Contact Information:
Aaron Pierce
928-580-0630
aaron@clearlydigital.net
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why should I calibrate my display?
A: This is a great question that is asked by every potential customer. Television manafacturers do not take the time to fine tune each set coming off the factory line. Though the default programming typically entails the color temperature up to double what it should be and the video settings all set to give the set the most "pop" as it competes against the other brands. Calibration sets your display to the environment inside your home.
Q: What benefits can I see from display calibration?
A: Calibration carries some unique benefits to many displays which can vary from extended service life of the television, reduced eye strain when bright images come on the screen, less power consumption (typically seen on plasma displays), reduced color errors, and viewing your movies and shows how they were intended to be seen.
Q: I don't subscribe to HD cable or sattelite service, should I still calibrate?
A: Calibration may only slightly improve your standard definition image. I would only suggest calibrating your set for HD viewing, this could include locals you view in high definition, Blu-Ray player, or for your HD gaming system.
Q: Best Buy offers calibration services, is yours similar?
A: Clearly Digital offers the same calibration service that Best Buy sells. We have the same equipment and have gone through the same training. Our overhead is lower allowing us to charge less.
Q: Why didn’t the factory set my display correctly before shipping it to the retailer?
A: The short answer is the manufacturers marketing department told the engineering department where to set the controls to maximize sales. You can hardly blame them since most people who walk into a store to shop for a HDTV simply buy the brightest set in the room. In order to keep making displays ever brighter than the next guys brand something had to give. Unfortunately it was color accuracy.
Q: What kind of problems can the ISF calibration correct?
A: Contrast- The factory sets contrast levels high to promote in-store sales. This clips off white picture detail and increases your risk for burn-in on Plasma and CRT displays. Excessive contrast also contributes to eye strain during evening viewing.
Brightness- Brightness set too high causes the picture to look washed out and have no shadow depth or detail. Setting it too low crushes black detail and causes dark muddy images. ISF calibration finds the best possible setting.
Color- Turning color down to set the correct amount of red causes blue and green to look pale. Calibrating for equal amounts of the primary colors greatly improves the picture.
Tint– Adjusts the picture towards green or red but the colors still look off balance until the color decoder is set properly.
Grayscale- This adjustment requires equal amounts of red, green and blue to achieve neutral whites, grays and blacks. Manufacturers add extra blue at this stage to create the illusion of more light. Calibration restores the balance.
Color Decoder- Picture in your mind that red, green and blue all have separate Color and Tint controls and the factory turned only the red color control way up. This is known as Red Push and is a common technique with manufacturers to cover up all the extra blue the intentional blue grayscale error added to the picture so people don't look like smurfs. Calibration restores equal amounts of Color and Tint to all the primary and secondary colors for accurate flesh tones.
Color Management- Newer digital displays offer the ability to re-align the primary and secondary colors to SMPTE CIE standards and create a more accurate image. This menu structure allows the display to generate the best possible color but requires our advanced tools and experience to adjust properly.
Sharpness- The factory sets sharpness way too high adding a false border artifact around the edge of every line. This is also known as edge enhancement. Sharpness should really be labeled "noise" since that is all it actually adds to the picture. Calibration finds the optimum balance between the highest resolution and excessive noise for each source in your system.
Centering- Often the news crawls are cut off from the bottom of your picture. Calibration centers the picture for equal spacing on all sides and minimum overscan.
Convergence- Analog rear projection needs to have red and blue aligned with green to achieve a sharp image free of colored borders on edges. Digital displays with 3 chip designs can need small adjustments.