How to Calibrate your TV (6 Best Ways)

In this article we will discuss about how to Calibrate your TV. By calibrating your TV, you can get a much better picture. Professional calibration takes a long time and costs a lot of money. You also need special equipment and training to do it right. However, you can make your TV look better by buying a test disc for $30 to $40 and playing with the settings for 30 minutes. ISF founder and president Joel Silver recommends the Spears & Munsil disc to anyone who wants to calibrate their TV or just learn more about how video signals work.

It has a lot of instructions on the disc and in the booklet that comes with it, but many of them aren’t necessary and can be ignored unless you’re a pro and already know how to calibrate a TV. The truth is that the image quality on the TV you’re watching could probably be better and more immersive with a few small changes. You can have a professional calibrate your TV, or you can buy calibration discs or devices, but in this guide, we’ll focus on simple, free changes you can make right away to improve the picture quality on your smart TV. Here are the many ways how to Calibrate your TV.

Picture Mode

1. The first thing you want to adjust is the TV’s picture mode. This setting usually has the biggest impact on picture quality.
2. Each picture mode has different default settings, and some of them behave differently from one another, even if you try and match the settings across modes.
3. Good picture quality is important for video games, but you also want to make sure you don’t have too much input lag.
4. If that is a concern, you should choose the ‘Game‘ picture mode (or ‘PC‘ on some models), or go into the TV’s settings and enable ‘Game‘ mode.
5. From there, the rest of the settings can be adjusted normally, and the picture will look very similar to what you get with ‘Movie‘ or ‘Standard.’
6. On some models though, the PC or Game modes disable many of the TV’s picture enhancements, and some TVs even limit which picture modes are available.

Backlight

1. The backlight setting determines the brightness of the LEDs used to light the image.
2. The higher the setting, the brighter the picture will be.
3. No right answer: Each user needs to adjust this setting to their specific viewing conditions.
4. Bright room vs. dark room: In a bright room, the TV needs a brighter setting, while in a dark room, a lower setting is sufficient.
5. Personal preferences: Some people prefer a brighter or darker image.
6. Backlight setting doesn’t significantly impact overall picture quality.
7. It brightens everything equally: Blacks may let a bit more light through, but whites are brighter as well.
8. Contrast ratio remains about the same.
9. High backlight setting won’t make the TV wear out sooner for LED TVs.

Contrast

1. The contrast setting adjusts the amount of detail in bright images.
2. If contrast is set too high, whites could be ‘clipped’, meaning detail is lost in bright parts of the image.
3. If contrast is set too low, the bright portions of the image won’t appear bright enough.
4. The contrast setting is usually correct by default but may require adjustment.
5. To adjust the setting, lower the contrast to the minimum on your TV.
6. Gradually increase the contrast until only lines 230-234 are visible.
7. New TVs rarely clip the whites, so setting the value to the maximum is usually fine.
8. If there is no loss of detail at the highest setting, it is safe to choose the maximum value.
9. The images above demonstrate minimal difference between the correct setting and the maximum.

Color

1. The ‘Color‘ setting controls the saturation level of colors in the TV’s images.
2. Insufficient saturation will result in washed-out colors (extreme example at the above-left).
3. Excessive saturation will lead to an oversaturated picture (above-right).
4. Modern TVs usually have the correct ‘Color’ setting in their ‘Movie’ mode by default.
5. It is generally recommended to avoid modifying this setting.
6. However, if adjustment is desired, a blue filter can be used.
7. Look through the blue filter while adjusting the ‘Color‘ setting.
8. Aim to make the blue box on the far left appear the same as the smaller gray boxes within.

Brightness

1. The ‘Brightness’ setting on a TV controls the depth of black on the screen.
2. Setting it too low will ‘crush’ the blacks, resulting in lost detail in darker images.
3. Setting it too high will make the blacks not appear dark enough.
4. Most TVs come with the correct default setting for brightness, so it is recommended to leave it unchanged.
5. If you still want to adjust it, follow these steps:
   a. Set the brightness to the minimum value.
   b. Gradually increase the brightness until you notice the black portion on the left starts to lighten.

Sharpness

1. Adjusting a TV’s sharpness setting changes how it defines distinct objects on the screen.
2. The proper sharpness setting will make things look about the same as they do in real life.
3. Too much sharpness will exaggerate contours and lines.
4. It’s very rare for a TV to have the option to remove sharpness from an image.
5. Only two images are compared here.
6. Because high levels of sharpness make an image ‘pop’, it’s not uncommon for a TV’s picture to be over-sharpened by default.
7. To adjust this setting with the pattern, increase Sharpness to as high as it goes.
8. Decrease the Sharpness setting until the lines look normal.
9. Ensure that any geometric patterns in the lines (usually diamond-shaped) go away.

Questions and Answers