@male roof blower: The settings included accessing the service menu and making a few tweaks here and there.

lunchmoney

@lunchmoney: Did you have access to the internal controls as well? There might be a little bit of additional tweaking that you need to do in order to account for not having the service settings adjusted. I'm sure that you're probably really close, though, especially if you aren't particularly picky.

male roof blower

I used the recommended settings from the members of avsforum.com

I own a Panasonic TH-42PZ77U and one of the members of the forum had his 50 inch model professional calibrated. I simply copied the settings he used and my picture looks great.

lunchmoney

AVIA ftw!

balls187++

I was just calibrating mine using the calibration patterns on every Sony BR disc. Just key in 7669 while in the menu of a Sony BR disc to get the patterns.

male roof blower

I used the avsforum for my Samsung LNT-xx71F.

I found it quite useful and have since come up with the what I consider to be the perfect settings.

gpzbc

If you do the Netflix thing, you can get the AVIA Home Theater calibration discs. There's AVIA and AVIA 2 (Electric Boogaloo?) but I don't know what's on the second one.

I used the former (and dubbed it, natch) and my picture is the awesome.

Paul D

I borrowed a copy of Digital Video Essentials. Was pleasantly surprised to see JVC's default settings were quite good and that I had tweaked it subjectively even closer over the months.

This is really important to think about because factory defaults for many brands are very bad. They set them up to attract attention in the store, with garish colors and whacked out brightness.

You don't need to be uber-geek. For most TVs, all you really need is to get the brightness and contrast right (so darkest and lightest areas show some detail) and then ease up on the color (saturation).

moe52

SpyderTV FTW!

CntryDoe

I use Video Essentials, but technically a calibration disc only calibrates that particular DVD input, you have to eyeball the rest of your inputs based off the DVD calibration settings. A good tip if you own a DVR: Record a movie that you also have on DVD. Calibrate your DVD input and copy the settings to your HD input and then play the movie on both inputs and tweak your HD input to match your calibrated DVD input.

Good luck!

BugMeNot

I have a Samsung HL-T5087S, and used calibration settings on AVS Forum as a baseline, and tweaked to my preference from there. It took maybe 6 total hours, and I had to read the manual for my TV, but in the end I am far more satisfied that I didn't waste a bunch of money on a "calibration professional", and I learned a lot more about how my TV works.

Its amazing how much money people spend on things and don't even know how the basic functions, let alone more advanced features.

I think "professional calibration" is a scam and a waste of money. Really. Now I've made all the calibration techs mad at me. I guess I'll have to stay up tonight worrying about it.

jtimberman

I like the idea of looking through AVSforum to find the settings other people got from the tuning DVDs.

brucifer

I used the Avia disc to get my TV looking pretty good. Went to my old college roommate's place this weekend. TV was insanely bright. I asked him if he'd done any calibrating and he hadn't. "Torch mode" looks terrible, IMO, plus if you have a plasma, it can cause burn-in very quickly.

SpenceMan01

josephbphillips

The only problem I have at the moment is the fact that I have multiple component sources going through my amp, and then into the TV with one cable - thus, 1 setting for component input on the TV :-(

falter

There's nothing like good old sd tv image with distorted corners and red glows on highly contrasted colors. And to me no digital compression can beat that. hurray SD :P

skimmas

I did mine, and it made a world of difference. Usually the contrast is WAY too high, and it can actually burn out the picture early if you leave it as-is.

Norcross

i just turn on the Simpsons and adjust settings until their skin is the perfect yellow.

knamiproko

I just calibrate my expectations, instead of my TV. Right now they're set to "not giving a shit", and I'm OK with that.

xboxishuge

I calibrated my LCD HDTV using the THX optimizer included on The Incredibles DVD (any Pixar DVD has the test in its special features). It was easy, quick and kinda fun. I also got in on the slickdeal for the 3M calibration DVD that comes with the 3D glasses and used that.

It is not a night-and-day difference for me, but I see a improvement.

heavylee-again

jonthomasdesigns

@Paul D:
I Netflix'd the DVE Calibration Discs (pretty close to AVIA from what I hear) and although it didn't include the necessary films for color calibration, I winged it on those.

Either way, I gotta say that the difference on my Toshiba 50" DLP TV is tremendous especially for my PS3. Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty 4 have never looked so good.

I had previously used calibration settings from AVSForums, but if you have a Blu-ray player or HD-DVD player, I highly recommend either putting it in your queue or just buying it (the DVE one is $20). I think that it's great to be able to do a "custom" job of calibration for your room, your environment, etc versus relying on what worked for someone else.

Either way, professional set-up is a rip-off. I'm considering paying the $20 for the set then carting around my PS3 and charging $100 for it on Craigslist...

Evil J

AVIA and I found the Mitsubishi technician manual online

Chaluapman

@jtimberman: It all depends on the TV. Some TVs don't let you adjust many of the settings or require making adjustments where you can really mess up your TV if you don't know what you are doing.

@heavylee-again: 3D or color filter glasses? I'm not quite sure how much having 3D glasses would help you calibrate your TV. Having color filter glasses lets you adjust the saturation and tint properly.

male roof blower

Luckily Consumer Reports suggested the best settings for my Vizio on a recent release. That's what I did minus the back light settings. It was meant for a completely pitch black room.

jvandub

@josephbphillips: Yes, on a $ per hour cost, my six hours costs more than paying a few hundred or whatever to some tech. However, I learned a lot about how my TV actually works, which is well worth the time invested. Home theater stuff is kind of a side hobby along with computer gaming for me anyway (HTPC is hooked up to the TV).

jtimberman

Regardless of what you find for "recommended settings" online or in any article, generally they won't be optimal for your TV, and using a Calibration disc (or paying for professional calibration) will yield much better results. This is because EVERY plasma display panel and LCD panel will be slightly different, and will have been tweaked in the service menu for that particular screen. This is due to minute differences in the components used to build the television.

true, the settings you find online will get you a slightly better picture than just plugging it in and watching your new TV you'll be happier if you do a true calibration

Bill Clark

I used Windows Media Center calibration tool. The settings change really made the picture pop, so I applied these settings to all my inputs across the board and made minor variations to each as needed. Everything looks great!

WARPLAYER

@Bill Clark:
Agreed.

Like I said, I found calibration settings for my TV, and while they were OK, they weren't half as good as the ones I ended up with after using the calibration Blu-ray.

Part of it is that every unit may have slight differences, but more so, I think it's because every viewing environment is different, and so if you calibrate it to what you're viewing... you can't go wrong.

Evil J

Greg Loewen's, who's quoted in the NYT article, company calibrated my home theater set. I use AVIA's test pattern DVD for tweaking, but there's no substitute for a ISF technician getting his hands dirty (he spent 4 hours and took the damn thing apart to make sure everything was aligned). Keep in mind, too, that if all you're using is a test pattern DVD, your DVD player is going to have different characteristics than your cable HD box, than OTA HD signals, etc., so calibrating off a DVD won't be accurate.

Of course, there's a cost/benefit threshold. While I paid for ISF calibration on my home theater display, DIY calibration is sufficient for my bedroom set.

tl5

That's why my screen is ISF calibrated.

mrcage

Avia + AVSForum

reeflections

Avia.

tcolberg

@xboxishuge: Now THAT's comedy. Thanks for the laugh! :)

Tim Raines

When I bought my HDTV three years ago I was planning to do this...but when it arrived and I set it up, the picture was so good from all sources I didn't even bother...

onesix18