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Knowing how to color calibrate your TV is not an art nor a skill as it just has to do with precise science. Calibrating your TV allows you to ensure that your viewing experience is always, optimal and it involves adjusting the settings on your TV with specialized software or certain kits.

It does not matter how much you purchased your TV, calibrating it is an essential step to getting the best home theater experience. Although certain professional services can calibrate your TV and certain calibration discs that you can buy.

In this article, we will be focusing on the basic adjustments to calibrate your TV in 2024, to enhance the picture quality right away. Here are the steps you need to take.

Basic Adjustments to Calibrate your TV in 2024

These basic steps should not take more than 10 minutes. Go to the settings panel on your TV and follow these steps:

Brightness

This setting has to do with the black level of your TV, so the term “brightness” is more of a misnomer. Increasing the brightness to a high level will result in greyed-out blacks and a loss of dimension. When the brightness is set too low, details will be lost in dark areas of the screen.

  • Before adjusting the brightness, you might want to turn off the “adaptive brightness” feature, which changes the strength of the backlight according to the amount of ambient light the TV senses. If this feature is left on, you won’t be able to see the actual result of your tweaks.
  • The best way to adjust brightness is to use the black letterbox bars at the top and bottom of a movie screen. These bars are supposed to be pitch black, and they are usually darker than the black background shown in movie credits.
  • Pause on any scene of your choice and increase the brightness until the letterbox bars are gray.
  • Reduce the brightness to the point where the black bars are completely black.
  • After that, look for a scene with large dark parts that still have detail. You will miss details in dark scenes if the brightness is set too low.

Backlight

This setting regulates the backlight intensity on your LCD/LED TV. If you watch your TV in a dark room, this setting does not need to be high, but high backlight intensity is advisable in brighter rooms. It is also advisable not to adjust when the sun is shining directly on the screen as this may result in an unfavourably high setting.

  • Adjust when the light in the room is at its average and select a movie scene or picture with lots of white in it.
  • If after watching for 10 minutes, you begin to squint, the backlight is too high.

Related: How to Clean Your TV Screen Like a Pro

Contrast

Just like brightness, contrast is also a misnomer because this setting deals with the brightness and detail of an image’s white areas. Ultimately, your contrast setting boils down to you as the person watching the TV, but it is advisable to resist the urge to jack the contrast up.

  • Look for a scene with bright and white images and pause. Adjust the contrast until the white object is still bright but still contains enough detail.
  • The halfway point is a great place to start. You should have no trouble picking a setting that fits you from there.

Sharpness

It is a common misconception that increasing the sharpness of a TV will result in a sharper image. High-definition images do not usually require sharpness enhancement.

  • Look for a movie scene that has a lot of straight lines. For example, a movie scene with lots of buildings.
  • When you increase the sharpness to the maximum, you will see that the straight lines become jagged. This is the TV modifying the image.
  • Reduce the sharpness till the edges are crisp and straight, then leave it.

Color

Most high-end TVs have incredible color accuracy right out of the box. With mid and lower-tier TVs, color adjustments could be the trickiest part of TV calibration. It is difficult to see if you got the color right without a calibration disc and an optical filter. How green should a leaf look? Because of this, a calibration disk is highly recommended to achieve the most accurate color settings. There are a couple of tricks you could employ though. It is advised to take notes of each setting and store them for future reference.

  • First, see if your TV allows you to modify the color temperature. Color temperature settings are typically defined in terms of cool or warm. As a starting point, select the warmest setting available to you.
  • After that, select a scene with a lot of faces in it and pause.
  • Increase the color to the maximum and see how everyone appears to have jaundice or a recent sunburn. You do not want that.
  • Now, tone the color down and observe how everyone looks like they belong in a morgue. That’s something you also do not want.
  • Re-adjust the color until the faces appear realistic. Each person’s face should be unique in color.

Tint

Unless you’re using a calibrator disc, it is recommended to leave the Tint setting alone. It is not common for the tint setting to need significant adjustment, but it does happen.

General Summary: Calibrating your TV in 2024

To reiterate, you should take note of your chosen settings for future reference. Because if you happen to unplug your device frequently, it might be an issue later on. You will always have a reference for that ideal picture if you keep a hard copy of your settings.


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