Calibration Tales

[Blu-Dog]

I've heard some astounding tales about how calibration of televisions is required to get the optimum picture. Prices of $300 to $400 are tossed around, along with impassioned claims about how the picture is so much better, etc.

This is usually followed up by earnest advice to call up some ISF cowboy, who will be coming soon to your area, just fixing up all the "crappy TV image" problems of new HDTV owners.

It is also interesting to note that this whole cacaphony is a recent event in this forum; I get the distinct impression that it's a sales job.

Calibration is simply a baseline adjustment to agreed-upon specifications. The controls accessible to any television owner will allow you to reach this same baseline. Unless the set is damaged or malfunctioning, any set is capable of a brilliant image, and personal preference is as good as any pre-determined setting.

Anything can be calibrated. An oven; a radio tuner; a dimmer switch for an incandescent bulb. Anything.

It won't make food taste better, or a radio station come in more clearly, or a light any better to read by. It's simply an adjustment.

It's DEFINITELY not worth hundreds of dollars. HDTV owners would be much better served buying Blu-Ray movies, or paying the cable bill for six months.

This level of disinformation is confusing to folks who come here, looking for advice on how to spend the thousands of dollars for high-tech gear - who are then told that it must immediately be serviced, or their investment is useless. I'm stunned that this kind of nonsense has gone basically unchallenged.

The sole value of calibrating a set is to establish baseline settings from which personal adjustments will give known, objective results. For the vast majority of folks, these settings will differ. Settings are based on:

- Media source (Cable, OTA, SDDVD, Blu, game unit, etc.)
- Media content (Film with all the different typs of photography, TV shows, even game modes)
- Media connection (HDMI, component cable, coax connection, etc.)
- Ambient light (Bright area, dim area, room lighting and type, etc.)
- Viewing distance and angle (ideal distance and angle, non-ideal, etc.)
- Power source (clean filtered power, unclean power)
Environmental conditions (differences in heat and cold, dust, etc.)

While calibration may be needed after servicing, a new, quality HDTV is factory preset with adjustments close enough to key in variations well within the bands of tolerance. There is no "voodoo" to it. Simple pre-sets may not be optimum; but all can be dialed in to the user's preference, which may change based on all of the conditions seen above.

It's also obvious to anyone who understands electronics that any calibration setting can "drift" over time. No setting is set in stone - and every factor listed above can change over time. There is no telling how long any setting will hold, and it may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

At this point, defenders of this ISF calibration stuff are generally saying, "well, I spent $400, and I say it looks better" are simply making noise. If anyone prefers to have an accurate baseline calibration, that's fine. It's not necessary; you can paint your screen purple, if that's what you want to do.

But to tell people who are trying to put together the huge sums it takes to by HDTV gear that their money is wasted if they don't bring in some "expert" (and I have huge doubts about that, don't get me started) to twiddle with settings, using a cheap lightmeter, and then walk off with enough money to start a respectable Blu library, is very, very bad advice.

To all considering buying a set: read the reviews, look at it in a store, and then buy it where the price is best. You will definitely enjoy it, and you don't need a serviceman until, with your untrained eyes, you know the thing is definitely malfunctioning.