Podcast #086: Do you need a Calibrator?

On this week's show we look at which streaming services were nominated for Golden Globe Awards and we ask the question;  "Should you pay to have your TV/Projector Calibrated?" We also read your emails and take a look at the news. Streaming Services nominated for Golden Globes It was a few years ago when Braden made a prediction that Netflix would win an award for one of it's original content titles. If we recall correctly, he got that prediction right. Fast Forward to 2021 and his prediction came true on steroids. We take a quick look at some of this years Golden Globe nominations. The entire list can be found here (Nominations for the 78th Golden Globe Awards (2021)) Best Motion Picture, Drama The Father (Sony Pictures) Mank (Netflix) Nomadland (Searchlight Pictures) Promising Young Woman (Focus Features) The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix) Best Picture, Musical or Comedy Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Amazon Studios) Hamilton (Walt Disney Pictures) Music (Vertical Entertainment) Palm Springs (Hulu) The Prom (Netflix) Best Director, Motion Picture Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman (Focus Features) David Fincher,  Mank (Netflix) Regina King, One Night in Miami … Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix) Chloe Zhao, Nomadland Should you pay to have your TV/Projector Calibrated? We all want to get the most out of our TV/Projectors and taking the TV off of default settings is one big step we all can do quite easily. Changing the picture mode from Vivid or Dynamic to Cinema improves the picture dramatically. But what if you want more? You can hire a calibrator to come into your home and dial in the TV to get the absolute best out of the display.  We were perusing AVS Forum and saw a thread entitled "Should you pay to have your TV/Projector Calibrated?" This got our attention and we dove right in. The following are some posts from users at AVS forum. We have removed their names for this discussion. Comments to thread: 1) A professional calibration may (or may not) improve your display's PQ. IMO you don't "need" to have one done unless: PQ looks like crap and you're unable to adjust it to your liking; or you want to have one done. 2) I spent money to have my 4k projector in my HT (blacked out bat cave) professionally calibrated and it made a huge difference in the picture quality and was easily worth the money I paid for the service. I have a UST projector in the living room that was much less money and did my own calibration which is "good enough" as it's mostly for the kids watching cartoons and shows and playing games so doesn't need to be perfect. 3) I mean if you have a 50k HT system in a perfectly blacked out room yea he can probably give you your money's worth. 4) If you're spending a few hundred to get someone to calibrate a 3k set up yea you've gone insane should have just done it yourself not that hard to get it much better on most TV's from the factory. Maybe not perfectly adjusted to your ambient lighting. But IME what is accurate and what people actually want are two different things 5) I think we've all tried to turn down some overly vibrant reds or something on a TV then had the owner/roomate/SO/parent complain about how they don't like accuracy. 6) People need to start looking using their own eyes for once I think. It's all subjective.!! This guy say this color is red ! The next guy says it looks pink? That kind thing....but " RED" is red not " PINK" nor is it " blue" right! 7) I have been a calibrator for over 20 years and while some displays (TV or projectors) are better than others out of the box they can still be noticeably improved. Quality of calibrator makes a difference as well as having the right equipment and not just the cheap probes one can buy. I agree that there is a lot of variability in quality of calibrator as it takes a lot to gain the experience one needs to get good. The older CRT front and rear projectors used to take a long time too but they had to be manually aligned, converged and focused which took a long time then you could adjust just the picture controls. The other factor is the experience with the devices being calibrated. I have spent two days calibrating a TV (non-CRT) to get it right. Nowadays, where I work we only calibrate displays that we are familiar with. When we get a new model we calibrate it to learn it. Because once you know a display inside and out calibration time is not as bad. I think we charge about $250 for most displays we are familiar with but a few models and video processors take longer so those are more. Especially ones where you are adjusting the tone mapping, even if automated for part of the process still takes a while depending on the number of color points. However, if someone calls and wants their Samsung calibrated we decline because we don't carry Samsung and are not familiar with it. It takes a while to get to know all the intricacies of a display and doing a model you are not familiar with definitely takes a lot more time. The funny thing is the less expensive displays are ones that often benefit the most from calibration but they are in a category people simply don't want to spend the money on if they didn't pay a lot for the display. If you want to get the most out of your display it is usually worth getting a calibration (I am biased:) but finding a calibrator that is good with experience on your display or something similar like last year's version is not always easy.