How to set up your new HDTV

1 hr.

Geoff Morrison , HD Guru

It?s not possible for a TV to be set at the factory with the best settings possible for your home. Take 20 minutes or so on your end, and you can drastically improve the picture quality. If you just bought a TV, or just haven't found the time to mess around with your set,?here are tips for doing it right.?

If you really?want to nail it,?we suggest a?setup Blu-ray. They?re cheap, and the?Disney WOW?disc is especially helpful and easy to follow. (A step-up from that would be the $30?ISF HDTV?Calibration Wizard.)

Straight?out of the box
All HDTVs generally?have a start-up?screen that lets the user to choose between a home mode and a store demo mode.?This is extremely important. The store mode is designed to produce the brightest image ? at the expense of black level, contrast ratio and energy efficiency. To obtain the best picture select the home mode. You will still be able to make fine-tuning?adjustments to maximize image quality.

The screen will also ask you to choose your?language, and will ask about using over-the-air antenna or cable/satellite. If you don?t use an antenna, make sure you select cable/satellite.?You don?t want the TV to go into the tuner mode,?because?you won't see an image.

Special instructions for smart TVs
If your new HDTV has Internet connectivity for streaming movies and other content, the next step should be connecting to the Internet. All smart TVs have an Ethernet connection if you want to wire the TV directly. Many also have Wi-Fi for wireless set-up. Follow the on-screen instructions or the?owner?s manual for the proper steps.

Once completed, you should make sure you have the latest version of the TV's software, by performing a firmware update as per your TV's instructions. The update may add new features, Internet services and even apps, and will assure you have the latest and best version of your new HDTV. Don't skip this:?Nearly every TV we test has newer firmware waiting for it when we connect it to the Internet.

Picture modes
Nearly all TVs have picture modes that adjust multiple settings to create a certain look to the image. The best idea is to start with the most accurate setting, then adjust as you see fit. With nearly all TVs, this mode is called ?Movie,? ?Cinema,? or something similar. If these aren?t options, ?Standard? is likely closest.

If you?ve already?been watching your TV for more than a few minutes, switching to one of these modes is going to be a shock. It will seem red (warm) and soft. It isn?t, which I?ll explain as we go.

Contrast
This control adjusts the bright parts of the image: Clouds, white shirts, snow, etc. The idea is to set this control high enough that the image ?pops,? but not so high as to mask detail, like cloud?textures or shirt?wrinkles. All TVs have a maximum contrast setting, above which you?re not making the image any brighter,?you?re just making near-white objects totally white.

If you?re using a setup disc, the contrast pattern will have a ramp of progressively whiter bars. The idea is to be able see most of these (but not those labeled ?above white?).

If you?re not using a setup disc, find a TV show (ideally a live sporting event) that takes place outside. Skiing works great for this, though baseball does as well (fly balls, any shot of the sky). The idea is to be able to set the control so that you can still see detail in bright white objects. There should almost never be bright white blobs on the screen. If there are, turn the contrast control down until those blobs get their detail back.

There is no average number to use as a guideline for setting?contrast, but it?s almost never 100 percent,?or anything close. Start somewhere around 80 percent and go from there.

Brightness
This is the opposite of the contrast control. Despite its name, brightness control adjusts the dark parts of the image: Shadows, black hair, black leather jackets. The idea here is to set it low enough that the picture has lots of contrast (as in, the difference in the light and dark parts of the image), but not so far that there?s just huge swaths of blackness on screen during any night scene.

If you?re using a setup disc, the brightness pattern will have a ramp of progressively darker black bars. The idea is to be able see most of these (but not those labeled ?below black? or similar).

If you?re setting this by eye, any night or darkly lit scene will do. Set the control fairly low, down?past the point where you lose detail. Now gradually increase it until you see detail in the darkness. If the picture looks gray or washed out, you?ve brought your brightness too far up.

Color?and?tint
Generally speaking, you shouldn?t have to adjust these at all. These are holdovers from the old tube (CRT) TV days. With component and HDMI connections, the TV shouldn?t need adjustment to color or tint.

But so you know, color is color saturation. Set too high, people will look sunburned, and everything will seem cartoony. Tint adjusts the green/red in the image (Martian/lobster). Without specific color filters (that usually come with setup discs), you can?t adjust either of these settings these correctly. Skip.

