I just use recommended settings off the internet then tune to what my eyes suite, no way would I pay money to calibrate a TV. Would rather calibrate it myself and sit and watch a movie with the lurvley Indian I'd order.
His it worth it ?
- Thread starter baz178
- Start date
There's a surprising amount of ignorance on display here about TV set-up, compression, video standards and what calibration actually is.
Whether a source stream is direct off disc or compressed and streamed from a reputable source shouldn't make a difference to the colour space. Compression affects resolution, but it shouldn't affect colour accuracy.
That would only make a difference if you could take your eyes out and replace them with someone else's. We all have our own perception of the world, but it's consistent, whether we're looking at real life or the view of the world through a TV. Having a display that is truer to real life; one that renders detail and colour more accurately after calibration, is no bad thing
The fact that the before and after results are measurable, repeatable and verifiable seems to have escaped them. Just take a look at some of the better TV reviews where sets are calibrated to see how close they can get to reference levels.
Calibration - and we're really talking about colour rendition and Gamma here - is about getting the display as close as it is possible to reference standard given the type of technology it uses. With consumer CRT display TVs, we'd often struggle to get to 70% of the colour space set out in the 1950s without sacrificing a lot of brightness. The colour balance controls were crude too; just basic 2-point controls of the RGB levels for the dark and light halves of the picture. There were no separate Gamma controls. A lot of that has changed now. The average midrange LCD TV in the £500-£800 can exceed the colour requirements to achieve 100% of REC. 709 (the HDTV standard for colour) without sacrificing brightness. The colour controls extend to 10-point RGB cuts and gains, Colour Management and 10-point Gamma. They can make a credible stab at getting below a 3% measurable error (deltaE) across the board, and that's good enough to say that the any further adjustment with the TV controls can't be noticed. Not perfect then, but close enough to reference, and a damned sight better than out-of-the-box.
What our eyes (actually our brains, because our eyes are just data sensors. It's our brains that make sense of the input) are crap at is accurately assessing colour in an objective way. For a start, the colour of light in a room affects our perception of the relative colour balance of a displayed image. Then there's the fact that our brains constantly shift our colour perception to try to equalise white. The result is that trying to adjust colour balance by eye, say using a greyscale ramp, becomes an exercise in futility. Our brains keep shifting our perception of white so the measured results end up being less accurate than if we'd left colour balance alone. To get accurate colour requires either a comparative source display, or the objectivity of an accurate colour sensor taking readings directly off the screen.
B.S.
Whether a source stream is direct off disc or compressed and streamed from a reputable source shouldn't make a difference to the colour space. Compression affects resolution, but it shouldn't affect colour accuracy.
PMSL
That would only make a difference if you could take your eyes out and replace them with someone else's. We all have our own perception of the world, but it's consistent, whether we're looking at real life or the view of the world through a TV. Having a display that is truer to real life; one that renders detail and colour more accurately after calibration, is no bad thing
...said the uninformed person who has never seen what calibration does.
The fact that the before and after results are measurable, repeatable and verifiable seems to have escaped them. Just take a look at some of the better TV reviews where sets are calibrated to see how close they can get to reference levels.
Sorry to break it to you, but there are no perfect consumer display TVs. In fact, I'd go further and say that there isn't yet a perfect commercial or broadcast display either. All have their limitations.
Calibration - and we're really talking about colour rendition and Gamma here - is about getting the display as close as it is possible to reference standard given the type of technology it uses. With consumer CRT display TVs, we'd often struggle to get to 70% of the colour space set out in the 1950s without sacrificing a lot of brightness. The colour balance controls were crude too; just basic 2-point controls of the RGB levels for the dark and light halves of the picture. There were no separate Gamma controls. A lot of that has changed now. The average midrange LCD TV in the £500-£800 can exceed the colour requirements to achieve 100% of REC. 709 (the HDTV standard for colour) without sacrificing brightness. The colour controls extend to 10-point RGB cuts and gains, Colour Management and 10-point Gamma. They can make a credible stab at getting below a 3% measurable error (deltaE) across the board, and that's good enough to say that the any further adjustment with the TV controls can't be noticed. Not perfect then, but close enough to reference, and a damned sight better than out-of-the-box.
Some settings have to be done by eye. There's no meaningful way to use a colour sensor to measure the correct brightness setting for the ambient light, or the contrast, or the sharpness. You have to use test patterns and make adjustments by looking at what happens on screen. This is basic PLUGE plus sharpness.
