Replace 35" TV with something bigger

my understanding is that Plasma sets will NOT have as long of a lifespan as that of a good quality RPTV or especially a standard "tube" set. The various reasons escape me right now. As such, i do agree that the picture on them is typically excellent.

I would like to recommend to Argent to pick up a copy of the Video Essentials DVD and to calibrate your Mitsu. If you think it is good now, just wait till you have it set up "right". While the price on these discs keeps creeping up, you might be able to find them online for about $30 or so.

For the record, i like the Video Essentials calibration dvd better than i do the Avia. While the Avia is much more in depth and time consuming, the Video Essentials version will give you extremely similar results with half the work and time. Kind of the "quick and dirty" approach, but it works. Sean
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Sean, where to get the disks you mention? I want an Avia, but have never seen one for sale, though I've honestly never looked very hard either.
Thanks,
Chris

Sean "quick and dirty" that is the way I like them, heh heh heh. I am going to go out and find it today, video essentials that is, thanks for the recomendation.

Sean, I've been trying for a month to calibrate the tv properly. I bought the Sony DVP-S9000ES with the special Men in Black package. The thing was supposed to come with the Avia disc included as well as the MIB DVD and an SACD sampler. Get this, none of it was in there. The box was sealed when I bought it, and I trust my dealer. I've been at war with Sony for the past month to get the disc. Anyway, I will prevail.

Most decent Audio / Video stores will carry one of the two discs mentioned. If they don't have either, they can typically order it. You might also try something like Amazon, etc... on the web.

As mentioned, the Video Essentials DVD is easier to use while Avia can get much more involved and goes into greater depth. I think that for most practical purposes, Video Essentials is what i would use 90% of the time simply for ease of use. Avia can get to be a bit of a pain with all of the calibrations that they expect you to do.

I do have to make mention of a few "caveats" here though. Some TV's only have calibrations for ALL sources or inputs while some can be adjusted based on which input you select. If you have the "one size fits all" type of tv, adjusting it for best color and resolution with your dvd may make watching broadcast, cable, satellite, vcr, etc... hard to do. Once the TV is "dialed in" to that one format, it can really show just how out of whack some of the signals being broadcast truly are.

Another "quick" suggestion is to kind of "log" where each adjustment is once your finally happy with the settings. Most tv's return to the factory defaults ( which typically look like junk ) if you lose power. This means resetting the tv step by step all over again. As such, having ballpark adjustments to go by at a glance can really make life easier. Sean
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