Almost all digital displays can benefit from a calibration, indeed the entire video chain is calibrated to the room it is in, rather than just the display. This involves initially making sure the best signal types are being used, the correct settings employed in each source, video processing (scaling and deinterlacing) is being done by the most competent components etc. We want to make sure the display is receiving the full resolution possible from the source, without any information missing (e.g. loss of colour resolution, overscanned image) or any artefacts being put in (e.g. scaling or deinterlacing artefacts, A-D conversion noise, mains noise).

The next step is to set colour and greyscales in the display using test patterns the calibrator can adjust by eye. Sharpness settings, brightness and contrast, and colour saturation are set here. The calibrator ensures the image is not over sharpened (edge enhancement artefact) or over softened (resolution loss). Black levels are accurate to black (not grey) and black detailing is not lost (black crush e.g. losing dark shadow parts of a movie to solid black). And conversely white details are accurate to white without losing contrast detail (white cursh e.g. not being able to make out detail in clouds, snow etc). This level of the calibration is also undertaken by our installers when the system is initially installed, although as the displays run-in from new this needs to be looked at again.

Now we get the tools out and begin to set an accurate white point and colour. We have already set saturation i.e. the quantity of colour in the image, we now need to set colorimetry which could be regarded as the quality of colour, having the colour performance of your display accurately portray skin tones, naturally occurring shades etc. After this stage skin tones now begin to really take on a different level of accuracy, outdoor shots in unfiltered movie sequences literally make your display look like a window looking out into the real world. Well almost...

Finally we set gamma tracking accurately where we can. This sets the colour balance and white accuracy at various points in the greyscale. Setting white point accurately is good, but it will change at different levels of the greyscale. White may be clean and true in bright sequences, but may be pushing too much red in the dark ones for example. Here the art of calibration begins to take over from the science as few displays can be 100% accurate at every single step without advanced gamma software usually found in only the best video processing units (e.g. Lumagen).