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Understanding Your HDTV’s Menus

How To Calibrate Your HDTV
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In our monitor and HDTV reviews, we show you every product’s OSD and how each function affects image quality. While most features are the same on a desktop screen or big-screen TV, there are some important differences you should be aware of. Let’s take a look at the terminology so you can better understand what all those controls and sliders actually do.

Backlight – You know that a computer monitor’s backlight control is labeled brightness. But on HDTVs, it’s a separate adjustment. This is super-handy because you can set the brightness and contrast for maximum detail and dynamic range, and then adjust the backlight to your preferred output level.

Brightness – So what does brightness actually control? On an HDTV, it sets the minimum black level. This is important because if you lower it too much in search of deep blacks, you will likely remove fine shadow detail, giving the picture a “black blob” look. We’ll show you the proper test pattern to use in setting your TV’s brightness on page four.

Contrast – This control sets the white level and can be used to control your display’s maximum output. Again, you want to adjust it to your preferred level without clipping detail in the image’s brightest areas. Setting it too high can also cause a color tint in bright whites that isn’t correctable with the RGB sliders. Page four will show you the proper way to adjust contrast.

Color & Tint – Here is another mislabeled option. It really should be called color saturation and color hue. Color control increases or decreases the saturation level of all six colors simultaneously. Therefore, it should be used sparingly unless all colors are under-saturated equally. Tint, or hue, rotates the secondary colors closer to one primary or another. Again, since it alters three colors at the same time, it should be used carefully.

In most cases, if you are able to dial in the color temperature correctly, color and tint can stay at or near their default settings.

Color Temperature – We also refer to this as white balance or grayscale tracking. HDTVs typically have a few presets labeled warm, normal, and cool, plus a user-adjustable mode. It’s the most important adjustment governing color because it not only sets the white point, but also affects the color gamut as well. The best way to adjust it is with an instrument. However, we’ll show you how to get close without any gear.

Other Image Enhancements

Unlike computer monitors, HDTVs include many options in the category of picture enhancements. These should be used carefully because, in most cases, they degrade picture quality and create unwanted artifacts. In fact, the movie modes on many sets disable all of them in pursuit of a more pure image, unspoiled by display-added modifications.

Sharpness – Almost every HDTV we’ve seen comes with sharpness set to a medium level. To our eyes, the resulting edge enhancement (also called ringing) is obvious and reduces the picture's clarity. All sharpness does is attempt to highlight contrasting areas of the screen by drawing a white line around dark objects or a black line around light ones. We recommend lowering this control either to zero or to a point where the ringing disappears.

Dynamic Contrast – Even though LCD is the dominant technology in today’s HDTVs, it can’t even come close to the contrast levels offered by plasma or even CRT. To compensate for this, display manufacturers introduce an algorithm that manipulates white and black levels dynamically depending on content. When used subtly, it can enhance perceived contrast. But cross that fine line and detail is lost. Most sets have three or four levels available. Start at the bottom and work your way up, watching carefully for signs of crushing. Better yet, use a test pattern.

Frame Interpolation – Most HDTVs have this feature today. Since a lot of LCDs run at 120 or even 240 Hz, the extra available frames can be used to reduce motion blur in content originating at 24, 30, or 60 frames per second. It’s accomplished through sophisticated processes that create new frames by essentially filling in the blanks. Now that it’s been available for several model generations, the tearing artifacts plaguing early models are largely gone. It works quite well at creating smooth motion and maintaining resolution. Its only drawback is known as the “soap-opera effect”. Some people, me included, are not fans of the flat and phony look that results. Since it doesn’t change other image parameters, its use is a matter of personal preference.

Now we’ll move on to a brief discussion of the SMPTE standards we employ in all our reviews and calibrations.

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  • 1 Hide
    youcanDUit , October 6, 2014 4:57 PM
    aww... i thought i was going to be able to calibrate with this. i am sad now.
  • 0 Hide
    Paul NZ , October 6, 2014 5:06 PM
    Nothing to calibrate here. Connect it it works
  • 3 Hide
    vmem , October 6, 2014 10:57 PM
    Thanks for the detailed and great write up. it is inspiriting as always

    Though honestly, for the "average" consumer, I find it hard to justify spending $350 to calibrate a $500 or so monitor set up and maybe a $800-1200 TV. I feel this is the type of thing you have to really get into (and end up doing it for free for your friends and family)
  • 0 Hide
    rdc85 , October 6, 2014 10:58 PM
    Well I'm using the pic for calibrating the monitor right now :D ...

    looks like my brightness and contrast slights off
  • 1 Hide
    crisan_tiberiu , October 6, 2014 11:00 PM
    the question is: why arent the producers calibrate the TVs right out of the factory? why? is it so hard to make a preset for the TVs? 99% of the TVs that come out of a factory will have the same "crappy" default settings. And sorry, i wont spend 350$ to calibrate my TV ^^ no way
  • 0 Hide
    shahrooz , October 7, 2014 4:39 AM
    well the first time I saw a calibrate your something's screen article was a year ago. Back then I found out "one does not simply calibrate the screen of something"
  • 2 Hide
    Onlyrgu , October 7, 2014 5:21 AM
    I prefer AVS HD 709 - Blu-ray & MP4 Calibration
    And its free
  • 0 Hide
    The_Icon , October 7, 2014 6:56 AM
    This is something I have been wanting for a long time now. Is there any good free tool to calibrate both the HDTV and my monitor? The TV is connected to my PC as well.
  • 0 Hide
    vmem , October 7, 2014 8:45 AM
    Quote:
    the question is: why arent the producers calibrate the TVs right out of the factory? why? is it so hard to make a preset for the TVs? 99% of the TVs that come out of a factory will have the same "crappy" default settings. And sorry, i wont spend 350$ to calibrate my TV ^^ no way


