On my very first visit to Costco, I saw something that burned itself into my brain: a shopping cart loaded with baby formula, junk food, and a 23-inch flat-panel TV set. I felt the same way a fashionista would watching someone use an Armani shirt as a dust rag.
For most people, electronics are commodities to be selected with no more thought than you'd devote to choosing between Sizzlin' Picante Doritos and Hidden Valley Ranch Lay's. A/V geeks just can't do it that way, though. We want to take our TVs for a test drive before we lay down the Visa card.
But in today's warehouse-style stores, is it even possible to try before you buy? Armed with an assignment from soundandvisionmag.com, a detailed knowledge of the shopping terrain of the San Fernando Valley, and DVD and Blu-ray Disc copies of video guru Joe Kane's Digital Video Essentials, I decided to find out.
Truth be told, my first stop, Best Buy, didn't turn out to be the worst possible place to evaluate a TV. But it wasn't much better than the worst, and the subhead was so snappy I couldn't resist.
My local Best Buy, like others I've seen, places one row of TVs at about chest level for a 6-foot person, and mounts another row of TVs above that one so even Kobe Bryant couldn't reach them. Only one Panasonic model was connected to a DVD player (for a special demo Panasonic had concocted). When asked if I could connect a DVD player to one of the lower TVs, I was told, "No, we can't do that." All I could view was a special promotional clip from DISH Network, which the TVs received through a single RF cable each.
But I was able to play around with the picture settings on TVs in the lower row that had side-mounted controls. I couldn't reach the controls on the other TVs, and there wasn't a remote to be seen. The Best Buy employee/sales associate/cast member/whatever in the TV department told me they hide them in the back so they can't be stolen, and he offered to run in the back and get the remote for the Samsung 32-incher I indicated. He returned five minutes later with three remotes, unsure which one went with the TV I was checking out (though all three remotes worked on the TV).
The situation in my local Circuit City was almost identical. But Best Buy and Circuit seemed like veritable A/V playrooms compared with Wal-Mart. The store's bi-level display kept me from getting my mitts on half the TVs. There were no remotes available, and the sales associate replied with a disinterested "no" when I asked for a remote and if I could hook up a DVD player for a demo. I might as well have asked for a demo of one of the store's washing machines.
The best shopping experience I had, by far, was at Fry's Electronics. A remote control accompanied every single TV, attached by a coiled cable. (Weirdly, all the TVs, regardless of brand, were playing a demo clip with a Samsung logo in the lower right corner of the screen.) The staff member deflected my request to connect a DVD player for a demo, but told me I could play Video Essentials on any of the TVs featured on the end caps — each of which had its own DVD player connected. I sidled up to a big Sony on the end of an aisle, tapped the input button to switch to the DVD player, put my disc in, and within minutes had a test pattern up so I could tweak the contrast and brightness.
Even if getting a serious demo in a big-box store is nearly impossible, there are things you can do to evaluate the picture quality — or at least the potential picture quality — of a TV you're considering. But you can only do this if you can get your hands on the remote or the set-mounted picture controls. (You might want to bring a tiny LED flashlight so you can see the labels on the TV's controls.)
Keep in mind that you probably won't be able to choose your program material, and you certainly won't be able to turn the store's fluorescent lights down to simulate an intimate living room setting.
First, take the TV off the factory picture mode. Most TVs come set to a mode like "vivid" or "dynamic" that's designed primarily to make the image stand out in a brightly lit showroom. You need to get that off the screen faster than you'd switch off a Farmer Wants a Wife rerun. Switch to the Theater or Cinema or Movie mode.
If there's no such mode, dig into the picture adjustments menu and see if there are color temperature settings. Usually they'll be labeled Warm, Medium, and Cool. Select the Warm setting.
Now bring the contrast (or white level) down to where you can see subtle differentiations in the brightest parts of the picture. If all the whites look the same—i.e., super bright, almost irradiated—the contrast is too high. (It's almost always way too high at the factory settings.)
Next, experiment by turning the brightness (or black level) up and down. You want the level deep enough to where parts of the screen that are supposed to look black (like deep shadows or black lettering) do look black, but not so low that you can't see any detail in the shadows.
Turn the sharpness down to 1 or 2 on a scale of 10 — the factory setting is usually too high, which will cause edges to look unnaturally crisp.
Some TVs come from the factory set with the color cranked up too high, in which case you'll see reds, in particular, glow unnaturally. Turn it down a notch or two if you need to. Leave the hue or tint control where it is — that's the one setting the factory usually gets right.
Now the TV's calibrated enough that you'll be able to get some idea of what it will look like at home. Of course, a far better bet is to read the TV reviews in Sound & Vision — where we get to calibrate the TVs to perfection, compare them to competitors, and watch any DVD we damned well please.