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Advanced Calibration Techniques

How To Calibrate Your HDTV
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For many HDTV owners, the Spears & Munsil disc or SpyderHD package will produce excellent results. Picture quality can be greatly improved with a few simple adjustments, and unless you want that final one percent of performance, it’s not necessary to spend thousands of dollars on software and gear.

If, however, you are after the last little bit of potential, we’d like to give you a brief look at some advanced calibration techniques. This will be more of an overview than a block of instruction. Employing these methods requires both instruments and experience. But if you want to take your HDTV calibration to the highest level, it’s a road you have to travel either with an investment of time and cash or the hiring of a professional calibrator.

Two- And Ten-Point Grayscale Adjustments & Gamma

Most HDTVs have a two-point grayscale or white balance feature. That means you can change the RGB values’ high and low ranges separately. We use 30- and 80-percent brightness patterns to accomplish this. Here’s the custom CalMAN screen we like to use. To see all the detail, click on the photo to enlarge it.

On the left are the Delta E errors for brightness levels 20 to 100. The large square is a bulls-eye chart. All we have to do is tweak the RGB sliders until the dot falls within the center square. At the bottom-center is a large RGB Balance chart. It also helps dial in the correct levels when making changes. The upper-right shows the raw data: x & y coordinates plus gamma, brightness, and error values. Below that is another RGB level chart showing all the brightness steps. Finally, there's a gamma tracking chart at the bottom-right.

When we use a two-point white balance control, we adjust the high range (gain) using an 80-percent brightness pattern and the low range (bias or cut) with a 30-percent one. After a little back and forth, most HDTVs return an average error of less than one Delta E.

If some steps show a greater error, and there’s a 10-point white balance control available, we adjust each level starting from 100 percent and working our way downward.

During all of this, we closely monitor the gamma tracking. It’s usually pretty consistent once the right preset is chosen, but it can change on some displays. Once we’re satisfied with grayscale and gamma tracking, we move on the CMS.

Color Management Systems

We’ve talked about these in a few display reviews and in our previous calibration feature articles. They’re not common on computer monitors but some HDTVs and many projectors include them. Our upfront advice is to leave them alone unless you know what you’re doing. You can easily destroy the color balance of a display by misusing it. And in many cases, the controls don’t work properly, leading to even more confusion.

Here’s how we adjust a CMS. Click on the photo to enlarge it.

The first thing to note are the extra saturation levels shown in the CIE chart. We don’t just look at 100 percent (the triangle’s perimeter); we also measure 25-, 50-, and 75-percent saturations to be sure that any adjustments we make don’t negatively impact those color levels. We also watch the luminance chart carefully. It’s usually impossible to get all the luminance values correct, so we have to settle for the best balance as we make changes.

In our observation, luminance accuracy makes the greatest difference in picture quality. And even if a CMS’ saturation controls don’t work (often the case), the luminance sliders usually do. Adjusting them properly can improve your HDTV's picture even when saturation and hue are a little off.

Along the top of the screen are error levels for saturation (Delta C), hue (Delta H), and luminance (Delta L). We monitor them for each color we adjust and try to get all three errors as low as possible.

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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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