Sharpness
This is a highly misleading control. Generally speaking, sharpness control adds enhancement to the image to make it appear sharp. Ironically, by doing so, it?s actually masking true fine detail in the image. This setting should be set as low as possible. Some TVs actually?soften?the image if you set it too low (bizarre, to be sure), so watch out for that. Look for dark lines on a bright background, like the?edges of buildings for instance. Lower this setting so there isn?t any ghost line next to the dark edge. This ghost line is called ?edge enhancement,? and goes a long way in making the image look artificial.

Once you get used to the naturalness of the image without edge enhancement, you?ll never go back.

Color temperature
This one is going to be tough. Not because it requires any labor on your part, it?s just going to do something to the image that at first is going to seem bad.

Color temperature is how bluish or reddish the image looks. Picture a typical scene of people walking down a street. Set the color temp too cool, and it will look like they?re walking down the street in winter, with that season?s normal bluish tones. Set the color temp too warm, and it will be a reddish warm day instead.

With most TVs, the ideal setting is ?warm? or ?low.? In some cases, this is too warm, and ?normal? is closer. If you?re changing the settings for the first time, and the TV was set in the ?cool? color temp mode, everything will look wrong, and even??normal? will appear to your eye as too warm. Give your eyes time to adjust. Watch on ?normal? for a few hours, and then ?cool? will seem incredibly blue.

Backlight
This is an LCD-specific control ??plasma TVs don?t have backlights.?Think of the backlight setting as a volume control for the image. Turn it up, and the entire picture (bright whites and dark blacks alike) get brighter. Turn it down, and everything gets darker.?

If you leave this turned all the way up, not only are you wasting energy, but at night your TV can be hard to watch. Modern LCDs are extremely bright, and watching such a small bright object in a dark room can create severe eye fatigue.

For critical viewing, or watching at night, the idea is to get the best black levels, while still creating a watchable image. Once you set contrast and brightness correctly, turn the backlight control all the way down. This will likely be too dark for most viewing. Turn it up to the point where it looks the best. Often, at night, this could be as low as 20 percent, depending on the TV.?During the day, you can?set this as high as you want.

Interestingly, no setup disc offers instructions on how to set this control.?Read more on this in our?buyer-beware article on TV backlights.

For more on what your HDTV?s controls do, read our?Guide to HDTV Settings.

You can catch up with?Geoff Morrison on Twitter at?@TechWriterGeoff. His novel, "Undersea," is now in paperback.

More?from HD Guru:

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/how-set-your-new-hdtv-1C7657756

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the feminist librarian: in praise of pen-friends [a year-end post]

As the year 2012 draws to a close, I've found myself thinking about the value of my long-distance friendships.

Such relationships have been a fixture of my life, beginning when I initiated my first "pen pal" correspondence at the age of three.*?This was in 1984 and while computers were a thing in the world, Internet access for the commonfolk was not. (Actual paper and writing implements were used, and my personal papers will hopefully make some future historians weep with joy in that several major life relationships are documented almost entirely in analog.)

This year has seen the deepening of some long-distance relationships I've developed through blogging, and the initiation of a few more, and thus I'm prompted to once again give thanks for these friends with whom I experience mutual support and intellectual stimulation -- despite the fact that we rarely (in some cases have never yet) meet face to face.

I'm a person with limited in-person social energy -- at the end of the workday I generally want to come home to my wife and my two cats and curl up on the couch with a book, a cup of hot cocoa, my laptop, my handwork, whatever, and just be.

We get home around six and retire to bed around nine. Weekends are for chores, recuperation and for being together as a family. There's not a lot of time for social activity in our lives right now -- it was a major achievement this fall that we managed to see two of our friends on Thanksgiving, and finally have breakfast with a friend and mentor with which we'd been trying to schedule a date for three months.

But conversation doesn't take it out of me the way getting together in person does. So email conversations are a brilliant way for me to bridge the gap between my limited energy for social interactions and my boundless energy for relational connection, for intellectual and emotional engagement and?sustenance.

Sometimes, these relationships have been long-distance by necessity: I was politically and culturally isolated in my conservative hometown and finding kindred spirits genuinely took a lot of patience and a search without geographical boundaries. Yes, I had (still have) a handful of friends who happened to live in geographical proximity -- but that was the exception rather than the rule.

And while we generally privilege those next-door-neighbor relationships in our culture over long-distance/virtual ones, I've often found those long-distance connections just as (and at times more) meaningful than the "people in my neighborhood" ones.

