Mini Review of my SpyderTV
Well, got my SpyderTV unit on Thursday. Ran through the procedure on the same night.
Here's what you get:
1- SpyderTV colorimeter, with a long USB cable attached.
1- Carrying Case (small, zipper bag)
1- Suction cup attachment with tripod adapter built in.
1- Software CD (Windows based)
1- Calibration DVD
1- Sheet of paper explaining how to assign numbers to various types of TV user adjustment scales. (I think most TV's do not use numbers)
You'll want to be in a darkened room for best results, so, nighttime is a good choice for when to perform this.
Setup is straight forward. Just install the software onto your PC. Connect the colorimeter when instructed. You'll want to sit down with remotes for your TV and DVD player.
The first thing I did was to create the numbers for the TV's adjustment sliders. In my case, it was 0-63 for everything but the Hue, which went from -31 to +32, with 0 being the center.
I first attached the colorimeter using the supplied suction cup, it let loose about half-way through the adjustments, so I used my tripod instead after that. I recommend using a tripod unless you're attaching this unit to glass.
Once you have the numbers established, you fill in the numbers for the user controls you have on your set, starting with the current settings, then the minimum and maximum numbers on the scale. When your done with that, get the DVD inserted, and start following the wizard on the PC.
First up is Color Temp Pre-Set. I changed mine from Medium to NTSC Standard per the unit's findings.
Second is the Contrast setting. You just set the DVD chapter to the appropriate display for the test. You'll be asked to set the slider to 0, then to the uppper end, then the middle. From there, you'll go through different settings until the programs determines what's the best for your TV.
Third is the Black Level setting. Same instructions.
Fourth is Saturation. Here you'll be toggling between 2 different chapters as it measures the screen.
Fifth up is Hue. You'll be toggling between 2 different chapters again.
Finally, you are taken back to remeasure the Contrast and Black levels.
You can then create a report in the form of a PDF document for future use.
This took 33 minutes on my set. There were definitely different settings for my contrast and black level controls. My Contrast went from 24 to 31, and my Black Level went from 49 to 45. Of course, this may have been also due to me changing my color temps as well. My Color setting went from 31 to 39.
Overall, the picture does look very good. Need to look at some movies again that I'm familiar with to see if it looks any different. I'm happy with my purchase, and will start playing with it on the other TVs in our house.
The only actual measurement numbers it gave on the report were:
Black Luminance: 0.020 cd/m2
White Luminance: 106.943 cd/m2
Here's a link to the PDF for the report you get from the SpyderTV software:
KP53V80 PDF