How do I calibrate TV?

Select your the manufacturer of your set and then select the correct model #

LINK

1. Plugging in other people's settings is likely just going to give you different errors than you started with, not necessarily better or worse, just different, and that's especially true for the advanced controls like White Balance, CMS, and 10-point gamma. If you try this, stick to the basic controls.

2. Your best bet is to download the free AVS 709 HD disc or files, which will help you set the basic controls, i.e. Brightness, Contrast, Color, Tint, and Sharpness. If your TV doesn't have a blue mode, you'll need a filter for Color and Tint, and discs like Disney WoW come with them. Then again, filters can be rather inaccurate, and using them can just give you different errors than leaving those controls untouched. Tint is usually on the money anyway.

3. Usually the "Cinema" mode or equivalent is the best starting point. If the warmest Color Temperature looks really wrong to you, you probably have no idea what a calibrated picture looks like and are used to settings that are out of whack.

4. After getting Brightness and Contrast in the ballpark, if the picture looks washed out, try increasing gamma, e.g. from 2.2 to 2.4. If you can't make anything out in dark scenes, try decreasing gamma, e.g. from 2.4 to 2.2.

5. Pay attention to grayscale steps and ramps in the pattern sets. You need them to be neutral shades of gray, or nothing will look right.

6. This isn't calibration. To calibrate a TV, you need a meter and software or hire a pro who will bring his own and save you from the learning curve.

7. The best website is probably avsforum.com. The best reviews are at the British site hdtvtest.co.uk, but the UK models don't always correspond directly to what we can get. The best thing I can say about CNet is the reviewer talks about specific scenes in real material.

I've never been able to get my tv right. I haven't done it professionally nor am I buying software for it. I just use the eye test but my colors are a little too rich.

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Do I have to buy a calibration DVD? If so, are they Blu-Ray (don't have Blu-Ray player) or regular DVD? Which one is best and where do I buy it?

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I've never been able to get my tv right. I haven't done it professionally nor am I buying software for it. I just use the eye test but my colors are a little too rich.

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If you don't want to spend $20 on that Disney WOW disc, you should try some free self-calibration material like the AVS HD 709 Disc

Main AVSForum thread

+1 to everyone

Spyders are not considered very good meters. The current go-to meter is the i1 Display Pro AKA i1D3 I think was mentioned earlier. OOTB, it will be worth it, but for best results, being a colorimeter, it would help to profile it against a spectrophotometer, preferably one that has been certified in the last year or two, on the displays you want to calibrate. Spectros are pretty expensive, but the cheaper ones can be rented for $100-$200, and the i1D3 has sealed optics so should drift at a lower rate than cheaper colorimeters, so the profile should last a while. Spectros measure physical properties of the light and are more accurate (though slower), while colorimeters rely on filters and correction tables for different display technologies that never exactly match the specific target displays. Profiling produces a 3x3 matrix that calibration software uses to get the colorimeter results closer to the spectrophotometer. If a pro is using a colorimeter and hasn't profiled it on your display against a spectro, well, I hope you're not paying him very much.

To make it even more confusing, X-Rite makes a device called an i1 Pro, which is a spectrophotometer. It is the i1 Display Pro that is the more affordable colorimeter, but even then it's roughly $225 new and on sale.

I used tweakTV to set my tv earlier. My tv wasn't in there so I went off models close to it. The colors overall look better. The only issue is that white is not very white anymore. It's like a murky grayed out white.