CraigM to do a Milwaukee/Chicago Tour!

[Matt Heebner]

I just got word that CraigM from HomeTheaterSpot is doing a Chicago tour. If
he does, I do believe he will come to Milwaukee if we have some people
interested. This is our chance to get a big name ISF here. Let me know if
you are still interested as I have to get back to the Chicago contact about
it.
He charges a flat rate of $750, but does everything he can possibly do, and
it takes 12-14 hours!!!
Matt


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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?"

[rbar]

When would this trip take place?

Bob

[Matt Heebner]

From what I understand, we are looking at late May, early June.I guess he'll be wrapping up a west coast tour in early
May. He'll then head to Florida and (keep your fingers crossed) return to California via
Chicago/Milwaukee.
Matt

[MesaV]

What is the status on this?  ISF? Imaging Science Foundation?  For $750 will he check all imputs?  Flanner's it's $275 for one and I think $175 for each additional input.  They spend about 6-8 hours.  Has anyone had this done?

[shawn123]

I am probably in, I just wanted to get clarification.  I have a Runco projector and would need calibration on the following 1080i/540p vga, 720p vga, 768 svid component, and 480p svid and component.  Will that all be included for $750?

[Matt Heebner]

A couple of things to clarify..
CraigM will be in Milwaukee in late May. I do not have an exact date yet, but it will definitly be late May.
CraigM only calibrates Mitsubishi RPTV's. Its his speciality and from what I've read...he does it better than anyone else!

Here is a link to a post from www.hometheaterspot.com  regarding his ISF. Also, if you look around in the Mitsubishi forum, you will see numerous posts about how excellent a job Craig does....enough to be called the Zen Master of Calibration.
 http://www.hometheaterspot.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=005527

I will also include a list of services. His price is certainly steep, but it is a minor expense considering the hardware and getting the best performance from it!

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A full up Mits calibration takes approximately 12-14 hours and this includes the following:


First Inspection. Using various test patterns I inspect the screen, CRTs and other items on your set. There is no sense in calibrating it if you are going to need any repair work. Also at this time we look at Component 480i as verses S-Video if you have an interlaced DVD player. Since Component 480i has a number of differences that effect other calibrations and tweaks we need to agree on which hook up you will be using.

Next we open it up and continue the inspection: Mirror condition, Lenses, and check for CRT coolant leaks. If all of that looks good, the lenses are removed and the actual CRTs, coolant and coolant lenses are inspected for any anomalies.

If everything passes we move on to cleaning of the Mirror, Coolant Lenses (bug removal), Lens Assemblies, front and back, and the Screen Assembly.

Then I hook up my black box, I2C interface, and download all of the current User menu and Service menu settings for your set.

G2 Voltage is next. I set these at factory specification +- .1 volt. This determines the base level for all of the following adjustments and it may improve CRT life.

Electrostatic and Manual focus, a key element to a super image. Some models of the newer Mits have astigmatism correction, so this will also be checked and adjusted, if needed, to allow for optimum focus. I check and re-check each CRT multiple times to make sure they are at the best possible focus across the entire screen.

Lots of Geometry work. Both SD and HD using grid overlays, actual external grid images and special scrolling test patterns to cross check horizontal and vertical linearity. Since I don't just eyeball geometry, this adds a lot of time to the calibrations, especially if I have to undo any factory settings first. This is based on the starting grid numbers and appearance.

Service Level Convergence for both SD and HD. I first check to see if I need to undo the Mits Factory work. Convergence is done so that it is fully optimized for "Your Viewing Position" with actual images, not just with the grids. This eliminates parallax convergence errors. Once again, I take a lot of extra care here. This is a really important step.

Properly set the color decoder through my black box/laptop for NTSC, 480p and HD modes to remove "Red Push" on all inputs. No more attenuators. This also corrects the HD 1080i color decoder problem so that yellows will now look yellow.

Check and adjust for edge enhancement through the black box for NTSC, 480p and HD modes. This removes some more of the Mits Showroom add-ons and gets us back to the true Home Theater look.

Check and adjust SVM and Sharpness for NTSC, 480p and HD modes.

At this time the user controls will be centered except for Contrast and Brightness. These settings will be determined during grayscale calibration.

Check and adjust Gamma for NTSC, 480p and HD modes.

Set 480p grayscale, Contrast and Brightness and make them as linear as possible across the entire IRE range. And then check them against other test patterns and on actual images. Along with everything else, this is another step that I put extra work and care into for the best possible color reproduction from 7.5 IRE (NTSC Base) to 100 IRE

Do the same for HD.

And one more time on setting grayscale for the NTSC inputs (Coax, Composite, S-Video, Component 480i).

Save all of the newly calibrated and tweak settings through the black box.

Put it all back together, wipe it all down to get my finger prints off, and then view some DVD and HD scenes to make sure you are truly 100% happy.
I use a Colorimeter for setting all of the grayscale modes/inputs and an HD Generator for setting High Definition Overscan, Geometry, SVM, Sharpness, Color Decoder and Grayscale settings.
Since it takes approximately 12-14 hours to do all of this I like to start the calibration around 9:00 A.M. so I can complete it before Midnight rolls around.

To do all of the above tweaks and calibrations I have a flat fee of $750. No surprises, no extra charges and no added fees per input, mode or signal type. Just one all inclusive fee.

Duvetyne adds about 1.5 - 2 hours to the job. It would be great if you could do this prior to calibration, it's really not very hard to do, just time consuming. If you are nervous about doing it I would be happy to add it on to the calibration. You buy the Duve and let's say $100 for me to install it. But, there are a number of posts here on the SPot that can help you with this so you can save some $ here.
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If you think that this price can be beat, print out this list and give it to a ISF guy. I received about 5 quotes for full calibration, and none of them even came close to this type of service.
If anyone is interested, please email me to get on the list. I will need full name, phone number, and area. I will contact Craig this weekend.
Matt



[This message has been edited by Matt Heebner (edited 03-13-2002).]