Ron Epstein, Hometheaterforum.com Owner
Toshiba 57HX81 Owner 		  About 2-3 months ago I purchased a brand new
Toshiba 57HX81 television under the
recommendation of Toshiba owners who said this
was the best looking RPTV for the buck.

No kidding! When I took this baby out of the
box it looked incredible even before I made my
own personal calibrations. Colors looked awesome,
and I was just awestruck by a picture that rivaled
what I had seen on more expensive sets I had been
considering.

I wanted to break the television in a little
more before I considered having it ISF calibrated.
After two months of heavy use, I invited Gregg
Loewen to come to my home.

Gregg is on his way to becoming ISF certified. (Editor's note:
Gregg attended the ISF class in March of 2002. As of
June 2003, Gregg has calibrated more than 500 display devices).
He is currently offering his services in New
England, Eastern Canada and elsewhere by request.
Equipped with a color analyzer and high definition
signal generator, Gregg has been doing professional
ISF calibrations for less cost than other
professionals in his field.

I picked Gregg up at the airport. He brought
along some extra baggage that included his laptop
computer, a printer, and all sorts of calibration
tools.

My biggest mistake was not taking pictures, which
I had originally planned to do, but forgot about
once I got involved in watching Gregg work.

Gregg began our calibration session by sitting
down and talking to me about my particular set and
how it differs from others. Gregg has a clear
knowledge of many different brands of televisions,
with expertise in Mitsubishi and Toshiba. He explained
the red push on the Mitsubishi's and the way that
set gets calibrated as opposed to the Toshiba.

Gregg also gave me a thorough preview discussion
on what he was planning to do with my television
as well as the changes I should expect as a result
of the calibrations.

After warming up my television, Gregg did some
pre-tuning to my set that included pre front panel
adjustments, disconnecting of SVM, electronic and
manual focus. Next thing I knew, He placed
a suction cup sensor on my television which sent
readings back to his laptop computer. I believe
what he was doing was getting readings on overall
color temperature that would ultimately be tune to
an even 6500.

When Gregg insisted that my outer glare screen be
removed, I was a bit hesitant to let him do it.
I wasn't as much as concerned about the safety of
my television's inner screen as I was about the
glossy look that I liked. Gregg explained that
the outer screen was only adding artificial enhancements
to my picture and that I should have it removed.

Well, sure enough, the removal of the outer
protective screen made a remarkable difference in
picture quality resulting in a more natural look.

With the screen removed, Gregg showed me my three
picture guns which were loose. He explained that
this was common, mostly caused by the shipping of
the sets and the ignorance of manufacturers to
properly tighten them. Gregg had a particularly
inventive way of focusing each of the picture guns
with the TV screen attached. I could immediately
see a sharper image coming into view.

For the next 5 hours, Gregg performed a multitude
of adjustments including: Geometry and overscan
adjustments, Grey Scale adjustments, Geometry and
convergences -- and most interestingly -- lense
stripping where he placed a bit of black electrical
tape over my picture guns in order to bring the
color temperature to proper range (which it most
certainly did).


My overall thoughts on television calibration



For all the years I have owned a big screen
television, I had always felt that I could get
by with calibrating the set using Video Essentials.
Keep in mind that I did my own pre-calibrations using
VE.

While I certainly feel that the above methods
of simple self-calibration results in a remarkable
improvement to your video and audio -- there are
further improvements that only a professional can do.

Looking at the pre and post calibration graphs
that Gregg printed out for me, I could see the
huge improvements that were made to my television
after 5 hours of analyzation and adjustments. The
most immediate improvement was the sharpness of my
picture as well as the improved warmth of the colors
across the entire viewing area.

I can only sum up the fruits of his efforts by
saying my TV picture looks friggin' awesome! I
popped in Gladiator and was just blown
away with how sharp and detailed the picture looked.
The blacks were even blacker than before, but yet,
in the dark scenes of Saving Private Ryan I
could see the emblems on the uniforms of the soldiers.
My eye-candy treat came when I popped in Moulin
Rouge. My jaw was just hanging while I watched
vivid, precise colors flash across my screen.

Anyone, like myself, who had believed that spending
a few hundred dollars to have a television properly
calibrated was senseless, should know that I just
has by senses knocked out of me.

