Best way to calibrate LCD TV?



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Originally Posted by Bsmooth /forum/post/20768863


I've had my LCD for a few years now. Whats the best present way to calibrate an LCD TV? I was wondering If you could do it with a Spyder 2 that you use for a PC monitor. Or do you still basically have to do it by eye?

Also heard that some DVD THX discs have an "optimizer" you can use to do it with.

Click to expand...

You can use the AVS HD709 disk and calibrate the "basics", brightness, contrast, basic color, sharpness, aspect, etc.


You can use the same disk, or others, in conjunction with light meters etc.


You can pay to have a professional do it.


Some disks (THX) have the "built-in" calibration settings but I don't know how effective those are overall or if they just tweak your set based on THX standards for the particular movie.

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SD and HD use different color spaces that have a different set of standards. HD uses REC 709 and SD uses REC 601, so it depends on what device you're calibrating (DVD player, Blu-Ray player etc.) Every device will probably be different too, so you'll probably have to calibrate for each device.

ColorHCFR (and other calibration software) allows you to select what color space you will be calibrating for, REC709 (HD) or REC601 (SD). It's all explained in the guides.


Avia should suffice for SD, but use AVS709 for HD. AVS709 has a manual that explains the different sections.

Really, the only thing that separates the different calibration discs, is how informative/helpful they are. All you really need help with, is how to set the basic settings like contrast, brightness, sharpness etc. For the meat of the calibration (grayscale and color) the only reason you really need the calibration discs are for the test patterns, and any of them should work fine; the rest is explained in the guides above.

Does that mean you need to adjust for regular HD and then Blu-Ray using 2 different calibration discs. I also heard that one of the Avia calibration DVD's put out a while ago was actually incorrect, is that the one I have by any chance?

I did check some of the settings last night and the Contrast was set at 95, which seems way too high, and I turned it down to 75, although for the Samsung I have which is a 530 series, I did see here under that particular series discussion, the settings were similar to what I had mine set to under settings that were done using a Calibration DVD.

I'll have to put the Cal disc in this weekend and check more thoroughly.

maybe I should get that Disney Cal DVD, I could use all the help I can get, is it availabe through Amazon? Or should I wander over to calibration discussion to check?

HD is HD, you only need one disc for HD. SD requires an SD version. It's not essential... I have SD cable and just transferred my calibration settings from my HTPC. I don't really care how SD looks TBH.

Sorry, don't know much about Avia.


Many Samsung LCDs (and even their plasmas) can reach 100 contrast without many detrimental effects. In fact, most people have the contrast at around 90 or higher on Samsung displays.


Contrast essentially sets the peak light output or white level. You need to set it until one of the following happens:

1) you see white detail being clipped or crushed/removed

2) you see light shades of gray start to change color (usually pink)

3) you experience eye strain


If you don't see 1 or 2, then just set the contrast to a comfortable level for your viewing environment. Also keep in mind the backlight setting as it has a similar effect. Set contrast first, though, then the backlight because the backlight will make your black levels lighter whereas contrast doesn't.

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If the DVD is upscaled to HD resolution, it should not matter that it's a DVD and not a BD.