Optimizing Your TV Setup

When you spend hard earned money on a new flat screens, spend the extra few minutes adjusting the settings correctly to get years of extra viewing pleasure. I'm Jon Rettinger, bringing you a few quick tips to get your TV looking the very best, right here on on Tech Savvy. Some people might keep their televisions a decade without setting it up for optimal picture awesomeness. Follow along with me with these simple easy techniques to get the most out of your new TV purchase. Get off to the right start by finding the proper location for your television. Prime viewing is normally found about twice as far away as the television is diagonal. Sit too far away and you lose the value of the larger screen size. But, sit too close, even the highest definition images lose their sharpness. Think about it. All 1080p high-def TVs have the same number of pixels regardless of the size. So the only way to fill the larger screen size is by stretching those pixels, and the spaces between them. Sitting too close means you may start to see those individual dots of light. Next, turn your attention to the menu options that bring you to the heart of your TV's adjustable specks. When you walk into an electronic store and see walls of televisions, you'll notice that all the images look a little bit different, even if they're playing exactly the same program. It's not all about the brand or how upscale the model is, often it's just about setting brightness, back-lighting, contrast and color balance. New televisions have pre-set modes for sports, which is a brighter setting, movies, which darkens the image for richer color, and regular TV viewing, which is somewhere in between. Take advantage of those presets, but also go in and customize to get your favorite looking images. Your TV, much like your car, needs to be tweaked. Calibrating your new set will make sure it gives you the best picture it can. Be sure to sit in the position you normally would be in. Check to make sure your lights are how you ordinarily would have it. With everything set, you'll want to go into your menu options and manually tweak black and white levels, sharpness, color saturation and tint. I know it can sound a bit daunting, but as you go through and alter the settings, you'll see your picture start to look better. And don't worry about messing things up. All sets nowadays have restore to default. With the perfect picture now programmed, go in and adjust the audio functions. Treble and bass are important to fine tune, just as it would be in your car, especially since TV speakers often fall short of the high powered screens they rest under. Best be though, is to have an external stereo hookup. But, if relying on TV speakers, get them sounding their absolute best. With your new TV looking picture-perfect, enjoy that stellar image for years to come. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you right back here on eHow Tech.