yeah, total ripoff. i wouldn’t even do it if it were free.

best buy gets me mad sometimes.
i mean, first off, you shouldn’t ever have to do too much calibration with a tv when you buy one, maybe a little. and to charge 300 for that is rediculous. completely.

They do more then come to your house and play with your remote control. They use special tools, and depending on the level of quality (IE the TV controls) they use special colored glasses to match perfectly the TV to natural light. It has to be done in the room in the spot the TV is going to be, because room lighting can change the picture.

Its actually a long process that requires tools that go into your televisions repair port and they do a great job. Unlike that consumerist website (which should be called the Slanderist) the store in my town doesn’t do that. Its actually hooked up to a camera aiming out, so what you see on the screens is a High def image of yourself, on 2 different TV’s.

That store probably was 1 over ambitious manager that got scolded for doing it, and is a rare, and isolated incident.

They dont play with your remote, they actually go through the whole calibration process. Its a rough process which requires over 10,000 dollars worth of equipment (which they use).

I think, nobody should pay for a HDTV calibration, It suppose to be calibrated from the factory. You do not tune your brand New car to get better HP.. It just does not make sense to me. you spend hundreds of dollars to get you brand new hdtv and you have to spend even more money to get it calibrated.

I really think people are just a little unwillingly ignorant here. Not to be taken in a rude way what so ever either. What i mean is Calibration is a great service offered and not only from Best Buy. Best But actually only offers the lower version of a calibration so that it can be sold at a more affordable price; a true in depth calibration can cost around $2000 dollars and take ten hours. The reason this needs to be done on a tv is because Manufacturers of your television didn’t set it up to look its best in your home. They set it up to look better than the other televisions on the sales floor. Your home is not a sales floor. It is a completely different viewing environment. The difference in lighting alone warrants adjustments to all of the televisions settings. So like i was saying i think this is just a case of the unaware. The average buyer would think that a $300 calibration is a scam when a a/v specialist would think that a $300 calibration is to cheap. Like buying a Dynex or Insignia plasma over a pioneer. But don’t get me wrong the Best Buy calibration is great, but just geared towards the more average user who can’t afford to pay for a $2000 calibration on there new Kuro! (Plus they are ISF certified now direct Best Buy employees. There is only one certified geek squad calibrator in all of western Canada which just goes to show how extensive the training is.)

It’s not a scam. An ISF certified guy spends between an hour and a half and two hours with your TV. They ARE ‘calibrated’ out of the box, but it’s impossible to get the best settings for every viewing environment, and the default factory settings are over-saturated, overbright, and overcontrasted. The reason they boast of a dramatic power draw decrease is primarily because less is needed to provide you with the best picture. How can the factory know where the TV is going? Generally, they are in an overlit store next to many TVs, so they go fullbright and max power output. The equipment they use delves into a service menu for the TV that no remote can get to, and no consumer can get to, either. The tech uses a light meter to measure ambient light both at the source and at your viewing position. He asks you to turn on whatever light you usually have on when watching. He sets up several ‘presets’ and makes it where you can access those settings with a switch he gives you (part of the service). He uses a spectrometer to measure the color spectrum and optimizes your TVs output for your unique viewing environment (ambient light, reflections, backlighting, etc). This is no joke, and results in a dramatically different picture. Go to a Best Buy (or whatever store) that has the right thing set up on their TVs, and you’ll see they have the same HD piped into both sets, with several nice examples that demonstrate black levels, white levels, color wheels, and more than you need to see that it makes a difference. Doesn’t anyone do research before leaping to conclusions anymore?

The calibration service Best Buy offers is a complete rip-off. Having worked there and seeing it all first hand, I can tell you that their primary goal is to take as much of your money while giving you the least amount of real service. You can perform your own calibration on your brand new HDTV if it’s really needed, but most of the time it’s not even necessary. Best Buy also really pressures it’s sales staff to employ scare tactics to sell their products and services. Best Buy employees really make it difficult for you to simply purchase the core product without buying tons of useless accessories and misleading services. The company should be ashamed…

As someone who works in graphic design it might help to know that this service is comparable to calibrating a computer monitor to enhance color matching when preparing files for print. The process of getting a computer monitor calibrated is equally extensive (though computers usually don’t hide the controls from you) and expensive because light measuring equipment has to employed to obtain objective measurements to overcome the subjective “perception” of what is being seen as a predictor of what will occur when you go to print. The key difference though is that in the TV scenario you are not trying to satisfy a third-party paying customer. You are trying to satisfy yourself. So, if *you* are happy with your TV’s picture quality then any tactic trying to convince you that you shouldn’t be is clearly seeking to induce fear in order to cultivate profit. While calibration may indeed create a “better” picture, if you are already satisfied with your TV you certainly can continue to be so without paying 300 bucks.

So a guy from Best Buy comes on here and calls us all “ignorant” , excuse me but it is exactly the that we aren’t complete idiots that we are skeptical of the calibration in the first place .
And the fact Best Buy employees don’t make commision doesn’t prove anything at all . Best buy still wants to make money anyway they can , and they are certainly taking advantage of non – tech savvy consumers .
200-$300 is so overpriced for what this service claims to do for your tv

Calibrating a tv really is a joke…I have worked in an electronics store for over 7 years and have multiple tvs personally. The manufacturers do send the tvs to the store on their brightest settings because a lot of the time the sales floor is very high lit, and most customers are drawn to brightness, but there isnt a tv i sell that has only one preset mode on it. This is completely ridiculous.Also i am so tired of these completely stupid best buy associates stating that they dont work on commission so why would they try to be selling you something. First off you guys are so dumb to be selling stuff without the possibility of earning anything extra. Second do you really think that telling customers that your not on commission all the time really helps customers feel better? The first thing that registers in my mind when i hear you say that is that you dont care what I buy or do because it really doesnt affect you…ya i know you still have to meet a quota to maintain your lousy $8 an hour…but this callibration stuff is just so ridiculous…also i am very interested in purchasing your $180 hdmi cable since you guys claim it is so much better than any other cable that is just sending a digital sample