>> Are you ready for some football? More importantly, is your TV ready for some football? If you're a sports fan with a nice new HD-TV, no matter how small it is, don't let it go to waste with bad lighting and the wrong settings. I'm Molly Wood, and in this Insider Secrets, I'll show you how to tweak your HD-TV for the big game.
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>> Now I consulted with our TV editor, David Katzmaier here at CNET to find out the best way to watch sports on your HD-TV. And the first thing you should know is that you shouldn't need to change your carefully constructed calibration settings for particular programs. If your TV is properly calibrated or you've got it set-up how you want it, you shouldn't have to mess with it too much. But there are still some things you can do to make football, baseball, soccer or any other sport look a lot better. Let's get started. First, TV placement. Try to avoid placing the TV opposite a window. The light hitting the screen will wash out the picture. Now if you do have your TV across a window, consider investing in a black-out shade. Now if you do have your TV set up in a bright room, or you're watching a Sunday afternoon football game, you might wanna change your picture preset to one that's relatively bright. Your TV might have presets like sports, or standard or game. You don't wanna choose a dark, moody preset like cinema. If you do want to tweak your color settings, use the color of the grass on the field as your guide. A lot of TV settings over accentuate green and make it look too neon or yellowish. If that's the case on your television, reduce the color control until it looks more natural without becoming too dull. Of course, Katzmaier pointed out that this only works on fields that have natural grass -- ha-ha. When it comes to color temperature, even if you're watching a football game, use the same warm or low color temperature preset that's used in the movie modes. Better yet, if there's a calibrated color temperature, use that one. And finally, if you actually want to see your sports in high-def, make sure your HD source like your cable box is set to an HD resolution. Typically, that would be 1080i. Also, make sure you choose the wide or 16:9 aspect-ratio mode to assure that the great looking hi-def broadcast fills the entire screen. Otherwise, what's the point. Alright, I hope that helps sports fans. Now crack open your beers, order your pizzas, and settle on in because it's game time. For CNET.com, I'm Molly Wood and you're welcome.
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