So thank you, Elise and Joseph and Molly and Anne and Stephanie and Fannie?for your willingness to put energy into creating and sustaining a friendship with me across the miles and time zones. It takes mindfulness to be present with a person when they are not there before you in your day-to-day life of hectic, well, living, and I'm grateful that all of you have, over the years, been willing to commit to connecting with me.

I look forward to years of friendship to come.

*to be fair, at three years old my fellow correspondent and I mostly exchanged drawings and dictated random text to our parents to forward on. But that relationship developed into a sustaining friendship that lasted well into my teens, and we remain in occasional contact today.

Source: http://annajcook.blogspot.com/2012/12/in-praise-of-pen-friends-year-end-post.html

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5 Ways to Improve the Reputation of Your Business Online by joeLL ...

Any business that wants to thrive in today?s world must have a vibrant online presence. It all starts with a quality website, but it surely doesn?t end there. You?ve got to be active on quality social networking sites, you?ve got to have products that translate to apps and mobile platforms and you must have positive visibility on sites like Yelp. You can hire programmers, IT experts and a social media team to do all of that work, but you cannot control your customers. And many entrepreneurs have made the mistake of underestimating how just a few negative reviews online can impact their business. The fact of the matter is that people pay more attention to the recommendations of friends and associates than they ever do to traditional advertising. Facebook and Twitter are tools of discovery, and if you have a negative reputation online you could find yourself closing up shop before long. Here are five ways to avoid that fate by improving the reputation of your business online.

First and foremost, you?ve got to be honest. You may think that a bit of spin and passing the buck will put a band-aid on things. But if it doesn?t pass the sniff test it will actually make things worse. It?s too easy for people to dig up dirt or uncover the truth online, and apologies that aren?t honest or information that is inaccurate will always come back to bite you later. Your best bet is to admit a mistake was made, and do whatever is necessary to remedy things. People aren?t looking for perfection, just accountability. If you step forward in an honest way you may actually win over some new customers.

It?s also important to be transparent. Today?s marketplace is all about building trust. There are hundreds of companies out there competing with you, and they could take your customers even with an inferior product. People want to deal with individuals, with folks they have some sort of actual relationship with. You can?t be everyone?s friend, but you can be open and transparent about your business practices. Don?t ever hide costs, underplay fees or promise results you cannot deliver. It?s much better to manage your customers? expectations and respect their intelligence.

You should also attempt to run a responsible business. Since the internet has truly joined the world into one international community people are much more aware of how their decisions impact others. Environmental sustainability has become a core aspect of many people?s decision-making around purchases. Today?s consumers obviously want a good deal, but they also don?t want to support companies that exploit third world workers, bend laws to maximize profits or harm the environment through their actions. And if you run a socially responsible company, make sure you tell people about your efforts. You will find fans this way, and consumers will even be willing to accept slower delivery and slightly higher prices if they know they are supporting a positive company.

Don?t forget to also be consistent with your message. Promoting your business online is an every day activity. Once you get started down one strategic path you must maintain it, or risk losing whatever momentum you built. People will begin to rely on your communications, and they will be seen as more authentic if you keep up a consistent pace and delivery.

Finally, make sure your social media work is not a one-way street. You?ve got to engage in the community. That comes not only from offering up value, but also answering questions and interacting as often as you can. For example, some people may have strong options about?physician reputation management best practices. They will respond to your posts, and you should use that as an opportunity to start a conversation. The more you show a true connection and care for your audience, the more loyal they will be.

Source: http://www.jlapitan.com/2012/12/21/5-ways-to-improve-the-reputation-of-your-business-online/

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Reba McEntire Thinks Kelly Clarkson, Fiance Could Elope

For country superstar Reba McEntire, Kelly Clarkson's engagement is a family affair. The Stronger singer is not only a close personal friend of McEntire's, but her manager is the country diva's husband Narvel Blackstock, and her new fiance is his son Brandon Blackstock.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/reba-mcentire-i-wouldnt-be-surprised-if-kelly-clarkson-elopes/1-a-510415?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Areba-mcentire-i-wouldnt-be-surprised-if-kelly-clarkson-elopes-510415

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Brittany Pelletz WKYT here. London Police are looking for more victims. Have you...

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Web Hosting Providers Push The Business To A Subsequent Stage ...

