Have you found after purchasing the latest HDTV, calibrating it, and properly connecting it to your Blu-ray player with an HDMI cable that you still find yourself wondering if you are getting the best picture possible? Well, it may be that your HDTV picture quality is suffering as a result of the room environment in which it has been placed. Here are a few ways you can overcome offending room elements to achieve the optimum picture quality that is possible from your HDTV in almost any room.
Ceiling Lights
Many times during ISF display calibrations, I have had distracting round ceiling lights reflecting off of the glass of top-of-the-line HDTV plasmas, making the picture almost unwatchable. If you find turning off the ceiling lights to correct this problem puts you in the dark, I recommend purchasing floor standing and tabletop lights to provide the desired room light level. It is well worth doing to ensure you have a quality HDTV viewing experience.
Window Blinds
One of the most important factors in determining perceived picture quality and resolution is dynamic range performance. This is how well your display is able to produce the lightest and darkest parts of the picture in a given room environment. If sunlight directly hits your HDTV, the picture’s dynamic range will be reduced, making your display appear washed out, lacking depth, and eliminating shadow detail. Window coverings such as blinds or drapes will ensure that you see those wonderful inky deep blacks that give depth to an image from your HDTV picture.
Paint Color
Room wall colors are important in a home theater HDTV viewing environment. Conflicting colors within the field of view while watching a movie on your HDTV can distort your perception of colors in the image. More often than not, the room many people have their HDTV in is white. Although white may not cause picture discoloration as other brightly colored walls, it is highly reflective. Neutral colors and using a matte or a flat paint finish will help reduce unwanted glare that may compete with your HDTV picture.
Automating Room Control
Human nature is such that if it becomes too much of a chore to adjust lighting and close the blinds every time you want to watch a movie or TV, you most likely will stop doing it. Automation makes these otherwise repetitive tasks easy and manageable. A Universal Remote Control is a robust and reasonably priced solution to automatically adjust lighting and blinds to optimize your experience every time you watch your HDTV.