Black:0.026
White: 29.17

Full-On/Full-Off Contrast Ratio: 1,122:1

These readings were taken in the Expert1 Picture mode with the Contrast on 74 and the Brightness on 55. The measured black level is disappointing for a modern plasma set. It’s little better than—and possibly not as good as—what you’ll get from an up-to-date but average LCD.

Calibrating with the 20-point adjustments alone is exceptionally tedious, and even using two-point and 20-point together is time-consuming. Calibrators take note: If you’re tempted to save time by just adjusting each 10-IRE control and ignoring the 5-IRE steps in between, don’t. The bandwidth covered by each 5-IRE control is very narrow, and the 5-IRE steps you skip will likely be off, sometimes significantly so.

The Before Calibration result in the Color Tracking chart (which shows how well a display adheres to the D65 standard white point; the tighter the overlap of the three primary colors, the nearer the result is to D65) was taken in the THX Cinema mode. With a Delta E ranging from 3.7 to 10 from 20 IRE to 90 IRE (15.6 at 100 IRE), this is a mediocre outof-box result. The After Calibration chart shows a calibration done in the Expert1 Picture mode, with a Delta E of 3.5 or less from 30 IRE to 100

IRE (4.6 at 20 IRE). Delta E is a figure of merit showing how close the result is to the standard D65 white point. Most experts recommend a value of 4 or less, suggesting that the eye cannot distinguish any improvement below this level. Others recommend no more than 3 for a visually ideal result. A similar calibration can also be performed in the THX Picture mode, but this requires a special code to unlock the THX menu.

The Standard Color Gamut is extremely accurate, as you can see in the CIE chart above, where the measured result in the white triangle closely matches the Rec. 709 HD standard (the black triangle). This was out of the box; I didn’t need to adjust the CMS (color management system).

I also performed a calibration for 3D, both Before and After in the THX 3D Cinema mode (not shown). The result wasn’t quite as good as the 2D, but it was satisfactory. I suspect that another hour or two of tweaking might improve it further, but the visible result would likely be little different. The 3D color gamut (not shown) was slightly different than in 2D, but not enough to bring up the CMS.—TJN