Big Box Retailers Using Shifty Tactics?

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OMG! Say it isn’t so! Big box retailers would resort to tricks like this to sell a service? No way! I can’t believe a company would do such a thing! ;)

As seen in the picture tipster Robert took, the "calibrated" one is noticeably better. That's because it's showing ESPN HD and the one on the left is showing just regular ESPN. You can also see how a set of box have been placed in front of the non-calibrated tv on the left so you can't see that's it not ESPN HD.
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Not in MY store. Their home theater supervisor should be shot. Calibrated TV's do look way better, but using deception isn't the way.

Now before everybody starts the "let's piss on best buy" fest ... it's possible that an idiot associate or even a customer changed the channel or connected something so that it would appear this way ... unless you know for sure that they are doing this intentionally.
 
SirKronan said:
Not in MY store. Their home theater supervisor should be shot. Calibrated TV's do look way better, but using deception isn't the way.

Now before everybody starts the "let's piss on best buy" fest ... it's possible that an idiot associate or even a customer changed the channel or connected something so that it would appear this way ... unless you know for sure that they are doing this intentionally.
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I have worked at a few BB stores in the past and I am willing to bet that they are doing this intentionally
 
So how do you "calibrate" a LCD or Plasma other than sticking in an AVIA DVD and adjusting the contrast and levels? Personally, I think calibration is all a matter of personal preference anyways. I’ve “calibrated” my projector and found it to be too muted on some content (like sporting events and older movies). Granted it usually look fine on newer content in a 100% light controlled environment…
 
Best Buy isn't the only ones that do this kind of stuff.

I have seen the Walmart near me do similar stuff. Some tvs didn't have all their cables plugged in all the way so that some tvs would have weird colors. Some tvs had contrast and / or brightness set at weird settings. I pissed off the employees by telling them that they need to go through and reset all of the tvs to the correct defaults settings so that they stop misleading customers and ripping them off with their bullshit when there were a small group of people looking at the tvs. Of course the Visios always had the best color and picture quality.
 
Wow, that's just totally immoral and unethical... So, what's new in the world of retail :p
 
Because it is a question... ;)



...with that said, how many times did you guys see crappy SD content being displayed on a split screen with Blu-ray on the other half to "demonstrate" the difference between Br - HD DVD?

This is a common practice but they rarely get busted as good as they got busted here.


Pretty funny all the way around.
 
I saw something very similar in my local best buy a few years back. They had a kiosk setup for one of those monster power conditioners. Two identical dvd players hooked up to two identical hdtvs. One was hooked up with an hdmi cable, with other with composite (yellow, red and white). Guess which one corresponded to the monster product.
 
AlienKing said:
I saw something very similar in my local best buy a few years back. They had a kiosk setup for one of those monster power conditioners. Two identical dvd players hooked up to two identical hdtvs. One was hooked up with an hdmi cable, with other with composite (yellow, red and white). Guess which one corresponded to the monster product.
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Haha, yeah I saw a display like that too at Fry's Electronics. Funny thing is, with the content they were playing, it was almost hard to tell which was which...
 
My favorite tactic is what the Staples I used to live near did for specials. About a week prior to a planned sale, they would jack the prices up so that they could put everything on special for a normal price.
 
AlienKing said:
I saw something very similar in my local best buy a few years back. They had a kiosk setup for one of those monster power conditioners. Two identical dvd players hooked up to two identical hdtvs. One was hooked up with an hdmi cable, with other with composite (yellow, red and white). Guess which one corresponded to the monster product.
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They do a similar thing here in the UK at Comet and Curry's. They have blu-ray players hooked up to the tv's and connect the new range tv's (LG and Sony) via HDMI and most others via scart or composite (Samsung and Sharp etc)
 
Live and let die. Even though this bullshit is probably illegal, who is actually going to take the time to enforce this kind of crap! People are idiots or a fool and his money will soon be parted.

Joe Blow is going to keep spending stupid amounts of money on stupid things, so we can get the stuff we want for as cheap as we want (and charge Joe Blow as much as we can).
 
It could also just be a dumb associate.

I was at Best buy, and an associate told me that a certain monitor sucked, it made everything look like crap. I changed the resolution from 1280x1024 to 1680x1050, and it 'magically' made everything look ok. Never underestimate a stupid associate.
 
tel0004 said:
It could also just be a dumb associate.

I was at Best buy, and an associate told me that a certain monitor sucked, it made everything look like crap. I changed the resolution from 1280x1024 to 1680x1050, and it 'magically' made everything look ok. Never underestimate a stupid associate.
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On the same token he could be paid to act like an idiot while having a full understanding why Monitor A would look worse than Monitor B (which costs $200 more than Monitor A)...

Best Buy has learned not to talk to me, because I run circles around most of their sales floor people... Though there are some Geek Squad members at the local Best Buy who know a good bit of stuff and are fun to hold conversations with...
 
I used to be a Best Buy employee and if I noticed somethig like this at my store I would make
sure that those responsible were punished and that the display is taken down. I would go to
corporate about this and I would risk my job on it too.
 
So how do you "calibrate" a LCD or Plasma other than sticking in an AVIA DVD and adjusting the contrast and levels? Personally, I think calibration is all a matter of personal preference anyways. I’ve “calibrated” my projector and found it to be too muted on some content (like sporting events and older movies). Granted it usually look fine on newer content in a 100% light controlled environment…
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http://www.imagingscience.com/

There are ISF technicians that bring a special box to your house and plug this box into the "Service" port in your TV. They go through a BUNCH of real calibration routines to get the best picture from the TV based on the light in the room.

