Reference or Preference Part 2 – Calibration gets the best from your TV – Fact!

Why do some question Calibration to the industry standards?  Phil Hinton gives us his musings on the subject…

One Journalist recently tried to write a Calibration article from his view point that his personal preference was better than industry standards.  Yet for all his talk of personal preference and don’t let people tell you what to do;  his piece then went on to tell people how to calibrate their TVs in a manner that did nothing but confuse the issue.  For someone who had supposedly been reviewing TVs for 10 years or more,  his piece did little more than confirm that he isn’t as knowledgeable as he thinks he is;  and that his reviews are little more than subjective comment.  But he is not alone when it comes to the UK AV Press,  just look at the red top magazines with their four paragraph reviews on TVs and revel at the absolute nonsense they talk about.  Maybe they need some ‘insight’.

Anyone who adjusts their TV to how they think it should look,  is missing out big time on seeing their TV or display work at its best,  and produce the content as it is supposed to be seen.   It’s that simple and it’s a fact.

Now,  nobody in anyway is saying that if you prefer to adjust the image for each and every program or film that you should be shot, hung, drawn or quartered like some subjective reviewers out there try to peddle to cover their own lack of knowledge.   Rather, that you need to know that this approach will not get you the best technical image quality and you will miss details,  colour nuances and the feel for material you watch.

As the whole point of a TV is to watch someone else’s work on it,  should we not at least have TVs that meet and match the material we watch?   Logically this is what every TV should be capable of and the enjoyment factor can be increased by doing so,  knowing that what you are seeing,  is what you are supposed to see.

Where there is a problem with all this is a severe lack of education,  not only with end users and the general public,  but actually with TV manufacturers and almost every hack that turns their hand to writing about the technology.

Let’s look at the manufacturers first.

Well, they have a product to sell you and they want your money.   Very few manufacturers would risk a sale in the name of producing a TV that actually looks correct to the material we watch.   Why?  Because of a human condition to automatically focus on the brightest and most colourful image.   That’s why every TV has a Dynamic, Vivid or standard picture preset set as its default.   It’s to entice your eyes to look at their product over someone else’s. The vast majority of the public and I hazard a guess, a good proportion of members here, will still be using these presets and looking for their images to be bright, crisp and overly colourful.

A simple experiment I have conducted on people shows this to be the case time after time.   Show people a TV in Standard picture presets with high brightness and bold colours and then switch to how it’s supposed to look and at first the answer will always be that the correct image looks muted.   It’s simply because you have been subjected to an image that your eyes in the first instance get drawn to because it’s in your face and vivid.   By then switching to how it should look, with all the controls of the TV set correctly, there is a jump down from the in your face colours and brightness and we automatically assume it’s dull, misty, or whatever other description usually gets used.

However, if we turn the experiment around and have the subjects watching a correctly calibrated image that matches the material for 10 minutes and then switch to the standard mode, it’s amazing how the results change.   This approach doesn’t show the overly bright and colourful images first,  so you start to see the image as it’s supposed to be seen.   It’s still a bright and very natural looking image with bags of depth and detail, but you haven’t had an excessive image thrown at you to start with. Suddenly after watching the material as it’s supposed to be seen and then switching to standard modes, the subjects can see how the colours in the brighter modes are un-naturally boosted and that whites suddenly look blue. Plus image detail is lost because it is too bright.

So, the public are programmed by manufacturers trying to sell them a product and go out of their way to make sure it’s your eyes that are drawn to their TV. It’s a repeat of the first experiment I mention above.

There’s no doubt that people will initially go for the standard or vivid presets due to a preference or mistaken knowledge that it is supposed to look that way, that animation needs brighter and more intense colours. It’s also an emotive subject as people like to think they know better or what they like is gospel. And that’s fine, if someone is happy (and it appears that the majority of the public are happy in their collective ignorance and encouraged by misinformation being peddled to them) then I’m not going to argue and stamp my feet. However, as a community here and one that aims to help get the best from your equipment, we will always strive to push the correct information and hopefully start to educate in the correct way. Not force feed, but tell people why it’s a certain way and how it could be so much better.

Manufacturers do not normally calibrate their TVs to look correct to the material as it’s difficult, adds expense to the production line, and won’t get those eyes popping in the showroom. Plus it’s very difficult to get an image correct for your room and your sources.

What they can do, if so inclined, is calibrate so the TV can at least try and be accurate enough to how the material should be seen with a picture preset on the TV. The recent introduction of THX mode on some plasmas is exactly that kind of preset and one that follows the standards that the content producers use. It’s a ‘one setting catches all’ and aims to produce colours and white balance in the correct manner. You will never see it being used in a showroom, but it is there to help all consumers start to get closer to what an image should look like – the same as it was filmed, mastered and broadcast. This approach at least keeps everyone happy, those who want to watch in vivid modes can still quite happily indulge in their ignorance and those who want as good as possible an image can select the THX or similar picture mode that tries to be correct.

