Most HDTVs look perfectly fine straight out of the box these days, without any sort of professional or DIY calibration. But if you want to crank up the quality just a little bit more, it’s much easier than you think. More »
Did our Listening Test week light up the fire inside to dust off some old records and whip a turntable back into shape to start enjoying them again? It’s really easy, and cheap. Here’s how.
Pioneer has three BD-Live Blu-ray players out in April, the BDP-120 hits under $US300, but the step-up BDP-320 and Elite BDP-23FD actually sense the TV you’re watching and tweak video output for max awesomeness.
We all know that Best Buy isn’t above deceiving their customers into purchasing their pricey HDTV calibration service, but it looks like they have changed tactics by using different cables on side-by-side displays.
Confession: Until a few days ago, I’d never calibrated my TV. There are a couple reasons for this. First, and most simply, I’m not down with buying a calibration disc that I will likely use once then never touch again. And second, to me, HDTV calibration is the gadget geek’s equivalent to chasing the dragon. I’ve seen endless A/V forum posts of new TV owners begging and pleading for that one true setting for their new high-definition slab—it’s not pretty. There is an easy way, though, tucked inside hundreds of THX-certified DVDs already out there, and it’s quite possibly already in your movie collection.
Yeah, Best Buy is known for using less-than-kosher tactics to pull in extra loot, but this is pretty despicable, even for them, since it manipulates the fact that most people have heard you need to a calibrate an HDTV for the best picture. At a demo for their $US300 Geek Squad calibration service in an NC store, they have two identical HDTVs showing ESPN—one calibrated, which looks fantastic, and one that’s supposedly not, which looks like total arse. That would be because it’s showing standard def ESPN next to the “calibrated” set’s ESPN HD. But it’s even worse than that.
Tuning your television is something only videophiles and Gizmodo readers do (seriously, normal people don’t care enough to spend a few hours on this), but Bang & Olufsen’s BeoVision 4 might change that practice. The 1080p TV has a built-in robotic arm with a camera on the end that swings down in front of the display in order to test the picture.
Aimed at creative professionals, Datacolour’s Spyder3 colour calibration system may give you sci-fi shivers when you see it parked on your desk. Incorporating a larger aperture than previous models, the Spyder3 uses an ambient light sensor to improve its accuracy, and its monitor sensor takes just seven minutes to calibrate. More info and pics below.
