CraigM Calibration thoughts

[Greg Oman]

Well, it's been about 24hrs.  I don't know what other format to do this in, so here it goes.

Expectations:  Mine were very high.  I've been following Craig on the HometheaterSpot for a few years.  Arguably, if you own a Mistubishi projection set, this guy has to be at the top of your list.  I will repeat, CraigM has got to be at the top of your list as one of the premier calibration folks for your Mitsubishi projection TV.  If I'm going to shell out the money for this (and some of the wife's money), I want to do it with someone that I think will improve what I have.  I dabble, I tinker, I'm a lot like you.  I was not happy with my recent car repaint.

Experience:  Well, he was here for a little over 10 hours.  He works slow (give him a break, he's 53).  He doesn't use your bathroom (carries his own....).  He doesn't accept a soda, water, or pretty much anything else while he's working.  Something to eat?  Forget about it.... I encourage you to try, they both are a bit on the thin side.  Although I don't want to sound like a parrot here, both he and travelling companion Sue (longtime wife) and cat (stays in the vehicle) are the two of the best people that you will meet..  Yes, that's a double period.  Those of you that have had him stop by, know what I mean.  Much of his success, popularity, and strong referral references are probably impacted by Craig and Sue as people first.  What you have in the end is another story.

Results:  Where the puddin' hits the pavement so they say.  In my case, our set had a few minor issues I guess.  Geometry was off, focus was a bit off, minor burn in, some small "floaters" in the crt's (whatever the heck those are), and a greyscale that was, well, green...ish.  Live with it?? Probably (actually have been for 1 1/2 years now).  Take one for the team Greg, we move on.  They pretty much went through the whole nine yards-- documented elsewhere, so search for that.  Let me say this for the record, Mitsubishi, you need to improve your convergence menu's-- thank god Craig doesn't charge by the hour, or the input, or the format.

They finished about 7:45, maybe 8 (I was distracted).  They put in the 5th Element, I haven't seen that before (sorry, I know I suck...).  It looked good.  I put in stuff I was familiar with (spare me the embarassment).  It looked better.  You can't A-B, there is no more A.  Everything is now B.  B, as in beautiful.  I did impulse buy a new DVD player, nothing fancy mind you, a $110 investment, progressive scan.  I can compare it to my 5 year old Sony (about $500 in it's day).  It's better.  The new one.. Double period.

I will say that I believe that this is the best picture that this set will ever render.  It's hard, the mind plays tricks on you.  What WAS it like?  It's a memory (not HD memory....).  I took a day of vacation for this, so did my wife.  I had the opportunity to talk and ask all the questions I could think of.  Pam worked on her tan.  Christofur (our rabbit) seemed to know that something was up.  She didn't growl, Craig and Sue are ok she seemed to imply.

So now you wonder.  Should I sign on for the next tour?  Start saving now, the results and the memories will live on.  This will be the best money you spend..  Double period.

Greg O.

[borghe]

Here are my thoughts:

To start things off, he ripped apart my set and checked everything out. Made sure there weren't any burns or signs of heat stress, checked the CRT coolant tanks to make sure there weren't any imperfections or leaks, opened the service menus and looked at all existing values, and asked me about performance of the set since I've had it. Ok, here was the first snag. You see, about a month or so ago, my set had shifted the picture up about 3-4%. It was a one time occurence but unfortunately the only other time he has heard of such an instance was a guys convergence gen board going bad on him. The board needed to be replaced. Replacing that board kills almost everything Craig does to the set as it holds all memory for convergence and geometry. So after much hemming and hawing, we talked and talked some more. Finally we decided that the difference between my set and the other guys was that when his did it, it constantly did it from the start. It would do it while he was watching it and would do it a couple times a day sometimes. Mine did it once and never again. We determined that there was a strong chance that my TV just misread the I2C registers at startup that single time and shifted the picture. A fluke. So we went ahead.

In looking at my picture and values the first thing he said was that as far as geometry and convergence I wasn't going to see that big of an improvement. Why? Because I had already done an excellent job of dialing it in myself. Yup, a compliment.. I was proud. There were two values he said were quite a bit higher than he would have liked to have seen them, the horizontal and vertical statics (basically absolute horizontal and vertical positions). The problem with these values being high was that these were the only two values in the entire set that can actually put excessive wear on it. They are basically amplifiers and when set too high can overdrive the processor in the set. So I had asked him how I could adjust the position without overdriving those values and he had said it was a manual adjustment in the set. Which we'll get to in a little bit.

