Geek Squad® - TV Calibration

I read a lot of these reviews in the days leading up to my calibration. and i believe that a lot of the people complaining about this service are misinformed on what to expect, or had a bad tech. Apparently not all Techs are created equal. Mine was awesome! Nate was just as excited about doing it as i was. He truly loved his job. And was more knowledgeable than me, which is saying a lot! A lot of people seem to complain about the TV being brighter and more vivid before the calibration , and that's true.TV's are set that way for a REASON, all the settings cranked up (Torch Mode) to look better against the competitors in a retail store under florescent lights. Not to look great in your living room in natural lighting or dark settings. And since they don't know which set goes to BB and which one is going to your house, they set them all the same. I will start by clarifying that what this service does, is set your colors to an ISF standard .Which is going to let you view the content as the director INTENDED. This is NOT going to make your colors more vivid or your picture brighter. What it will do though is give you "TRUE and NATURAL" colors and a SHARPER picture.(Which is what HDTV is supposed to be) You will notice after the calibration the picture seems "dull", (good thing i knew to expect that.) and why wouldn't it? you've been watching TV on "Torch Mode" for the past month. After your eyes adjust, the real magic happens. You see details in the blacks you've never seen before. And the colors are soooooo natural. The "graininess" is all but eliminated from compressed video as well. I switch back and fourth between factory settings and calibration for comparison and am blown away. The presets look horrific. The whole screen has an unnatural blue hue to it. It literally hurts my eyes! The difference is amazing! I will never go back. It's like watching HDTV for the first time all over again! Sure you might get close to this w/ self optimizers. But if your like me you want the "TRUEST" picture possible. I don't think that's possible with out professional calibration. The computer knows what white looks like, your eyes only "perceive" white. Our eyes see bluish white as whiter which makes eyeballing it next to impossible. Plus w/ so many options in the picture settings calibration has never been easier and more in-depth for a tech and never more confusing for the consumer. On the downside, of course the price. $300 is a hard price to sell. If however you just bought a $3000 TV it's worth every penny. Now i will say that this service is not for everyone. If you only plug in your TV and turn it on, then this is not for you. Although if that's the case you wouldn't be reading this! If on the other hand your like me(which you probably are) and want to squeeze every bit of potential out of you home theater system and get THEE BEST picture possible, than this is DEFIANTLY for you. Videophiles thank me later. ; )

I ordered the service on-line through Best Buy on 11/22/09 to have my LCD calibrated. Though I received the confirmation e-mail, I did not receive the card with contact information nor the telephone call "within 72 hours". On 12/07/09, after 2 weeks of having heard and received nothing, I called the Geek Squad number and was put on hold. After almost a half hour on hold, I hung up. I again called on 12/08/09 and was told that my order was not in the system properly but that he would correct it and would call back. He didn't. I again called on 12/09/09 and the female agent advised that there were no calibration agents in my area but that she was sending an e-mail and I would get a call back to schedule the appointment. Didn't happen! On 12/16/09, I AGAIN called Geek Squad Central Dispatch (you've probably figured out that I was keeping notes of the calls) and explained my plight and she stated that she would call me back to schedule the service. SHE CALLED ME BACK . . . and scheduled the calibration for 01/02/10 (first available date for me). During the interim period, I had also purchased and had delivered a 58" Panasonic Plasma TV from Best Buy. On 01/02/10, the technician arrived when scheduled. By that time I had more than 100 hours on my new set so I had him calibrate the plasma (LCD now in bedroom). The improvement in picture quality was instantly noticed and is now more wonderful than when new (which was great). As to the calibraion service, I would give it 10 stars if able. As to the ordering and follow-up, it was a terrible experience. I doubt that I will ever again order from Best Buy on-line but will go to the store (less than a mile away).

I just got my Tv callibrated two days ago i chose to go with it becouse i spend a lot of money on the TV and the Home theater system so i wanted the best possible picture quality. i tried doing it on my own and it did look better but i just went ahead and paid for the Professional callibration and i got to tell you it is amazing they do two seperate settings one for day one for night they perfect the color and make it as natural as you can get it using there software and equipment the differance was insane the amount of color definition i got after was ten times better and the geek squad agent also broke it down for me and told me step by step what he did my tv was running at 25k when it should have been at 6.5k meaning it was heating up three times more then it should becosue it was doing unatural colors and forcing the TV to work more. as for the guy under me who says its too bright for him becosue they left the backlight at 20 for the day settings just turn it down..... till you like it the main point for this is to fix all your settings to get best picture quality,brightness and backlight you can play with as much as you want until you get it were you like. and another thing i asked the agent and they told me that the better the TV the more you will see the differance when its callibrated so callibration is not for everyone no offence to no one but if you buy a cheap TV and callibrate it you wasted your money... and thats why a lot of people complain theres no differance...if the TV cant output better ofcourse there wont be a differance.......

