Re: A checklist for a new LCD TV?
If this is your first HDTV buy or rent a consumer-level calibration disc like Digital Video Essentials or Avia II. Hook up your DVD player and run the disc to adjust the settings before you try watching any of your normal video sources. This will save you the usual new-to-HD coronary when you fire up the TV and everything looks like crap (especially you SD DVDs and SD TV channels) because the factory settings are distorting the image.
Depending on your TV, you may have to move the player from input to input and adjust each of them individually. (You may be able to get away with doing each type of input once, then copying the settings from one HDMI input to the others, or using the same settings for all your component inputs.) This actually accomplishes two things - it calibrates the inputs and it makes sure they all work. If you never plan to use the component or s-video inputs you can skip them, but you should test the others, just in case.
If you're running everything through an AV receiver and only using one TV input, you may have to move the DVD player from input to input on the receiver to acheive the same result. (My TV requires that I adjust my cable company DVR and one of my DVD players independently, then applies the DVD player settings to the 2nd player automatically. All three are connected through my receiver via component video, and the two DVD players are the same make and model.)
Once the set is calibrated, obviously you should hook up all your video sources (cable/satellite set-top box, DVD player, game system) and test a favorite show/DVD/game - something you know well and will be a good test of how the TV is working.
Play with the sound settings, change the lighting in the room to see if flaws or problems that weren't visible under one set of conditions show up under another.
Other items depend on your video sources and viewing habits. Do you have cable, satellite or neither? HD service? DVR? Do you need or want to receive local broadcast signals over-the-air? All of these will affect what other connections you might want to check out, and how to check them.
Regards
Joe