There is absolutely no question that anyone who
has invested good money in the purchase of a large
screen television, has wasted their investment if
they don't have their picture and audio properly
calibrated. It's amazing to see that what your eyes
tend to believe is the best picture you can get from
self-calibration, can often be proven deceiving when
you see how much BETTER that picture can be after
a professional calibration.

I fully expect a few more people who also had
their sets calibrated this past week (Gregg did
4 sets in 3 days) to chime in their praise, as
I had the opportunity to hear their comments about
the overall improvement to their televisions.

It's good to see that people like Gregg Loewen
are bringing some much needed competition to the
market by doing professional calibrations at a more
reasonable cost than what is normally charged.


Ronald J Epstein



Home Theater Forum co-owner
 

OK Guys

Sorry for the delay in the review.

First off, Gregg is a great guy. He was here exactly when he said he would be. Funny thing-I was still obsessing about the garbage bags, and had covered the slider completely, and shut the blinds on all other windows, and then realized that I could no longer look outside to see when Gregg arrived I heard some noise a peeked out and he was here.

I guess I can not continue without discussing the said garbage bags. I left work an hour early to find then and put them up. I went to Wal-Mart and the only black bags they had was indeed industrial bags, but they were compacter bags, with a very small width. However they came all tied together so I was able to make the length as long as I needed. It took about 11 side by side to cover the slider completely. But they did the job. Then I was obsessing that the shades would not cut off enough light and started to cover them, and I got 2 strips done when Gregg arrived.

As soon as he walked in, he said "Oh this is plenty dark" So all that obsessing for nothing. Now I have a lifetime supply of compacter bags, but I don't even have a trash compacter.

Next as Gregg was starting to set up his awesome equipment, he asked for the original remotes. I knew I had them so I wasn't concerned, but suddenly I could not locate the most important TV remote. Seeing that our house is a total disaster, clutter and messy wise, I couldn't find the remote anywhere. Gregg told me to calm down he had faith I would find it. Well I did, but it took like 20 minutes, I was sweating bullets. (Thank you Gregg for not mentioning what bad shape the condo was). I asked him if it was the messiest he had seen, he said no then hesitated, so I think yes.

OK on to the calibration portion of our show.
Gregg set up his laptop in front of him in a position so I had an easy view of it. Then he set up some type of instrument panel devise on his left. Then he attached a suction cup stethoscope type thing directly in the center on the TV. He turned on the laptop and some incredible graphics came up. He thoroughly explained what everything stood for, and gave me some key definitions so I could attempt to understand what he was doing.

He showed me what the industry standards were and what my TV was showing. It was pretty far away from where is was supposed to be. Then he had to do some experimentation with the hidden menu selections, since it was his first A10. He took time to make sure he found all the menu items he was looking for. Even if it took going through the menu several times. He was diligent in his efforts to do and adjust everything he could.

With ever adjustment Gregg made he would show me exactly what he was doing and explained the end result of each. I was able to watch the monitor and watch the graphs, it was very cool and very informative. Of course the only thing I knew about was grayscale. I knew that the standard was 6500 degrees Kelvin. I believe we came very close.

Then he went through all advance settings on the regular TV menus. Again explaining everything as he went along. He mentioned that he could have left or been done, but he went back over every setting and even went and made some other changes. He made sure I was happy with the results and I assured him I was. We went through all the different TV inputs and the DVD player as well.

He was getting ready to leave and I reminded him quietly that he said he would help me make sure that my surround settings were correct on my A/V. Of course they were way off, and within a few minutes he fixed that for me. Calibration done, Gregg left, Mark was happy.

Now onto the big part of the review. How does it look? Well that is the reason I waited until now to do the review. Since most of the shows I watch are SD, I did not think it was fair to do a review of that, yet at the same time, I could not turn off the non-HD NESN (the Red Sox) network.

I had to wait to Sunday and the NFL. Since I don't have the D* NFL Sunday Ticket, I went to my basic cable which now picks up the HD signal and OMG. The picture and color are too awesome to even describe. I don't know what else to say except money well spent.

I can't give it the old Night and Day because of very crappy SD PQ with D*. But when HD is on (even on D*) it is a beautiful sight to behold.

Thank you Gregg and everybody else who helped me with the decision. Absolutely no regrets.
- Tase, Sony 50A10 LCD RPTV Owner in CT
Click here to see more testimonials.

 

Copyright 2007 Lion A V C Inc.. design: christinate
Links Links Links Links Info Services Prices Reviews Tours Book A Calibration Links