This service: 1. Is not cheap, and 2. DOES make a difference!

I used Digital Video Essentials, and then for giggles PAID the money to get am ISF Technician out to see if he could calibrate better than what I could do with DVE: after his procedure, there was a marked difference in picture quality favoring the ISF technician.

If you have a 42" TV or larger, I wholly recommend findinf a dealer with an ISF technician, paying the money and having them come out and calibrate your TV.

Oh, and Best Buy's Magnolia Division has ISF Technicians in each store. I still wouldn't use them, though because I have "just in case..." mentality with BB.
 
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Some may already know this, but you can calibrate your HD tv using the THX set up in just about any Pixar DVD.
 
I did the same thing, I thought my hand job on my 60 incher was good but then paid to have it done and was floored.

MacGyver467 said:
http://www.imagingscience.com/

There are ISF technicians that bring a special box to your house and plug this box into the "Service" port in your TV. They go through a BUNCH of real calibration routines to get the best picture from the TV based on the light in the room.

This service: 1. Is not cheap, and 2. DOES make a difference!

I used Digital Video Essentials, and then for giggles PAID the money to get am ISF Technician out to see if he could calibrate better than what I could do with DVE: after his procedure, there was a marked difference in picture quality favoring the ISF technician.

If you have a 42" TV or larger, I wholly recommend findinf a dealer with an ISF technician, paying the money and having them come out and calibrate your TV.

Oh, and Best Buy's Magnolia Division has ISF Technicians in each store. I still wouldn't use them, though because I have "just in case..." mentality with BB.
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It's bad enough that they can't get a clean signal to their PC monitors. They all look like crap.
 
Best Buy has always been in the shady business. This comes as no surprise.
 
So what exactly would the motive be behind doing this to two nearly identical LG screens?
 
Perhaps they are just trying to show people the difference between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratio on a big LCD/plasma TV? Sad but true, I still see people who don't know how to properly setup their hi-def set top box or disc player to display the correct aspect ratio for their brand new widescreen TV.
 
With many displays, there is a lot more to calibration than simply adjusting contrast, brightness, sharpness, color, and tint. There is actually calibrating the grayscale properly...
 
Um, wouldnt they be showing the same thing on both tv's? I guess there could be a delay (my hd is delayed)... but um i dunno... they look like similar models but yea... with the economy the way it is you think they would want to sell everything... oh well... whoever is buying them has more money then me so i hope they buy the more expensive one :p :D
 
nevermind... lol i just looked at the pic again and it said "difference in calibration" ... epic phail
 
I suspect this is a dumb queston, but if these screens need to be calibrated to look their best, why isn't this done automagically by the manufacturers?
 
Calibration can provide great benefits, not just in accurate color reproduction but also prolonged life on bulb based displays. While this is truly sad to try and sell calibration in such a manor, it should not be a reason to discount calibration in general.

I am trained by ISF, have taken the course and passed the test, I also personally purchased the 30K+ worth of test equipment so I can provide my customers who spend a good amount of money with the best picture and sound quality available.
 
MrSneis said:
I suspect this is a dumb queston, but if these screens need to be calibrated to look their best, why isn't this done automagically by the manufacturers?
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There are 2 reasons this does not happen, first each viewing environment is different and that will greatly influence picture quality of the display. Secondly and the reason calibration has become such a necessity is that the manufacturers intentionally bias the video to look good on a show room floor, competing against the other displays and florescent lights.

Some manufacturers have finally started to see the light so to speak and offer correct color modes as an option. Others have gone farther and have implemented service menus that are actually calibrator friendly providing easy access to the necessary controls to provide a truly accurate picture.
 
Ramp8g said:
Some may already know this, but you can calibrate your HD tv using the THX set up in just about any Pixar DVD.
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That's not the same thing. That's not even as good as what you'd attain with Digital Video Essentials or Avia

Professional calibration takes several hours and expensive software and equipment (think Gretag Macbeth's pro software and a nice spectrometer to go with it).

Now it could be that if you have a really really good set, you might be able to do nothing or eyeball it and get decent results, but the pro will still do better.


I'm not sure that adjusting the brightness makes a big difference on the life of the set, but they sure look better when they're not running hot.
 
obviouslytom said:
I have worked at a few BB stores in the past and I am willing to bet that they are doing this intentionally
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Having worked at one, I can verify that while it may not be happening at all stores, some stores do things like this to sell higher margin TV's. The one I worked at was notorious for setting the brightness and contrast to ridiculous levels on TVs that didn't have much margin to them to make them look shitty and faded. That stopped when they got a new manager. How they are doing things now I couldn't tell you.
 
Steve said:
Because it is a question... ;)



...with that said, how many times did you guys see crappy SD content being displayed on a split screen with Blu-ray on the other half to "demonstrate" the difference between Br - HD DVD?

This is a common practice but they rarely get busted as good as they got busted here.


Pretty funny all the way around.
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Sony isn't much better with some of their endcap displays to promote Blu-Ray. That isn't really the retailer's deal so much as its Sony's.
 
OH NOES!!! What kind of world is it when you can't even trust the big corporations anymore?!?!?

If this doesn't strike you as a big "DUH", then you've likely been ripped off by these shmoes.

I used to work at CompUSA, and while I never saw anything on THIS scale of epic asshattery, there was some pretty questionable stuff going on at that store, not the least of which was rampant employee theft, which was probably a good reason why they got shut down.
 
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