So he checked everything out and asked me the questions and now that that was done started his work. The first thing he did was clean the crap out of everything. Lenses, mirror, CRTs, screen, air dusted the entire inside of the cabinet.. Really went to work on everything. Afterwards he went on to focus. Apparently Mits sets (and some others) have three focuses on it. Manual which is the actual optics of the lens, electrostatic which is focusing/tightening the actual electron beam inside the CRT, and quad-field, which is also an electronic focus that reduces astigmatism from corner to corner on the CRT. After finishing focus he started on geometry... wow... this went for quite a while. Through a combination of HD/DVD test patterns, a transparent overlay grid, and binoculars he brought in the geometry to a perfect spacing between all points and converged everything beautifully. There was one flaw with my set that he couldn't fix, linearity on one vertical line of convergence, but it is hardly noticeable. I asked him what would cause that and he mentioned that if you get enough transistors at the outer edges of tolerance all in the same set something like that can happen. Again, any normal person looking at my set wouldn't even notice it, but damned if I wasn't a little angry with my set. After probably spending over 5 hours on geometry and convergence he finally moved to color. Here he defeated red push and set color temperature to D6500K measuring it out across the entire gray scale using a colorimeter and computer. Last but definitely not least. He set every single last one of his settings (including spot on convergence) to factory defaults. so if the TV ever loses power for an extended period of time or if my daughter ever hits the A/V Reset button, it will just force the set back to his calibration.

So the end result. To simplify, his copy of The Fifth Element Superbit looked almost as good as HBO's HD presentation a month or so ago on the old TV settings. And that was DVD. HDTV looks stunning. We watched 36 for about ten minutes and I could definitely notice things like geometry and overscan that he improved as well as lower red levels and a cooler picture. I could always get perfect looking reds on my set, but the trade off would be that blues and greens would always be desaturated. I could get perfect blues and greens but the reds would then be way oversaturated. I now have perfect levels for all three, and the result is extremely rich blues and greens and solid unsaturated reds. As for grey scale, no more red hue to the picture. Grey is grey, brown is brown, and there is no more warm tone to the picture.

As for Craig and his wife, they are two of the nicest people ever. All three of us talked pretty much the entire time and just had a really good time. He also did a LARGE amount of explaining things to me, telling me exactly what he was doing, what it was affecting, how the TV worked (never knew RPTVs didn't have pixels), etc. Being the techno geek I am I am extremely pleased by how much I have learned about all TVs now. Between my background in computers and manufacturing everything he said was making sense and was just extremely exciting to learn.

This was a completely satisfying experience. Unfortunately there are no before and after pictures for you guys. It is just too hard to accurately do with a TV. The one setting I can compare is the old color temperature vs the new one, and just that alone is a tremendous change. But just trust me when I say it was worth it. Between watching parts of Fifth Element and Law & Order on NBC last night I can honestly say the only thing I am missing from the theater right now is the comfortable seats and 75' screen.... It may be a little on the pricey side, but as far as I am concerned I just got a brand new TV, and it shows. Ironically I didn't have a chance to watch anything on it last night aside from the few clips here and there (it went to around 8 or 9). Instead, more than likely my daughter will be the first one to truly enjoy it tonight. Lucky her.

[MarkS]

If you were thinking about getting the calibration this year but didn't pull the trigger - do it next year!  It's worth it, no doubts about it.

I had pretty much the same experience as the others.  To start with my set had a pronounced red push, the geometry was off as was the greyscale.  I also had some "speed bumps" or rolling of the picture during movement of the subject matter.  All news to     me, I had thought it looked pretty good.

After 9 hours of calibration similar to what has been described, wow, the resulting picture is much clearer, colors more saturated and blacks are now black.  I wouldn't have believed how much better Craig could get my Mits to look.  Even the SD stuff looks better.  But the real deal is with HD and DVD.  The picture is awesome!!

As to Craig and Sue, they are very nice and easy to talk to.  After the initial discussion of my watching habits and what I hoped to get out of a calibration, I watched, asked questions and listened as Craig went about his business.  He was great at explaining exactly what he was doing and why.  After awhile I left him to the tedious geometry work, etc.  He is meticulous in every aspect of the calibration.  Consistent with what others have said, neither Craig nor Sue would accept anything to eat or drink but would periodically take a break to the mobile home.

All in all a very satisfying experience with an astounding outcome.  Sign me up for a touch-up during the calibration tour in 2 years!

Mark

[borghe]

actually they turned away all food and drink except for.........

chocolate chip cookies

They gladly accepted a couple of cookies from a batch I had made two nights earlier.. You guys just have to know what to offer them.. :p

[bigcheeshead]

I was on the list to get my TV calibrated by Craig. They came in around 10:00 and went through with me as to what I should expect out of the calibration. I agree that they have a down to earth personality.
While talking about homes they mentioned that they will be moving to Arizona soon. I also mentioned about me moving as well. That's where they stopped. I guess contrary to what I've read on the forums,
IF YOU WILL BE MOVING DON'T GET YOUR TV CALIBRATED
According to Craig almost everything that he does will be lost  if you transport your set, and I don't mean next room
So I took his advise and will schedule my appointment with him next year once I'm cozily settled into my new home.

[Matt Heebner]

When Craig and Sue were in town last year in June to do the Milwaukee branch of his calibration, I got them to eat Balistraries pizza from right down the street on 68th St. (Best thin crust pizza in the city I might add!). They are two great people, and I really had an enjoyeable time with them here. They gave me the tour of that home on wheels, and I got to meet their cat.
I had to force them to eat eat at first....until the smell of that heavanly pizza hit them. Wasn't too hard to convince them after that.


I will definitely ber getting the tune-up the next time he is in town.

Matt