Professional calibration”: Is it needed?
I’ve read a lot about the need to pay a technician to “calibrate” an HD plasma or LCD panel. From what I understand, it’s supposed to improve the image quality, but can cost as much as $500. Many online discussions and technical reviews of HDTVs suggest that these sets need professional calibration. Is this true? First, let’s define calibrate to mean to adjust the set using the special service menus accessible only to professional technicians – special remote code sequences must be entered to access them. We do not calibrate our test TVs. Our tests are designed to show how a TV would perform for the ordinary consumer, so we use only the regular owner-accessible controls, just as most of you would. Using only these owner-accessible controls, we adjust the picture for optimum color, contrast and brightness. These controls already provide a wide range of adjustment. (We’ve seen after many years of testing that the “out-of-box” settings are never quite right.) “Professional calibration” ma
