Magic Focus

[HDTV Forum]

Magic focus, originally developed by Hitachi, and competing versions were designed to improve convergence across the board for all users and reduce consumer support requirements. Based on that goal it has been very effective and succesful.

It is not perfect and will not come close to what can be done manually and unfortunately many do not offer this alternative. Just recently Hitachi has added a manual convergence feature in addition ot magic focus. If you do not have this feature an ISF calibration will correct this but you should not use the magic focus until the convergence is out far enough for it to actually improve the errors rather than create errors.

To check on your convergence you really need a DVD with a grid test pattern such as Avia, Video Essentials or the THX optimizer which is included on a most THX mastered movies. Touching up the convergence once a month is common for perfectionists. It usually takes about 3 months to generate significant errors.