Picture Tricks: Judging Picture Quality

HSW Tip Gamers looking for the ultimate visual experience should look for TVs with special picture modes specifically tailored for gaming. These days, though, game developers are making video games more film-like in appearance, making these modes somewhat unnecessary. If you want, you can create the same effect as a video-game-viewing mode on your current TV by turning up brightness, color and contrast to full blast.

Ultimately, "good picture" is a subjective term. The problem in judging picture quality at a store is that the showroom floor is a totally different environment than your living room. Showrooms are usually well lit, and TVs are displayed in a special section to enhance the overall look of the picture. Stores usually tweak the TV to look its best on the shelf. This tweaking may not hold up once you get that new TV home.

The most important thing about testing for picture quality is to go with what you know. If at all possible, you should take a DVD or VHS that you are familiar with to the store and watch that on all prospects. Watching store-fed demo broadcasts is no way to judge picture quality. But if a movie you've seen a million times looks great to you, then you're on the right track.

Things to watch out for are adjustments to the brightness and other controls that affect the picture. Check out your prospect's display controls. (If you can't find them, ask your salesperson to show you where they are.) Set the brightness, color and contrast to their medium settings. It may not look as good now, but if you can shade the screen from the overhead lighting you will get a better idea of how the set will look in your darkened living room.

Once you get your set home, also be sure to check screen geometry -- lower-end sets may not have been properly calibrated at the factory, resulting in distorted images. If you notice image distortion -- pictures getting cut off, circles that look squeezed, squares that look like rectangles -- you may have to have the set professionally recalibrated. Note that some high-end TVs, such as rear-projection models, let you adjust the calibration yourself.

While on the subject of picture quality, there are a couple of features that TVs of varying price ranges include that will help picture quality in any environment.

In the next sections, we will discuss those features.