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Only one of the top 9 occupations expected to create the most jobs this decade (nursing) requires a 4-year college degree

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Source: http://sanangelolive.com/rowdy/only-one-top-9-occupations-expected-create-most-jobs-decade-nursing-requires-4-year-college

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Vocre for Android Translates Your Speech into Another Language in Almost Real Time

Android: We discussed Vocre when it launched for the iPhone last year. Now, the app has also landed on Android with more features, like a tabletop mode that translates and displays what you're saying and what the person you're speaking to is saying so you both can read, and a slimmer price tag.

Vocre has always been a great translation tool, but the launch of the Android app brings 39 different languages with it, and the ability to translate into them much faster than in previous versions of the iPhone app. The new "desktop" conversation mode is the real draw here though: put the phone on the table, select your language and the language of the person you're speaking with, start talking. The app will translate what each of you you say into the other's native language and display it on the phone's screen so you both can read it. Check out the video above to see what we mean, but it's really cool in action.

Vocre now has a set $2.99 price at Google Play, and no longer forces you to pay per-translation like the old version of the app did. Some astute commenters and reviewers note that some of the languages aren't perfect?for example languages with highly gendered syntax may only reflect one gender (for example, Arabic is currently male-only) but the developers are constantly improving Vocre, and it's a great investment if you're planning a trip.

Vocre ($3) | Google Play via Android Police

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/VEANnSEEhDE/vocre-for-android-translates-your-speech-into-another-language-in-almost-real-time

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Both SKorean presidential hopefuls promise change

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? The liberal son of North Korean refugees faces the conservative daughter of a late dictator in South Korea's presidential election Wednesday. For all their differences, they hold similar views on the need to engage with Pyongyang and other issues.

One big reason: Voters are deeply dissatisfied with current President Lee Myung-bak, including with his hardline stance on the country's authoritarian rival to the north. Park Geun-hye, who belongs to Lee's party, has had to tack to the center in her bid to become South Korea's first woman president.

Polls showed Park and Moon Jae-in in a dead heat ahead of elections to lead Asia's fourth-largest economy and an important U.S. security bulwark in the region.

There's deepening worry about the economy and disgust over the alleged involvement of aides close to Lee in corruption scandals.

Many voters blame Lee's hardline views for encouraging North Korea to conduct nuclear and missile tests ? including Pyongyang's rocket launch last week. Some also say the chill in North-South relations led to two attacks blamed on Pyongyang that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

The effort to create distance with Lee has been difficult for Park, whose popularity rests on a staunchly conservative, anti-North Korea base.

Both candidates propose pulling back from Lee's insistence that engagement with North Korea be linked to so-far-nonexistent nuclear disarmament progress by Pyongyang. Park, however, insists on more conditions than Moon, who wants to restore large-scale government aid.

Moon is a former chief of staff to Lee's predecessor, late President Roh Moo-hyun, who championed the so-called "sunshine policy" of no-strings-attached aid for Pyongyang.

Moon said on the eve of the election that he envisions a "politics that integrates all people. Politics that does not divide."

He wants an early summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Park has also held out the possibility of such a meeting, but only if it's "an honest dialogue on issues of mutual concern."

Whoever wins the presidential Blue House will set the initial tone for new North Korea policy not just in Seoul but in Washington, Beijing and Tokyo. All those governments have recently undergone an election, a change of leadership or both, and they have been waiting for a new South Korean leader before making any big decisions on North Korea policy.

A Moon election could lead to friction with Washington if new engagement with Pyongyang comes without any of the reciprocal nuclear disarmament progress that Washington demands from the North.

Moon and Park also agree on the need to fight widespread government corruption, strengthen social welfare, help small companies, close growing gaps between rich and poor, ease heavy household debt and rein in big corporations that have grown so powerful they threaten to eclipse national laws. They differ mainly in how far they want to go.

Moon wants to drastically expand welfare, while Park seeks more cautious improvement in the system, out of concern that expanding too much could hurt the economy, according to Chung Jin-young, a political scientist at Kyung Hee University in South Korea.

Both candidates also have promised to strengthen the traditional alliance with the United States while boosting economic ties with booming China.

Park is aiming to make history as the first female leader in South Korea ? and modern Northeast Asia. But she also works under the shadow of her father, Park Chung-hee, who imposed his will on South Korea as dictator for 18 years until his intelligence chief killed him during a drinking party in 1979.

"I will become a president of the people's livelihoods, who thinks only about the people," Park was quoted Tuesday by the Yonhap news agency. "I will restore the broken middle class."

