The 21st century version of Snake Oil.

Worse yet, last year I tried to go in a buy a copy of one of the calibration DVDs (such as Digital Video Essentials or Avia) to help calibrate my dad's new TV. I had used the Avia disc to calibrate my TV with great success. Unfortunately, neither Circuit City and Best Buy no longer carry the DVDs. Instead, both salespeople tried to sell me a visit from the Geek Squad and Firedog instead.

I was thinking more like the 21st century version of sea monkeys...

Electronics retail... your end is near.

How is this not illegal?...sounds to me like blatant false advertising. It's no different than me offering "eXtreme professional window cleaning service!" then just come to your house and spray your windows with windex and wipe it down with a paper towel...

WTF, don't TV's do this automatically? Am I that far out of touch? C'mon!!!

Comment on Insiders: Circuit City's In-Home TV Calibration Is A Total Scam I use the AVIA "calibration" disc at home for my theater. They make a HUGE difference on my LCD, Plasma, and Projector. Perhaps the OP had a TV that did not need very much calibration. Most tuning can be done without calibration equipment. The "professional" calibration techs are certified and charge more than Circuit City does.

Hell, at least when BB or CC sell you a box of rocks you actually get a box of rocks.

Are these the glasses used? THX Glasses

If so, get them for two bucks, pop in a THX DVD and DIY!

If I were you I would refuse to do a calibration until you were properly trained on how to do an ACTUAL calibration. I'd risk termination. If I were terminated I would go to the unemployment office and make my case. Take some pictures of the glasses and what not if you can. Unemployment Department would LOVE to hear this case, if the employer argues and shows proof that you preformed calibrations in the past, just let Unemployment know that the only reason you did those were under threat duress and coercion of your employer and in (as bush says) these "depressing economic times" or "in this economic slowdown, whatever you want to call it", you felt you had no choice, but now you just can't take it any more and did not want you yourself to become liable of suit from a customer.

I searched on the CC page for Firedog services and found them listed on this page.
I don't see any service that is exclusively for calibration, or even includes calibration. Can someone find a listing for this service? Getting the terms of the deal would be the first step in determining how fraudulent this service might be. Depending on how its worded or what is offered it may unfortunately be totally legal to dupe people into paying for essentially nothing.
Gauging from the prices for any non-installation services though, it's a ripoff all around. Consolidating remotes to a 1-touch is $99+!!

That sucks! I know at Best Buy, the installer tht performs the calibration uses a laptop and a calibration unit. There is only one guy trained in my district to do it and he had to go to the company that made the calibration unit for training for like a month. At least we don't use a DVD.

@Doofio: "Calibration" is a very loose term in terms of what constitutes a calibration. If they adjust a single setting on your TV, they have "calibrated" it. To what? Who knows? But they did.

It's not illegal. It's a scummy way to take advantage of people who don't know what they're buying and don't care enough to find out. Immoral and dishonest, sure. It's also how plenty of companies built their fortunes.

@jtheletter:

"depending on the way it's worded" if it's wording is deceptive the FTC would pwn them.

@jtheletter: When I worked for CC, it was common practice to make up our own "services" and ring them up under other UPCs. Firedog had a UPC for "1 hour of labor." That's what it was defined as on any and all documents. That was also the one used for anything that wasn't an install or delivery.

It's commonplace for CC to make up their own services and later find a UPC to fit it. Just because it's not listed doesn't mean they don't do it. They just ring you up for one thing and do another.

This guy is a moron. I've used several different calibration dvd's, including the CC version, and they do help in setting up the best picture. The onscreen instructions of the CC dvd were particularly easy to follow. The only special training you need is how to push the buttons on the tv remote. Some televisions may have a 'secret' access panel for more in depth adjustments, but the majority of users have no need to make them.

@FreeMarketGravy: It very much sickens me that not only do you say this was occurring (and probably still is), but that you took place in it. Likewise with the OP. If your boss threatens you for doing the right thing, go to corporate. If that fails, go public. There are other jobs that don't require lying to paying customers.

something very wrong with this

Please don't confuse the term "calibration," which in color management terms, means bringing the device to a known and accepted standard state. Simply choosing "Factory Defaults" can be termed a "calibration."