What our eyes (actually our brains, because our eyes are just data sensors. It's our brains that make sense of the input) are crap at is accurately assessing colour in an objective way. For a start, the colour of light in a room affects our perception of the relative colour balance of a displayed image. Then there's the fact that our brains constantly shift our colour perception to try to equalise white. The result is that trying to adjust colour balance by eye, say using a greyscale ramp, becomes an exercise in futility. Our brains keep shifting our perception of white so the measured results end up being less accurate than if we'd left colour balance alone. To get accurate colour requires either a comparative source display, or the objectivity of an accurate colour sensor taking readings directly off the screen.
I don’t get why you wouldn’t spend all that cash and then not get it properly calibrated.
when I purchased my LG 65’” a couple of years ago. It was always with the intention of getting it calibrated. At the time that was a very big outlay of cash for me and I wanted to be sure I was gettinn the best from it.
I let it run it. Then tried all the settings I found online. I thought the picture looked pretty good
Vincent from HDTVtest did mine. I’ve still got my old settings stored one of the presets. Doing a A/B switch between them is quite revealing. 100% with the cash if you ask me.
when I purchased my LG 65’” a couple of years ago. It was always with the intention of getting it calibrated. At the time that was a very big outlay of cash for me and I wanted to be sure I was gettinn the best from it.
I let it run it. Then tried all the settings I found online. I thought the picture looked pretty good
Vincent from HDTVtest did mine. I’ve still got my old settings stored one of the presets. Doing a A/B switch between them is quite revealing. 100% with the cash if you ask me.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 21 Jun 2006
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- 38,367
depends on who you are using to get it done and where you are. how many tv's and the settings within said tv's.
if you have a decent tv and spent £1K+ on it then it's worth it regardless. so long as you keep said tv for at least a few years.
only people that don't understand what a proper calibration is don't think it's worth it.
I've never seen a before and after calibration to compare unfortunately, people here make out the difference is night and day but I'm not sure I'm eyes are good enough to notice... Obviously not worth it on a cheap telly.
One thing I'm not clear on is calibrating it to a certain room. That does make sense but there are only so many presets available and the light in the room varies throughout the day and the time of year so how often are you recalibrating?
Whether it's dedicated day and night memories, or just using a couple of the TVs existing presets (if possible) isn't so important. Room-lightingwise though, the night mode usually covers any period where curtains etc are closed and subdued lighting is running. When curtains are closed but full room lighting is on then day mode would suffice.
For day mode, again you're really looking at viewing with some daylight coming in to the room.
For most of us, there'll be a marked difference in the lighting level in the room between our habitual daytime and night time viewing conditions. That means then the TV brightness setting will be markedly different too.
Recalibration for different levels of outdoor lighting isn't required. That would be excessive and impractical.
Regarding seeing the difference, if your TV is capable of showing HDR with the bigger colour range from WCG, and you've compared something at 1080p to tge same thing but tge 4K HDR WCG version, then you'll have seen as big a difference as calibration makes for 1080p pre-cal versus 1080p post-cal. It's rarely a small difference.
I have often been asked by customers after calibrating whether the sharpness or colour is turned up. It never is. Usually they're neutral, and very often they're turned down from the owner's previous settings.
The reason for seeing more detail is because all the artificial edge sharpening and false contours have been removed. People think theres more colour because they're noticing the shade variations that were just a merged mess previously. Suddenly, all the colour starts to pop because the TV is rendering the colour differences more accurately. We call this colour contrast. Its what gives s 3D impression to the images on a 2D screen.
I't a bit concerning now the lock in Panasonic (&LG?) oleds now have with non-free CALman software/hardware to get access to hdr (tone mapping) config menus and change settings;
would be good if I can find enough people at work to purchase and share both, could be done with a group on OC too.
would be good if I can find enough people at work to purchase and share both, could be done with a group on OC too.
Permabanned
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- 4,539
Sorry chaps have seen a few professionally calibrated displays and to my eyes the whites look overly warm and the picture has little to no pop. You can argue the toss about accurate reproduction as proved by a camera and computer all you like but if the picture looks less impressive then I'm not paying significant sums of money for a downgrade. Maybe my eyes/brain have been trained to appreciate less accurate colour reproduction but TV/cinema watching is supposed to be a relaxing pursuit not training for the Olympics.
Let me give you an comparison. 48 FPS movies should objectively give a more accurate reproduction of movement but generally audiences think it looks bobbins. Same deal with colour calibration. I rest my case!
Let me give you an comparison. 48 FPS movies should objectively give a more accurate reproduction of movement but generally audiences think it looks bobbins. Same deal with colour calibration. I rest my case!
