J Nitro

ADI has ISF certified technicians that can come to your home and calibrate your TV to industry standards. But is it worth the time and money? The answer may depend on what you are used to seeing. TV manufacturers have purposely miss adjusted their displays for years so that they are too bright and the colors too "hot". Of course this is to catch your eye when you go to your favorite store to buy a new TV. But if you are used to seeing TVs this way, and have for years, then is this the new "standard"? Video Calibration will absolutely make your TV look more natural and realistic. But does that make it right? The reason I bring this up is that a small percentage of our customers (less than 2%) actually liked the picture better before we did the calibration! In those cases we have gladly refunded their money and set it back to factory defaults. So my point is that some customers have become used to seeing TVs with incorrect settings and they like it that way! Comments?

I was at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week and the big buzz was 3D. Let me first say that we have come a long way from the old cardboard multi color glasses that have been around since the 1970s. Today, you still have to wear glasses, but they are electronic and stylish. Many manufacturers are now delivering (or about to deliver) both flat panel LCD and projection systems that support 3D. These new displays "talk to" the glasses wirelessly so that the right and left lens turn on and off in sync with the display. I wear glasses already, and all of the 3D glasses I tried fit nicely over my glasses. So you will need a Blu-ray player, a 3D movie (titles are limited at this time) and a TV that is capable of displaying 3D. Samsung has some flat panel display that will be shipping soon that will also convert 2D content to 3D! There have been some articles lately that indicate that some people are having bad reactions to 3D. Things like eye strain and headaches have been reported after long periods of 3D viewing. The demos I saw were incredible and 3D has been applied to gaming too!

There appears to be a lot of confusion over the new so called "LED TVs" made by Samsung and others. First of all, these are NOT really LED TVs! They really are standard LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) TVs but they use LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) to back light the LCD screen. Up until now, most LCD TVs use Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFLs) to back light the LCD screen. There are many potential problems with CCFLs with the biggest ones being Black Levels and Power Consumption. Since you can't really dim a CCFL, you never get very good black levels so dark scenes tend to lack detail. Manufacturers have learned some tricks to make this better over the years, but LCD is still lacking as compared to Plasma Displays. So LCD TVs that use LEDs use less power and have the POTENTIAL to have better black levels since LEDs can be dimmed or turned off very quickly. But as always, make sure you view any TV before you buy it to verify the picture quality. So why wouldn't you buy an LED  backlit LCD TV? They are thinner, use less power and have better black levels.. Well they are much more expensive than a standard LCD TV so you have to decide if it is worth the extra money. Of course over time, as the volume goes up and competition increases, prices will come down on these models. Comments?

Lately I have talked to some customers that are doing business with companies in the Twin Cities that are not licensed to do Audio/Video work. This is a bad idea for many reasons. First, it is not legal for them to do work in your home. Second, they most likely don't have the training, insurance or a bond that is required to be a licensed Technology Systems Contractor in Minnesota. So if something goes wrong, you may have no recourse to get your money back. It is very simple to check on the company you are considering. Just check here: https://secure.doli.state.mn.us/licensing/licensing.aspx