Settings on a TV, to prolong TV's life
 

Just bought a new HDTV CRT. Once in the house and turned on, the pictures look OK. I'm new to the HD TV arena so it'll probably take me some time to figure out when I'm looking at an optimum picture.

I'm getting familiar with calibration and may try to do that one day but until then I'm wondering what settings I should be looking to lower or adjust to best prolong the life of my TV? I'm wondering if having "picture", "brightness", "color" or other things like that too high will burn out my tube before its supposed to. Thank you in advance for your help.

take it off the factory setting (vivid/super bright) and lower the picture down.

Picture is also called Contrast in some TVs. It will probably be set at about 30% of its scale when adjusted properly, maybe even lower. Best bet is to pick up a calibration DVD and use it to help get the settings correct. Digital Video Essentials is less than $20 and worth double that.