CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Frank78]

Hi everyone, greetings from Australia

Just looking for some opinions. I have calibrated my full HD LCD with a DVE (Digital video essentials) DVD and it's an Australian model. Sharp LCD 42D77X - came out maybe 3 years ago roughly. Based on some forums around the place, I have used Movie mode and the Low colour temperature and turned off all extra processing etc. I calibrated via the HDMI input and my xbox 360, which is running standard reference levels, 1080p and auto colour space.

From the user menu I have the following settings available: Backlight; Contrast; Brightness; Colour; Tint; Sharpness.

Using my eyes only (no meter) and going through the relevant test patterns on the DVE DVD, the settings above look correct to my eyes. Having a real world reference, the visual demonstrations at the end of the DVD look great too. However, flicking over to free to air TV, which over here is broadcast at 576i, 720p, or 1080i (depending on the station), my eyes are telling me that while it looks good, the colours could be better.

Now, from the advanced menu, I have a 6 colour CMS for Hue and a 6 colour CMS for saturation. Nothing for greyscale or gamma. Using the blue filter, colour and tint look spot on. Using the green and red filter, the boxes don't all match as they do on the blue filter. I know a filter won't be anywhere near as accurate as a meter and software but is there a method I can use to make small tweaks to the CMS settings so that the boxes look more accurate when viewing the green and red filters?

I can post screenshots from the TV (viewed through the filters) and of a couple of test patterns if someone could spot by eye anything that is glaringly obvious for where my problem colours could be and a method for trying to adjust the CMS?

As a sidenote; is it worth buying a meter if I only have the menu options above available to me? If it's not going to get me only a marginal improvement (aside from doing a proper greyscale calibration etc) then I won't bother.

thanks
Frank

[Frank78]

Actually - as a follow up question in addition to what I asked above, can someone please offer advice on this:

I have been using the Digital Video Essentials disc (DVD) played through my Xbox 360 via HDMI to calibrate the TV and I'm wanting to choose the right colour space for calibrating my inbuilt TV tuner input and then the HDMI input which I use for Xbox 360 gaming.

The free to air TV in Australia is broadcast at 576i, 720p, or 1080i (depending on the station). Should I be using a different colour space for the Xbox input as opposed to TV broadcasts, given that they vary from SD to HD? Or should I just have one for HD broadcasts and one for SD?

The xbox allows me to choose from the following colour spaces:
- Auto
- Source
- RGB
- 601
- 709

I run the Xbox at 1080p/60Hz if that makes a difference.

[Frank78]

Forget it. I worked it out myself.

Might look at getting a meter for doing the greyscale but the TV's looking pretty good at the moment.

[Frank78]

Lucky I didn't need any help here...86 views and not 1 comment. Thanks guys.

[Curt Palme]

Yup, posts like this will get you a LOT of help. This is primarily a CRT forum as the main website suggests. I don't know of any Sharp plasma owners that are here on a regular basis.

[Curt Palme]

Yup, posts like this will get you a LOT of help. This is primarily a CRT forum as the main website suggests. I don't know of any Sharp plasma owners that are here on a regular basis.

[kal]

I think the lack of comments from others is because your questions are somewhat open ended.

Is a meter worth it? IMHO yes, I would never attempt calibration by eye as it rarely is anywhere near correct. But then we live and breath HT here and are big into calibration to get the most out of any display. To me it's better to have a lower end display that's calibrated than some higher end display that's simply plugged in and not touched.

Some people will say that calibration is not worth or not care, that's fine too. That's a personal choice. Nobody can decide that for you. However people that are into HT and display quality will generally agree that proper greyscale and colour calibration is regarded as one of (if not the) most important actions that should be performed on all TVs or projectors for optimal picture quality.

What colour space you choose (REC601 SDTV vs. REC709 HDTV) does not affect gamma or greyscale. It only changes the primary/secondary colour reference points. For complete details see my guide: https://www.curtpalme.com/forum_archived/viewtopic.php@t=10457.html

You can't take pictures of what you're seeing and expect them to look the same on someone else's display. That doesn't work.

Kal

[kal]

I think the lack of comments from others is because your questions are somewhat open ended.

Is a meter worth it? IMHO yes, I would never attempt calibration by eye as it rarely is anywhere near correct. But then we live and breath HT here and are big into calibration to get the most out of any display. To me it's better to have a lower end display that's calibrated than some higher end display that's simply plugged in and not touched.

Some people will say that calibration is not worth or not care, that's fine too. That's a personal choice. Nobody can decide that for you. However people that are into HT and display quality will generally agree that proper greyscale and colour calibration is regarded as one of (if not the) most important actions that should be performed on all TVs or projectors for optimal picture quality.

What colour space you choose (REC601 SDTV vs. REC709 HDTV) does not affect gamma or greyscale. It only changes the primary/secondary colour reference points. For complete details see my guide: https://www.curtpalme.com/forum_archived/viewtopic.php@t=10457.html

You can't take pictures of what you're seeing and expect them to look the same on someone else's display. That doesn't work.

Kal

[Frank78]

Thank you for the reply I have taken an interest in calibration as a result of your guide, so for that I thank you.

I understood this was called a home theater forum and that LCD calibration would fall within the domain of what I could ask about on here. I thought I had given a good amount of background info and then only really asked 1 or 2 questions.

Being a member of various other forums, I just assumed if someone couldn't help me, they might point me in the right direction or tell me to clarify the questions. I was just venting...not trying to cause a stir.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply Kal.

cheers
Frank

[kal]

No problems Frank. Good luck with the calibrations. If you want to go a step further please consider a meter. Without one it's really hard to do much of anything useful as our eyes are really bad at seeing the minor required when making adjustments.

Kal

[kal]

No problems Frank. Good luck with the calibrations. If you want to go a step further please consider a meter. Without one it's really hard to do much of anything useful as our eyes are really bad at seeing the minor required when making adjustments.

Kal

[Frank78]

I will consider it for sure, thanks. I have a 68cm CRT tube tv and that looks really good after doing the DVD calibration...but I'm guessing it's greyscale is pretty good to start with. Otherwise, why would it look better than my Full HD LCD hehehehe