Calibrate Display or DVD?

[mtw]

Hello Folks,

I recently picked up a Denon DVD-3910. It's connected to a Panasonic CT-30WX54 (http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/vModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11251&catalogId=11005&itemId=71188&catGroupId=17037&modelNo=CT-30WX54&surfModel=CT-30WX54) HDTV monitor. I use the Digital Video Essentials DVD to set up the picture.

Both the 3910 and the Panasonic offer a wide range of calibration options (the 3910 has more, with chroma delay and gamma tweaking settings). I'm wondering if I should set the Panasonic to factory default and calibrate based solely on the settings in the 3910, or get things close with the Panasonic and do the final tweaking in the 3910.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Kevin P]

I'd keep the 3910 at the defaults and calibrate the TV. That way you benefit from the calibration from sources other than DVD. Also, DVD calibration settings tend to be coarser than the ones provided in the TV which allow more fine tuning.

Once the TV is tweaked, you can fine tune things like chroma delay on the DVD player to get things perfect.

[George Bellefontaine]

I second what Kevin just said.

[Gordon Moore]

I'll 3rd the motion but, add that you should consider what you watch more and which source you are more critical of. If you watch a lot of movies and that tends to be the majority of your viewing, then who cares about strking a balance and go full bore on setting up the DVD. Especially, if your TV watching is regular plain old broadcast cable (which is never all that great to start with and starts to look worse on big high resolution screens).

If it's 50/50 or you watch several other source HD material, LD, VHS, broadcast cable, pc stuff etc... then you'll probably want to split the difference.

Simply my opinion and may or may not line up with your thinking.