Also, anyone who thinks they can "calibrate" without an instrument is truly a scam artist. Every human sees the range of color differently.

I love going into these big box electronics places and asking the salesperson, "which one is color correct, and how do you know?"

I've done proper calibrations on TV's, projectors, and monitors. I don't trust my eyes for a second, or the client's either for that matter, but I can provide a printout of the actual settings made and the actual instrument readings that prove it's "calibrated." That way if some fatfinger decides to change it from "calibrated" to "pleasing" the client can calibrate it back to what it was when I left by themselves.

Any rube paying FireSquad to "calibrate" deserves to watch all their TV shows with their blue-colored 3D glasses on, because that's the filter it was "calibrated" with.

While Circuit City techs may not know how to do it, it is common practice to use blue filters along with a color bar pattern when adjusting video monitors. Some commercial monitors actually have a switch that turns off all the colors except blue for this purpose. The fact that they're using blue glasses does not, in itself, make this bogus.

It's just like the "sealants" car dealers try to sell you. They take the car out back, put a sticker in the window, and bring it back 30 minutes later.

1. Undercoating is done at the factory. Just stick your hand underneath one of the wheel wells and see if it doesn't come back covered in black goo. Smear some on the salesman's tie if he tries to sell you what's already on the car.

2. Paint "sealant" is sold in every Pep Boys for about six bucks a can. It's called Turtle Wax.

3. Upholstery sealant is sold in every supermarket for about three bucks a can. It's called Scotchgard.

Apply the same principles to Circuit City that you do at Cheatham Chevrolet, and you'll do just fine. I guess if you can't remove a TV from its box, plug it in, and set up the channels with the handy on-screen menus (or plug in your cable box), you're beyond help. Conversely, any TV set that requires professional installation isn't worth the purchase price. Is it suddenly 1950 again or something?

@howie_in_az: I was an operations manager. I never told any employees to do it myself, but others did and I didn't overrule them since the store manager was one of the managers doing it. I wasn't about to risk my job because of a minor moral compunction.

At least go to the proper AVS forum for your TV and find the preferred settings, often worked out by input source too.

Good starter link for you:

[www.avsforum.com]

Hint one- many LCDs/Plasmas are set to "blowtorch" out of the box so they will look bright and vibrant under the often harsh lighting in stores. A few quick adjustments will make your new TV look much better- and you can do them for free!

Real calibration requires an Imaging Sciences Foundation-certified technician, takes at least a few hours, and costs hundreds of dollars. And it's actually worth it.

Firedog and Geek Squad need to move to hell and get a civil union.

@Lucky225:

Your heart is in the right place but that's a bit idealistic & naive. Sure he can sue to keep his job, and if cutting his hours, scheduling him overnight, etc don't work, they'll find other ways to make him leave voluntarily.

I hate that this sh*t goes on as much as anyone, but considering the recession and unemployment rates of late, I don't blame the OP for having food on his table as his first priority.

As others have said, GO to the AVS forum (google it) and search for your television model number. There are a lot of wonderful intelligent and informed posters on that site. Most of the time the message thread for your tv will have somebody posting their settings.

And remember to turn down the backlight setting if you have one - they are often way too bright for your applications.

@nick_r:
Bullshit.
Anyone can take the Avia or Video Essentials DVD, a little time and calibrate their TV as well as some assclown with a certificate.

This ties in nicely to an article last week I think, about why people don't get their surround sound setup professionally. The fact is if you pay someone to do it for you, you're admitting that you have no idea whats going on and you invite giving away your money for a service you're not likely to be able to appreciate even if they do really do a proper job.

@FreeMarketGravy:
So you consider it a [B]minor[/B] moral cumpunction taking peoples' money and not actually doing the service they paid you for?

@Doofio: that woudlnt be illegal, you arent promissing anything so its just marketing.

What these guys are doing is illegal, but then again, the arguement could be made that the tv was already calibrated, so unless they say that your tv is not precalibrated at the factory, then its not illegal. How something looks is going to be different depending on the person, so its intangible, and really hard to argue against it.

@EyeHeartPie: They get told a salesperson will come to their house and "calibrate" their TV for, let's say, $50. They pay $50 and the salesperson goes to their house and does a CC calibration that I, personally, know is worthless and accomplishes nothing.

