[old_tv_nut]

Too cold vs. too vivid is an interesting description - maybe I don't understand what you mean, but try this:

Turn the color all the way down. Is the picture reasonably neutral, or does it have a blue (or some other) tint? If it's not neutral, you need to adjust the cutoff (screen, or G2) controls. If the whole picture has some odd tint to it with the color off, it will be very hard to set a satisfactory color level.