Do you watch TV using the "factory/shop settings"

mike65

Yes or no

Half of Britons don't get the best from their TVs - Half of Britons are not getting the best TV pictures they could because they don't adjust the default settings, new research has found.


Is your viewing world full of garish colours and eye splitting contrast?

I can never understand why high street electrical stores such as Currys never calibrate the display TVs to offer the best possible picture.

Agricola

Nope. I downloaded a free set of calibration screens and instructions, stuck them on a usb stick and went through them on my PS3. Funnily enough getting the best / most accurate representation of what the film makers made, involves turning off almost all of the jiggery pokery on modern TV's.
After calibration it was like night and day.

Deleted User wrote: »

I can never understand why high street electrical stores such as Currys never calibrate the display TVs to offer the best possible picture.

I think the idea is not necessarily to show the most life like picture but to catch the attention of prospective buyers. The best way to do this is to use an extremely bright mode where the contrast and color hue is up to 11. For the regular punter it grabs the attention. The TV wouldnt look as enticing when actually calibrated properly. But obviously when you take it home and put it in a darkish sitting room, this looks desperate. Sadly, people don't realize this and spend their evenings getting their retinas burned!

mikom

Agricola wrote: »

Nope. I downloaded a free set of calibration screens and instructions, stuck them on a usb stick and went through them on my PS3.

Would you have a link to these calibration screens by any chance?

Agricola

mikom wrote: »

Would you have a link to these calibration screens by any chance?

Download the AVS HD 709 tool from the link on this instruction page.

I had a simpler set of test patterns just on a usb but cannot find them online now. But I did use this AVS tool and burned it to a dvd. It works fine.

EDIT: Ok, found them. Here you go. But I think the AVS is better tbh.

grey_so_what

It is a know fact of a certain generation I haven't got a clue what this is about - only that you are right and we don't know.

Oh to have a techie in the house!!:D

sink

What drives me mad is visiting friends houses and their TV having a wonky aspect ratio e.g. stretching a 4:3 over a 16:9 screen or even worse a 16:9 broadcast in 4:3 zoomed in, so not only are faces squashed but the tops of their head are cut off as well.

KKkitty

My partner and I always change settings right away after getting a new tv. It usually starts a few minor rows though because I may like it one way and he may like it another.

mike65

sink wrote: »

What drives me mad is visiting friends houses and their TV having a wonky aspect ratio e.g. stretching a 4:3 over a 16:9 screen or even worse a 16:9 broadcast in 4:3 zoomed in, so not only are faces squashed but the tops of their head are cut off as well.

Ah the wide stretch is worse, if you watch a 4:3 image "zoomed" into 16:9 it usually works interestingly enough - the reason is that in most shots the top and bottom 20% contains no important information. Obviously its best to watch as intended.

Clareman

sink wrote: »

What drives me mad is visiting friends houses and their TV having a wonky aspect ratio e.g. stretching a 4:3 over a 16:9 screen or even worse a 16:9 broadcast in 4:3 zoomed in, so not only are faces squashed but the tops of their head are cut off as well.

That is a real pet peeve of mine, especially when it cuts out the time on matches. I remember being down the local for a game years ago and the seconds couldn't be seen on the screen cause of the incorrect ratio being set on the sky box, I took the remote to fix it (like I had done loads of times before on other people's boxes) and manage to break the sky box so no-one in the bar could watch the game, luckily it came back after a couple of minutes, I haven't tinkered with people's settings since