Remember when Best Buy was using HD channels to make “Calibrated” televisions seem miraculously better? Well, their methods have changed, but using different cables to improve definition doesn’t mean they’ve improved.

From Tipster Mike’s Email:

I was at a Best Buy a few days ago and ran into a “Calibration” display. In the 1st picture you can see the top TV is “Calibrated”, while the bottom TV is “Not Calibrated”. Now I admit that the supposedly calibrated TV did look slightly better than its non-calibrated counterpart. I decided to see what cabling was hooked up to the TV’s and saw that the calibrated TV had an HDMI cable hooked up to it (2nd picture), while the other had component cables hooked up to it (3rd picture). This disturbed me a bit because nowhere on the display did it mention this fact. The average consumer would look at the display, see the TV’s and think that the only difference between the TV’s was the calibration. I called over one of their oh-so-helpful employees and asked them to describe what calibration meant. His explanation involved someone who has some certifications messing with the color combo’s till they feel that the TV “looks good”.

At this point I pointed out to him the difference in cables (HDMI/Component) and asked him if this would contribute to the differences in visual quality between the two TV’s. The Best Buy employee then told me that there is no difference between HDMI and Component. Which is downright not true for a variety of reasons.

So, is the salesperson incompetent, or an outright liar? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Photo:[Design Boner]

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