These days everyone has high quality, High Definition TVs and huge computer displays. We spend hundreds each year on TV's and Displays yet sadly more often than not we are not using the display to its full capability's. This guide is aimed at people who want to get the best picture out of there display. There are a lot of factors to consider when getting the right image for you, but there are a few basic rules to follow:

Never have your TV placed in a position were sunlight or artificial light can effect your viewing. Not only will this annoy you but in time it may lead to eye strain.

If you have a 52" TV and sit 2 feet away your going to have problems. Always sit in a comfortable position were all of the screen is within your viewing distance. Try to balance the distance by viewing text on a screen, if it appears blurred or distorted the chances are your either to close or to far away from the display.

People often turn there light off when watching a movie or TV, although this may seem to make the picture more viewable over time it can put strain on your eyes due to the high brightness and have a negative effect on your viewing. Try to make the room dim with lighting but not black, for best results your light switch can be adjusts to have a dimmer switch for maximum brightness controls.

Always run your Television or display in its native resolution, as this is what your display was designed around and will display the best picture quality at. Consult your displays user guide to find out its native resolution.

In HDTV setups remember that P (progressive scan) is superior to I (interlaced). Progressive display the full number of picture lines whilst I misses a line each time and runs them at a refresh rate of 30hz. This can cause the display to flicker or show weakness with moving and static objects that appear on the screen.

Most of the time, not much time or effort goes into these settings and they are not always right for every viewer.

Turn up the brightness on your display to the maximum settings and with a still image on your screen gradually bring down the brightness until blacks appear black and whites appear white. The best way to do this is find and image that shows detail for example a wall with a pattern on or a shirt with creases. Adjust the brightness until these details can be seen.

Set the contrast to full and with a still image reduce the contrast till shadowed areas appear black. Its important that there not gray or washed, the deeper the black the better although if areas that shouldnt be black or gray appear darker you have reduced the contrast to much. Try to get a natural level of contrast that looks as life like as possible. Note that some cheaper dislays will never display jet blacks and the higher quailty of the the display panal the deaper the blacks, try to get the best black you can with out effecting the picture.

Again turn the setting to its maximum and get a still image of a person onto your screen and bring the level down until the skin tone looks natural and balanced. try to get the skin so its not to pale or sun burnt and displays a good amount of detail.

Many HD displays are very sharp due to the high picture quality and to much sharpness can result in jaggy edges. As a rule of thumb turn the sharpness down as much as you can without the image becoming blurred. Static Text is the best way of detecting jaggy and blurred edges.

Settings like colour temperature (The shades of white) can be altered to personally choice and other settings like refresh rate should always be set to the setting recommended by your device such as an Xbox 360 or HD-DVD or DVD player, The standard for modern devices is 60hz .
If you follow these steps your well on your way to display perfection, getting the image right for your eyes and your lighting conditions will make your viewing pleasure more pleasurable than ever.