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Anybody ever get their RPTV calibrated?


mbajner

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I'd be curious to hear some comments as well. I have also been toying with the idea of having my TV professionally calibrated. I have done everything I can using test discs and I have even been into the service menu on my Toshiba to complete the 56 point convergeance. Having done so, my picture quality has improved greatly, however, I'm wondering if paying a pro to do it is worth the cash.

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I have a service agreement and they come out once a year to do it. I think the cleaning of the guns and the inside of the screen does the most good. The cleaning alone brightens up the picture a lot. Sometime I will clean it. Imagine how your house would look if you didn't dust it for a year. That's how much dust is on the guns every time I open it up.

My RPTV is about 8 years old and the darn thing just won't break down. I keep hoping that it will. It's also on at least 12 hours every day. My wife is home all day and she has 3 TV's going all the time, so she can walk from room to room and not miss anything.

I bought a service contract for the TV when I bought the TV.(I know, I will never do it again.) The TV then cost around $2,000.00. I now have about about $2,000.00 or more invested in service contracts. My latest contract has two years on it. They are susposed to replace the TV if they can't fix it. The TV is now old enought that I wouldn't think that it would be worth fixing, so the game goes on. I'm going to keep taking out new contracts untill this TV dies. With my luck I'll have $4,000.00 into contracts and they will pro rate the TV and buy me a $500.00 one. Like I said, it's now a game with me. I have to play it out to the end. Anyway, they come out once a year to service it, and it makes a difference.

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I had the SC through Sears when I bought mine that included the once a year cleaning and adjusting but it was not a good one, just a quickie job. I did remove the front cover and clean the mirror by hand, it was filthy. I certainly think mine needs calibrating as I have a very slight bend sometimes about 5 inches up on the lower right corner so I know it could use alignment. I don't know if there is anyone qualified in my area to do this. I agree with Don I am not lugging this TV anywhere it would have to be done on site. The guy from Sears said that they charged like 2 bills for the half *** cleanup that they do. All he did was dust and do the auto convergence - oh boy!

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I own a Marantz 64"rptv, when I purchased it, the dealer had a tech come out and align the guns by hand. I noticed blacker blacks,richer colors. I dont know how much this service would cost, I would be interested in having re-done, now that I think about it.....

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The process of having my TV calibrated was one of small apprehension and BIG reward. While I only have a "diminutive" 46" Sony RPTV, within two months of purchase I had a local tech (whom I also knew well from the pinball hobby community) come over and calibrate it.

He not only went into the service menus and removed the factory "red push", but also did all the convergence settings, sharpness, 5600K settings, greyscales, and other things.

After about FIVE HOURS of tinkering, we put in LOTR (the first one) and the difference before and after was DRAMATIC; I cannot overemphasize this enough. Skin tones were now "skin", everything that was SUPPOSED to be red was (and everything else was NOT), and the color balance and clarity was remarkable (and remains so). I literally went back and watched every DVD I had at the time AGAIN, and it was like a new experience.

This is a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED procedure IF you have a trained person doing it. And no, you will NOT achieve the same absolute effect by doing it yourself with an AVIA disk.

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First off, having a service contract from Sears, CC, BB, etc. for a yearly cleaning, convergence does not constitute a calibration. When you get your set ISF calibrated it is a long and thorough process. Full geometry is done as well as all inputs are calibrated. Service menus are tweaked, grayscale is set, guns are focused, etc, etc. My 57s700 took nearly 6 hours to do by a real professional and the results were night and day. So is it worth it? IMO, yes. Would I let a so call "technician" from Sears, BB near my TV? You got to be kidding? LOL. Also, be prepared to spend $500 min for a full ISF calibration. 6.gif

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On 10/28/2004 6:42:17 AM mobgre wrote:

First off, having a service contract from Sears, CC, BB, etc. for a yearly cleaning, convergence does not constitute a calibration. When you get your set ISF calibrated it is a long and through process. Full geometry is done as well as all inputs are calibrated. Service menus are tweaked, grayscale is set, guns are focused, etc, etc. My 57s700 took nearly 6 hours to do by a real professional and the results were night and day. So is it worth it? IMO, yes. Would I let a so call "technician" from Sears, BB near my TV? You got to be kidding? LOL

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The BB "Technician" isn't from the store - it's someone from a local factory-authorized service center for your given TV.

That said, BB ain't paying them jack, so you can bank on the idea that it'll be a half-*** job under their service contract...

Typically, a proper job will end up costing you somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-500, depending on the shop, and it will be onsite (it would be stupid to bring it to them to do the job, because transporting it back home would destroy all the work they did...)

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Just thought I would pile on top of the heap. Yes, it will make a dramatic difference. I had my Mits. 55" for about a year before I decided to have it done. Besides needing a thorough cleaning, it sharpened the picture so much, and gave a near 3-d quality to it. The HD signal was always good, but the SD signal was lousy. This made the HD even better, and the SD signal tolerable. DVD's looked great. The guy that did mine spent about 9 to 10 hours on it. He was in a trance the whole time, and I don't think he would have even eaten if we didn't make him. (ie. a real perfectionist that loved his job!).

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