Properly Calibrating Your TV

ThirdMan

I'm sure this is old news to all the die hard film nerds on here, but this is just a quick note to people like myself who normally don't bother calibrating their TV.

I always just messed around with the settings, changing it every now and then for one reason or another. It's not something I ever gave much thought to. But over the weekend I looked up the 'best' settings for my particular TV. At first it looked way too dark and slightly yellow looking. But the author of the guide suggested that this is simply because we're used to being overwhelmed with the incorrect settings. He said stick with if for a few days. Well, I have, and I'm delighted with the results. I've never seen SD look as good on a HDTV. I was watching The Sopranos last night and it looked wonderful. The same with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I've gotten used to BluRays at this stage, but I've been forced to re-evaluate my DVD collection. A new lease of life have been breathed into them. I'm kicking myself because I've had this TV for 7 years and I've been missing out all along. My initial settings were way off the mark, so results will vary from person to person. But if you've never got around to doing it then I suggest you give it a go.

It's something that most people overlook and I'm constantly shocked that electronic stores don't properly calibrate their display models. In Curry's a few weeks back and not one of their sets was calibrated properly.

Sad Professor

The main thing is to turn off all the image enhancement features, especially the motion related ones. Sharpness should be off or at zero as well. Then it’s mostly just about getting the brightness and contrast right. Sony BDs include a hidden calibration screen that’s handy for this.

ThirdMan

Sad Professor wrote: »

The main thing is to turn off all the image enhancement features, especially the motion related ones. Sharpness should be off or at zero as well. Then it’s mostly just about getting the brightness and contrast right. Sony BDs include a hidden calibration screen that’s handy for this.

Yeah, that was exactly the case with mine. Get rid of the bells and whistles and knock off the sharpness. I'm actually embarrassed that I'm only copping on to it now. Film buff alright, I feel like I've been living inside Tron for the past 7 years.

Goldstein

Stores will have them set to "store" or "demo" modes on purpose where the colours are oversaturated/over bright/over sharp/too blue biased to make the sets stand out from all of its competitors lined up along the wall. All you're seeing in electronics shops these days comparing sets is different colour settings, not differences in picture quality. You'll almost always have to recalibrate the picture settings yourself when you get a new TV.

krudler

If you have any Pixar dvds or blurays then they come with a tv calibration tool, you can look up your tv model online too and get optimum settings, the real picture quality freaks who spend ages tweaking things from black tones to flesh colours.

Generally I'd have high contrast, like 90-95, mid brightness, black without being too dark but you don't want it too high and have blacks looking murky grey either. colourful without colours bleeding, turn off all the dynamic contrast and that nonsense, keep it simple.

darced

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krudler

darced wrote: »

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Sharp is grand but sometimes you get lots of jagged lines, can depend on different things though

ThirdMan

krudler wrote: »

If you have any Pixar dvds or blurays then they come with a tv calibration tool

Yeah, but are they for calibrating for that individual picture or will it be good for every disc?

krudler

ThirdMan wrote: »

Yeah, but are they for calibrating for that individual picture or will it be good for every disc?

Every disc, well with animation things tend to look brighter anyway, best thing to do is just mess around with a few films until it looks like what you like best, but do turn off all the fancy bells and whistles

charlie_says

I stick mine to THX mode

corsav6

Don't forget to change settings for other inputs like Xbox, ps3 and whatever else you have connected to the TV. It took me 2 years to get my optimum settings for all inputs, and I still tinker about with them the odd time, drives the missus mad when I pause a movie to adjust the colour.

Sad Professor

darced wrote: »

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It may depend somewhat on the TV and viewing distance, but generally you want sharpness turned off or set at zero as Blu-rays are already very sharp and additional sharpness just accentuates artefacts like grain and digital compression noise. It's actually distorting and defocusing the image, adding halos and ringing, destroying detail and making the image less sharp. Sharpness had its uses on tiny TVs that people watched from the other the side of the room, but on large HDTVs it's totally pointless and just as damaging to image quality as all those other image enhancement features.

stevenmu

AVForums is a god send for this. If you search for your TV model they'll probably have a thread where people have posted up their calibrated settings. In theory you should adjust to suit the lighting conditions of where you have the TV, but I've found their baselines to be really good.

As was mentioned already, it can take a little time for you to adjust to the settings if you are used to the crazy default/demo settings, but once you do the picture is far far better.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

searched my tv model on avforums

nothing

stevenmu

That's a shame, they usually have most TVs on there. They can be a bit UK focused though, if your TV is specifically an Irish model there might be a UK equivalent that they do have?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it's a walker tv. just googled there and apparently there's just not that much info on them around, they're new enough and not all that popular


ah well

ThirdMan

stevenmu wrote: »

AVForums is a god send for this. If you search for your TV model they'll probably have a thread where people have posted up their calibrated settings.

That's where I got my info. The guy that done the review, 'Vincent Tech', actually posted up his post-calibration settings. He warned everyone that they are tailored to his particular input sources and lighting conditions, but it's a nod in the right direction at least. Very helpful.

ancapailldorcha

Why do manufacturers even bother with stuff like Post Processing if it's best to have it off?

Sad Professor

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Why do manufacturers even bother with stuff like Post Processing if it's best to have it off?

Marketing.

ThirdMan

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Why do manufacturers even bother with stuff like Post Processing if it's best to have it off?

My Sharp unit has 'truD anti-judder' technology, which is meant to "boost picture, contrast and sharpness, as well as producing smoother playback from DVDs."

There's a dedicated button on the remote for sampling it. It creates a split-screen showing the image with and without truD. But when you switch it on the left-side of the screen becomes blurry, and this is labelled as 'truD Off', while the right-side of the screen stays the same, and is labelled as 'truD On'. All of this happens even though I have it switched off at the main settings page.

The reviewer on AV Forums said that it can slightly help with SD sports content, but in most cases it actually degrades the image. And they also noticed the whole split-screen thing. Ridiculous stuff altogether.