Again it’s coming back to education. Actually show people what their TV is capable of and most will then want to have the best the TV can produce. Why wouldn’t they?

And manufacturers (some anyway) are starting to realise this is the case. We can’t say much about it, but some of the biggest have even asked us to consult on what their TVs should have on them and how they achieve the best image for the material people watch. This has come about due to the fact that the review process is objective and performance heavy. The manufacturers in this case get the fact that people will buy a TV not because it’s just bright and colourful, but that it produces the finest picture quality (that shows the entire image as it was supposed to look.)

It’s also surprising that the vast majority of the reviews in magazines and websites do not follow simple procedures in testing TV pictures (yet falsely represent themselves as being qualified to do so). After all in any assessment you need to have a baseline or reference point. As an experienced calibrator and someone who assesses large numbers of TVs for their actual picture quality, I am shocked with what most of these other outlets call a review. But, not that shocked. Having spent time at various press junkets it’s easy to see that the vast majority have no technical knowledge of the subject and blindly follow what the manufacturer tells them. And again it comes down to marketing materials and trying to sell product on the fact that the general public and these writers are ignorant to the full facts. Their excuse again is personal preference and brighter in your face colours are the order of the day. Sorry but the simple facts of the matter are that the material everyone watches on their TV is produced one way and should be shown correctly and ideally one way.  There are standards – and standards exist for a reason.  You can’t argue that – it is a fact.  Why wouldn’t you want the very best image quality from your TV that matches the material you watch?

Now if personal preference is the way that the majority of write ups on TV technology are going to go, then how will you ever know that the TV is any good? It’s a personal picture preference for one person, the writer, and in no way reflects either technical performance or the actual picture performance capabilities of the TV. What is their reference point? The actual quoted and widely followed picture standards? Or is it what they deem to be right to their eyes? It’s an approach that simply follows the status quo with an unsuspecting public and writers with egos to fulfil trying to sound knowledgeable about such things. Sadly the industry as it stands is a boys club full of people who have been doing it (wrong) for so long that they dismiss any question of objectivity. That’s not me being unprofessional either, but rather its time that the status quo was lifted and we started seeing genuinely truthful information and education of the public, so they get the best quality and correct information.

And that’s not AVForums trying to get its ego across either – we are simply trying to get the correct information out there so people can use it as they wish. We review and report on what we can gather as facts and evidence, not a hunch or copy from a press release. But when you have so much factually incorrect drivel coming not only from some manufacturers but the AV Press as its stands in general in this country, it gets depressing. And let’s not even go near the subject of sales advice in most stores in this country – that’s an entire feature on its own.

And finally the cost of ISF calibration.

In an ideal world there would be no need for the professional calibrator as every TV would come with one setting – accurate and that’s that. However, we know that’s not the case. Besides, if every TV was manufactured to show images correctly how would they sell any TVs? It would then come down to issues like picture processing and black levels, things they can hide with aggressive shop floor viewing modes.

Hiring a pro is expensive for a number of reasons. Travel costs, insurance, equipment costs and the time of the calibrator. Plus you are also paying for experience and that is the most important factor.

If you have a £400 LCD TV then I agree that the cost to get a decent image from a calibrator is not economically viable.

There are other options like learning how to do the basics yourself, or even get some enthusiast level training at one of AVForums Calibration workshops. You are then set for life in being able to calibrate all the displays you will ever own. But that doesn’t help the mass market.

The ideal goal would be that the cost of calibration would be included in the purchase of your TV – but the logistics of that would be massive and quality control would be hard – again we are talking about experience.

The final thing and one we keep pushing for – would be for more manufacturers to implement accurate presets in their TVs that just require a little adjustment by the user (through a basic set up procedure for brightness and contrast). That way, those who want perfection can calibrate or hire a pro, and others can have an image that gets as close as possible to how the material should be seen. And modes like Dynamic and Vivid are moved to the store settings and not available in home mode. Not only would that move people towards picture quality that matches what they watch, it is also a power saving option that would cut consumption.

And that brings us back to the basics. The TV image should be the same as what is on the disc or broadcast and not one that is messed around with by super bright and in your face presets.

And if you want to set things as you think they should be – fine, nobody will stop you, its your money and your TV, but be safe in the knowledge that what you will see is not what was intended and will not match the entertainment and experience that was intended. I’m willing to bet that even the most staunch of critics of correct image quality would soon be won over if they actually saw and knew what they were missing and how good their TV could be. And if it was free?

We will keep pushing our message of presenting the correct facts and for the best quality images available. We will also question manufacturers and the industry on what they say and produce and try and focus that on getting the best quality of image.  Winning over the general public is a pipe dream unless the manufacturers start to move towards producing accurate TVs.

Blog by Phil Hinton.

Phil is a fully trained and certified ISF Calibrator and THX Level 1 Professional.  He is the content manager for AVForums.com and lead reviewer for the site.  His opinions here are not those of AV Enthusiast or AVForums.