Simple calibration/break in walkthrough anywhere?

Important caveat:  I do not personally own a plasma TV.  I've got LCD and LCoS, and have never owned a plasma or even set one up.  So what follows is what I've heard from fellow members of the HTF, friends elsewhere who own plasmas, and a little bit of research.  (Speaking of which, a simple search on "plasma break-in" would have led you to several existing threads on this very forum where the break-in question has been hashed out. )

Advice varies on break-in periods.  The theory is that the phosphors in plasma sets need to "harden" through use before they become stable, and that during the hardening process they are more susceptible to image retention ("burn-in") than they will be later.  Hence the advice to turn down things like the brightness and contrast settings, avoid leaving channels that are letterboxed or pillarboxed or which have information "crawls" on the bottom of the screen up for too long  (Also to avoid running closed captioning for extended periods of time.)  

Actually, those are all good pieces of advice in the sense that you don't wan't to leave the set on CNN or with the CC active all day while you're at work, but modern plasmas are unlikely to burn in unless left on the factory settings (AKA "torch mode") and subjected to static screen images for much longer than would happen with normal viewing.  Most people's ordinary TV watching habits are enough to prevent burn-in, especially if the set is properly calibrated.  Plasmas in offices or public places that are tuned to news channels for 10 or more hours a day, day after day, probably will burn-in, but that kind of application really borders on abuse.  

Here's what Samsung has to say on the subject, in their plasma FAQ:


Of course, some people suggest that the plasma manufacturers may be downplaying thing like burn-in and break-in periods so as not to scare off potential buyers who will then go out and by LCDs, so you might take that with a grain of salt. 

My conclusion:  No TV should ever be run with factory settings - because the picture will suck if for no other reason - and this is doubly true for a brand new plasma because burn-in is still something of a concern with any phosphor-based system.  Phosphors will burn-in under the right (or wrong) circumstances.  That's physics and there's nothing anybody can do about it. 

Factory settings are designed to catch your eye in a big box store which is brightly lit and in which the TVs are sitting right next to one another in serried ranks.  How much is this like your living room?   At a minimum you need to turn down the brightness (sometimes called "white level"), and contrast ("black level") to protect those precious phosphors, and the "sharpness" or "detail" control to very low (mine is set to zero.)  That's for picture quality.  Half of the reason that SD channels look bad on HDTVs "out of the box" is the sharpness control, which doesn't make the picture sharper at all.  It adds video noise to the signal in order to makes the edges of objects stand out more and appear "shaper" at the expense of an accurate image.  

Bottom line:  Break-in?  No.  Calibration?  Yes.  And as soon as possible.  If you want to watch the TV before you get a calibration disc, turn off all "automatic" picture modes and set brightness and contrast to no more than 50% of maximum.  

Now, regarding calibration proper:

No one can give you simple verbal instructions on "how to calibrate", because to actually calibrate you need test patterns and gel filters  The way to get those is by buying a calibration disc like Digital Video Essentials HD or SD (my recommendation), Avia Guide to Home Theater (considered more user-friendly by some)  or one of several others sold by places like Amazon and Best Buy.  These discs come with filters and provide the simple/clear information you want in the form of interactive, step-by-step instructions that take you from test pattern to test pattern and help you adjust your picture to your viewing conditions.  (If your receiver doesn't have a built-in automatic calibration system like AudessyEQ, you also find the audio calibration features of these discs useful - although you will need to pick up an analog Sound Pressure Level - SPL - meter.  Most users here go for the Radio Shack model that sells for around $30.  Don't waste money on expensive digital SPL meters for an application like this.) 

Also remember that when we adjust the consumer-accessible controls on a TV, what we're doing isn't really a calibration.  It is an adjustment.  A true calibration requires a trained technician with specialized hardware and software and digging around in the service menu for your set to tweak your image to the Nth degree.  That's something you might want to consider down the road, depending on how important image quality is to you, and whether or not you're willing to spend several hundred dollars more to make your TV "all that it can be."  In the meantime a consumer-level calibration will greatly improve your picture and help you avoid image retention.

Regards,

Joe

^^^Good advice except you've got Contrast and Brightness reversed.

Contrast=White level.  Turning this up increases overall light output, goint to far makes off/white blend into white=White crush.  Also turning this up too high contributes to IR and burn in and causes excessive heat and power consumption.

Brightness=Black level.  Works sorta backwards in that the lower you turn it the darker black gets.  Turning this up doesn't reallly increase the brightness of the tv, just makes blacks turn gray.  Turning it down too far will cause loss of detail in dark parts of the picture, or Black crush, just as turning contrast up too far causes white crush.

Very much second the recommendation for a calibration disc.  LG sets don't need this as they have a feature called Picture Wizard that is built in that does the same thing as the calibration disc.

Steve:


I think I have some kind of mental block about that,  because I seem to reverse them a lot, even though I'm always sure that this time I've got them correct.   

Thanks for catching that.
 
Brant:

In my earlier reply I should have mentioned that some of the discs you already own may have the THX Optimizer program or similar system adjustment software among their extras.  These are not really a substitute for full calibration discs like DVE, but they will allow you dial your set in to a rough approximation of the correct settings.  You won't get the benefit of gels for the color and tint adjustments, but the colorspace in the HD digital world is much more standardized and accurate to begin with when compared with NTSC (which has the nickname "Never Twice Same Color" for a reason.)  So as far as color is concerned it should be easier to get close to the correct settings going "by eye" without filters than it would be on an NTSC TV. 

Regards,

Joe