Austin HD Experts - HDTV Calibration and Home Theater Design Services

HDTV Calibration New prices! Free HDTV evaluation!

We guarantee we can make your HDTV look better or the calibration is FREE!¹

If grass looks too green, people look slightly orange, dark scenes in movies are too dark with no detail or your picture is just too bright and overly colorful, then you need your TV professionally calibrated.

Even the most expensive high-definition television isn't properly calibrated by the manufacturer. One reason for that is it would be too expensive and drive television costs up. Another is that most televisions are initially adjusted with overly bright pictures that look better in a brightly lit showroom. Also, televisions need about 100 hours of use before they should be calibrated, and they should be calibrated in the room they are used in, not at a store.

Austin HD Experts can correct the following types of issues on most HDTV sets:

Contrast - incorrect contrast setting clips off white picture detail and increases the risk for screen burn-in on plasma and CRT displays. Excessive contrast contributes to eye strain during viewing in a dark room.
Brightness - brightness set too high causes the picture to look washed out and have no shadow depth or detail. Too low ruins black detail and causes dark muddy images.
Color - making sure the primary colors (red, green and blue) are set properly so none look too bright or too dull.
Tint - ensuring the picture isn't too green or too red.
Grayscale - adjusting the image to achieve neutral whites, grays and blacks.
Sharpness - adjusting sharpness to find a proper balance of resolution.
Focus - CRT devices typically have focus controls that can be adjusted for tighter focus.
Geometry - making sure the picture is a nice rectangular shape that fills the entire screen with no bowing, tilting, skewing, etc. (for CRT TVs and projectors)
Convergence - CRT devices typically need the red and blue aligned with the green to achieve a sharp image free of colored borders on the edges.
Optics Cleaning - Rear projection TVs and projectors have optics that require cleaning for the best image.

We will calibrate your TV for as many sources as you have, for example an HD DVD player, a satellite receiver, a cable receiver, etc.

Calibration Equipment

To perform calibrations, we use an Eye One Display LT colorimeter along with HCFR analysis software and various test patterns DVDs (in DVD, HD DVD and Blu-Ray formats). The colorimeter is a device that attaches to the front of the TV (or aimed at a screen in the case of a projector) and is connected to a computer. The HCFR analysis software takes readings from the colorimeter in order to objectively analyze the display quality in terms of primary colors (red, green and blue), secondary colors (yellow, cyan and magenta), brightness, contrast, grayscale and luminance. Before and after graphs of these parameters will be saved for comparison purposes.

Free HDTV evaluation. We will bring our calibration equipment to your home and provide a free evaluation of how accurate your TV's picture is. You only pay our $0.50/mile trip charge.

Calibration Examples

The following are actual calibrations that were performed on 2 of Carl's TVs, a Pioneer Elite PRO-730HD 64" CRT rear projection HDTV and a Philips 30PW8420 30" CRT direct view HDTV.

Pioneer PRO-730HD (opens in a new window)
Philips 30PW8420 (opens in a new window)

Pricing New Prices!

HDTV evaluation:	FREE

Flat panel LCD or plasma calibration:	$200

Direct view CRT calibration:	$200
Direct view CRT geometry correction:	$200
Direct view CRT convergence:	$200

Digital Rear projection calibration:	$200
Digital Rear projection optics cleaning:	$200

Rear projection CRT calibration:	$200
Rear projection CRT optics cleaning:	$200
Rear projection CRT geometry correction:	$200
Rear projection CRT convergence:	$200

Digital front projector calibration:	$250

CRT front projector calibration:	$250
CRT front projector optics cleaning:	$80
CRT front projector geometry correction:	$250
CRT front projector convergence:	$250

The above prices include performing calibration procedures for 2 sources (DVD, cable, satellite, etc.). Additional sources are $75 each.

Due to gas prices, we also charge a trip fee to your location of $0.50/mile. We use Google maps driving directions to compute the distance.

Schedule an appointment to have your HDTV calibrated today.

¹ If we cannot improve the luminance, gamma, color temperate or grayscale graphs or the CIE chart, we will waive the calibration fee. You only pay our $0.50/mile trip charge.

Before calibration. Her face is too red. The dark areas of the scene have no detail.

After calibration. Her face looks natural now, and the dark areas in the scene show much more detail.

RGB levels (grayscale) before calibration:

RGB levels (grayscale) after calibration: