As consumers, we’ve learned to put up with certain imperfections from our entertainment systems: letterboxed movies that bring up black bars on the TV screen, displays that are set too bright for our living rooms, and cryptic on-screen configuration guides that only an electrical engineer could figure out. The wide variety of media—high-def DVDs, standard DVDs, cable TV programming, video games, Internet programming—we can now access through our entertainment systems only makes these prickly A/V problems more noticeable and annoying. “The goal of home entertainment is total immersion,” says Craig Eggers, senior manager of consumer electronics partner marketing at Dolby Laboratories.

“But when you’re constantly reaching for the remote to [do things like] adjust the volume, the experience is lost.”

A handful of innovate manufacturers have put their foot down when it comes to complicated setup routines, the constant clicking of the remote and consumers’ resignation to simply “put up with it,” by developing technologies that enable TVs to set themselves perfectly for the viewing environment.

A Period of Adjustment
One of the consumer electronics industry’s dirtiest secrets has to do with the default settings of TVs sold at your favorite retail stores. To make their displays stand out under banks of harsh flourescent lighting, most manufacturers calibrate their TVs at the factory to produce extremely bright pictures. “We call this the ‘torch mode,’” says Brooks Flynn, product planner for flat TVs at Philips Electronics. “While these oversaturated images might really pop at the store, they’ll look horrible at your house,” adds Sam Miller, chief product officer at Syntax-Brillian, a manufacturer of Olevia LCD TVs. The preset store levels can always be adjusted once you get your set home by accessing the unit’s on-screen calibration menu—if you don’t mind guessing your way through the process. Syntax-Brillian has simplified that tedious recalibration process to a single press of a button. “The first time you plug in the TV at home, a prompt appears on the screen asking you to select show or home mode,” he explains. “You select home mode, and the TV makes all the appropriate adjustments.”

Philips has incorporated a similar auto calibration technology into its line of LCD and plasma TVs that are 42 inches and larger. Called Settings Assistant, the on-screen wizard presents a series of split screens. Just as you would during an exam at your optometrist, you choose which side of the screen looks better, the left or the right. You enter each selection by pressing a button on your remote. Based on your preferences, the TV recalibrates itself. The setting may not be perfect, admits Philips’ Flynn, “but it serves as a good starting point.” Once the basic parameters are set, consumers can go into the menu and fine-tune as they like.

Sharp, meanwhile, has taken nearly all the work out of TV recalibration by providing its SE94U and D74U Aquos HDTVs with a connection to the Internet. A built-in Ethernet jack enables the TVs to receive settings instructions directly via the Internet from Sharp’s real-time customer support service, Aquos Advantage Live. After receiving a toll-free phone call from the homeowner to activate the service, an Advantage Live advisor connects remotely to the TV to adjust the settings for the best viewing experience. The advisor can also check to see that the DVD player, A/V receiver and other components are connected to the TV correctly and can even configure the remote control. After the initial setup, customers can continue to benefit from the service, says Bob Scaglione, senior vice president of marketing. “For example, a customer might want to call in to have his TV adjusted temporarily for the Super Bowl.”

Taking a completely different approach is Bang & Olufsen. The audio powerhouse has turned its attention to high-def displays by creating a clever calibration technology called Automatic Color Management. Recognizing that the colors presented on the screen of plasma TVs naturally fade over time, the technology was developed to continually monitor the color balance of the display and make the necessary corrections to compensate for the aging phosphors. “The phosphors [that create the color] of a plasma TV age at different rates,” explains product manager David Zapfel. “The blues fade faster than the reds and greens, so you’ll end up with a color shift that over time causes the picture on your TV to look different than it did when you first got it.”

After every 100 hours of viewing, or as often as a consumer wishes, a short mechanical arm with a camera eye at the end swings down from behind the frame and measures a test picture that appears on the screen. Within seconds, the color temperature is analyzed. The camera moves back into its hiding spot, the data is loaded, and the TV recalibrates itself. That takes care of color. To ensure that the TV is also set to the proper brightness level, a small sensor mounted on the top of the frame measures the ambient room lighting to automatically dim or brighten the picture. Both features can be found in Bang & Olufsen’s BeoVision 4 50- and 65-inch plasma TVs.

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About the Author:
Lisa Montgomery - Contributing Writer

Lisa Montgomery has been writing about home technology for 15 years, with a focus on the impact of electronics on a modern lifestyle.