I realize it's hard to tell from some of these pictures (and taking a "direct-on" shot with an LCD camera to an LCD screen resulted in a wonderful effect I like to call "Rainbow-Vision"), but the SpyderTV system really did an amazing job at correcting white levels. Skin tones lost an almost bluish tinge and whites took on a warmer tone (though watching it I though maybe a bit too warm.) Black levels, as I mentioned, remained a problem, though the bluish tinge was removed 舑 and you cannot expect the SpyderTV to compensate for inherent difficulties encountered by a particular television.

Summary Reporting

The entire user calibration process took me 26 minutes and 5 seconds according to the Summary Report. You can print or create a PDF of the report for later reference.

At first, the summary charts didn't seem to mean much of anything, having two axes labeled "Slider Value" and Activation". After speaking with Datacolor about this, I realized that I was perhaps "looking at the moon with a microscope". Taking another pass I could see that the Color Setting Graph quite simply showed the Color adjustment potential vs. the slider value range.

The Proton LCD TV I was using limited the adjustability of the Color control (this is good, actually) meaning that while I had a more steep adjustment range (i.e. all settings higher than -12 do virtually nothing) I was actually able to get pretty close to the target setting.

The Color Temperature Pre-set Setting Graph was nice in that it showed a target with all three settings represented. While an actual color temperature reading would be a welcome "educational" addition, most should find it helpful in showing (quite simply and clearly) that there was an improvement. Black and white luminance values were also shown at the end. According to SpyderTV the final ANSI contrast ratio for this set was 296:1 (black luminance level / white luminance level).

At this point the calibration session was completed. Should you want to calibrate another television, simply begin again and the SpyderTV system allows you to enter in new information for another TV set. Unfortunately, if you need to go back to a previous television, you'll need to re-enter all of the "Record Your Settings" info again. We're hoping that a software update will be released in the near future to allow users to store multiple display settings.

Conclusion

For the price of a TV stand (or a short esoteric component video cable) you can make your TV really shine. To spend thousands of dollars on a high definition television set and then live with the default factory settings should be a crime. The difference between a well-calibrated television and an oversaturated, blue-tinged torch is simply amazing for those who have never seen it. While a professional calibrator can do even more for you due to a wealth of additional controls available in the service menus, many will be satisfied to know that they can buy a single product that can be used to perform basic user calibrations on all the television sets in a home and be kept handy for whenever a new product such as a DVD player is added into the system. Now, if only the SpyderTV owners would rise up and take their colorimeters into the local consumer electronics chain store...

Datacolor SpyderTV

MSRP: $269