You just spent your hard-earned money on a new home theater video display. So, why is the grass blue? Why do all the faces look sunburned, and why don't sports jerseys look the right color? Don't panic, there is an easy solution. If you have your display professionally calibrated, to industry standards, you can enjoy the full quality capabilities of your new (or older) TV, monitor, or video projector.
"How much difference would it make to have my TV, monitor, or video projector calibrated?"
When TV programming is produced, or a film is converted to video or DVD, the artists and engineers precisely control the process to industry standards (NTSC, ATSC, and SMPTE) by monitoring the programming on correctly calibrated displays. A great deal of effort and expense is invested to be sure that the picture light levels and image colors are processed properly at every step of the way. You can accurately reproduce the full, original quality of those video programs in your home only if your video display is calibrated to the same industry standards.
Your display, the final step in that precisely calibrated distribution system, can do full justice to that high quality video signal. It can give you picture quality approaching, or even exceeding, that of the local cinema theater. But, more often, your mis-calibrated display mangles the picture miserably. Remember how different all those TVs looked at the store, even though they were all receiving the same program? The difference wasn't so much the different quality of the various models as it was the non-standard adjustment of each display. Calibration is one of the most effective and least expensive improvements you can make to your video display. You'll see a significant difference immediately.
Your properly calibrated home theater display will:
The manufacturer doesn't calibrate the display at the factory for the best possible picture in your home because they want the display to look as appealing as possible (brightest) next to competing displays on a dealer's showroom floor. Since a showroom floor often has a high ambient light level, the manufacturer sets the brightness, contrast, and color controls to unnaturally high levels, or to produce a unique "look" to set their models apart from the competition.
Even if the manufacturer had spent more time setting each adjustment 'just right' on every display, according to industry standards, that would greatly increase their cost, and many of the adjustments would still have been incorrect after your display was installed in your home, due to the effects of shipping, initial aging, and the lighting effects of your particular viewing environment.
"So how can I get my video display looking the best it can?"
How do you ever get to see the deep, fully-detailed dark grays and vivid blacks; bright picture highlights with no out-of-focus blooming; and most stunning, those gorgeous colors the cinematographers and videographers wanted you to see?
Simple!
Pro A/V Calibration can calibrate your video display to look as good as the professional monitors that the artists and engineers use to monitor the picture at every step of the way as they create the video, transfer it from film, broadcast it, or cut it to DVD. You can see the same beautiful pictures and true colors that the artists and professionals see. We will precisely calibrate your display's user controls (brightness, contrast, color, hue, sharpness) and service controls (white balance, SVM, color decoder, focus, geometry, etc.) to industry standards, using a suite of precision calibration tools.
Video display calibration is recommended by: AudioVideo Interiors, Widescreen Review, Stereophile's Guide to Home Theater, Home Theater, and Sound & Vision magazines for the best picture a display can make!
Video display calibration article from May 2002 Sound & Vision magazine.
"Can my consumer display really look as good as the video monitors the professionals use?
You can sure get close, and in many cases, just as good. Video display manufacturers are making great products, and better every year, but they're adjusting their displays to catch your eye, not to move your soul. To produce the most accurate image, with the truest colors, with film-like picture qualities, and often with a much longer life, you owe it to yourself to have your display calibrated to industry standards, for the optimum viewing pleasure in your own environment.
With Pro A/V Calibration assistance, even a modest home theater system can look like a system costing thousands of dollars more - providing you with a more life-like, engaging entertainment experience that you'll want to share with your family and friends. Maximize the benefits of your home theater investment. Video calibration to industry standards is the only way to capture the full potential of your home theater video display.
Share the artists' vision. Have us calibrate your video display to professional standards and put the WOW!! into your home theater.