[MlMlC]

Should I get a DVE disc to calibrate my HW10 or get in an ISF guy?

I'm not that good with graphs and that so would DVE be to hard for a beginner?

[KelvinS1965]

You could get a copy of DVE or even download the AVS709 disc and burn it to DVD (it plays as an AVCHD disc in many BluRay players). Setup your HWL10 using this and see how you get on. You could spend £100 or so and buy an I1 probe and use some free software (HFCR) to plot the results, but it's quite a learing curve and the I1 isn't anything like as accurate as what an ISF calibrator should be using to do a calibration. I've enjoyed learning using mine and I'm quite happy with the results, but YMMV.

I believe that it is recommended to have at least 100 hours on the PJ before having an ISF calibration done, so you may as well use the DVE/AVS709 just to get it a bit closer.

AVS 709 disc information and download link

[MlMlC]

My DVD player is a Sony upscaling DVD player not a Blu-Ray player, do I have to get the SD DVE disc or can I use the Blu-Ray one? Thanks for your info too it was very helpfull.

[Avi]

Originally Posted by MlMlC

My DVD player is a Sony upscaling DVD player not a Blu-Ray player, do I have to get the SD DVE disc or can I use the Blu-Ray one? Thanks for your info too it was very helpfull.

The Merighi PAL DVD calibration material can be downloaded for free from here and you just burn to a DVD. IMO it's more useful than DVE and allow better near black/peak white adjustment.

[Software]MERIGHI TEST DVD favolosa tool di calibrazione freeware - Il Termitano Forum

AVI

[Iain Gibson]

By all means have a go with DVE or another calibration disc. Half of the fun of DVE is Joe Kane's informative potted history of video engineering!

With most test discs you should be able to set brightness, contrast and sharpness to the right ball-park. These are all worthwhile improvements. The blue filter method for colour can be unreliable though, so use plenty of real-world content to check the results. If your system has a blue-only mode that is much better. Keep in mind that without a decent colour analyzer and software, you will never be able to assess colour decoding, gamma or white balance accurately.

Cheers,
Iain

[Liam @ Prog AV]

Setting up a screen with a disc like DVE is like the first 10% of an ISF calibration. You have a lot more to go to get accurate colour and gamma, and having an experience calibrator over meeans they will check that you are using optimal configuration and settings to achieve the best from your system.

[sniffer66]

Originally Posted by Illuminant AV

By all means have a go with DVE or another calibration disc. Half of the fun of DVE is Joe Kane's informative potted history of video engineering!

The other half of the fun with DVE is trying to find everything else on the disk once you've listened for a while !!

[Wilt]

ISF calibration will be expensive as this will need to be done several times as the lamp ages.

[Liam @ Prog AV]

After an initial settling period the lamp will not change noticeably for the greater proportion of it's life. Once it nears the end of it's life it will start to noticeably dim. I find people go different ways, some make sure they replace their lamp as soon as it shows signs of fade others just put up with the innaccurate image to strain the lamp life out some (sometimes clicking on the higher brightness mode to in some way compensate). You wouldn't get the ISF calibrator out as his settings will then be totally wrong when you put the next lamp in!!! You just need to realise that during the time you will own a projector, right at the beginning and right at the end of a lamps life the image will be different, whether it was ISF calibrated or not.