The calibrated tvs that I have seen either look "off" a little bit or COMPLETELY AMAZING.Both said no-that there experience has been that when they use equipment to calibrate the sets, the end users are never happy and they end up using thier eyes to set the color.
After just using the pictures off the site I mentioned earlier, my tv looks AT LEAST 60% better now. And I thought it looked great how it was to begin with!
I can't wait to get a calibration dvd if that helps even more. (I ordered one Monday - it is taking forever!)
My goal is now somewhere in the ballpark of those "completely amazing" sets.
However, I am not sure I would pay someone a lot of money to calibrate it for me since I would end up tweaking the picture afterwards to make it look how I wanted anyway.
But now I see the importance of calibration. Just using this website to adjust my computer monitor made it look tons better.
Although it seems that you would need an outside source like a color card or something to know exactly what the colors should look like.
This makes total sense now what Gregg said!One is only happy "going slow" if you have never experienced "going fast", which you obviously have not done (in relation to VIDEO STANDARDS).
I thought they looked great but did not realize just how much better they could be and how much more enjoyable it is to look at them.
-phil
p.s. Back to the original topic - since 6500 was such a recommended manufacturer setting - I put it back on that before I changed any settings. I now think that it is better than native and I guess my tv will last longer on this setting? Anyway - it looks good now on the recommended setting.