[Neil Davidson]

Who are the ISF?

ISF stands for Imaging Science Foundation, an organisation founded by Joel Silver and Joe Kane in 1994. The main goal of the ISF is to promote the correct application of industry standards to all forms of video reproduction.

To this end, the ISF work with manufacturers and specialised installers and AV professionals to supply the training and consultancy required to correctly design displays and how to properly calibrate them once they are installed.

What is display calibration?

The image that is displayed on screen is a function of all the parts of the video chain. The DVD player, video processor, AV receiver, cables and of course the display itself, exert their own influence on the video signal.

The goal of display calibration is to use the available controls to correct for these variances and ensure that the final image matches the industry standards as closely as possible. It is only possible to perform an accurate calibration using tools that enable colours displayed on screen to be measured accurately.

Can my display be calibrated?

Every display that I have ever seen has included four basic calibration controls, contrast, brightness, colour saturation and sharpness. Setting these controls correctly can have a massive impact on the quality of the displayed image.

To perform a full calibration to industry standards requires access to a number of advanced controls and on some displays these are hidden from consumers in the displays “service menu”. An ISF professional will know how to access these hidden menus on displays that use them and so it is almost 100% certain that some form of detailed calibration can be performed to move the display closer to industry standards.

What does vary is just how closely the display can be made to match the standards! Typically the better the display the better the calibration that can be achieved thanks to the availability of all required calibration options and suitable memory profiles to store the calibrated settings for each source device.

Why isn’t my display calibrated at the factory?

Quite simply, it is impossible for the display to come from the factory with a perfect calibration! The image in screen is affected by a number of factors most of which are outside the control of the display manufacturer:

Source Equipment
Cables
Room Lighting
Etc….

Two DVD players from the same batch can have a quite different output thanks to the tolerance of components used. Any switching in the path will add it’s characteristics and the these will all need to be adjusted out.

The best that the factory can do is create an averaged set of profiles for each display with one which hopefully gets each model close to the ball park of industry standards – some companies do this well but sadly most still do not.

How can I find someone to calibrate my display?

The ISF maintains a list of all people who have been trained and have passed the ISF exam on their website at http://www.imagingscience.com/dealer...ited%20Kingdom. Only those listed as having purchased calibration equipment can consider offering the service and even then many of these do not actively offer a calibration service to general customers.

Alternatively, calibrators who are actively performing calibrations around the UK are encouraged to post a copy of their calibration certificate in the opening thread of this forum.

As a third option, there are several calibration companies who are active supporters of the AV Forums and would value enquiries from interested forum members!

Also note that many calibrators offer a nation wide service.

[Neil Davidson]

If you have any more questions about the ISF or calibration in general that you would like answered, then please post here or PM me the details.

Neil

[Bilbo77]

Originally Posted by Neil Davidson

If you have any more questions about the ISF or calibration in general that you would like answered, then please post here or PM me the details.

Neil

Hi Neil,

I got my Pioneer LX508 ISF calibrated yesterday and the problem that occured was when we tried to set correct sharpness.

I have Arcam's FMJ DV139 and when we used the built-in video calibration to set the sharpness right, we could'nt set it low enough.

The end result is that the picture is too sharp and has "noise"

Hope you can give me some advice how to fix this.

[meansizzler]

I take it that's a no ?, isn't this ISF like the THX polava?..., I think people can make their own minds up when it comes to if their display is set correctly or not, what an ISF member thinks is correct might not be what the customer is thinking... I don't know hwo toexplain it but I would never paysomeoen to calibrate my screen as only I know how I like it no one else, and i'm pretty sure a lotof others think the same... like throwing money down the drain.....

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

There are no standards set for sharpness..or noise reduction or detail enhancment. Those are things that the end user can decide what to do with. Ideally they would be set minimise artefacts. It is correct that in the ISF mode it is not possible to completely defeat the sharpness control on the 8th g like you can in the user menu's.

THX and ISF are not the same. THX is an arbitery standard created by them for marketing purposes.
ISF is just a name for an organistion. ISF calibration is really just calibration to the international TV standards...those are laid down by EBU and SMPTE amongst others. Adherence to the TV standards will give you a more accurate image. If you don't like an accurate image then that's cool too.

[Eitzel]

Originally Posted by meansizzler

I take it that's a no ?, isn't this ISF like the THX polava?..., I think people can make their own minds up when it comes to if their display is set correctly or not, what an ISF member thinks is correct might not be what the customer is thinking... I don't know hwo toexplain it but I would never paysomeoen to calibrate my screen as only I know how I like it no one else, and i'm pretty sure a lotof others think the same... like throwing money down the drain.....

I really don't believe that it's a waste of money. It's worth every penny and makes such a magnificent difference to the images on the screen. I've had two done and will get my next screen ISF'd too.

"I think people can make their own minds up when it comes to if their display is set correctly or not". I don't agree with that. Most people can't tell a cow from a horse and this is why they keep fiddling about with their settings. But if you are happy, then fine. I just know that when the screen is ISF'd it looks and feels right and I don't need to fiddle about anymore. I just enjoy the damn thing.

[Iain Gibson]

I have to agree with Gordon and Eitzel. (But of course I would...)
The human eye is really not up to setting RGB cuts and gains accurately to achieve D65 at all stimulus levels, nor can it help you set gamma, colour decoding or colour management. I'm sure that like me, all the other calibrators will have seen plenty instances of clients having even the basic controls of brightness, contrast, colour and sharpness set way off. They are then really chuffed when the calibrator shows them what the picture ought to look like.

Cheers,
Iain

[Phil Hinton]

Originally Posted by Gordon @ Convergent AV

THX and ISF are not the same. THX is an arbitery standard created by them for marketing purposes.
ISF is just a name for an organistion. ISF calibration is really just calibration to the international TV standards...those are laid down by EBU and SMPTE amongst others. Adherence to the TV standards will give you a more accurate image. If you don't like an accurate image then that's cool too.

Just to update this information from Gordon.

THX now run calibration training for all display types and you will soon see Calibrators in the UK displaying the THX badge for passing their training course and stringent exam. The THX examination is based on actual calibrations the calibrator does, so there is some quality control to ensure the professional guys can put their skills into practice. THX calibrators have to be tech 1 trained before they can go on the calibrators course as well. This training is very similar to what ISF do.

THX also introduced the certification programme in the UK with JVC, LG and Panasonic products. This means that the THX picture preset in the menu system is factory calibrated to try and get close to D65 and ITU-r.709 standard. Obviously its impossible for a factory calibration to take in to account sources and environment of the display, but its a good starting point. It is encouraging that this preset is being made available and should give people a better idea of what an accurate image can look like. ISFccc on a TV does not give the user any picture preset, it is basically a display that has a certain amount of flexibility of settings for ISF professionals and offers day and night locked menu selections once the TV has been professionally calibrated.

[KelvinS1965]

I looked at the link in the first post but couldn't find a list of ISF calibrators, just seemed to be a few direct links to firms that provide the service with no real idea of where they are based.

I'm looking for an ISF calibration to be done in the Berkshire area on my JVC HD350/Lumagen HDQ combo.

[rowlandhills]

I think the link has changed:

http://www.imagingscience.com/isf_search.cfm

[DrGekko]

Hi folks.

Are there any ISF members in the West Midlands region please? I need my Panny PT-AE4000 callibrating in a couple of weeks.

[Iain Gibson]

Piers is your nearest (Home Cinema Engineering). Most calibrators will travel though.