CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[TBomb06]

Hey all! Total new guy here, but first I just wanted to say thanks for hosting such a vast amount of resources for the DIY guy who wants to get the most out of their new TV. I am not looking for absolute perfection in a home theater setup, but I would like to maximize the performance of my new TV if possible.

I have a Spyder3 sensor that I use to calibrate my computer displays (I'm a photographer) so I stumbled upon Kal's guide for using ColorHCFR and a test DVD (I am using the AVS HD 709) along with my existing sensor to calibrate my TV. I went through the steps outlined in the guide for calibrating greyscale, and I think I got decently close for my first attempt, but it isn't perfect. I thought it was interesting that my greens were at 98% on both the High and Low, but I didn't change them since the guide said not to. Also, the Gamma is pretty terrible but I'm not sure if there is anything that can be changed about that without a booster. I know the TV has 3 settings for Gamma...1.9, 2.2, and 2.4 I believe. I was calibrating with it on 2.2 and got an average of like 1.4.

I was curious to know if maybe there were some options in the picture setup of the TV that I could change that could help me get a better calibration. My blues were over contrast and I ran them down as low as the TV would allow but they were still a little high. That was with the color temperature on "Medium" in the TV menu. I could try it on "Warm", but then I would probably need to pull reds significantly, but perhaps I could try it?

Anyway, I have attached my ColorHCFR file if anyone wants to take a look at it. Also, here are the available menu options I have for adjusting the picture, with my settings in bold:

Backlight Level 0-100 70
Contrast 0-100 75
Brightness 0-100 51
Sharpness 0-100 70
Color (Adjusts intensity of all colors) 0-100 60
Tint (balance between Red and Green) 0
Color Temp (Cool/Medium/Warm) Medium

Dynamic Contrast (Off/Low/Medium/High) Off
Dynamic Color (Off/Low/Medium/High) Off
Noise Reduction (Off/Low/Medium/High) Medium
Digital Noise Reduction (Off/Low/Medium/High) Medium
Black Level (Low/High) High
Color Gamut (BT709/SMPTE/EBU/Wide) Calibrated on Wide, I think I should have used BT709
Gamma (1.9/2.2/2.4) 2.2

Now, things get confusing/interesting here. There is a "mode" for calibration, the one I chose was "2 Points" which basically lets you adjust RBG Contrast and Brightness from -50 to +50. This is what I did as outlined in the guide and came up with:

RC 24
GC 0
BC -50
RB 7
GB 0
BB -23

There are also two other modes for calibration, which I think I might want to look into, but I was tired and my brain hurt from trying to process everything I was seeing, so I didn't mess with them. The one that interests me is a mode called "10 Point IRE" and the manual describes it like this: