Webster’s defines the word calibrate as “to correlate the readings of an instrument with those of a standard in order to check the instrument’s accuracy.” The instrument in our case is your display. The standard is simply the one used to create the content shown on it. For all broadcast and disc-based material, we turn to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE).
Measurements are broken down into a few categories: white point, color gamut, and gamma. These three areas are associated with specific numbers that are derived from the principles of imaging science.
Rec.709
Also known as BT.709, this is the specification governing high-definition content both for broadcast and for Blu-ray disc. And yes, that includes streaming. It starts with a specific color gamut as shown below.

We’ve shown you CIE charts before, so you know that the total area represents the spectrum of visible color, while the triangle is the display’s actual color-rendering capability. And what is Rec.601? It’s a slightly smaller gamut used in standard-def content. It’s only a factor if you watch a lot of DVDs. Very few televisions have a Rec.601 preset these days, so chances are that you’ll be watching all content in the Rec.709 color space.
The actual color points are defined by x and y coordinates. It’s also known as xyY. There are other ways to express the values, but xyY is the most common way for HDTVs. What does Y represent? That is the color’s luminance value. In addition to its position on the CIE chart, it’s also required to have a specific brightness relative to the other colors.
Grayscale & Gamma
But we’re not only talking about color. You see that little triangle at the center of the chart? That’s the white point, otherwise known as D65 or 6500 degrees Kelvin. When you adjust the RGB controls in your HDTV, that is what’s affected. And as we’ve already established, it has an impact on the entire color rendition of a display and is the most important part of a calibration.
The final major parameter is gamma; its standard is currently in transition. Put simply, gamma is the rate at which light output increases as the signal goes from zero to 100 percent. It’s not a linear progression, but a logarithmic one. Here’s an example:

The horizontal axis is the signal level (0-100%) and the vertical represents the output level. You can see that, by the time the signal reaches 50 percent, the actual output is only around 20 percent. To see content as its creators did, your display’s gamma must match up.
For many years, that standard was called 2.2 power function, which is an average of all the gamma values in a given measurement run. In 2011, a new standard called BT.1886 came into use. It’s only a tiny bit different than the above. In fact, it’s so close that you’d have a hard time seeing the difference in a chart. Some of the newest HDTVs (like the Samsung F8500 plasma we just reviewed) conform to BT.1886. Its main goal is to improve shadow detail while maintaining brightness and depth in the mid-tones.
Of course, color, grayscale, and gamma aren’t the only components addressed in a calibration. But they are the three items associated with a SMPTE standard. And that’s what we’re shooting for when we set up any HDTV.
Now we’ll show you how you can adjust your display with a few simple test patterns and some knowledge. You’d be surprised how much can be done without instruments.
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)
looks like my brightness and contrast slights off
And its free
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.
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.
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-
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.
And its free
Thanks - I will have to check this out.
Amen!
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.