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General discussion

Calibration......Is it required?

Sep 18, 2005 4:06PM PDT

Hello, I own a 55' HD Sony LCD RPTV, ts the KDFE55a20.

Should I bother with the purchase of a calibration disk?

I cant help but to wonder if its just a rehashing of the THX optimization found on the Star Wars movies or even finding nemo.

Is the disk worthy of the effort or is professional calibration the only way to go? Better yet is professional calibration worth the $$$$$

Remember, its a LCD RPTV.

Discussion is locked

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Out of the box..
Sep 18, 2005 10:10PM PDT

Most sets are factory preset to look good on a show room floor, where they are competing against many other TV's for your attention. PLus show rooms are not always the same as your living area, for lighting and other factors that can effect how the overall picture looks.
If you are interested in getting the best picture from your investment, at a minimum one of the few calibration discs out there will help you understand what makes a good picture, and how to get your set as close as you can . LCD TV's often are not great in the black level and thus are often not easy to calibrate fully. But you still can make them look better.
Spending the $$$ on someone certified to do this. Alot of technical knowlegde is required to be certified to calibrate TV's. plus there are very expensive pieces of test equipment needed. It takes a fair amount of time to do the job correctly, so yes it's expensive. Is it worth it, thats up to you and what you want from your set.

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(NT) (NT) Yes, the disc is worth it
Sep 19, 2005 12:15AM PDT
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Helps with DVDs
Sep 20, 2005 12:06PM PDT

There are three main players out there (really two). There is the Digital Video Essentials, AVIA guide to home theater and the Sound & Vision Home Theater Tune-Up (this is really the AVIA disk without some of the advanced features that you can not use without special equipment).

I adjusted my Plasma with the Digital Video Essentials disk and noticed a slight improvement over the factory defaults. The biggest changes were in brightness and contrast which are usually set way too high to start with. I found the disk a little hard to use and not well explained. I then bought the Sound & Vision disk. It was much easier to use, gave me almost identical settings to the other disk and only cost 14 dollars on Amazon.

Keep in mind, YOU ARE ONLY ADJUSTING FOR DVDs. While this will improve your DVD viewing, it does not adjust for other video sources. I took the settings I got for the DVD and applied them to the other inputs and the set looks great. The most valuable setup part is probably the tint and color levels. It takes your objectivity out of it and uses a color match to set them. You just can not do that "by eye"

The disks also have test tones to balance your speakers for phasing and balance.

I think it is money well spent.

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(NT) (NT) Nice answer HTHMAN ill 2nd that.
Sep 28, 2005 5:23PM PDT
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Thank you
Sep 30, 2005 1:07PM PDT

Hope it helped some of you. I apprerciate your reply. Too often in this forum, a lot of people supply a lot of help and the original post never thanks tnem for the help.