Using a Calibration DVD
Unless you want to pay a professional calibration technician which would get the best out of your plasma TV, at least buy a calibration DVD because it can make the difference between an acceptable result and a good result. You can only go so far using DVDs with movies as a reference. A calibration DVD will give you an edge over doing it yourself without a good reference. It will also speed up the whole calibration process. We highly recommend you to spend a few bucks on a DVD like this because is definitely worth the money.
First of all, I’m going to tell you where you can buy one. There are many online stores selling calibration DVDs but personally if I have to pick one I would recommend Amazon. For specific products you might be interested in the ones featured on the right side of this page.
Now, considering you have a calibration DVD, first step would be to read any documentation or tutorials that come with it. If there is no such thing, you will probably have instructions on the DVD itself to guide you through the calibration process. Follow them and at the end you should have a calibrated plasma TV ready to delight your eyes.
Basically the steps when using a calibration DVD are the same as the ones explained in DIY Plasma TV Calibration guide. If you haven’t read that part of this guide yet, it would be a good idea to do so. There are some differences however with the steps where you tune brightness, contrast, color (saturation) and tint settings. These are the most important settings when it comes to TV calibration as they affect the most elemental picture settings. Your particular calibration DVD may have other additional steps and if this is the case you should complete those also. So, let’s see how the calibration process changes from the DIY method.
First of all you don’t have to find in movies on your DVDs, scenes that are approximately what you need because the calibration DVD gives you exactly the images you need, and those images offer you the optimal ingredients – a gradient of gray tones from pure white to pure black, gradients for each primary color and lots of other images to help you accurately calibrate your plasma TV.
You also have images with high contrast elements. You have color bars with the main colors and you can see both how correct the colors appear and also how the edges between them appear. Basically it’s DIY calibration on steroids.