standard vs cinema/movie mode?

[JLA]

so i have an lg 26 inch led/lcd tv. whats better for blurays Standard picture settings or the cinema feature?

[quickdraw]

TV manufacturers have these presets, but in all honesty, I've never liked or used these presets because to me, they generally look terrible. There are many things that need to be taken into consideration in order to get the "right" settings for you display, like how dark is the room when you watch TV, do you have the lights on in the room or do you turn them off when watching a movie? Thankfully, you can tweak the colors, saturation, brightness, tint and contrast to each mode until they look right to your eyes. There are also calibration kits that optimize the picture through a series of test screens. You might also sniff around the internet on AV forums for your particular model and see if anyone has some specific settings that they prefer and try them out for yourself. Then if it's close to what you want, tweak it further until you see something you like. There really isn't any right or wrong here, but your own preferences.

[Alan Brown]

Originally Posted by quickdraw

..... Then if it's close to what you want, tweak it further until you see something you like. There really isn't any right or wrong here, but your own preferences.

There most definitely is right and wrong practice when it comes to video picture adjustment and display device calibration. These remarks are made by many video consumers who are ignorant of, or simply don't care about, the industry standards that preserve correct video program reproduction. In the video program production and delivery segments of the video industry, personal preference rests only in the content creator's decisions. Every step in the process to record, duplicate, and distribute the program after that is regulated and guided by standards bodies, such as the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE).

Unfortunately, video display manufacturers don't educate their customers very well on how to use their product to achieve more authentic pictures. One exception to this is the THX mode offered on the better displays. Copying picture adjustment menu settings values from another owner of your make/model of TV is not a reliable method to achieve an accurate image. This has become a very widespread and persistent myth in the videophile and hobbyist community. Consumer displays do not use close tolerance electronic components. Therefore, two TVs coming off the assembly line don't behave identically. They require different settings to make identical pictures.

What a viewer "likes" can differ dramatically from a correctly calibrated image. The program producer approved the final "look" of a video program while viewing it on a calibrated professional video monitor before it is distributed for broadcast or optical disc duplication. The audience is not allowed to adjust how the picture behaves in commercial cinemas. That medium is also standardized in similar fashion to the video industry. Professional technicians are responsible for calibrating and maintaining the equipment and performance in the cinema. The consumer end of video program distribution is not as reliable, unless the equipment is calibrated properly according to industry standardized best practices.

If this is all news to you, you are in the majority. The home technology/entertainment forums serve as a resource for more complete and accurate information in this field. Another good source for tutorials and demonstrations are the popular home theater setup programs on optical disc such as the Disney 'World Of Wonder' program, the 'Digital Video Essentials' series from Joe Kane Productions, the 'Avia Guide To Home Theater' series now out of print, and the 'Spears & Munsil HD Benchmark' Blu-ray Disc

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.
A Lion AV Consultants affiliate

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

[steve1971]

When watching Blu's my tv is set to Cinema. I also use Cinema for normal tv viewing as well.

[Flatnate]

I would start with the cinema mode, then find a disc that has a picture calibration tool, or a specifically designed calibration disc and use that to make some fine adjustments to contrast, and brightness. Just follow the directions on the disc. Generally I don't screw around with tint or any of that on a display that doesn't have a full color management system (meaning a highly specific set of controls for adjusting a whole slew of stuff like RGB, gamma, etc..). Once your done tweeking it slightly, you can usually save these adjustments under something like "user1".

[quickdraw]

Originally Posted by Alan Brown

What a viewer "likes" can differ dramatically from a correctly calibrated image. The program producer approved the final "look" of a video program while viewing it on a calibrated professional video monitor before it is distributed for broadcast or optical disc duplication. The audience is not allowed to adjust how the picture behaves in commercial cinemas. That medium is also standardized in similar fashion to the video industry. Professional technicians are responsible for calibrating and maintaining the equipment and performance in the cinema. The consumer end of video program distribution is not as reliable, unless the equipment is calibrated properly according to industry standardized best practices."

I don't doubt Mr. Brown's expertise or knowledge on this subject and I'm sure his intentions are well placed, but part of the reason why people like viewing movies at home is that in many movie theaters, the experience can be dreadful to say the least, and it's nice to be in your own home controlling what you see and how you see it. What the viewer "likes" is ultimately what matters, including how they view their HDTV, whether or not it is compliance with industry standards. Although it is true that "professional technicians" create the standards for cinema and video, it is also true that there's a lot of cinema and movie transfers which are complete visual trainwrecks in chromatic terms even with these standards in place. Also, not everyone can afford $300 or more for a video technician to come to their house and calibrate their screens. If you choose to have your HDTV calibrated by a certified tech, I'm sure Mr. Brown would be your guy, but I suspect most people are the DIY types. BTY, the Spears and Munsil disk which Mr. Brown referenced is supposed to be really great but unfortunately it is currently OOP with a re-release date sometime next year. If you can't wait that long or are casually interested in screen calibration, I have used the AVS HD 709 disk / program to help me get some of the basic settings dialed in. Again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder so even after calibration you'll probably still end up tweaking it a bit to your own taste, but at least you'll get the basic settings as optimal as you perceive them to be.

For those of you interested in downloading the AVS HD 709 (it's free), it is available here:

http:/www.avsforum.com/t/948496/avs-hd-709-blu-ray-mp4-calibration

Since most people don't have a Blu Ray burner, you can still download it and burn it on a DVD and get the same results. You will want to download the AVCHD (.exe) or AVCHD (.7z) version depending on your computer's operating system, expand the file and burn it to disk as per the directions listed. There's a nice tutorial video included on the disk which gives you step by step directions on setting brightness, contrast, color and tint. There's also a PDF which you can download that gives you additional hints on how to use the disk. The disk is essentially various test patterns, color scales and gray scales with suggested threshold settings (interestingly, the hosts on the video tutorial will tell you that some of baseline threshold settings on the scale aren't what they recommend). Again, this is a great starting point for those of you interested in a baseline calibration of your monitor and best of all, it's free.