Product Review

Datacolor SpyderTV™

$250.00 USD

www.datacolor.com

To be honest, I thought that the picture on my television was already pretty good, especially HD on my Expressvu 6100.  I have fooled around with DVD calibration discs such as the AVIA Guide to Home Theater, and whether or not they made a difference I could never tell.  In comes the Datacolor SpyderTV to scientifically calibrate your televisions picture settings using it's own “Spyder”, a colorimeter that you can either mount on a tripod, or attach right to your screen via a suction cup.

INSTALLATION

First off, the SpyderTV itself is pretty neat to look at, I mean, it's not everyday you can stick something like this on your television.  I was interrupted frequently by people wondering what I was doing.  Of course before attaching the SpyderTV, you have to install the software that is included in the retail package.    It installed flawlessly as expected.  After that was done, I hooked up the SpyderTV using the attached USB cable, and it was ready to go.  Next, I inserted the Datacolor DVD into my DVD drive.  This is what I tested the SpyderTV on:

Samsung Tantus TV model TXN3298HF

Samsung DVD Player model HD931 (attached using Component Video)

Software was run on Dell Inspiron 5100 running Windows XP

TESTING

Initial setup of the software proved a little time consuming, but that was also expected.  You basically have to enter all the information needed such as your televisions settings for color, tint, brightness and contrast.  Hopefully your television has easy to figure out “sliders”, as mine did, which all read from 0 to 100, with 50 being the mid point.  Also, if your television has a temperature setting, you have to enter that as well.  Mine did not follow the standard settings used by the software, so I had to manually enter these values in.  No problem.  After that, it was ready to go.  I then stuck on the SpyderTV colorimeter to my tv which went on with no problems, and proceeded to follow the softwares instructions. 

To it's credit, it is very straightforward, all you are doing is flipping between different still shots on the DVD, clicking the button to activate the SpyderTV colorimeter,  and changing the slider settings on your television.  Very simple.  The total time for testing my television was 44 minutes, 29 seconds.  Between each individual testing, you are given the option of viewing graphs depicting your televisions settings.  At the end of it all, you are presented with the option of printing out a detailed report in PDF format.  You can also save this file for future reference. 

While I'm not sure if this is a flaw on the DVD, or simply my DVD player acting up, some of the still shots refused to display long enough to take accurate readings, so I ended up “pausing” these screens to get the results I needed.  Maybe they should have allotted more time for the screens to display. 

Another thing to watch out for is make sure you have all your remotes handy!  I found myself switching between my 2 remotes for my TV and DVD player, and not using my universal remote I am so used to.  It is much better to have your equipments original remotes; finding the necessary settings is easier that way.

In the end, I would have to say running and calibrating the SpyderTV was pretty painless, no problems installing, and the software guides you through each process with ease.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I have been asked, “well, did it make a difference”?  I think it did.  Since changing the settings recommended by the SpyderTV, I have noticed the picture on my HD satellite has seemed to darken slightly, while improving sharpness and color.  Furthermore, I have also noticed the reds seem to be more in check, and blacks, well, blacks on this television have always been excellent, so it's hard to determine this.  Now I said slight because while I do notice somewhat of a change, I think that my original settings where close enough to not show a drastic change as to what was expected.  All in all, if you have spent a lot of money on your television already, it would make sense to purchase one of these in order to truly enjoy what your television has to offer, because, let's face it, televisions are never the same as what you saw in the showroom.

Eric

Gadgetboyz Team