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HDTV Guide

  

Optimize the performance of your TV

  

Also in this section: Introduction | Getting started | Providers | Buying your HDTV | Jargon buster | Optimize

Why do I need to optimize?

Electrical showrooms display TVs with a view to creating maximum impact. This often means that various settings such as colour, brightness and contrast are set far too high for the home.

Your own home environment also has an impact on the performance of your TV. It can be important to adjust the lighting in your TV room to match the screen.

The good news is that you don't have to be an expert to improve the performance of your TV. A few minor adjustments can help you get a lot more from your new set and you can develop the interest in tweaking your TV to a much higher level if you wish.

Of course, everyone is different and getting the settings of your TV right is often down to personal preference. As a general rule of thumb however, try turning the main settings of your TV down a little and take it from there.

Brightness

Also called 'black level', brightness actually adjusts how dark the black sections of the picture appear.

Excessive brightness can result in a two-dimensional, washed-out look with reduced colour saturation. Images with brightness set too low lose detail in shadows, and distinctions between dark areas disappear in pools of black.

Improving TV Brightness: Turn up the brightness to full, then reduce until just at the point you notice a loss of shadow detail - for example, when people's eyes disappear into the depths under their brows, then you've set brightness too low. Some plasma, LCD, DLP, and LCoS TVs won't ever look black, so you'll need a setup disc to properly configure their brightness.

Contrast

Also called picture or white level, contrast controls the intensity of the white parts of the image and determines the overall light output of the display.

Improving TV Contrast: Display a still image from DVD of a white object with some visible details - such as someone wearing a white button-up shirt or a shot of a glacier from the Ice Age DVD. Adjust the control up all the way, then reduce it until you can make out all the details in the white (such as buttons on a shirt or cracks in the ice). In general, TVs look best when contrast is set between 30 and 50 percent.

Colour

When there's too much colour, the set looks garish and unrealistic. It's most noticeable with reds, which are often accentuated (pushed) by the TV's colour decoder. On the other hand, too little colour diminishes the impact of the picture, making it look drab. Setting colour to zero results in a black-and-white image.

Improving TV Colour: If available find an image of someone with light, delicate skin tones, preferably a close-up of a face, on a DVD. Turn up the colour control until it looks like the person has sunburn, then reduce it until the skin looks natural, without too much red. If the rest of the colours look too drab, you can increase colour slightly at the expense of accurate skin tones.

TV Environment

Unless you have a big-screen projector or you're sitting at the minimum viewing distance, you should avoid watching movies in complete darkness - it can cause eyestrain.

For bright plasmas and smaller direct-view sets, the ideal setup is to place a dim light directly behind the TV and leave the rest of the room dark. Look for special "daylight" bulbs that glow at 6,500 degrees Kelvin. You should also prevent any light in the room from reflecting off the TV, as glare will hamper image fidelity. Watching at night is best, but if you watch during the day, thick curtains will really improve the picture.

Taking TV optimization a step further

You can take the calibration of your TV a step further without having to invest in any expensive equipment.

A THX-certified DVD contains a number of simple test patterns designed to improve the performance of your TV. You may already own a THX certified DVD, a full list is available at www.thx.com

If you would like to take a more scientific approach to TV optimization you can invest in a specialist TV-calibration DVD. Digital Video Essentials (the PAL version) or the AVIA Guide to Home Theatre are both excellent.

Both DVDs contain a large number of test patterns, designed amongst other things to improve Brightness, Colour and Contrast, broken down into areas such as Video Calibration, Geometry/Convergence, System Evaluation and Video Response

Getting more involved in the calibration process

If you want to fully immerse yourself in the TV optimzation process, you can invest in the Datacolor's Spyder TV system. Spyder TV uses simple to follow PC-based software, DVD test patterns and the 'colourimeter' hardware, which attaches to your TV using suction cups. It is relatively easy to use and produces excellent results.

Making the right connections

Easily overlooked, it is important to use the right connections if at all possible. Signals degrade over distance so also try and keep your cables short.

You should always try to use the best possible video connection that your TV and peripherals will support. The hierarchy of picture quality from best to worst is as follows: HDMI, DVI, component, RGB, Scart, S-Video and composite.