Getting the best picture from your new TV

Once you’ve got your spanking new TV (LCD or plasma) how do you get the best picture? The ideal settings for home are often very different to the manufacturers’ defaults, which are often adjusted for the harsh lighting of a showroom. By setting the picture correctly, you may well save both your money, and the planet by consuming less energy. Read on…

Start by writing-down the default settings. Beware that with some TVs (certainly with my Sony KDL-40V3000) there is the option to adjust picture settings either for the channel you are watching, or for every channel in one go. I suggest that you adjust for each source separately (TV, XBox, PS3, etc)

1) Set brightness (black level)

Brightness is a little misleading, and it may be clearer to think of this as black level. Use a scene from a film or game with plenty of shadow areas, and set black level (brightness) until you can just see all the shadow detail without making the blacks turn white.

2) Set contrast (white level)

Secondly, find a bright scene and adjust the contrast (white level) until the picture is comfortably bright enough without the picture being ‘washed out’.

Return to the dark scene and recheck. If necessary, re-adjust this, before returning to the bright scene to check this again. After a couple of tries you should find a satisfactory balance.

With an LCD, and depending on the model, you may find it difficult to get good black levels without ‘washing out’ picture or vice-versa, and you may have to compromise. How high you set your white and black levels simultaneously is related to the contrast ratio of your TV.

3) Set colour (saturation)

A good picture to use would be someone’s face, in a scene shot in natural light. Adjust the colour so that skin tones look natural. Sometimes a TV offers various colour temperature settings (e.g. cool, warm, neutral). Cool may produce a blue caste, with warm producing a red cast. Neutral is often be the correct setting.

As for all the other picture enhancing features, my motto is that “you can’t polish a turd”. Charming though it is, it’s grounded in good science. The panel its self has a certain capability, and it’s rare that clever settings actually improve the picture. Start with them off, and see if any improve the picture.

In my experience settings regarding the basics like colour, brightness and contrast tend to be less useful than things like MPEG noise removal, etc. Suck it and see.

Use a calibration DVD?

If you want to be more scientific about it, I suggest using a proper calibration DVD. I have used The AVIA Guide to Home Theater for many years, and find it to be very quick and easy. It even comes with funky little colour filters to look through at the test patterns, when setting colour.

This DVD is avilalbe from Amazon here

The Sony KDL-40V3000 is available from Amazon here. 

Hope this has been helpful?

Handstand walking down stairs!

Preamble
At the start of 2007 one of my goals was to raise £1000 for charity.  At the time I did not know how I was going to raise the money.  With goals is seems that if you put them to back of your mind, and focus on following your passions, they come in ways you don’t expect.

To the point
The way I did it was by getting small crowds to sponsor me for managing to walk down a flight of stairs on my hands.  In three events, I raised the required money and had it sent to various local charities.

The best example was about 60 stairs out the back of reception at Tony Robbins’ Namale Resort  in Fiji recently. Unfortunately I don’t have a video of this one, the only video I have right now is of a very simple job in a far less attractive setting: here.

I wonder what the world record is for this, now that would be something to aim for!

Until the next time I share something random

Ben Tristem
www.tristem.net

Moving into JuicePlus+

WOW, I’ve finally broken.  I can no longer resist the overwhelming scientific evidence for the effectiveness of JuicePlus.

When first introduced to the idea of dried fruit & veg in a capsule, I was  somewhat sceptical. I could see that it would be convenient to get 17 different types of fruit and veg daily in capsule form, but simply couldn’t be sure it would actually work.

Since then I have read numerous independent scientific studies validating the bio-availability of the nutrients in JuicePlus, and touting the health benefits of such a potent antioxidant.

In fact, I am so keen on people eating fruit and veg that I have decided to dedicate myself 100% to spreading the word of JuicePlus.

I would love to consult with you about your nutritional needs, so please do contact me by leaving a comment here with your nutritional questions.

In the meantime, checkout www.tristem.net  for more information.

Heading for Bali…

Hey fans, family and friends. We are in the Priority Pass lounge of KL airport, waiting to board for Bali. This lounge is much better than the equivalent at Heathrow and has a mini-golf hole, massage, showers and better food.

We had a fantastic time at the Traders Hotel in KL, with amazing views of the Twin Towers, a great roof-top swimming pool and spa area and food available all day in the Traders Lounge. For just over 60 quid a night, we really can’t complain.

KL is a lovely place, and we had just about the right amount of time there. With 7 Ringgits to the pound, we had great buying power. For example, dinner for only 6 quid at times, and a full afternoon private guided tour for under 15 quid.

We have some lovely photos, and no time to upload them at the moment. Save to say you’ll all be subjected… erm I mean treated… to them when we get back.

With love, keep healthy and think positively.

Ben & Lizzie

Alive and kicking on our honeymoon

Immediately after the wedding an elite squad of family and friends had a wonderful lunch in Chelmsford, a far cry from Leez Priory - although enjoyable nonetheless.

Made our way to Heathrow painlessly, and were delighted to be upgraded to The Sandhurst Suite at the beautiful Radisson Edwardian hotel. Three rooms of luxury for under 120 quid, can’t be bad!

The 13 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur was comfortable. On arrival we were accosted by hoards of taxi drivers trying to sell us cab rides! Got airport endorsed taxi driver, who had no concept of stopping distances or lane divisions – Lizzie feared for her life and was so knackered by then that she still managed to sleep!

