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astrossuperfan

Baseball Junkie
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Supporting Founder
Mar 30, 2004
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H-town, Tejas
I just got finished using Digital Video Essentials, and WOW :shocked did my TV look so much better. If you have a buddy who has this DVD borrow it and use it; or buy it or rent it if you can. Literally night and day difference. I've heard that AVIA is a good disc too, but I haven't used that one.

A little background: When your TV is in the store, the settings for picture are set so that the TV will grab your attention. It's bright, its colorful, it's detailed. When you buy said TV and bring it home, those settings over time can damage your TV. DVE or AVIA can help you set up your TV with settings that are more in line with what was intended, by adjusting color and brightness, and can tweak your audio system too if you have one.

Also, if you really want to go the distance and have some extra cash lying around, you can get an ISF calibration. A trained pro comes to your house and goes into the service menus of your TV and tweaks it further.

Just passing along info that really has made my Voom viewing experience better.

By the way: I don't work for DVE or AVIA. :)
 
I have DVE and it's a great disc. My Sony was pretty dead on right out of the box, but even the minor tweaks I made, ended up helping out.
 
Agreed. It's the best $30-40 investment anyone can make. I prefer Avia over VE.
 
Use both. They each have strengths. I'd use DVE first to understand better what you're doing, and then get into Avia for the messy stuff.
 
I find these products lacking. I bought AVIA, and used it on my DVD player. It did a pretty good job of fine tuning my component inputs. But most devices aren't the same. My DVD settings don't look good on my STB. It did help when I used it on the XBOX, though. I have no way to tune my DVI input, or my STB if I choose to use component cables. I believe nothing replaces an ISF calibration. I wouldn't spend $30 on the AVIA disc, but it's certainly worthwhile if you can borrow or rent it. I am not an ISF tech, nor am I affiliated with one.
 
The ISF calibrations are a lot more expensive than a DVD though. A quick search for the first ISF company I could find in Houston is $275 and up.
 
astrossuperfan said:
The ISF calibrations are a lot more expensive than a DVD though. A quick search for the first ISF company I could find in Houston is $275 and up.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I guess what I was saying is that I thought the ISF calibration was more of a wower. It's usually more than $275. If you have a CRT RPTV, and go with all inputs calibrated and duvetyne lining (some say duvetyne's woth it, others say not) you could spend a cool $1000. But RPTVs are the ones that need calibration the most. In my experience, AVIA didn't really do much for me, and spending a few hours messing with it was annoying. But it is a good tip to give people because it has helped so many. I'm glad it helped you. Now you can see the many ways Ausmus hits into double plays that much more clearly.
 
Yes, an ISF can be costly. I believe mine was $250 but it is a one time calibration, unless you change lamps, etc. ....BUT the result is very impressive. Well worth it... if one spends 3-4K or more for a TV, whats another $250-275 ?, IMHO. Personally, I think an ISF calibration should be "built into the price" of all HDTVs. It is a total injustice to buy the TV, take it home and not calibrate it in any fashion. The discs provide some degree of calibration but not the ultimate tweaking like an ISF calibration.
 
cyuhnke said:
Now you can see the many ways Ausmus hits into double plays that much more clearly.
Click to expand...

I wish he would work on his hitting as much as his catching. :(

But hey, at least I can watch the occasional Astros game on ESPN now! :yes
 
Avia/VE

There was a huge debate a couple of years ago on one board about which was better. I've been using VE for a while (they had a laser disc version) and I was always a fan. I still am actually, however, I've found Avia to be slightly better although this was because VE wasn't updated. I'd heard they were working on an updated version but I've not seen it. If they came out with it, I can't really say. Either way, you're better off with one of them.

Using them will help your set but, if you know a thing or two about how color is supposed to look, you can change your settings without one of these discs. I did this on my new set (two and a half years ago) and found I came VERY close to what Avia suggested. Then again, I've been doing stuff with color for many years. If you don't have this kind of background it's almost essential to have one of these discs.

As far as ISF calibration goes, if you're going to do it, you should really go full boat. They'll do an awful lot to your set to help it look better. I've not had a chance to have it done to my set yet but plan to later this year. For a full boat calibration you're looking at close to $1,000. I've heard a LOT of good things about Avical (http://www.avical.com/Default.htm). They're based in NJ and California. They list all of the tweaks they'll perform and they have specific tweaks for specific sets which is a good idea. They'll do everything from just a straigh calibration to doing duvetyne (sp?) on the inside of your set. They're supposed to be REAL good. Anyway, these are the guys I plan to use once I have the dollars saved up. :)

However, the subject of this thread is excellent. If you're looking for GREAT tweaks and a GREAT general home theater board check out the HomeTheaterSPoT . I've been a member over there for almost 4 years and they've got LOTS of info on tweaking various sets for optimal output.

The Rickster
 
The cost of an ISF calibration will vary depending on the type of TV you have.

With the popularity of fixed pixel displays, the need for convergence and for the most part geometry is non existant. These two items add substantially to the cost of a calibration to a CRT based TV.

I'm somewhat of a perfectionist about the picture I see on my set. As someone else mentioned, you can get a perfect picture using your DVD player on input 3(for instance), yet when you go to input 1 that has your cable connection, its off either due to different settings in the service menu or a bias in the two devices.

The only thing that I know that works under these circumstances is to become familar enough with the service menu and to train your eyes to what constitutes a good picture and make adjustments to the offsets for the inputs and devices that don't match with the one that you calibrated using AVIA or DVE.
 
astrossuperfan said:
I just got finished using Digital Video Essentials, and WOW :shocked did my TV look so much better. If you have a buddy who has this DVD borrow it and use it; or buy it or rent it if you can. Literally night and day difference. I've heard that AVIA is a good disc too, but I haven't used that one.

A little background: When your TV is in the store, the settings for picture are set so that the TV will grab your attention. It's bright, its colorful, it's detailed. When you buy said TV and bring it home, those settings over time can damage your TV. DVE or AVIA can help you set up your TV with settings that are more in line with what was intended, by adjusting color and brightness, and can tweak your audio system too if you have one.

Also, if you really want to go the distance and have some extra cash lying around, you can get an ISF calibration. A trained pro comes to your house and goes into the service menus of your TV and tweaks it further.

Just passing along info that really has made my Voom viewing experience better.

By the way: I don't work for DVE or AVIA. :)
Click to expand...

As an electronic enthusiast myself I suppose that is a cool thing to try, but myself I generally like to do my own tweaking just for the fun of it, and have found alot of times reading your manuals will help get you the most out of your home audio/video and also posting questions in the forums and getting other peoples ideas and feedbacks is a good idea, and best of all tha kind of info is all FREE!!
 
are these dvd's better for tweaking your plasma or LCD tvs? or is it just as essential for projection tvs?
 
I think it's essential to have some kind of calibration on any set. If you have the extra cash, use ISF. If not, one of these disks is better than nothing.

I also calibrated my 4:3 SDTV in the bedroom and it even looks better.
 
I just got DVE and I have been making some adjustments and my picture and it does look rather good after using this disc. I also made some changes in the service menu. I got advice and tips from avsforum but you want to be really careful in the service menu. I have a Sony direct view KV34HS510 set and I will probably have my set calibrated eventually by this company. I've read good things about them.

http://www.lionav.com/services.html
 
Can someone tell me where to find the disc everyone is talking about? circuit city or best buy maybe? thanks
 
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