calibration was some highly skilled deal where the tech was going to go inside the tv and mess with a bunch of intricate settings inside the tv...If I had known that calibration was just a big word for setting your brightness, contrast, color, tint, and the like I would have saved my money and done that myself...(oh well, lesson learned)

The purpose of HD Library is to promote accuracy and references for HD audio and video. The value for readers and professionals is education about accuracy and references, the ability to ask questions about that and the ability to post their experiences for comment or to add to the documentation in the library sections. All of this means absolutely nothing, zip, nadda, if there are not professionals out in the field to assist you with this and would be worthless to a consumer.

Chuckken, you have been with us for over 9 months and this is the first time you have brought this to my attention. There is little to be done at this point being 2 years ago and I am very disappointed to hear such things.

Before contracting an unknown calibrator you should confirm that they are actually listed on the ISF website. Click on ISF-trained dealers with calibration equipment, select the state of the calibrator and you should find their company name listed in alphabetical order. If you cannot find your calibrator listed then please contact them and confirm they are really ISF. In some rare cases the person or company may not be listed due to market conditions or alliances in their area. Please feel free to send an email to the ISF for verification of their status.

[email protected]

Here at HD Library we have a listing of independent ISF calibrators who have built a reputation for delivering the real thing and are also members of the ISF Forum, a private professional community for the calibration industry. This is an excellent place to start if you are in the market for calibration service or product selection service.

If you are not happy with the ISF calibration service please contact the person or company who performed the service first. We are professionals willing and ready to explain the process, what was done to your display and assist you with understanding the results. We want you to be satisfied with the service!

If you should run into a problem with your calibration and are dissatisfied with the service you received please consider HD Library your ISF Customer Care Center and feel free to bring your situation or problem to my attention regardless of how you contracted this person or the forums or groups they work with. All I care about is the fact that you are dissatisfied with the service and the only requirement for my immediate attention is that they are listed on the ISF website with equipment or you have received confirmation from the ISF that they are in good standing and have equipment. ISF dealers without equipment should not be performing, representing or marketing the standard ISF calibration service unless they are working with an independent ISF calibrator who provides this service for them.

[email protected]

[MadeInAlaska]

My two cents worth: Get the full blown calibration done if you're going to do it at all. An example is a from the ground up convergence using a grid, which does get done with a full blown calibration. I can tell you that tweak alone will give you an incredible improvement in the picture quality, and make convergence adjustment on your RPTV a rare event.

One other comment on picture quality. I might be a bit off topic here, and this will probably sound like a cheap plug, but if any of you value your eyesight at all, look into bias lighting like you can get from Alan Brown's company. (His lamp gets two thumbs and two toes up from me!) If you're watching in a darkened room like I do, the reduction in eye fatigue is flat out amazing. Alan will tell you, and I agree, the colors look better too, but that reduction in eye fatigue makes this an easy tweak worth every penny.

Ken

[Richard]

An example is a from the ground up convergence using a grid

Ken, you likely have a Mits...?

Thanks,

[MadeInAlaska]

Richard, yes, I have a Mits and love it. They really are capable of stunning HD picture quality when they're dialed in, which is probably true of most HD sets.

One other thought on calibration, and viewing an image we "like". One of the best pieces of advice I've received on this topic is to not make up your mind too quickly. Sometimes we don't like the picture initially after adjustment because it's different. A perfect example is color saturation which might seem washed out after calibration. But if you stick with it for a week or so and then switch back, you might be really surprised at what you see and what you like.

Ken

[Richard]

Great tips!

With color I have had the exact opposite experience with one client but he seems to have finally approved...