How to Get the Most Out of Your HDTV

Are you thinking about buying a HDTV? Are you already an owner of a HDTV? Well, here are some tips that will help you maximize your HD experience. These tips are things that are completely optional to do, but they will make a big difference in your home television and movie watching.

Calibrate Your Picture Settings

The first thing you should do after setting up your HDTV is to properly calibrate the picture settings. This will help ensure that you are indeed getting the best HD picture that your new HDTV can give you. The easiest way to do this is to buy a copy of DVE (Digital Video Essentials). This DVD (also available in a Blu-Ray format should you get a Blu-Ray player also) will walk you through the step by step process of how to calibrate the colors, black levels, etc to ensure you are getting the best picture possible.

It’s amazing to see how much better you TV looks by using DVE rather than leaving the setting the TV was set to out of the box. It’s also much, much more accurate than trying to ‘Eyeball’ the settings.

Buy a Blu-Ray Player

Obviously, if you don’t ever rent or buy movies to watch then there is no point in owning a Blu-Ray player. However, a Blu-Ray player is the only thing right now that can even take advantage of that fancy 1080p display you may have on your HDTV. Television is broadcast at 720p or 1080i, never 1080p. Every Blu-Ray movie is 1080p by default (it is compatible with 1080i and 720p displays, so there is no need to worry about it not working on your HDTV).

Blu-Ray is also the only way you can currently receive the new high definition audio codec’s’. Keep in mind though, if you don’t have a receiver and instead hook you Blu-Ray player directly to your TV then it will still sound exactly the same as always.

Get a Good Surround Sound System

This will give you the ability to listen to 5.1 or 7.1 channel surround sound on your Blu-Ray movies with all the high definition audio codec’s. You need to make sure you do your research before buying a receiver though. Many receivers offer very gimmicky options which you will never need. Also, they may be lacking the options you need in order to enjoy the new HD audio codec’s found on Blu-Ray movies. I’ll give a full report on what to look for in a home theater system later this week.

Use HDMI Cables

This one is really up to you. Personally, I like HDMI cables because you use only 1 cable for all you audio and video. Also, it gives allows full 1080p signals and all HD audio to pass through it. A third benefit is that it allows all Blu-Ray players to upscale your old DVD’s, making them look noticeably better. Using HDMI cables is a must if you are like me and have many things hooked up to your HDTV. It really cuts down on the jumble of wires and chords connecting everything together.

These are just basic optional steps as I stated earlier, but doing the things listed above will greatly improve your enjoyment of your HDTV. Can you think of anything I’ve missed or have something to add? Let us know!