Coyote Blog

I have been a home theater hobbyist for years, though with projection TV's rather than LCD panel TV's.  However, from what I know, this appears to be a good list of things to do and not do in setting up your TV.  TV's have historically been set up to look good in very bright showrooms under fluorescent lighting, but this is not how you likely watch the TV at home.  In fact, the best thing you can do to improve the look of your picture for cinematic content actually has nothing to do with the TV -- darken your viewing room.  They key to a really good picture is in the dark areas of the picture, not the bright areas.  Tricks to up the contrast and brightness of the TV can kill the detail in the dark areas.  The only way to really see what is there is to watch in a dark room.

The hardest thing to do at first is to get the color temperature correct.  Thankfully, most TV's today generally have a color temperature setting that is correct (20 years ago one had to have a technician do a manual re-calibration).  The right color temperature is around 6500K but TV's and computer monitors often ship with color temperatures boosted way up above 9000K, well up into the blue range because this makes the TV appear brighter in a TV showroom (at higher temperatures a neutral grey will look bluer, at lower temperatures it will look redder).  Unfortunately, your eyes are used to looking at high temperature monitors and TVs and so when you first change to the correct setting things may look to red.  Live with it a while.