The Official Wirewize Blog

Ever take a crack at adjusting the “Picture” menu on your new TV?  We didn’t think so, because most people don’t.  Most people believe that once they bring their TV home from the store and connect it, they’re getting a great picture that’s optimal and factory fresh.

What if we told you that you could dramatically improve the picture in just a few minutes, at no extra charge?  It’s not only true, it’s necessary.

Picture calibration is the process of making adjustments in brightness, color, tint, contrast and sharpness, among other settings.  Virtually every TV has a menu that lets you make subtle (or dramatic) changes to these picture qualities.

You can make most of these adjustments yourself, without professional help. We suggest this as your first step, because we’ve been hearing reports of unscrupulous retailers charging big bucks for bogus adjustments.

Why do you need calibration?  Because when TVs get shipped from the factory, the picture settings are usually pre-adjusted to settings that are too bright and too colorful.  This is so they’ll stand out from other TVs on the retailer’s floor and look attractive under the fluorescent lights of a showroom.

While these settings might make the picture pop in the store, they’re completely out of place in a home setting.  They’re too bright to be comfortable to watch (especially in a dark room), and because the light output has been goosed so high, they consume a lot more electricity than they should.  This is not subtle; everyone with a new big-screen TV gets the second sticker shock when they see their next electric bill.

Making picture adjustments to counteract the factor settings is simple.  Go into the setup menu of your TV and call up the “Picture” or “Video” menu.  You’ll see adjustments for the following:

Brightness – also called “black level,” this setting determines the overall light output of the TV.  It’s usually set much too high from the factory.

Contrast – also called “white level,” this setting determines how present and pure the color white is in the picture.  Also usually set too high from the factory.

Color – this setting controls the saturation (intensity) of color in the picture.

Tint – this setting changes the color emphasis from red to green and usually doesn’t need much adjustment.

Sharpness – probably the most over-used and misunderstood setting.  If you set the sharpness too high, you may actually be making the picture fuzzier.

Color Temperature – this setting isn’t present on every set, but it’s a measure of whether the picture is “warm” (a subtle red-gold cast) or “cool” (a subtle blue cast).

Many sets also have “automatic” picture settings that are usually engaged when the TV comes from the factory.  To make any adjustments to the other picture settings, you’ll usually need to turn these pre-sets off.

So what are the right settings?  A lot of people will tell you that whatever looks best to you is the right setting.  Don’t listen to them.  You can make preferential settings to your taste of course, but you’re better off making them after you’ve adjusted the set to the officially “correct’ settings.

And what are those? A professional with Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) certification will be happy to talk to you about them at length, while they hold up a color temperature meter to your TV and begin writing a bill for $200-300.  They’re right of course; there really are standards to what video pictures are supposed to look like, and if you’re enough of an enthusiast, the money for a pro calibration is likely well spent.  Obviously this only applies to upper-crust TVs – there’s little point to spend half again on a $600 LCD cheapie set from the local MegaMart.

For most folks, we recommend a smaller investment of $25-35 dollars for a good TV calibration disc.  These DVDs will have a series of test patterns, similar to what you see below.  Spoken instructions will guide you through the proper setup and they work for any TV from any maker.

To give you an idea of what you’re adjusting for, notice in the test pattern above that there are two vertical stripes in the “black” area at the bottom right.  One is lighter than the background around it, one is darker.  The calibration disc will guide you through brightness and contrast settings you can make so that both these bars disappear into the black field around them.  Similar procedures will be provided for color, tint, sharpness and other settings.

When you’re done with these adjustments, your movies will look more realistic, your sports will look less unrealistic and you’ll have a set that’s been optimized for longer life.

Worth a DVD?  We think so too.

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