I´m a noob on this, even i´m able to calibrate brightness setting and contrast (this later is harder for me to understand, since my lcd doesn´t suffer from clipping) i still don´t get it how to properly calibrate a greyscale.

i mean, i put a 0-255 ramp on my tv, what i should look for? what is the goal?

I do read some comments regarding the white should not be "pink" or any other color, but even if i rise my contrast up to 100, i still don´t see any variation of color, just a whiter white.

if could someone explain me what are the things i should look on the greyscale ramp, it would be great.

note: i do not have any equipement (color meter) only dvd calibrations and patters.

I think the general consensus is that it's impossible to calibrate greyscale without a meter. Most people couldn't tell you whether white was at 6500K, 8000K, or 5500K without some frame of reference. So, without a meter, the best recommendation is to set your TV's color temperature to warm, which will probably get you close to the right color temperature. Most of the time, they ship with the color temperature set at cool, which is too blue. If you haven't already set it to warm, you're going to think that white looks too yellow, but it's not, you're just used to white being too blue. As for contrast, you seem to be going about it correctly. The first thing to check is to make sure that you're not getting the bright whites shifting toward one color (usually red). But if that's not and issue even with the contrast cranked (which is possible), then you probably want to set it as high as you can without it straining your eyes (which a cranked up LCD can do in the dark). I hope that helps--if not feel free to ask more!

drrick,
thanks for your quick reply. That was fast, i appreciate.

About the color setting, at the moment i´m using it at Warm2, my tv is a samsung display, and from reviews this mode is the closer to 6500k, default was COOL, but i never used that, i did use Normal ( a nice between) but now i got so used to Warm2 that anything other than warm2 looks too blue to my eyes.

here a graphic chart from Movie mode warm2 setting

http://www.hometheatermag.com/images/archivesart/906samsung.3.jpg

regarding brightness, i think this is the easiest setting, because with a 0IRE screen with Aspect ratio 4:3 Test pattern on a 16:9 display i should match the black of the screen with the black of the 2 sides, were are no picture.

And here i have a question, it´s ok to have black a bit above black?, because if not i loose a bit of detail on a very bright scene, but then if i use a 0IRE screen and i set a 4:3 i can see the screen is a bit above the best black my tv can achieve, i´m still waiting for someone to clarify this.

and contrast... oh well, never ever was able to get this right. on my Projector it was SO easy because there was a point were i start getting clipping issues and loose detail. But on my lcd.. as i said i can go to 100 and still get no clipping or any issue.
IF this is the case, and my eyes doesn´t hurt (i use the darkest backlight mode btw) should the correct setting should be 100 ?

thanks and sorry for my english.

contrast -- If your gamma holds then just use 100%. If stuff looks too washed out on the highs, try lowering contrast by increments of 5 to see if it looks any better.

brightness -- any kind of pluge pattern should do, I kind of like the THX one that has THX shadow at 0 the background at 16 and the THX at 21, this should get you squared away there.

without a colorimeter just use warm2 and don't worry.

sotti, could you explain a bit about gamma? how do i know if the gamma holds when using 100% what i should look?

the picture will be washout? i feel my set give me a washout look on darkscenes, but i strongly believe it is because the black level (not fully satisfaction with LCD black leve). But maybe there is something wrong on my calibration as well. Dunno.
What test pattern i should use to calibrate contrast? and look for thos tips you are going to tell me ;) too see if the gamma can or can´t hold?

I posted this in another thread, but if you look at the following, you'll see a pretty good gamma displayed. What you want to see in your gamma is that it is as close to 2.22 across the board from 0%-100% IRE as possible. The flatter the gamma, the better. This is another way of letting you know you have a good luminance curve. This is actually a Samsung LCD I calibrated, so they do come out very good if you take the time to get them there. :) Also, be aware that brightness and contrast both have an affect on gamma. In this particular set, I had to adjust the brightness, contrast, and gamma setting until I got a nice flat gamma.

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee111/lishbabe13/HT%20Pics/LN-T4661Calibration.jpg

gamma is the brightness at different points.

roughly it's

brightness = totalBrightness * (white %)^(gamma value)
so 10% white = 0.63% total brightness for a gamma of 2.2
and 90% white = 79.3% total brightness.

My toshiba doesn't track gamma very well and if I raise my contrast too much at 90% my brightness can be as much as 85% of total, so that difference makes light scenes too light.

if you've got problem in the shadows, then that' brightness, not contrast.