LCD HDTV’s do not land on your doorsteps with the settings calibrated to your heart’s content. That is why, what you have looked at in the store, and then bought and take home, may seem like it is not the same product. Actually, it is, just that the environment conditions from the electronics store and those from your living room differ a lot, and the factory settings are not likely to work in your cozy home. This means that you will have to tweak a little with the settings, until you determine the right combination that pleases your eye. LCD calibration is the name of the game, and, you, too, can be good at it, if you decide to apply some DIY techniques that will be explained in this article, unless, of course, you prefer to use professional services that are readily available. On the other hand, by doing your LCD calibration by yourself, you can save some cash.
Light Conditions
So, you have just brought home a new gadget, an LCD TV that will change your experience in watching television for good. We mentioned earlier that factory settings influence the way the picture is displayed on the screen, being set for electronics store conditions. This has especially to do with light conditions, as these store are illuminated a giorno, while your living room gets far less light. You may be able to notice some imperfections when watching your new television screen, imperfections that were not easy to see under the powerful lights in the store.
In order to get the best out of your LCD TV, you will have to prepare the environment, which means proper lighting conditions. LCD TV’s are best watched if there is a light, even less powerful, in the room. This is one aspect that separates LCD from plasma, which are best watched in complete darkness. The reason why LCD’s do not perform that well in the dark, is that their deepest blacks cannot, by far, compete with those in plasma TV’s. A thing that you need to consider when preparing the environment for your LCD, is that the light must not reflect on the screen, as you will get a glaring effect which can ruin your experience.
Specialists recommend to place a dim light behind the LCD, or anywhere you can, so you are able to watch TV in perfect conditions during the night. Watching your favorite programs on your LCD with all the lights on is not recommendable, as they are too powerful. On the other hand, instead of preparing the lighting conditions, you can calibrate your LCD to perform best under your terms.
Google is Your Friend
The simplest way to calibrate your LCD is to find which settings are perfect in order to get the best out of it, under normal living room conditions. And, seeing that many people today buy and use LCD TV’s, there is a high chance that someone has already found the right combination for the model that you have brought home. Just run a search on Google, introducing your model code, followed by “calibration settings”, and see what result you get. Sometimes, such searches may prove fruitless, so another way to find out the right settings is to read product reviews written for your LCD model, or go to HDTV forums and sites, where plenty of information is displayed for anyone to use. If you still remain in the dark, then you can go on and try to calibrate the LCD by yourself, following some tips, or using a calibration disk. Let’s see how we can do that.
DIY Methods
DIY methods deal with a lot of tweaking. The idea is to find the right settings for your LCD, by fiddling with picture controls until you get it right. Of course, this means that you need to know what each and every one of them does and how you can get it right, and this is what the following advice is all about. You will also need a DVD or a Blu Ray disc, so you can compare your tweakings with their effect on the video source. Besides this method, you can also use a calibration disk, which is especially designed to help you get the right settings for your LCD.
Watch and Learn: The Video Source Technique
In order to calibrate efficiently your LCD, you need a reliable video source, such as a Blu Ray disc. A regular DVD, or HDTV television broadcast will do, as well, as they are good quality. By no means you should use standard definition content, as its low quality will not help you one bit in setting your LCD TV. You will need your video source to display some black images, or dark scenes, some light images, and plenty of shadows, so you can adjust the settings for the best results.
Many LCD models have a lot of so called artificial enhancements, and they can contribute to a poor image display. In order to establish accurately the right settings for your LCD, you have to turn them off. You will not need the gadget to try to adjust the picture, while you try to adjust it yourself, so you need to turn off settings like Color Correction, Edge Enhancement, Flesh Tone, Autocolor, Noise Reduction, Detail Enhancement, Black Level and so on.
Adjust Color Temperature
Color temperature is one setting that influences the way all colors are displayed. You will notice on your LCD that there are some presets for color temperature: warm, normal and low. You can try each and every one of them, to determine the optimal color temperature for your model, as there is no general rule stating that one works best for all LCD models. Read the literature that comes with your LCD, to search for tips, or go to HDTV forums and sites for more info on your particular model.
Set the Right Brightness Level
Brightness is also a very important setting, because it influences how dark or bright an image looks. In order to see the right level of brightness for your screen, play your DVD or search for a scene with a lot of black in it, as well as shadows and start from there. Brightness is also named “black level”, and this is what you are going to play with. Adjust the brightness until you get a perfect black, but pay attention to shadow details, as well. Too much brightness may get the details out of the picture, but the dark scenes will look somehow washed out.
Determine the Right Contrast
We have a black level, and we have a white level, and the latter is about contrast. If, for the right brightness, we tried it on a darker scene, for contrast, we need a scene with a lot of light and light colors. Set the contrast higher and higher, until you notice that the differences in colors lose their touch. Turn back until you reach the level that lets you distinguish between different tones of the same color.
Making the Colors Look Right: Saturation
Another setting that you have to deal with when calibrating an LCD is color saturation. When this setting has the value 0, you will have a black and white image. Rise the value little by little, until you get a color intensity that suits your taste. If you have too much color, you will notice that the image will look somehow unrealistic, while too little will cause a washed out display of the image. Here is a tip on how to strike right on the spot. Choose a scene where a face close up is displayed. Skin tone should appear natural, so fiddle with color saturation until you get that look. Pay attention to other colors as well, and go with the flow just until you reach the perfect tones.
Some LCD models have other settings that you can use for calibrating. They work including with the base colors – red, green and blue – that you can adjust for a better picture.
How to Use a Calibration Disk
Once you have spent some real cash on your LCD, it would not hurt to throw in a few extra bucks for a calibrating disk. They are quite cheap and very reliable. This is as easy as it gets. You just buy a calibration DVD and then just follow their instructions until you get the quality picture you want to obtain from your LCD. They will guide you through many settings, and you will get an ampler approach then the one described in the do-it-yourself technique we shared with you earlier. Practically, you will get a more professional approach then the one based only on your personal “eyeballing technique”. You will get to save a lot of time, as well, because you will no longer have to find the right images or scenes for adjusting the basic controls.