Customer Ratings & Reviews

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.

I called on August 27, 2010 to schedule an appointment to have my new TV Calibrated. I was told by the person I spoke to that they would schedule a time and get back with me in 24 to 48 hours to let me know when they would be out. I realize I live over 50 miles from one of your stores, but was assured by several sales people I spoke with that it was not a problem. It has been almost two weeks since I called to schedule the appointment which I already paid for, and I still haven't heard from anyone. If this is the type of service that I can expect from Best Buy and the Geek Squad, this will be the last purchase I will ever make from Best Buy.

In my view of this service I assume that the GS tech I got was newer or just did not care enouph about doing the best job he possibly could. This tech. got the colors just about spot on but has my back light cranked up to the highest setting on my TV which is 10 and I have never had it set this high. FYI : Once calibration is complete you cannot access these options. I thought this was supposed to help me in the Energy Savings Dept. as well as awesome picture quality. Blacks look grayish now and a lot of green tint as well. I Did not notice that until after he left and messed around to see what he had set the settings at. Geek Squad member did not even tell me what he was doing during the process. Very quiet and was done in about 30 min. Called and set up a new appointment to fix the issues with a guy from BB that my friend had calibrate his Sony XBR 6 which looks fantastic. The guy should be here tomorrow. Hopefully a better experience this time around. In my opinion your TV calibration will only be as good as the Technician sent to your house.

As a Digital Commercial Photographer, I understand color. I have all of my color devices, color profiled and calibrated in my work environment. I have a Panasonic Plasma TV that I tried to "eyeball it". Knowing that I didn't have access to gama and actual color (Kelvin setting), I called and had my TV profiled (calibrated). The color and contrast is so much better than I was able to achieve. The technician was very knowledgeable in his color theory and usage of his equipment. I would certainly recommend this service. My only caveat is price. It's expensive, and according to the technician, some sets don't have very good expert control which they can set in their software programs.

The service guy came out to my home to Calibrate my Samsung LCD TV 55 Inch He was here for about 1 hour and he changed the color of the Red and Green now the picture on my Samsung looks a lot better the green looks real and the red stands out. The service was very good, and the guy gave me his phone number to call him if I had any problems with the adjustment's but I thank that the TV looks great and more natural. The picture was good before and better after the Calibration.He did a very good job.

This is probably one of the best services you can add on to a new television. If you are buying a plasma, this services gets even better for you. Obviously the first thing you are going to notice is the visual improvement just by the quality of the colors. But something most people do not notice is the power consumption. By purchasing this service, you are not only cutting down the cost to run those gigantic beauties, but you are also extending the life of your product. The really do cut down on that electric bill. This is something i would receommend for any television. Yes the price seems kind of high but remember, those manufacturers are not making those settings to fit your room, they are making them to look better than the television next to it on the floor. Its your job to bring out its true quality once you find the best spot for it. ***RECOMMEND***

This was the first calibration that we ordered. It is for our new Sharp Aquos Quattron 40" model LC-40LE830U. The tech that came out, Toby, arrived on time and was prompt. He was very knowlegable about the service that he was providing, used the latest technology, and in the end made our TV look much better than out of the box. Well worth getting the calibration. Toby took the time to explain his report to me when he was done and also emailed it to me so I have it for our records. He calibratied the TV to our Directv HD-DVR receiver HDMI input and the input for our PS3. He was great. Thank you very much Toby and Best Buy.

The Agent was very nice and polite, asked a few basic questions, made sure the lighting in the room at the time of the calibration was the same as when we usually watch the TV, hooked up the equipment ($10,000 worth of calibration equipment... NOT a spyder calibration), asked me a few questions about which settings looked better to me as he was calibrating it (he calibrated 2 inputs, the cable box input and Wii input), finished up about 45 minutes later, checked several channels with me to make sure it was satisfactory, then told me what he had found (my TV was set from the factory to show 23% more blue!). He also sent me an e-mail with all the settings incase someone changes them. I had this done to both of my TVs, a 50' 1080p Hitachi plasma and a 42" 720p Panasonic plasma. Both run much cooler now (which I'm sure will extend the life of both), they use less electricity (so the service will pay for itself in just a few months), and the picture looks so much better and more realistic! I can't even describe how much more realistic the picture looks! Everyone who comes over now wants to know what I did to make it look so good! Why spend so much money on the TV and not get the best picture out of it?! The calibration is a MUST HAVE!

