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  , 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..?

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.

[tenth_t2]

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