We got to our beautiful hotel in KL, and we thought the Radission was great! This beauty has a swimming pool on the roof, and overlooks the Petronas Twin Towers. We even get a lounge with free food all day, so stocked up on sushi & miso soup, then dozed by the pool.

Lizzie slept, Ben had a full-body massage. Went for a wander around the park at the bottom of the hotel, admiring the tropical plants & Malaysian sparrows, stopped by a shopping centre that could have been anywhere in London, Paris or the US, apart from the large quantities of sushi.

Feel free to comment, we may upload photos later in the holiday if we can be bothered with the technology.

Be good

A new eara begins

A rather long pause between entries, but I find no pleasure in being a slave to my own blog!

Following a strategic review of my company, Tristem Enterprises Ltd, I have decided to sell the web design arm – BitWeavers.  My previous marketing director, Simon Froggatt is setting up a company of his own and all clients will be offered an uninterrupted service.

 Aside from continuing the property investing, and financial trading activities, my focus is shifting towards coaching of Brain, Body and Business. As a launch-pad, I am teaming up with Stuart Ross of Action International. My company will be acting as his business development arm in the Nottinghamshire area.

 I am very enthusiastic about Action’s coaching services, and look forward to introducing the benefits to local business owners.

Palm Springs

We (Lizzie and I) are now in sunny California, at the Marriott Desert Springs hotel in Palm Springs. We are basically in the middle of the desert, water is piped in from afar. The skies are perfectly blue all day, and it is warm enough to sun bathe… and they have the audacity to label it as winter!

I surprised Lizzie by waiting at Salt Lake City for 10 hours for her, and it was worth it. So far we have explored the place, done a lot of business planning and met with fellow conference delegates. We are here for Tony Robbins’ Date With Destiny, which is reported as one of his most incredible experiences.

The hotel is amazing, for under £100 per night we get a king-sized room with a balcony overlooking the pools, lakes, golf course, palm trees, and mountains. Our bathroom is bigger than some London hotel rooms. The event starts at 1pm today, and we are both brewing with anticipation.

It is appalling how much energy America uses, from unnecessary lighting through huge cars to appalling insulation… and that’s just what I can see. It’s no surprise that 30% of the world’s energy is consumed by North America alone!

I can snowboard…

… well sort of, in that I can get from the top of a nursery slope to the bottom alive without falling off. I have had an amazing day so far.

 After 4.5 hours of lovely deep sleep I met a fellow ‘Plat’ (short for Platinum Partner) in the gym for a quick workout. And quick it was too thanks to my new found static contraction training, a system that argues that you need only hold weights still until exhaustion to get most of the benefit – watch this space.

Anyway, a lovely avacado, rye bread, tomato and honey breakfast with three other Plats straight after the gym then off to ‘hit the slopes’. My first time ever on a snowboard, first two hours in an adult class and the rest on my own. The whole day cost only $60.

Can’t wait to see Lizzie tomorrow, I want to keep up our wonderful conversation about my new vision: “To help reverse climate change by empowering our customers to massively reduce their carbon footprint”. There are so many exciting posibilities within that mission statement from energy cost hedging, through eco bulbs to educating people about energy use.

The rest of the day will be some work on my project on eCademy, and some drinks in the bar.

On the other side!

Well, I am ‘out the other’ side of Life and Enterprise Management (LEM). What an incredible seminar that was, some days ran from 7 am until 1am the next day! I think Anthony Robbins is trying to tell us something about how little sleep humans need when they are kept stimulated!

I have had revelations on several levels while I have been here. Seeing Anthony sweat blood to give us his content, I have realised that I have a duty to be my passionately intense self. I will no longer lower my high standards for fear of making others feel bad about their code of conduct. Next time I hear ‘chill out’, or ‘have a drink’ I will attempt to inspire that person into stepping-up their standards.

Something else I have realised is that I am fulfilled with my life exactly as it is, I have truly learnt to enjoy the journey! I realise that the only thing that truly motivates me is giving to others. I am re-framing all my intentions in this light. For example I will eat slowly to inspire others to do so, I will build an amazing body to inspire others, I will generate huge wealth so that I can contribute financially, etc.

I have decided to focus my attention in business into just two channels during the first quarter of 2007. In January I will spend 80% of my business time taking BitWeavers to the next level, and 20% researching business opportunities in the area of climate change. I will then transition to 80% time spend on my new vision, and 20% on chairmanship of BitWeavers. My new vision is…

“To help reverse global warming by empowering our customers to dramatically reduce or eliminate their carbon footprint”

The purpose of this enterprise will be to secure a stable environment for ourselves, our children and our children’s children.

I have three days in Sun Valley to read, communicate and integrate what I have learnt.

I love you all

Ready for take-off…

This is my first blog proper blog entry. I am sat in a computer room at the lovely Sun Valley Resort in Idaho, about to go for a deep-tissue massage before my first Anthony Robbins Platinum Partnership event starts.

This is an amazing place full of amazing people. I did not really fully know what I was getting into when I joined Platinum, and I have a feeling that I still don’t. However, what I do know is that I feel like I am with 75 family members! These people are all high on life, nobody drinks, takes drugs or eats badly. Everyone is an over-achiever in their own right.

I just can’t wait to see what experience Anthony comes up with…