After reading some of the reviews on calibration of the TV I was apprehensive. I needn't have been. The before was fairly good, the after was incredible. The tech, Randy, who came to my house was knowledgeable, on time, courteous, and professional. I can't say enough nice things about the young man. Be aware that you need to let your TV run at least a hundred hours prior to calibration. I just turned it on, muted it, and let it run. The picture improved on its own as it ran. Then Randy came and the difference was amazing. He spent a close to 2 hours setting everything up. I had purchased a Samsung UN55HU8550. It was well worth the purchase of the calibration to get everything out of the TV. I had my doubts about the benefits, but I highly recommend the calibration (and Randy if you live in NE Georgia). I do most tech things myself and am fairly good at installing and maintaining things myself. This is something I could not have done. Not in a million years. By the way, I am not usually this effusive in my reviews.

I wish i would of waited for a real calibrator to set up my new LED. These guys are slow lazy and do not use the latest gear. I just had a LED calibrated in San Diego by a real isf calibrator and was blown away by the amount of gear and time it really takes to do this type of thing. When i moved here i purchased a new 55" LED. Stopped by my local BB and purchased an "isf calibration". Boy was i in for a surprise. They told me they were certified! Wrong! The company has some stores on the isf website, but not Warner Robins. A person gets certified not a company. The guy that came out said he learned how to change some color settings by reading the instructions on the BB internal web. C'mon people. He was done in 45 minutes. The true isf guy in Cali took four hours and didn't stop the whole time. Isf has a website that will list real calibrators in your area. If someone says they are the real deal, check em out.

I had my Pioneer Elite calibrated 3 days ago a dn I am disappointed in the results. I had a better oicture before the calibration. It needed maybe minor tweeking at best. Now my yellows all have green in them,the reds have cyan (blue) in them so all reds look fuscia. The picture is soft and is too dark. I have lost detail in scenes where there once was. The contrast setting makes pic look dull on some thingsd while bright on others. Faces look fake and pastey. Before the facial detail was stunning. It looked HD should as if they were standing in front of you. I watched the FOX baseball game of the week Saturday after the calibration and the white uniforms had a blue tint in them. The local pregame show which was live on the field in bright sunlight was dark and unwatchable. I have Pioneer Elite blu ray player which up converts standard dvds. I rented "The Bounty Hunter" and it was dark. The scene at the race track with J.Aniston and G.Butler was horrible,too dark.and the color was terrible. I put in Gladiator on Blu Ray I lost detail in scences where it was before. Pioneer had it right.

The calibration really focused on true color & picture sharpness. I've noticed that the calibration has taken away some of the "overly redness and blueness" . I think I had too much saturated color in the TV picure. Anyway, this seems to display more true-to-life color. Was worth the price. What they actually do is add on 2 more picture mode to your set. So in addition to "dynamic", "natural", "cinema", "sports", etc., the tech added "Cal-day" and "Cal-night" which contain the locked in calibrated parameters.

Like several other reviewers I was sceptical about adding this cost to the price of my new TV, a 46" Samsung LCD. I had however read some comments in Consumer Reports suggesting that this was a worthwhile service, so I went ahead and purchased the calibration. Upon the recommendation of the saleman, I "worn-in" the TV for about 100 hours before scheduling the califbration, which was performed this morning. All I can say is I am glad I did. I thought the picture was excellent before the service, but it is AWESOME now. Also, the reduction in heat near the screen was very noticeable. I had noticed my electric bill was higher during the period I was doing the "burn-in", so hopefully some of the cost of the calibration will be offset by savings on the electric bill, although I think the service is justified by the picture improvement alone. For those reviewers who have had a bad experience with their calibrations, I suspect the problem lies with the person doing the calibration and not the calibration itself. Done properly, calibration makes a significant difference.