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I routinely watch local TV stations OTA since I don't have cable, satellite, or a streaming service subscription that includes them. Therefore I watch those directly through my Sony Bravia's system which happens to be Android TV version 9. I also watch programming via my Fire TV Cube, and of course my ATV 4K. The ATV 4K calibration only works with programming viewed via my ATV 4K. Therefore watching via the TV's system or Fire TV Cube won’t show the calibrated (balanced) colors. So that makes it easy to do a comparison.
I watched a lot of local OTA TV last night as well as ATV 4K streaming. I really couldn't tell much difference between the two. That is, the uncalibrated colors displayed for OTA TV programming looked pretty much like the calibrated (balanced) colors displayed for ATV 4K programming. I really had to strain to see that the ATV 4K colors were slightly warmer and as a result slightly better, at least for my eyes.
I’m really not sure whether the ATV 4K calibration feature is doing a good job or not. Quite frankly I think my Sony Bravia came with very accurate colors out of the box. So I didn't really expect much improvement. I do a lot of photography as a hobby, and I know quite a bit about accurate color, so I knew my TV was already pretty accurate. Looking at comments in various forums a lot of others are saying they don't see much improvement either, but they could also have fairly accurate TVs. A few are amazed at the improvements they see. Perhaps they have inaccurate TVs. No way of telling without doing a lot of research. But the fact that the calibration didn't mess up the colors is a good sign. Very few people thought the calibration failed or made their colors worse. I suspect it also matters on whether one calibrates a color option that is close to the factory settings or one that they have manipulated quite a bit. Sometime garbage in equals garbage out. In other words, a person who prefers to see very red faces or ghastly blue tints on everything will likely be unhappy with the corrections the calibration makes.
Color accuracy is a scientific thing, but more accurate colors might not appeal to everyone. If someone prefers really vivid colors, even if they are not accurate, then more power to them. They should watch whatever makes then feel warm and fuzzy. Even the worst TVs today are way better than the first color TV my family had back in 1970. Good grief the colors were horrible and faded, and they drifted around the screen too! But by gosh it was color so we thought we were in tall cotton. (Sorry for the local colloquialism!)
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