Is Best Buy's recalibrated Geek Squad Worth the $$$$

Is the Geek Squad recalibrationn worth the $300


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SVT4ME

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Am in the market to for a 52” Sony LCD flat screen from Best Buy. It has 16,000 to 1 contrast and the rep said to make sure to have their geek squad come out and recalibrate it. They even had samples set up side by side. One recalibrated and one not. The recalibrated one looked a lot better but is it really worth the $300? Or is the non-calibrated one just a set up.
 

HotRodK

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In Orlando that calibration is only $150 from Circuit City. From what we have researched it IS worth the money.
 

capnkirk52

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I think you can buy those DVD's to re cal your settings for like $15 and it takes like 20 min to do.

Also, I've never been able to find it but I heard CNET.com has recommended settings for all tv's that they reviewed somewhere on their site.
 

Brian97vobra

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Yeah those DVD's are a royal PITA to do too. You have to know what your doing. And yeah you can go on avsforum and copy some members settings, but it will never be as good as if you had a professional come out to your house and recalibrate it. I just wish i could afford to do it to my tv.:(
 

SoCalCobra

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Those calibration DVD's are just the tip of the iceburg, seriously. All you do with the calibration DVD is adjust your contrast, color, etc.

When I purchased my HDTV from Best Buy I had them come calibrate it. They scheduled an appointment for 60 days from when I purchased it so it wasn't completely new when they calibrated it.

The guy showed up and was in the house for about 2-3 hrs. He had tons more equipment than just a DVD. He had some type of sensor that he stuck to the center of my TV, and had it hooked into some other piece of equipment which ran to his laptop.

He also went into the service menu on the TV which requires you knowing a certain code for the TV. It gives you tons more options than your standard color, contrast, etc.

After he was finished, he would switch back between my factory settings and the calibrated settings. It was amazing. He said that TV's by default are set up to be very bright out of the box, so that they look good to the untrained eye. They achieve this by jacking up the Blue color in the settings, which was obvious as he was switching.

When he was done, I received a print out which showed the color readings from my TV. It had the before and after readings, which were MILES apart from each other. He was able to set all my colors to damn near reference levels.

The TV isn't as "bright" as it was when I bought it, but he explained it like this. When you watch a football game in person, is the grass flourescent green? No, it's not. And it shouldn't be on your TV, either.
 

xneric

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I'm sure there's a little more to it than one of these DVD's can provide, but you can get the TV really close with one and it's a lot less expensive. Another advantage is that you can re-tweak it if needs it after a couple years and do any new TV's you might buy. You might even learn something about setting TV's up which is interesting to some people.
 

JasonSnake

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it would be kinda hard to use a DVD to cal your TV. Reason being, the DVD player itself can be out of cal too, so you can make your TV worse after cal.

What I do is use a broadcast tv show in HD (such as Chuck which is the shyt) and use it sort of like a base to adjust my colors. It's not the best idea but I trust the digital signal coming from a local HD station more than a DVD set top.

On a side note, I recently exchanged my Sharp TV (last year's model) because it was making a high pitched whistling sound from inside, probably a capacitor. So after a year, they let me exchange it for a 46" Samsung (LN-T4665F) and I am amazed on the black levels compared to the Sharp. Also very bright, 15k : 1 contrast ratio.
 

Mr. OAM

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A year and a half ago Best Buy wanted $400 to replace a power source in my friend's parent's computer, and they took it into their store.


Since this story I will not deal with their repair department. That said it all.

Steve
 

xneric

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it would be kinda hard to use a DVD to cal your TV. Reason being, the DVD player itself can be out of cal too, so you can make your TV worse after cal.
I thought that since it's a steady state color signal any player would work OK. It's only 1's and 0's with a HDMI connection. I've got a DVD on order anyway to set up my new 73 inch DLP. The picture was pretty disappointing out of the box, but like you, I've adjusted using a broadcast, and it's very good now. It'll be interesting to see the difference if any.
 

Tampa03cobra

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Lol

Retail store support is always going to be very overpriced. I own a company that competes with best buy for the personal IT market and we are on average over 50% less expensive with a 74% higher satisfaction rate in the Tampa area =-0


As for calibrating a TV. I really don't think you would notice a difference, however I am pretty sure they make calibration kits.
 

sonicboom141

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What you see on the walls is pulled right out of the box, they dont set up the tv's in store. You can do it yourself it is very easy. Also adjust it how you like the tv to look, everyone has different eyes.
 

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