ISF Video Calibration

The current crop of high-end displays are producing images that rival your local picture theatre and in some cases surpass it in terms of pure picture quality. The problem is though that these sophisticated display technologies often look distinctly average straight from the box. If you really want to see what your display can do, then you need to have it properly calibrated.

The video projection market is a numbers game. You'll see every sub $10K projector banging on about resolution, brightness and unbelievable contrast ratios. Unbelievable because they are grossly inaccurate, sorry LCD Projectors... But that’s another story. As we say around the store, it’s not the numbers; it's what you do with them.

I spent a few days last week in Sydney attending the ISF video calibration course and have emerged with a much better appreciation of the fine art of calibration. Some of our customers know that I spend a bit of time tweaking display settings around the store, constantly adjusting display settings in the pursuit of video excellence. Now after spending a few days in training, the results speak for themselves. Images are crisp, have more depth and fine image detail has increased. A proper calibration will improve colour accuracy and grey scale tracking too, resulting in a very pleasing

I am amazed by how small adjustments can have massive effects. Moving brightness and contrast settings a single place in either direct can dramatically lower your contrast ratio. A high end video device may have a contrast ratio or 4000:1 (I'm talking a real contrast ratio here) and having the brightness or contrast out by a single place may drop that contrast ratio to 1000:1. Imagine what the contrast ratio is with the stock standard settings. Having these settings incorrectly placed also obscures fine image detail such as texture in dark fabric or white clouds against a blue sky.

Carlton Audio Visual is proud to stock what we feel are the cream of the crop in terms of display technologies. DLP based Video projection from companies such as Sim2, Sharp and Marantz are the only way to do big screen home theatre properly. Forget the cheap 1080 sets from the competitors, the LCD panels can't produce sufficient contrast to challenge DLP, the processing can't properly scale images to 1080P and the nasty lenses have so much chromatic aberration and fail to produce accurate focus. You can get cheaper projectors that do the numbers but don't produce the results. These cheaper machines unfortunately are just a waste of your dollars when for a little extra you can get a machine that is capable of delivering truly stunning results.

Before I go, a very special thanks to APG, AVICAL and Sim2 for running this training course. I had a great time and what I learnt was invaluable. CAV will be offering video calibration services in the near future.