Park's father is both an asset and a soft spot. Many older South Koreans revere his strict economic policies and tough line against North Korea. But he's also loathed for his odious treatment of opponents, including claims of torture and snap executions.

"Nostalgia for Park Chung-hee still runs deep in our society, particularly in the older generation," Chung said.

A Park win would mean that South Korean voters believe she would evoke her father's strong charisma as president and settle the country's economic and security woes, Chung said.

Moon, on the other hand, was a young opponent of Park Chung-hee. Before working for Roh, whom Lee replaced in 2008, Moon was a human rights lawyer. He also spent time in jail for challenging the government of Park.

Moon's parents lived in the North Korean port city of Hungnam before fleeing to South Korea aboard a U.S. military ship in December 1950, six months after the Korean War broke out. They were among an estimated 100,000 North Korean refugees transported by the United States from Hungnam to South Korea in daring evacuation operations that month.

Moon's parents lived in an interim shelter on South Korea's southeastern Geoje Island and later moved to a nearby village where Moon was born in 1953. Moon's father, a former agriculture official at Hungnam city hall, did manual labor at the camp while his mother peddled eggs.

A Moon win would be a clear judgment against the Lee government, said Hahm Sung Deuk, a political scientist at Korea University in Seoul. Moon's appeal is that he "appears to be nice, honest and clean."

With South Korea's economy facing a 2 to 3 percent annual growth rate for this year and the next, the presidential candidates have focused on welfare and equality and fairness issues. Neither, however, has matched Lee's campaign promise to boost South Korea's economy by an ambitious 7 percent growth annually, apparently aware of the global economic challenges that beset the country's export-driven economy.

Economic worries may be the focus of many voters, but North Korea has forced itself as an issue in the closing days of campaigning with its rocket launch last week, which the United States and others call a cover for a banned test of technology that could power a missile to the U.S. mainland. North Korea says it sought only to put a peaceful satellite into orbit.

The launch won't be a major election influence, but it will consolidate conservative votes in favor of Park, said Hahm. He said the launch will remind South Korean voters that "the North Koreans are unpredictable and belligerent."

The rocket launch could make it harder to quickly mend relations with North Korea, especially if Park wins.

"She has a firm stance on national security, but she has few ideas on how to establish a peace regime and lacks the determination to do so," said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea analyst at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. "If Park becomes president, South-North relations would get better, but a big improvement in ties would be difficult."

___

AP writer Youkyung Lee contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/both-skorean-presidential-hopefuls-promise-change-123527627.html

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Hatch seeks to re-invent the digital pet for the iPhone age

Digital pets are nothing new. Tamagotchi were a craze in the 2-bit, low-res days. Yet, back then, they were hindered by technology that was insufficient to fully realize the visions of their creators or the imagination of their users. Flash forward to 2012 and Impending, in collaboration with RealMac, aim to make the genre what it was always meant to be -- with Hatch.

If those names sound familiar, it's because they're the folks behind Clear, the delightfully simple, gesture-based task management app for the iPhone and Mac. Impending's Phill Ryu has long spoken about the potential for apps like this on modern platforms like iOS, and it's fantastic to see he's really going for it. With RealMac, and the talent of people like David Lanham from the Iconfactory behind him, it's got all the pieces in place to make just exactly what the tag line promises:

An app that loves you back.

Hatch won't ship until next year, but the video teaser above shows wonderful animation, engaging interactions (including tying into the built-in background music system), and a smart focus on building the app-to-user connection.

Digital devices have become emotional possessions. Pet apps have been tried before, and have worked before, but the connection has deepened with the capabilities of our devices. They know time, they know location, they know us.

It'll be interesting to see how much of that Hatch captures at launch, and how much of us the little creatures capture over time.

Head on over to the website below for an extra sneak-peak, and a way to started with the fun.

Source: Hatch

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/fmvJW0y41Zs/story01.htm

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Discovery Cancels ?American Guns? After Newtown Tragedy

Discovery Cancels “American Guns” After Newtown Tragedy

Fans of the popular Discovery show “American Guns” are pissed after learning the reality series has been given the axe. A rep for the show confirms the cancellation, which apparently was brought on by the recent shootings at a Connecticut elementary school. The program’s rep said, “American Guns concluded earlier this year. Discovery Channel chose ...

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Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2012/12/discovery-cancels-american-guns-after-newtown-tragedy/

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