Calibration Rip Off's!!!

[watchman]

How many of you feel ripped off after you've spent $2,000, or some $3,000 on a awesome HDTV, only to realize it doesn't have the crystal clear image that the display HDTV's at Best Buy have. Best Buy, and other places charge $400 bucks a TV to get them professionally calibrated (that information is from a very trusted employee at Best Buy). This to me is a complete rip-off. Yes, they do have those $25 dollar calibration discs that you can buy, but I can't seem to get any good reviews on those.

Why wouldn't a HDTV come with calibration instructions for Blu-Ray. I have about 30 Blu-Ray movies now, and only 5 of them look really good. The rest, they just look better, ya know, kinda like a cheap upgrade. The Incredible Hulk looked horrible! I take that back, it didn't look horrible, but it should have looked a lot better for $30 and having the name Blu-Ray on the box.

This kinda stuff ticks me off, ya know, the industry crap. Kinda like the computer industry sucks more money out of you with faulty operating systems full of a 50,000 bugs and viruses which force you to spend more money only to get a new computer a year later (I finally went to a Mac, by the way, and I love it and find it far superior to anything Windows).

If you want to enjoy the best in audio and video, you have to spend $2,000 to $3,000 thinking you are getting what you see at the stores. But it's a lie. They don't tell you this when you buy your 50 inch Samsung. When you get home with it you realize that the picture is crap. Crap compared to what you saw on the EXACT same TV at the store. So you call BestBuy, and they transfer you to GeekSquad or some super tech who then tells you you have to spend $400 bucks to get it "professionally" calibrated. What a frakin pile of doggy poo.

Well, I refuse to do it purely based on principle. Is there anyone who has done it, and found it to be worth it, or know how to do it another less expensive way.

P.S. - Top Ten Best looking movies on Blu-Ray in my opinion
10. I Am Legend
9. Band of Brothers (all of them). Great mini-series.
8. Lost Season 3 and 4
7. 300 (purposely filmed with black grain to accomodate the style of the graphic novel, but still looks far superior to its original DVD disc).
6. Die Hard (1988) Favorite movie of all time, and looks 100% better
5. Iron Man
4. Wanted
3. Eagle Eye
2. Transformers
1. Apocalypto (Some may not be a fan of subtitles or the movie itself, but it is the clearest, most vibrant looking movie I have seen.) And I actually like the film.

[Hudini]

That doesnt have anything to do with "calibration". Anyone who tries to sell that to you....Anyway, the fact is that you can "calibrate" your TV yourself. You do not need a disc. You do not need to buy anything. The way those TVs look in the store aren't ANY better or "calibrated" any different than what you have in your home. This is fact. Best Buy wants to "calibrate" (I will continue to emphasize "calibration" with quotes) your monitor by turning down the brightness and mess with some other settings with an RGB bar on your screen for 200-400 bucks. Thats it. There is your magic 50% decrease in power consumption (factory settings are too bright for extended watching at home, it hurts) they advertise with "calibration". The best advice I can give is play with the setting until the picture is best for YOU, not someone else. That's who is going to be watching it. Unless you hang out with the Geek Squad?


Your Blu Rays all vary. Some movies on Blu Ray were shot using inferior camera equipment/processing/editing tools. This is why some look better than others. Some of these movies were never meant to be shown in such high resolution. Try watching a PIXAR animated movie in Blu Ray- it will blow you away.

[watchman]

Yeah, a friend of mine keeps telling me to watch a pixar, thanks for some very educational input.

[Buffalo Beano]

The reason televisions aren't calibrated to begin with is because there are too many factors. You can put a tv in my house and then take it to two other houses and it will look different at each house and at different times of the day.

Manufacturers have a standard setting, usually dynamic or something similar, because all the tvs are sitting under fluorescent lights more or less.

And calibration is much more than "turning down the brightness and mess with some other settings with an RGB bar on your screen for 200-400 bucks." Although that may very well be all that Best Buy does.

It really depends on if it is worth it to you to spend $200-$400 on a professional calibration (not best buy). As the other poster stated, just tweak a few of the user controls until it looks good to you.