Yes, that is a minor moral compunction to me. There's nothing I can do about it besides stay as distanced as I could, personally, from it. I know it's nice to think we can all just walk away from jobs where our supervisors do things we don't agree with, but that's simply not realistic.

Also, as others have said, if you're willing to open up your wallet to a salesperson pushing a "calibration" on you without finding out exactly what it is and what they're going to do, then you either don't care about the money you're forking over or you don't care enough to become educated about the high priced item you're buying/have bought.

@FreeMarketGravy:
*sigh* I guess that's how it is, and how it will stay unless someone changes how those big box stores do business, which is extremely unlikely.

The best way to do something would be to push to make "calibration" an officially offered service, so that CC would be required to state what they will do and then stick to it, or give a refund. None of this "call it a 'calibration' and charge them for 'one hour's worth of labor'". Since Firedog doesn't officially offer a calibration, they can do whatever they want and say they did what they were paid to do, while only charging an hour of labor, so then the customer has no ground to stand on.

If it really makes you feel guilty and terrible, why would you want to keep the job? Get a new job, you sound at least somewhat qualified for something else, or better.

@WV.Hillbilly: I call bullshit on your calling bullshit. A proper ISF calibration is a lot more in-depth -- and accurate -- than eyeballing the user-mode settings with Video Essentials.

If you're happy with what you get using VE, that's great, but if you think the results from a quick-and-dirty VE session are equivalent to the results a knowledgeable tech with actual calibration equipment would get, you're fooling yourself.

@EyeHeartPie: And ultimately, that's it. We (putting myself back into the role of an operations manager for a moment) are all pawns. We can't change the rules of the game and if you try to play the game by a different set of rules, you get thrown out of the building. All you can do is keep your head down and try to cheat every once in a while. Depressing, but that's how retail works and it's, as you said, unlikely to change.

You're right in that it should be offered as a normal service, but this is CC's modus operandi and it doesn't just apply to this sort of thing. Remember the post from a while ago where a store offered to (illegally!) copy DVDs and CDs for a fee? Same thing. CC stores make up their own specials and play around with the UPCs to make it all look somewhat legit. It's one of the many reasons the company's in such rough shape. You can only play fast and loose with everything for so long before it comes back to bite you.

@MT: I do have a new one. At the time, I was dealing with things like rent, car insurance, etc. and was up against a bone dry job market in NJ.

@LazloNibble: Word.

Um, this is a surprise why??? Please. C'mon, huh. CC is a joke, and Fireslog is an even bigger joke. Untrained, minimum wage, inexperienced, unskilled MORONS. CC is even WORSE than BB, and THAT'S saying a LOT. Will be glad to see these clowns finally go under. Then, at least, Mcd's will have more employees to choose from

@LazloNibble: No doubt true, but an "official calibration" would be wasted in a home setting. To be truly correct a real calibration involves not just the settings on the set itself, but the color of the area around it and the color temperature and brightness of the lighting in the room.

What people are doing with Avia DVDs isn't a proper calibration, but it *is* adjusting the set optimally for their environment.

@highmodulus: I concur about AVS Forum. If you don't want to, or don't know how to, figure out the appropriate settings for your TV, go to AVS Forum. The people there really know their stuff.

Try as I might to setup my TV correctly, it still looked like crap. I went to AVS forum for help. I found posted settings for my TV. Voila, my picture looks 100 times better.

@Ex_EA_Slave: And you're an asshole, what's your point?

People don't want accurate color reproduction in their televisions, they want a "good picture." "Good" in this context meaning bright, contrasty, and highly saturated.

The first thing any photographer who's just been shown how to effectively utilize Photoshop's soft proofing features to give them an accurate representation of what's going to come out of their printer says is "that looks terrible." Doesn't matter if it matches the print in the viewing booth perfectly, they don't like it and they put the colorimeters they thought they couldn't live without on the shelf, never to touch them again.

If you can see details in the shadows and the highlights, and neutrally colored objects do not appear to be overly pink or green, then your television is calibrated perfectly. Let the pre-press people who actually need color management worry about accuracy and enjoy your Michael Bay collection in your room full of incandescent light bulbs and multi-hued furnishings which are throwing off your color perception anyway.