ISF Calibration - Likely costs

[stevos]

I am looking to buy a 1080p screen around july/august. Once purchased i would like to get both my projector and the screen calibrated.

What sort of prices would i be looking at to calibrate both displays?

Cheers
Steve.

[dj-dulux]

Will be around £400 depending on how many inputs you want setting up.

Dupe...

[jonnyt]

Hi there,

I am not in a position to comment on exact pricing as this field is something we are looking at very closely at the moment, however, two firms do spring to mind when talking calibration.

Gordon (who uses this site) (no details to hand at the moment) and,
http://www.avdoctor.co.uk/ - who again uses this site.

I have heard good things about both these firms!! and beleive that a calibration would cost around the 200 ISH and thats a big ISH price as i do not work for either of these companies and have merely arrived at that price from what is displayed on the avdoctor website and from reading posts here on avf.

kind regards,
Jonathan

[LV426]

"Gordon" is also known as Convergent AV:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/member.php?u=4882

[Stuart Wright]

There is also Piers (http://www.avforums.com/forums/member.php?u=18683) from Home Cinema Engineering.
They're all good and you're generally best off using the one nearest you.

[stevos]

Cheers guys.

Can probably justify the £200 odd price but £400 is a bit on the expreme side for my current equipment. If i get around to buying a 1080p projector (probably the JVC) then £400 would seem like a worth while investment.

I guess i could get one done for now (or fairly soon) and save up for the other at a later date.

[jonnyt]

Hi Stevos,

I hope this doesnt sound abrupt!

I would hazard a guess that looking at your current kit list you enjoy the finer things in life, and i'd also hazard a guess that a 1080p panel will cost around 4/5k? perhaps.

so spending 10% on getting it calibrated to display its best and showing your sources in an optimal environment doesnt seem 'too' bad?

does it?

my questions stem from my other post regarding whether me investing in ISF calibration is 'worth it' from a business point of view?

kind regards,
Jonathan

[stevos]

The 1080p panel i am currently looking at is the sony w series lcd, which costs around £1.5k.

For sure if/when i purchase the jvc projector that would be a different matter.

My finances go from having a wee bit burning in the bank to none at all (current state) in a fairly short period of time.

I would love to get it set up properly but my problem is that i keep switching components, which makes the ISF stuff kind of expensive. For £200, i would get it done tomorrow but £400 takes a little more thought.

[Neil Davidson]

Hi Stevos,

Been trying to stay out of the thread for obvious reasons but I can't sit by and watch someone buy a Sony W series. They have a dismal picture quality and I try to avoid them at all costs.

Please do not get caught up in the numbers game as a 1024x768 plasma panel from the likes of Panasonic (ie PH9) offers a far better viewing experience with better black level, colour accuracy and higher perceived resolution on moving images.

HTH

Neil

[stevos]

Too my eyes (and that's all that counts in this case) i found the sony to produce a far better picture than any of the plasma's i have seen. I found the plasma's suffered heavly from compression errors (not sure what its called but the type of effects you get with low bit rate mpeg sources such as those downloaded from torrents etc) even when feed with a 1080i picture (from the bbchd trial).

Saying that, without a doubt the plasma's had better colour depths/ blacks but the above error far out weighs this too me.

I will have a look at a few more plasma's over the next week or so, just to double check it wasn't just a couple of bad sets.

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

Stevos: Each display has its own series of problems to deal with. The LCD's suffer badly from lack of detail whenever there is movement on screen. As Neil has said the Sony also has a strange colour gamut compared to something like a Panny plasma. I know what you mean about the effects you see with plasma. It's a by-product of it's PWM drive system imho. Proper set up of the plasma would help with this but as you say it's down to what sort of artefacts you find the most annoying. Horses for courses.

On cost front. Calibrators are not allowed to answer direct questions on price on a thread like this....weird I know but thems the rules. You can usually find pricing on their web sites. You may also find that some offer significantly reduced rates for dual calibrations in same location on same day or reduced rates for a second display or repeat calibration at some point in the future.

Good luck in your search for your preferred display.

Gordon

[stevos]

Cheers Gordon,

I will have to find somewhere that shows calibrated screens (or at least semi calibrated) before i make my final decision.

[table manners]

sony 40w dismal picture! ha that tv is the best seller where i work and ive lost count of the amount of people that have been blown away by it.ive got a 46w tho not as good as the 40w its a great tv and i used to install all types of panels
and the 40w is still coming up as top dog.i think dismal is a bit harsh.just thought i would say.:(

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

Yes I think dismall may be a bit harsh but the Sun is the biggest selling national paper....but is it necessarily the best.

Gordon

[stevos]

I was very impressed with the general picture quality of the sony, but less so with the colour etc (they had it situated next to a similarly priced pioneer plasma i believe), however very liveable.

The only problem is that i have yet to see one being fed a non hd feed (strange when the general public doesn't have hd). Although I watch a lot of tv now adays in hd thanks to skyhd and bluray/hddvd, there is still good old dvd's to be watched and a bit of 4:3 sd sky channels like scifi etc.

From your professional opinions, which type of display have you found to produce the best sd images?

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

Upscaling of SD to HD is where alot of issues appear. Poor upscaling will exacerbate compression artefacts making edge enhancement and mosquito noise even more noticeable.

The best SD images for me (42-50") are with a quality plasma panel and off board video processor.

Gordon

[stevos]

I do have the annoying tendacy of spotting image problems, although strangely i have never really noticed them on dlp projectors.

Not being an expert on artefacts, i have problems explaining what i see. As stated the problems i always see are grain (really bugs me on a lot of lcd/plasma tv's, looks like lots of dots all over the screen) and the problem i attempted to explain earlier (compression esk effects, i am guessing this is caused by loss of original quality and worsened by movement). Could you let me know what these artefacts are more commonly known as.

[Neil Davidson]

This paper discusses the different types of digital compression noise artefacts.

http://www.algolith.com/fileadmin/documents/DigitalArtifacts1.pdf

There is also some good information here : http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=472916

HTH

Neil

[stevos]

Cheers, will check them out.

Any ideas why I am more prone to seeing problems in a 40" lcd/plasma and not so much with a 6' dlp screen, logic would say that this should be the other way around. Only thing that jumps out to me is that the dlp isn't as bright.

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

Yes brightness will be an issue. Also your DLP is a good DC3 unit so alot of the nasties of DLP are banished in it. You are likely to see posterisation caused by temporal dithering more easily in the DLP I'd think though, if only due to the size of image.

Incorrect setting of brightness and contrast will exacerbate the prescence of the artefacts on the displays in shops. It is unlikely, unless you visit a good specialist retailer, that the displays will be set up optimally. It's pretty simple to make any display look poor. Also your projector has from memory a faroudja de-interlacing chip. This is good for video source material (better than that in most plasma/lcd displays) so it'll help mask alot of possible artefacts....and of course it is a lower resolution than most HD plasma and as I said before more upscaling down poorly results in nasties on screen....

Gordon

[stevos]

Certainly interesting stuff, but back to square one really.

Anyone have any opinions on how well sevenoaks setup their displays, since there my closest large specialist av shop that is likely to have plasma as well as lcd screens.

[stevos]

After reading the article (got around to it at last) i seem to be suffering heavily from blocking and mosquito artifacts.

I am not sure why i notice them more on a plasma than a say an lcd or dlp, or why on a lcd i see more grain but i guess its just my strange and wonderful eyes.