Hands-On With the Apple TV's New Color Balance Calibration Feature

[mattopotamus]

First you'd have to find a TV without Dolby Vision....

I mean seriously, I purposely bought TV's with Dolby Vision when I upgraded my Apple TV's last time. And they are several years old now. And they weren't expensive TVs.

I can't imagine this is very useful to many.

It really needs to be more specific:

You can have a Dolby Vision TV, just not watching Dolby Vision content. The reason for this is DV has it's own profile that handles the color settings. IIRC, the only thing you can actually change with DV is the backlight settings.

 

[vipergts2207]

Just seems to crank up the warmth from everything I've seen from others.

My TV has 4K Doby Vision which takes care of balancing things between the Apple TV and the TV. Seems to do a much better job of adjusting based on content on its own.

It's a bit like those that try to use Mac Fan Control to adjust the fans on their Mac. Pretty sure the engineers who designed it know how to better operate it than you do. I'll trust the pros.

The long and short of it is that you're just watching fake HDR. Unless you've performed measurements with calibration equipment, your "better job" statement is meaningless and more likely than not, incorrect.

 

[wolfshades]

Tried mine about half a dozen times. Failed each time. I gave up.

As an update: I finally got mine to work. Prior to that, each time it would begin to calibrate, get halfway through and then fail.

I looked on Reddit for solutions. One guy said to turn off HDR+ on your TV set and then re-run the color calibration. I don't have that setting on my TV but in the video section of my TV settings there's one for "dynamic video" or "standard video". It was set to "dynamic" so I switched it to "standard" instead. Then I re-ran the color calibration and this time it worked!!

That's the good news.

The bad: totally not worth the time and effort. I ended up using the original (brighter) settings.

 

[Lemon Olive]

It really needs to be more specific:

You can have a Dolby Vision TV, just not watching Dolby Vision content. The reason for this is DV has it's own profile that handles the color settings. IIRC, the only thing you can actually change with DV is the backlight settings.

Yeah but if you have. DV tv, you should be using DV. Keep the Apple TV set to Dolby Vision and have Match content turned on for when the content isn't Dolby Vision.

There are still people who like to claim that the "right way" to do it is to your Apple TV to 4K SDR (as if the mode Apple prompts you for would ever be the "wrong" way)...which is about 4 years out of date information. People did that when the Apple TV 4K first came out because of software issues that were fixed a long time ago, lol.

 

[Kelly Jones]

The calibration worked well with my older LCD/IPS display. The original had a slight pink cast while the calibrated version was better.

 

[vipergts2207]

If you’ve gotten a 4K TV set up and calibrated by a professional, odds are you won’t see a difference. In fact, if you had a professional calibrate your tv, I’d recommend not even messing with this feature.

Even if your TV is calibrated, this still results in a better picture because the ATV has some inherent green push that this feature helps mitigate.

 

[skc176]

I did two TV's yesterday. Both went slightly warmer. Having watched some shows, the now calibrated screens looked a lot better. Subtle, but better. The viewing the results uncalibrated & calibrated may be subtle, but watching actual content shows a bigger improvement.

 

[Risco]

Not sure how to get it working. It says hold near tv, then preparing forever. What am I not doing?

 

[PTVMan]

Mine was never able to get past the "Preparing..." step. Just didn't work for me. I'll try again later.

Same here.

 

[fishmoose]

I can’t get past the stage where it tells me to tilt my iPhone. Anyone else experienced that?

 

[BF1M]

Made image slightly warmer…barely. That’s all. TV settings are fine as is…

 

[skc176]

Your information is vastly outdated.

I have my AppleTV set to 4K SDR and match content set to on. Menu's etc in Dolby Vision & HDR look blown out and over bright. After doing a some research, I came to the conclusion that AppleTV needs to be in SDR with match content.

Besides, most of content I have is in SDR and playing that in HDR or DV makes it look horrible.

 

[madsci954]

Tried it on mine. Every time it would cycle through the 3 colors, then white, then beige, then I get an Unable to Balance message saying I need to be closer. No matter how close, an inch, half an inch, directly touching the screen, with and without my phones case, no matter where in the targeted area, it never worked. I gave up.

 

[vipergts2207]

Yeah but if you have. DV tv, you should be using DV. Keep the Apple TV set to Dolby Vision and have Match content turned on for when the content isn't Dolby Vision.

There are still people who like to claim that the "right way" to do it is to your Apple TV to 4K SDR (as if the mode Apple prompts you for would ever be the "wrong" way)...which is about 4 years out of date information. People did that when the Apple TV 4K first came out because of software issues that were fixed a long time ago, lol.

Do you have proof that the screen savers were mastered in DV? If not, then this info is not out of date and is at best, inconclusive.

 

[unobtainium]

Your information is vastly outdated.

Enlighten me? I haven’t seen any updates on this from Apple. And enabling DV as default still leads to a dull and washed out looking menu on my up to date Apple TV..

 

[Optheduim]

I actually didn’t like the outcome, reverted to old coloring

 

[Bearxor]

Unfortunately it doesn't support a projector... since to put your phone one inch from the screen the shadow blocks the image it's supposed to be looking at.

For these sorts of things I just turn the phone around and put it next to the screen. Worked for Rock Band calibration.

 

[BJMRamage]

Not sure how long to hold it to the TV. The blue and white dots never changed and my arm was getting tired.

 

[mattopotamus]

Yeah but if you have. DV tv, you should be using DV. Keep the Apple TV set to Dolby Vision and have Match content turned on for when the content isn't Dolby Vision.

There are still people who like to claim that the "right way" to do it is to your Apple TV to 4K SDR (as if the mode Apple prompts you for would ever be the "wrong" way)...which is about 4 years out of date information. People did that when the Apple TV 4K first came out because of software issues that were fixed a long time ago, lol.

Well I guess the good news is that it doesn't seem to be making a difference for most people. Odds are the movie profile on your TV is equally as good. This really flipped a few years ago. I remember paying people years ago for calibrations and then trying to do it myself. Now most high end TVs come out of the box perfectly fine with a movie profile. They are 99% of the way to being calibrated.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Anyone done it on a plasma?

Results?

 

[skc176]

Yeah but if you have. DV tv, you should be using DV. Keep the Apple TV set to Dolby Vision and have Match content turned on for when the content isn't Dolby Vision.

There are still people who like to claim that the "right way" to do it is to your Apple TV to 4K SDR (as if the mode Apple prompts you for would ever be the "wrong" way)...which is about 4 years out of date information. People did that when the Apple TV 4K first came out because of software issues that were fixed a long time ago, lol.

So, are you suggesting I leave my AppleTV on DV and set Match Content on?

 

[skc176]

Anyone done it on a plasma?

Results?

Yes. An 11 year old LG Plasma. Made it slightly warmer. Content looked a lot better

 

[turbineseaplane]

Yes. An 11 year old LG Plasma. Made it slightly warmer. Content looked a lot better

Great to hear!
Excited to try it tonight on my Panny 60

 

[Lemon Olive]

So, are you suggesting I leave my AppleTV on DV and set Match Content on?

Yes.

 

[gadgetfreak98]

Anyone done it on a plasma?

Results?

Did it on my 9th Gen Pioneer Elite Kuro. Could discern no difference whatsoever. But I had gone through all the calibration stuff with that years ago with the calibration DVDs, some PC application and a lot of other headaches. I guess I did it right.