pennektj Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 Quick question. I have a Mitsubishi 48" RPTV... and I have been researching something called ISF Calibration. Is this worth it? I heard that it makes the picture quality amazing... but it is als0 ~300. How often would I have to have it calibrated? Just trying to get some understanding of the effect, how long it lasts, and if it worth the money. I did some research on the net, but all I found was sites of people that do it. Of course they are going to say it is wonderful. Also realize that 300 isn't cheap for me... Thanks for any opinions / advice. Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CO1 Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 Yes it's worth it and can really improve the PQ of your display. It should be done after the first 100hrs if I recall correctly and again after a year. If you are already around a year or past you should only need it once but that will also depend on how long you keep the TV. A good example is the cheap Panasonic 47-inch RPTV which pales in comparison to most other sets in it's category but once ISF calibrated it compares favorable to a Pioneer Elite. I would also check around to make sure you get an ISF tech that is worth his salt because the last thing you want to do is pay the cash to have an idiot come and screw up your set. Most of the good guys travel around the country and you have to book appointments with them in advance which means it could be several months before they are in your area. Ask around at avsforum.com and hometheaterforum.com because I know there are guys there that use these services. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodger Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 Hello: Are there any Techs that can do this in or very close to Rochester, NY? Win dodger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben. Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 Win- I'm not sure if they do it in house (ie-themselves), but try Charlotte Appliance. Our Toshiba rep calls on them, and he says they do a very good job with his lines, at least. Also, I met the owner Jim last week, and he's a straight shooter. Let me know how (if) it works out, Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burtlively Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 http://www.imagingscience.com/ for an isf calibrator in your area. the best investment you can make from a video perspective. it was worth it to me to see the measurements of the tube temps cut in half to lengthen the life of my tubes. the improvement in video quality was an added bones. EVERYTHING looks better. even my analog cable tv. dvd's are AMAZING. consider the duventyne as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckears Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 I would add to the list of sites to visit www.hometheaterspot.com There are several calibrators who post there regularly, and several specialize in Mitsubishi... in fact, the Spot was apparantly founded by Mits fanatics and calibrators. I don't want to sound like a pimp for them, but the $25 I spent on a membership (allows access to tweaking sections) has probably saved my hundreds of dollars, since only a calibrator would perform a lot of the adjustments I have made with the knowledge gained there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diss Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 Heres a post of someone who had theres calibrated. Goes into pretty good detail, and the techs website has listing of different techs in different areas. http://forums.klipsch.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=39114&forumID=69&catID=19&search=1&searchstring=&sessionID={E58FAEED-0EDE-436E-910C-3424ADDCC7AB} Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burtlively Posted November 12, 2003 Share Posted November 12, 2003 chuckears is right on. although i get tons of info from this forum, ht spot is incredible for a wealth of info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eq_shadimar Posted November 12, 2003 Share Posted November 12, 2003 Is it worth it? In a word yes! I read all the tweaks and performed as many of them as I could. I thought that I had a pretty decent setup that is until I got it calibrated. The first session took a full 8 hours and was done about 200 hours after I got the set. It cost about $600 but it was a full bore calibration that included tweaking all the inputs, convergence and geometry aligned to a seperate grid, duytune (sp?) lining, manually adjusting the magnets on the green CRT to fix a focus issue, and getting rid of the red push. Another neat thing that he did was save all of his settings as the factory default. This way if the power is lost or the set is reset to factory defaults it will be his settings. Pretty neat. I also had him set up a special color setting for black and white films. These require slightly different settings that he stored in one of the default color settings. All I can say is wow it was well worth the cash. The set looks so film like it is unreal. I realize that it is a lot of money and all I can say is that you have spent a lot of money on the TV so why not make it 100% I just had the set re-ISF's two weeks ago (15 months from the first visit) because I was seeing a color shift esp. on black and white movies. Of course I called the tech and sure enough the grayscale showed that the red was alot stronger. He said taht this is normal across all brands of TV's. The red CRT does not age as quickly as the blue and green ones. He also applied some more tweaks in the ROM of the set that he had learned over the past year, tweaked the convergence and inputs again, and cleaned the lenses and mirror. All in all except for the red CRT issue the set held up pretty damm good. This time the cost was only $200 with a returning customer discount and took 4 hours. So yes it cost a lot of money but it was well worth it in my opinion. There is no way the average person can set the gray scale and test the HD inputs without the proper equipment. After seeing the difference I plan on havnig the calibration done yearly now. It is amazing the difference little professional tweaks can make to the picture. Laters, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fabulousfrankie Posted November 12, 2003 Share Posted November 12, 2003 ---------------- On 11/11/2003 1:37:18 PM CO1 wrote: A good example is the cheap Panasonic 47-inch RPTV which pales in comparison to most other sets in it's category but once ISF calibrated it compares favorable to a Pioneer Elite. ---------------- Is this an exxageration or is this actually true? Frankie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pennektj Posted November 12, 2003 Author Share Posted November 12, 2003 First off... I want to thank everyone for their input... I have been researching this alot... and it sounds like a great thing... however I am still having trouble rationalizing 300-600 on a tune up for the TV... I wish I could see the difference side by side before I took the plunge... Thanks again for everyone's opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burtlively Posted November 13, 2003 Share Posted November 13, 2003 one more thought on isf calibration. my set was running at 15,000 degrees kelvin before calibration. after calibration it was running at 4,000 degrees kelvin. as a result i can expect my set to last much longer. i invested $2,500 in this set a year ago. although it was built to last, now it should last much longer. also when we opened the set up to put on the duventyne and clean the lenses, my lenses were filthy. when you consider the $300 to extend the life of your tv, consider the investment you made in the tv. i thought isf calibration was a racket until i saw the numbers. as i stated before, this was reason enough for me. the picture quality was an added bonus. i thought i would not see a difference. not only did i see a major difference, my father in law asked if i had bought a new tv. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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