ISF Calibration Locally?

[RickNeff]

Just curious about ISF-certified people who do calibration in the Milwaukee area. If you had calibration done, who did you use? Were you happy with it?

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Richard Neff
Proud Toshiba 56x81 owner!

[Tom Snyder]

There was an email-based discussion before we set up this board regarding calibration between the members of the group... there was some disagreement over the cost/value of calibration.

You might still find it at http://groups.yahoo.com in the Milwaukee HDTV group.

[RickNeff]

Sorry, I didn't know this had been discussed before. I never did the signup for Yahoo! groups so I wasn't able to find the thread.

Still curious who people have used locally.

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Richard Neff
Proud Toshiba 56x81 owner!

[This message has been edited by RickNeff (edited 02-19-2002).]

[Matt Heebner]

I have about 5 people who said they would be interested in getting ISF done. I haven't had the time lately to really start looking into ISF techs yet. I did receive a quote from Dave Abrahms of Precision Theater Consultants of $500 for the following:

1)Align the NTSC decoder
2)Defeat scan velocity modulation
3)Electronic focus
4)Geometry correction
5)Convergence correction
6)Gray scale correction
7)Color decoder correction (I2C fix available at an additional $50.00 charge)
8)Proper Setting of picture parameters

As soon as I have more time, I am going to start comparing quotes.

Matt

[Pat]

For Mitsubishi's, a friend of mine and I can do all the things you mentioned, except the gray scale. We've done it to our own sets and have made terrific improvement. We've been considering renting the equipment needed to do the gray scale on our own sets.

The equipment is fairly expensive to rent, but maybe we would do it if enough of the group could agree on a time-frame and would share the cost or pay a small fee. The only thing holding us back would be any issues of liability -- we can't accept the liability at low cost.

Notwithstanding the foregoing (I love saying that http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/ubb/smile.gif, the most improvement for each of us (so far) has been lining the interior with black velvet (in my case) or Duvetyne (in his case). The change is dramatic and the work is not hard, technical, or expensive.

[mcneguy]

OK Pat, what would you charge me to line my set with Duvetyne? I have a new 46807 and really don't want to do it myself. Also, are you insured if you destroy my set?

You can email me at mcneguy@rocketmail.com if you would prefer

[Matt Heebner]

I'd be willing to pay you for your time to help me with doing the Duv, and grey-scale (if you would get the equipment) and geometry, etc.
Let me know via email or here. I understand about liability, and I would hope that not wanting it would result in lower prices for calibration..???? http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/ubb/wink.gif

Matt
heebz6020@mindspring.com

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My wife looked at the new STB sitting on the rack and she asked me,"This is never going to end, is it?"

[Pat]

Regarding price -- don't know.

Regarding insurance -- no, this would be just a "favor" between friends.

[mcneguy]

Ok Pat, can you find out how much...are you interested?

[Pat]

Actually, no. Sorry -- but I guess I wasn't very clear. The main thrust of my post was to share costs for expensive (and possibly un-needed) rentals by joining together. I assumed most of us were do-it-yourself'ers.

If I were to hire myself out, there would seem to be an obligation to actually be available on a consistent basis to the public and to accept liability for my actions. But I couldn't do that without starting a business -- which I don't want to do.

[Greg Oman]

Pat,

Would you mind sharing any advice or recommendation you have with regards to equipment, etc? I thought I saw some reference to a ISF Calibration for dummies type of book, and wouldn't mind learning a bit more before I begin to tinker. I expect my service manual to be here next week, so I expect to begin poking around shortly.

Thanks!

Greg O.

[Pat]

Depending on what brand of set you own, the best site I know of for advice is HomeTheaterSpot.com. A bunch of experts have recorded "tweaks" for many brands, but especially Mitsubishi.

There are DVDs that provide setup instructions and test patterns so you can, using normal user controls, adjust the set as well as possible without using service mode controls -- Avia, and Video Essentials, for example. Avia is regarded as the better of these two, but both are instructive and useful.

To do better, you need to use service mode controls, and equipment is advisable to get these set correctly. The piece of equipment my friend and I were considering renting is called a colorimeter and rents for about $150 day, or several thousand to buy. The instrument is needed to set the gray-scale perfectly.

Note that it is possible to damage the set if certain controls are mal-adjusted. (The service manual should indicate which are the dangerous ones.)

Most controls these days are parameters to the on-board CPU, but some are analog and not accessible thru menus, but by physical pots, variable resisters, and the like. Older sets may have hundreds of these.

After knowing which controls can damage the set, the other advice I would give is to write down (or save on a disk, in the case of the Mitsubushi I2C interface) the initial settings for digital parameters, and not to mess with analog controls unless you know what you're doing. Some can be destroyed, for example, thru the use of metal tools.

Also, you can damage your own controls, or reset them altogther, by deliberatly or accidentally messing with the high voltage areas.

[This message has been edited by Pat (edited 03-04-2002).]

[StarvingForHDTV]

I know this message is old, but did anyone ever rent the colorimeter? If not, did you get a local ISF person to do it? If so, who did you use? Who rents equipment like that and/or offers ISF services near Milwaukee?

Just curious. I did a search for ISF and this thread came up.

Starving

[MesaV]

Flanners for the ISF person...

[GS kid]

To Matt Heebner or anybody else--
I understood all the other adjustments but how does defeating the Scan Velocity Modulation improve things?!?! If doing this is so great, why don't TVs let you disable this in their user menus?!? Haven't read a lot on this subject, but have heard of Sound & Vision doing this when they review sets.---- GS kid

[Pat]

The basic problem with with SVM, and with the "sharpness" control, for that matter, is that they introduce artificial "information" where there was none by enhancing the edges of objects. With cheap TVs, there might be the appearance of a better picture, but with HDTVs, there is no need to do such a thing.

They cause the appearance of a sharp edge when a cheap TV can't handle the sharp change in signal. But they can't distinguish between cases where the "soft" edge is supposed to be there from the cases where it isn't -- they "sharpen" everything. (They also sharpen any noise present in the singal, and make things worse -- causing really nice sharp noise!)

[Matt Heebner]

A very simple explaination of SVM is this:
It's as if your TV takes a black marker, and outlines all the lines shown on the TV picture with in it. Supposedly it is to increase the appearance of sharpness and contrast within the picture. The problem is that this information was never there, so instead you get a very "artificial" looking picture that will actually take away from looking good on a quality television. SVM should always be turned off or to low when using a HD set. The quality of the picture is already good, there is no need to try and improve it, and it actually worsens it.

Matt

[StarvingForHDTV]

In my service manual, I can turn SVM to -128 I think. Or I can pull wire(s) off of each of the three guns to totally eliminate any chances of it being used. In the factory my SVM is set at 0, so I guess that is why I have never seen the problem during Avia.

I don't know if anyone else owns a Pioneer RPTV here, but there is another feature in the Service menu called Detail. There is no explanation for what this is. The factory setting is cranked up pretty high for 480p or 1080i, but negative for 480i signals. Maybe I will play around a little.

I did get my overscan down to 2-3% around the edges of the screen according to Avia. I still have to center the image vertically and do some more focusing. After that I will move on to geometry and service mode convergence. The one thing I will not be able to do without special equipment is adjust gray scale, color temperature settings, etc.

Thanks for the tips, maybe I will give Flanner's a call when I am ready.

Starving