    They do calibrate the TVs (any manufacturer worth their salt anyway). the problem is two fold: first all TVs / monitors are relatively low margin because the market is highly competitive. unless you're paying a premium for "professional" monitors such as the Dell ultrasharp series, most panels will be calibrated the 'easy' way to some factory pre-set that is considered "good enough".

    the second thing is that everyone's lighting conditions are different. maybe your room is brighter than mine and you like having the traditional type of bulbs that have a yellow / orange hue and I use white light bulbs. these things have a huge impact on how your TV looks, so at the end of the day the consumer will always need to do some calibration if you want perfect color reproduction.
  • 0 Hide
    bic , October 7, 2014 10:07 AM
    Go get the free software on avsforum.com.
  • 0 Hide
    RedJaron , October 7, 2014 12:41 PM
    Quote:
    Though honestly, for the "average" consumer, I find it hard to justify spending $350 to calibrate a $500 or so monitor set up and maybe a $800-1200 TV. I feel this is the type of thing you have to really get into (and end up doing it for free for your friends and family)

    Agreed. Writing a DIY that can be done for under $50 would be very appreciated. $350 is more than I paid for my 42" screen years ago. I know it wasn't the top-end model, but I'm willing to bet most people have TVs under $800 and aren't willing to spend $100s more to calibrate the screen.
  • 0 Hide
    emccalment , October 7, 2014 1:10 PM
    Just like everyone else I open this article thinking, "This sounds great! I'll definitely follow this!" Then I see $350 and stop reading right there. It's officially a waste of my time. Why are people satisfied with the discoloration? Because $350 isn't a joke. There have been mention of some free products above. Do a write up on one of those and I'm there.
  • 1 Hide
    stephenriddle , October 7, 2014 1:48 PM
    How does the spears & munsil disc compare to others like the Disney WOW calibration disc
  • 0 Hide
    Evolution2001 , October 7, 2014 1:59 PM
    I find that most HDTVs / Projectors have the reds oversaturated. For example, watching an awards show with a red carpet or someone wearing all red, the over-saturation causes it to 'glow' and wash out all contrast so it looks like a solid mass of red blob with a human head moving on the screen. And for the US people reading this, October in the NFL is especially harsh with all that electro-pink on the screen.
  • 1 Hide
    ceberle , October 8, 2014 5:11 AM
    Quote:
    How does the spears & munsil disc compare to others like the Disney WOW calibration disc


    Spears & Munsil has a lot more patterns available than the Disney disc plus better instructions in my opinion. That being said, you can achieve similar results with the Disney disc so if you already have it, I'd suggest giving it a try before buying S&M. If you're happy with the way your TV looks afterward, you just saved $30!

    -Christian-
  • 0 Hide
    brenro , October 8, 2014 8:53 AM
    350 bucks and I still can't calibrate gamma or gray scale?
  • 0 Hide
    10tacle , October 8, 2014 3:37 PM
    I've been using the Datacolor Spyder4Elite ($249US) for a couple of years now. Best money I've ever spent. Yes, it is expensive, but it has calibrated my three desktop PC's monitors (two gaming rigs, one video/photography rig), three HDTVs, and two laptops. To me it was worth spending that much rather than wasting my time going out on the web and finding color calibration settings that others find "optimal" that I may not.

    With that said, do not expect your games to look a whole lot better on your PC monitors after being calibrated by one of these. These tools are more for photography and video color accuracy more than anything else.
  • 0 Hide
    wiyosaya , October 10, 2014 1:49 PM
    Quote:
    I prefer AVS HD 709 - Blu-ray & MP4 Calibration
    And its free

    Thanks - I will have to check this out.
    Quote:
    Just like everyone else I open this article thinking, "This sounds great! I'll definitely follow this!" Then I see $350 and stop reading right there. It's officially a waste of my time. Why are people satisfied with the discoloration? Because $350 isn't a joke. There have been mention of some free products above. Do a write up on one of those and I'm there.

    Amen!
    Quote:

    With that said, do not expect your games to look a whole lot better on your PC monitors after being calibrated by one of these. These tools are more for photography and video color accuracy more than anything else.

    For complete accuracy, the display has to be calibrated to the source. Where anyone, as a calibrator of devices, will gain the most is that if you have a source of some sort and calibrate it to the same reference to which your display is calibrated, then the ultimate in benefits is possible. In other words, take a picture of a standardized reference, show that picture on your display, then calibrate the display so that the picture of the standardized reference looks exactly like the standardized reference itself, then repeat for every source, e.g., scanner, still camera, video camera, etc, and pray your display has enough memory slots for those calibrated settings because you will need to switch to the matching setting when changing from one calibrated source to another.

    As I understand it, the reality is that no two video sources, such as different BR discs, one TV network or another, are calibrated to the same reference. Thus, Joe Kane's interpretation of NTSC - "Never Twice the Same Color."

    For viewing video sources over which one has no control, it is still worth calibrating to some reference because that will get rid of the "eye-catching" settings to which most manufacturers set their displays so that the average consumer will go "wow" when viewing the display in a showroom and thus, at least as the manufacturer hopes, buy the display.
  • 0 Hide
    AntoniusVII , October 15, 2014 9:48 AM
    I have used the Spears & Munsil calibration disk, it is $30 well spent. I highly recommend it.
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