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TV Setup & Calibration

Here is a series of short articles hopefully covering everything you might want to know about setting up and calibrating your new TV. The articles also cover issues you might come across in the first days and weeks after you have installed your plasma or LCD TV into your new home cinema. Everything from calibration and cables to how your particular screen technology works and safety tips about eye strain and photo sensitive seizures.

What Is Calibration What Is Calibration and Why Should I Do It? Every make and model of plasma, Liquid Crystal, Rear Projection or even basic cathode ray TV is very different. Different resolution, components, brightness, colour, contrast and not to mention they all go into a different room with varying ambient and dynamic light sources. So every TV shows a different picture and even the same TVs will appear different depending upon which room and where about in the room they are placed.	Hang A Plasma or LCD TV Above A Fire Place A nice modern, artificial (usually gas powered) fire can be an attractive feature in any living room. The fireplace is usually the focal point and it can make for great aesthetics if a smart PDP can be placed above it. But can you do it? In a word yes... But there are a few precautions and checks.
Clean Your Plasma or LCD TV As the title suggests this tutorial and the tools mentioned are for cleaning almost any viewing surface. Why clean it? Well apart from the obvious a dusty screen with finger prints or other marks is not good for the eyes. But for me the most important thing is a clear shiny screen is aesthetically pleasing and takes away the 'distraction' of a dirty one. Its a bit like when you know there is a job you have to do but just don't get round to doing it. It can play on your mind and this makes you less efficient in your work and causes you leisure time while using the screen to be less pleasurable.	All About Cables and Which Ones You Need This article aims to clear up some of the confusion about which cables you should use to connect you HD Plasma or LCD TV to all of its accessories. We will answer questions like which cabling standard is 'best', how to connect them, should you buy the really expensive gold plated variety? And what is the difference between the likes of HDMI, DVI, Scart, Component and how do you identify what you have or are about to buy? This is not meant as a technical reference and I will avoid jargon and technical specifications as much as possible.
Setting Up Your Plasma or LCD TV I have divided this into multiple pages. This will hopefully make it easy to find what you want and avoid what you don't need.	Why Get A Surge Protector? his might sound obvious but its worth mentioning. 'Electrical Spikes' in domestic power supply are very common. This is when the voltage supplied to a home is inconsistent. Most of the time an appliance will be unaffected but sometimes it can completely wipe out a component. Processors in Plasma TV's (and PC's) are particularly susceptible.
Follow The Instructions Before we move on it goes without saying that you follow the manufacturers instruction to the letter. I will go into a few specific important examples in more detail but it has been known for manufacturers and extended warranty operators(Samsung, Sony, PC World you know who you are) to use minor, non fault making set up indiscretions as an excuse to blame malfunction on the owner	PixelProtector Calibration Tutorial If you have a cool TV or you are about to buy one and want to get the very best, most stunning picture that is possible then this guide should help you do just that. It is not difficult or technical in any way and focuses on the most important test images provided by PixelProtector that make a big difference so you can achieve the optimum for your TV as quickly as possible.
Where To Put Your Plasma or LCD TV Get a good stand. You need to consider the obvious things like sharp corners and if it matches your room decoration but also this as well. Is the stand physically suitable? I.e. Is it strong enough, wide enough, deep enough and stable enough. Most importantly get a stand that is either supplied specifically by the manufacturer or a stand that specifically states your TV size/weight as being suitable.	Avoid Screen Burn On A New TV This is probably the best tip you can ever get with regard to avoiding the dreaded screen burn. By default most new Plasma TVs are packed with dangerously high picture settings. I have yet to purchase an LCD or a Plasma TV where the contrast, brightness and colour were not set to 100%. This is ridiculous if you consider who should know the most about this relatively new technology. Of course I am referring to the manufacturers.
Light Sources & Plasma or LCD TVs If you have ever viewed any TV with the sun or a bright light on it then you know how annoying and unclear the picture is. The good news is that most of the TV's we are discussing are much less susceptible to these problems. And in fact I can view a bottom of the range 42 inch Samsung with the sun right on it(just about). The effect light has on it becomes more acute the wider the angle you make from your sitting position to the screen. So the first moral about light sources is try not to have any on the screen or if it is unavoidable, the more 'glancing'/wide angle from the source, the less significant the glare and annoyance.	Analogue and Digital with regard to Plasma & LCD TV's This could be a really long discussion but I just want to quickly make a point about setting up your new TV so I am going to over simplify the difference in order to explain. Digital is a higher quality picture than analogue. Very few instruction manuals make it clear that if you are plugged in via a terrestrial aerial you have to specifically choose digital on the TV buttons. I know at least one person with two thousand pounds worth of technology who was watching low quality TV unnecessarily.
Plasma & LCD TV Operating Temperature Quite simply plasma and LCD TVs get very hot. Especially on the top edge but generally all over as well. Out of all the large screens I have checked (and i have checked a fair few) I don't think it is possible to cause a significant, serious burn but they do get as hot as say a radiator.	Caring For Your Family At the end of the day even more important than the TV itself is its users. Generally speaking as long is you follow the usual safety procedures as you would with anything electrical you and your family should be safe. There are a few issues to bear in mind however.
Radiation & Eye strain from Plasma and LCD TV's While watching television, the lighting in the room should be dimmer than the screen. Make sure that the lighting doesn't reflect on the screen or cause a glare. Don't watch in very dim light because the contrast in light is almost as bad as glare. Avoid viewing from an angle which causes an unclear or glare effect. Sit in front of the plasma screen about four or five times the width of the TV screen away. This is just a rough guide.	Photosensitive seizures & TVs Television and electronic games are major factors that evoke seizures. Other light sources include flickering or reflected sunlight, lightning, car headlights, flickering artificial lights, arcade games, disco or even simple Christmas tree lights and sharply contrasting patterns. Some computer games can evoke seizures. Several factors explain why seizures occur during video games: photosensitive response to physical characteristics of the TV display, e.g., flicker at or near the frequency of the electrical supply; photosensitive response to the game’s visual content; specific cognitive activities, decision making.
How LCD Screens Works This explanation requires a few sub explanations so please bare with me. I promise it will all make sense in the end. What Is A Liquid Crystal and What Can It Do A liquid crystal is a substance with unusual properties. That is it behaves differently to most substances and this is quite useful. If you supply an electrical current to one of these liquid crystals then it temporarily changes its 'state' and can be controlled to either allow light through it or not.	How A Plasma TV Works This explanation requires a few sub explanations so please bare with me. I promise it will all make sense in the end. I have taken the liberty of slightly simplifying a few aspects, like the actual reactions between gases and electrical current. However you should be safe giving this explanation down the pub or at the office without fear of some smarty pants chipping in about anything you missed or got wrong. A plasma is a gas. It is made up of an equal number of positively and negatively charged electrons which means it has no actual electrical charge. However if you supply an electrical current to one of these plasmas then it becomes positively charged and produces light.