Put the Pic on a Diet: Originally, we considered writing a “top ten” list of HDTV tips, but we soon realized that items six through ten would all read, “Go back and do #3.” By far, the single most important thing you can do to improve your new television’s picture is to set the aspect ratio correctly. Some people think that buying a wide-screen TV means the end of those “black bars” used to letterbox wide-format movies on standard TVs. Not true. In fact, a wide TV can require a new category of black bars, used on the sides instead of top and bottom when the original image is narrower than the screen format. (A conventional TV broadcast, say, or a movie from the ’30s.) TV manufacturers have invented ways of eliminating this, offering settings that stretch the width or zoom in artificially — eliminating the unused space on the screen but distorting or cropping the picture itself. These “features” were invented for people who don’t care about picture quality. You wouldn’t have spent hundreds (thousands?) of dollars on a new TV if you were one of those people, right?

Pump up (and Down) the Volume: Your TV may have speakers built into it, but you almost certainly want to watch surround-sound movies that require speakers set up around the room. After hooking your DVD player/cable/whatever into that surround-sound receiver, go ahead and set the TV’s internal speakers to mute. Control all audio through the receiver rather than some combination of receiver and TV, and say goodbye to one of the plentiful complications of the home-theater age.

Fine-Tune it: Most TVs come from the factory with their settings geared for retail showrooms, which means they’ll look garish and artificial in your living room. Take the time to go through the set’s image settings (brightness, color balance, et cetera) to tweak things to your liking. You’ll probably be amazed what a difference it can make, and a little do-it-yourself tweaking (don’t forget that you can revert to factory settings if you accidentally turn the flesh-tones green) may convince you it’s worth getting serious: Special DVDs like the $49.99 Avia II Guide to Home Theater can walk you in detail through the delicate adjustments needed to make your TV’s picture match (as closely as possible) the image a filmmaker or TV technician intended you to see.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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