Just bought a Bravia, and while the color is good I'm thinking it could be better. Without calling in a tech, how do I calibrate it myself?
That's right, I'm love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.
You can probably improve it by setting the colour temperature to warm or 6500, set picture and brightness to the middle, and turning sharpness down.
Calibration discs like A Video Standard or Digital Video Essentials come with a blue filter to help adjust the colour.
Beyond that, you'll need a way to measure colour; they sell relatively inexpensive gadgets like the Spyder so that digital photographers and artists and publishers can calibrate their computer monitors. If you're an electronics DIYer, there's plans to build a USB colour probe from scratch, along with software that supports a number of storebought probes:
http://www.homecinema-fr.com/colorimetre-hcfr/hcfr-colormeter/
Check out AVSforum (and other home theatre enthusiast forums); you may find a thread discussing your particular TV, with info on how to get at the service menu, and maybe a consensus on ways to improve the picture without instrumentation.
Thanks very much!
shareYou can download a free calibration disc at AVSforum, if you haven't figured that out already. It even includes an informative video courtesy of HD Nation. The image can be burned to a DVD5, but it has to be played on a Blu-ray player. There's also a set of mp4 files which should work on media players like a WDTV or smart TV.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496&pp=60
This Yahoo Answers answer has a good list of test discs:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100715162457AAA2ie2
In a pinch, a lot of THX DVDs include the "THX Optimizer" which has some basic test patterns.