You’ve done it! You defeated all the odds, you saved enough pennies, convinced the better half that you absolutely NEEED it and made your way to Electrical Experience to splash out on a shiny new HD flat screen television. (or at least that's where I hope you got it from!)
So what now? Just plug in and play yes? Well, you could - and you would still be overjoyed by your new acquisition, but we at Electrical Experience get a bit geeky about our TVs. We know that fresh out of the box HDTVs need just a little bit of 'fine tuning' to make sure the screen is producing the absolute best picture it can.
Don't worry, you needn't be an expert. Stay tuned for our top tips on maximising your screens performance.
Now we are aware some televisions (like Philips) come with 'picture wizards' a step by step guide to getting the picture how you want it, this makes life a bit easier, but it doesn't hurt to go back to the basics for that little of further tuning.
As this is 'Part One' we will cover a few of the basic settings and how you should play with them, you will need a few DVDs on hand.
Backlight
What it is? Reserved for LCD and LED displays, backlight controls the intensity of light used to project the image
What does it do? Backlight is usually set high by default. Lowering it can make the image more watchable in a dark room (stopping the TV from burning the image into your eyeballs) while setting it too low can cause the picture to lose impact and look a bit dull.
How to set it: This setting is difficult to evaluate without specialised equipment, but it should be set before anything else. The easiest way is to set the control to its midpoint, then find a very bright scene on TV or a DVD, and watch for 10 minutes or so in a dimmed room. If you experience eye strain, lower it by 10/20%, and then watch again. If you don't feel anything, keep it about 50 percent. If on the other hand you feel that the image is looking a little lifeless try turning it up 10% or so.
Brightness
What it is? Also called black level, the brightness control actually adjusts how dark the dark/black sections of the picture appear.
What does it do? Excessive brightness can result in a two-dimensional, washed-out look with colours looking slightly, well, lifeless. Images with brightness set too low lose detail in shadows, and distinctions between dark areas disappear in pools of black.
How to set it: After connecting your DVD player using the highest-quality input available (This should almost definatly be an HDMI connection, If not its time to replace your DVD player!), insert a DVD that has letterbox bars above and below the image, and find a scene that has a roughly equal amount of light and dark material. Turn up the control all the way, then decrease until the letterbox bars begin to appear black, as opposed to dark gray. If 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. Another way, for you gamers out there, is to put your favourite survival horror game on (Resident Evil is good for this) most good (I use this term loosley) games out there will have 'brightness adjustment' within the setup options. Set the ingame setting to the midpoint and use your TV brightness controls to define, this way you are setting up your TV on the whole rather than the settings for your one game.
Contrast
What it is? Also called picture or white level, contrast controls the intensity and detail of the bright and white parts of the image and, on TVs without a backlight control , determines the overall light output of the display.
What does it do? This control behaves differently depending on whether the TV has have a backlight (many LCDs and LEDs) control. For TVs with such controls, its main effect is to determine how much detail is visible in brighter areas of the picture. For other TVs, it also determines overall light output, so turning it up produces a brighter picture and uses more power.
How to set it: 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).
Color
What it is? Also called saturation, this control adjusts how intense the colours look.
What does it do? When there's too much colour, the set looks 'forced' and unrealistic. It's most noticeable with reds, which are often overly processed by the TV's color decoder. On the other hand, too little color diminishes the impact of the picture, making it look dull and lifeless (unless your watching a documentary on dust, then its probably normal). Setting color to zero results in a black-and-white image.
How to set it: If available, first set the color-temperature control to the warmest option as described below. Then find an image of someone with light, delicate skin tones, preferably a close-up of a face, on a DVD. Turn up the color 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 colors look too drab, you can increase color slightly at the expense of accurate skin tones.
Other controls
Sharpness: This adds artificial edges to objects, which sometimes helps with soft standard-definition signals but almost always hampers the already sharp image from a DVD, Blu-ray or HDTV source. Reduce it to zero unless you detect visible softening along the edges of text; if you do, increase it until the edges appear sharp again.
Color temperature: This important control affects the color of gray, which forms the basis for all colors displayed on your TV. Select the Warm or Low option
Generally, the image looks best for DVD, Blu-ray and HDTV sources with picture "enhancements" such as auto-color, flesh tone, enhanced contrast, noise reduction, and other proprietary processing modes turned off. DVD and better sources are good enough that these modes usually do more harm than good. For watching standard definition, they may boost overall image quality, but for DVDs, Games etc, less is more.
There you have it, a few simple (and cheap!) tips to get that little extra from your new TV.
Watch out for Tech Tips Part 2!
Brightness
What it is? Also called black level, the brightness control actually adjusts how dark the dark/black sections of the picture appear.
What does it do? Excessive brightness can result in a two-dimensional, washed-out look with colours looking slightly, well, lifeless. Images with brightness set too low lose detail in shadows, and distinctions between dark areas disappear in pools of black.
How to set it: After connecting your DVD player using the highest-quality input available (This should almost definatly be an HDMI connection, If not its time to replace your DVD player!), insert a DVD that has letterbox bars above and below the image, and find a scene that has a roughly equal amount of light and dark material. Turn up the control all the way, then decrease until the letterbox bars begin to appear black, as opposed to dark gray. If 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. Another way, for you gamers out there, is to put your favourite survival horror game on (Resident Evil is good for this) most good (I use this term loosley) games out there will have 'brightness adjustment' within the setup options. Set the ingame setting to the midpoint and use your TV brightness controls to define, this way you are setting up your TV on the whole rather than the settings for your one game.
Contrast
What it is? Also called picture or white level, contrast controls the intensity and detail of the bright and white parts of the image and, on TVs without a backlight control , determines the overall light output of the display.
What does it do? This control behaves differently depending on whether the TV has have a backlight (many LCDs and LEDs) control. For TVs with such controls, its main effect is to determine how much detail is visible in brighter areas of the picture. For other TVs, it also determines overall light output, so turning it up produces a brighter picture and uses more power.
How to set it: 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).
Color
What it is? Also called saturation, this control adjusts how intense the colours look.
What does it do? When there's too much colour, the set looks 'forced' and unrealistic. It's most noticeable with reds, which are often overly processed by the TV's color decoder. On the other hand, too little color diminishes the impact of the picture, making it look dull and lifeless (unless your watching a documentary on dust, then its probably normal). Setting color to zero results in a black-and-white image.
How to set it: If available, first set the color-temperature control to the warmest option as described below. Then find an image of someone with light, delicate skin tones, preferably a close-up of a face, on a DVD. Turn up the color 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 colors look too drab, you can increase color slightly at the expense of accurate skin tones.
Other controls
Sharpness: This adds artificial edges to objects, which sometimes helps with soft standard-definition signals but almost always hampers the already sharp image from a DVD, Blu-ray or HDTV source. Reduce it to zero unless you detect visible softening along the edges of text; if you do, increase it until the edges appear sharp again.
Color temperature: This important control affects the color of gray, which forms the basis for all colors displayed on your TV. Select the Warm or Low option
Generally, the image looks best for DVD, Blu-ray and HDTV sources with picture "enhancements" such as auto-color, flesh tone, enhanced contrast, noise reduction, and other proprietary processing modes turned off. DVD and better sources are good enough that these modes usually do more harm than good. For watching standard definition, they may boost overall image quality, but for DVDs, Games etc, less is more.
There you have it, a few simple (and cheap!) tips to get that little extra from your new TV.
Watch out for Tech Tips Part 2!
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