I recently got my 50" Samsung plasma TV calibrated by a member of the Geek Squad and am nothing short of 100% satisfied with how professional he was and the job he did properly calibrating my TV. Quite a bit of work is involved to do this correctly and it goes far beyond simply "eye-balling" a good fit for your TV. The heat output (K) of my set is now over 2000K less (6500K total - perfect for "true white" color) and is using less electricity because of it which will help to extend its life. After getting into the actual BIOS of the TV (they need the TV's original remote to do this) and adjusting the way it was set up from the factory (to look good in very bright storefronts...who can blame them!) by connecting to the fancy equipment and tweaking the settings with his laptop he then calibrated 2 devices. In my case, my HD cable and Blu-Ray DVD player each have their own calibrated viewing settings which can very easily be selected from the "Mode" feature on the TV's main menu. Using special light filters and DVD's he continued adjusting for an optimal viewing experience considering the viewing environment I have and the results were very impressive. For starters, I never realized how many shades of black my TV was capable of displaying and this helps to add depth and increased realism to what you are watching. The lighting and colors are simply phenomenal now and it's a small investment to pay on top of the price of your new TV to have it running perfectly. I have recommended this to anyone who enjoys watching TV and will most certainly add it to every TV I purchase in the future. LCD's can be calibrated after only 2-3 hours of viewing but plasma's require at least 100 hours. Treat yourself (and anyone who watches your TV) to this service and have an open mind...it will take a while for your eyes to adjust and for you to catch the different lighting, shadowing, etc. effects which are now present that you were missing out on before. The representatives who perform the service are very knowledgeable and polite and the gentlemen who performed the calibration answered every question I asked him in a very straight forward manner..."layman's" terms. Coming from a tech background I must say that I am truly impressed with how knowledgeable the Geek Squad employees are...they are the real deal and I will absolutely use them in the future. If you decide to get this service, you are making a wise decision; good luck!

I bought the calibration service because Best Buy was offering a credit on my TV if you also bought a Geek Squad service. The technician was very thorough and very friendly. He explained what he was doing at every step of the process. I had Googled the optimum settings for my TV and the calibration service only had some very minor tweaks to make to my TV. The only complaints are the price of the service and that the video images that were used to calibrate the TV caused regular TV broadcasts to have a weird look so I had to go back and reset some of the settings to where I had them previously.

As has been stated in many reviews alot of this service comes down to the quality of the tech that comes to your house. I was fortunate to get one that was good at his job and semed to enjoy it. He explained everything in great detail as he went and showed everything he was doing and the difference it made. I had this done on a Sony Z series 46" which was pretty good out of the box but after the service was even better. Its more natural, if you like the bright bluish picture you see at the store this may not be for you. I have a lot of natural light in my room and it is easier to see details after the service was done, plus the original color burned at about 9500k after its was in the 6500k range which is closer to natural light. which means the tv runs cooler which will cost less to run and in turn help the tv last longer. This tv has an automatic light sensor that adjusts the picture based on the light in the room which really works well with the adjustments the tech made. I wanted the best possible pic I could get and I was not about to start messing arround in the advanced menus. The tech locked in the settings on two inputs (Tivo and Blueray) then wrote them down for me incase it ever lost its memory.

The Best Buy team was extremely helpful at the store, they made sure i knew exactly what i was purchasing and going over with me all the technical part of the service as well as the physical part. Scheduling was very easy and worked with my timeframes perfectly. The ISF techinition that came out to my home was very friendly and made sure that i was told the correct process that he was going to perform. He completed it within the hour that i was told he would take. I must say, from previous stories this calibration is highly underrated. The GS agent took his time and made sure that all the settings were set to the specifics of my room so that the picture was absolutely perfect. He had the calibration machine working non stop as well as the lens on the screen that measured the light sources. Overall from the store all the way to the service at home the calibration was well worth my money!!!

This is a worthy investment for your LED-LCD TV. Makes the colors pop and details sharp. My GS Tech was on time and spent 2 hours setting it up. He was very professional, explained everything and took the time to show me all the changes. He also set up the day/night settings and locked them into the TV and he recommends leaving it in day mode all the time and going to night mode to watch movies. He even stayed a little extra to show a few features about my Denon Remote!! The only complaint is the price. This should be about $100 cheaper. Do your homework on the GS agents, I asked my Best Buy to provide feedback and surveys on the agents and I was able to pick the agent to do my service. As we all know, some of the GS agents are less than spectacular.