[bobzez]

I have a Samsung 4061F LCD-TV. I'm told calibration improves picture quality and reduces both power usage and the heat that the TV generates. Any truth to this? I hear that some retailers offer do-it-yourself calibration DVD's while some offer calibration as an in-home service. Is it worth it?

[hewee]

See these links.

http://www.pcworld.com/printable/art...printable.html

http://www.pcworld.com/printable/art...printable.html

http://www.pcworld.com/printable/art...printable.html

[JohnWill]

I can't imagine you saving much energy with the calibration, though the picture quality may be better. FWIW, I checked the energy consumption of a 42" Olevia 1080p LCD, and it comes in at 125 watts with video and audio at normal levels, so it's pretty low impact. OTOH, my 50" Samsung plasma screen sucks up 400 watts in the same test!

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by hewee

http://www.pcworld.com/printable/art...printable.html

I haven't used the SpyderTV tool described in this article but it looks neat and I want to give it a try sometime.

http://www.pcworld.com/printable/art...printable.html

I definitely recommend getting either Avia or Digital Video Essentials (DVE),as mentioned in this article. I've calibrated two Vizio LCD HDTVs with Avia and a friend of mine calibrated his 50" Samsung LCD HDTV with my copy of Avia. Everyone noticed an improved video picture after doing the calibration.

However, the catch with using a DVD-based calibration tool (like Avia or DVE) is you will be calibrating the video input the DVD player is connected to only. Those settings won't apply to the other video inputs! So, you can calibrate your TV using Avia or DVE and make note of the settings you get. Then, you can manually apply those settings to the other inputs and see how the picture looks to you. The results might not be the same since broadcast TV will be a different video signal than a DVD player's video signal.

Avia will guide you through the video calibration process and depending on how long it takes you to go through each phase, plan on spending anywhere from 30 mins to a couple of hours doing the calibration.

Good luck!

Peace...

[JohnWill]

You also need a really good quality upscaling DVD with HDMI outputs or I doubt the results would be valid at all. If the TV is doing the final conversion, it's going to make a huge difference over the HDMI output of most cable or other TV distribution boxes.

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by JohnWill

You also need a really good quality upscaling DVD with HDMI outputs or I doubt the results would be valid at all.

"Valid" is an interesting statement since it's standard practice to re-calibrate the TV when DVD players are switched anyway, since DVD players output different video signals. However, this traditional approach might apply more to analog video connections than to digital video connections. It would be interesting to see how passing 480i, 480p, 720p (upconverted), 1080i (upconverted), and 1080p (upconverted) over HDMI to the TV impacts the video calibration results.

If the TV is doing the final conversion, it's going to make a huge difference over the HDMI output of most cable or other TV distribution boxes.

Maybe. I don't know if anyone has analyzed the HDMI output of a STB (set-top box) and a DVD player (HD or otherwise) to see how the video signal at any given resolution differs. In other words, if 720p from a STB and a DVD player (upconverting or Blu-Ray player) is the same in terms of video signal then the calibration DVD could yield results that would be applicable to the other digital video inputs. If 720p from a STB is different, then it would be more challenging to "accurately" calibrate the video input on the TV used for the STB connection. There aren't any broadcast SMTPE test patterns that could be used for the calibration.

Peace...

[JohnWill]

Well, I'd be pretty astonished if they're the same. I have an up-converting Phillips DVD and Verizon FiOS TV. They are on the two HDMI inputs to my set, and I can see differences in color quality.

[tomdkat]

And I certainly believe you do see differences in color quality. If you haven't adjusted any of the factory settings on your TV, then the differences you're seeing are in the source (either in the source material (show or movie) or in the source device (DVD player)). The question is what is the actual source of color quality difference.

Peace...

[JohnWill]

Hard to say, it looks good enough that I haven't done any serious tweaking. Maybe someday...

[tomdkat]

Yeah, my dad feels the same way about his Vizio LCD. He just loves how HD over cable looks on his set even though we haven't calibrated that input yet. We did the HDMI input connected to his DVD player and using Avia we found the colors were way off and the contrast was too high. After Avia, the DVD video had more detail and he was able to notice an improvement in overall video quality.

Peace...

[JohnWill]

I'm sure there's some improvement to be had, just not enough hours in the day to screw around with all the electronics around here.