Calibrating your
new flat screen television can cost an arm and a leg if you hire a professional. Have no fear, you can calibrate your flat screen TV yourself without any special discs or tools. Simply by following a few simple steps you can give your flat panel television the picture quality you desire. By calibrating your flat screen television you will be able to watch it comfortably for extended periods, enjoying the true color, and will also be extending the life of your purchase.
Instructions
1. SET THE MOOD
Consider what kind of lighting or environment that you want to optimize your flat panel TV for. Will you be an afternoon soaps watcher or an evening at the movies watcher? Calibrate your television in the lighting environment you will be in when you want the best picture quality. Also sit where you will be when watching the TV, do not calibrate from an unnecessarily close or distant position.
2. PREP YOURSELF AND THE TELEVISION
Let your television warm up for a good 15 minutes to half hour. This will ensure the picture is at it's normal performance level for the given settings. Take that extra time to look at your manual and familiarize yourself with all the bells and whistles of your remote control. Take a look at the current settings of your TV and make mental notes of where certain settings are located in your menus.
3. BACKLIGHTING
Backlighting is simply put, the amount of light being sent through the LCD screen itself. This creates a brighter picture but can also shorten the lifespan of your TV. Backlighting creates a false brightness in your picture and can be safely turned off or dimmed as low as it can go.
4. BLACK AND WHITE, CONTRAST AND BRIGHTNESS
Brightness and contrast levels are how black your blacks are and how bright your whites are. Play a DVD that has a good amount of black and a good amount of brights or whites in the picture. It will help if there are details in shadowy areas as well. Now dim the brightness as low as it will go. Increase the brightness until your shadowed areas show small details but your black areas remain black. This step can be made easier if you choose a 'widescreen' version of your movie - you can then compare your black borders to the blacks in your picture. For your contrast you want to decrease the levels as low as they will go and increase until your whites are bright but not bleeding into their bordering colors. Once you are satisfied with the brightness and contrast levels, you can move on to Step 5.
5. SHARPNESS AND COLOR
Color and sharpness have a lot to do with your personal preference. If you want absolute accurate color, purchasing a calibration disc may be your best bet, but if you are okay with basing it on your personal preference then the DIY version will be just fine. It may help to bring your family or friends in to help you determine what a good normal is. Start by turning off or disabling any enhanced color features for your set. You don't want to calibrate based on 'sports' settings or 'movie' settings as these are artificially set to give you an altered view of the colors. Set your favorite DVD to a scene that has a human facial features and if possible environmental aspects as well like a field or ocean scene. The more diverse the better. Adjust levels up to the extreme and slowly lower your color, saturation, and tint levels until the faces look flesh tone and the grasses look realistically green. Sharpness can be adjusted in the same way, adjust up all the way and then decrease until you cannot see any distorted borders or edging around shapes and figures.
6. OTHER OPTIONS
If a DIY version of calibrating your flat screen TV sounds like too much adjusting and attention there are a few other methods to calibrating your set. Refer to the article listed in the resources section for other options in calibrating your television.
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