With the advanced display technologies of today, it’s more important than ever that all elements of your home theater are working together in harmony. You know that you won’t get the best image from your Blu-Ray player if it’s not connected with the best cables. But did you know that without the proper calibration, your brand new HDTV might not be living up to its full potential?
Even some in-store displays appear washed out, muted, or overly saturated with color. You walk away shaking your head, thinking that whatever TV that was, it definitely wasn’t premium high-def. However, a simple problem could be at the root of the lackluster performance: it was not professionally calibrated.
Many people will argue that anyone, even those who are uninitiated into the league of the videophile, can calibrate a TV. However, as new features are piled on, such as different modes for different devices and a nearly infinite number of color, level, saturation and other options, many of the tweaks and features will be hidden or too technical for most of us to fully grasp without a few hours spent snuggled in bed with our TV manual.
Calibration is basically a balance between a TV’s color gamut and grayscale, and its minimum and maximum brightness and gamma. The optimized TV will conform to the standards set by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), which tries to match consumer TV calibration with the images that the video cameras filming the media intended.
Calibration isn’t simply increasing or decreasing values on your TV’s menu until things look “ok” to you. Of course, you can do that, but if you’ve invested in a home theater equipped with surround sound, multimedia devices and a flat screen TV wall frame surrounding your HDTV, you want to get the highest video performance possible. Proper calibration rests on the backbone of so much scientific and engineering knowledge, that it is usually best to let the professionals handle it.
The image on your HDTV depends in large part on the ambient light and other factors of your home theater environment. A professional will understand environmental factors in addition to the capabilities of your particular TV and will maximize the picture quality so you are presented with an image that give you the least eye fatigue and the most true-to-the-filmmaker’s-ideal quality that your TV is able to produce.
A professional will understand several things about your TV and your viewing needs. First, he or she understands the fine tuning necessary for many of the color and other options, and knows when, and how, they interact. For instance, changing the gamma affects levels and grayscale, which need to be readjusted every time even the minutest change in gamma occurs. A professional will also have the tools that a proper calibration requires. A color meter is used for every aspect of calibration except levels, and test patterns will be available to ensure that viewing is optimized for all types of media.
Check with the online community whether your TV model is best viewed after a professional calibration, and chances are, you’ll find people happy to tell you that a professional is a good idea. If you want to go it alone, be an intrepid DIYer, go ahead – but in order to save yourself headaches and to get the perfect picture based on plain and simple visual science, go with the professional touch.
Lauren is a contributing author for the HD Envy Blog. HD Envy is a company that provides high-quality flat screen TV wall frame options for consumers interested in adding style and a unique touch to their home theaters. Each flat screen TV wall frame is engineered for easy installation and long-lasting durability. The stock designs for the flat screen TV wall frame products at HD Envy are inspired by some of the most famous casinos and hotels in the world. You can customize your flat screen TV wall frame too, in order to get a look that is uniquely you.
Tags: Help, Home Theater, Install, Intel
