dvd/bd for calibrating your set

[Amon37]

Can someone explain the benefits of this disc Avia II.

[Deciazulado]

The Avia discs have test patterns and tones, so you can calibrate your display/home theater/sound system.

Besides the regular color bars you see on some DVDs and tv, it has much more advanced patterns and images.

You use it to set black level (brigthness), whitle level (contrast), saturation (color) adjust the sharpness settings, check for overscan (check if part of the image is missing and how much, on your display) and if you have instruments, set grey levels (color temperature) and other nifty stuff. If you follow the standards you'll get your display to look as close as possible to the way the displays are set where they do the film transfers.

Well at least that's the theory. I sometimes wonder where do they set their black level
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[theknub]

dont want to totally hijack the thread, but i have been trying to do this for awhile.

anyone know how to turn off the overscan on the sony KDF-50E2000?

it's prob a service menu something, but honestly no idea

[Deciazulado]

ya probably is. in old analog tv's it was two knobs or screws (horizontal size and vertical size, like a CRT computer monitor)inside the tv on the board. I always set those old tvs to 0 overscan if the set let me

[theknub]

it is exactly what im trying to do. the set has a "normal" setting with very little overscan but still has it.

[kurt vidal]

So has anyone called Avia to see if the BD is available yet?

[MrBogey]

You know, I can easily transfer *.mp4 files to my PS3 from my comp using the web browser. If there's a file on the net or a way for me to author a test pattern into a video file I'd gladly do it just to tweak the set.

[HDJK]

I have the AVIA SD disc for my Denon 2930. Since the Denon upscales to 1080P over HDMI, can't I just use this to calibrate the screen and then use my PS3 without a worry? I guess my question is: do I need to calibrate for every source (Denon, PS3 etc) seperately or can I go the route described? Thanks for any hint.

[Deciazulado]

Mmm depends on how Denon does the HD output (theres a slight difference between NTSC and HDTV color space) but it probably get you close. You have to watch out for black level (stuff ike NTSC black 7.5IRE setup/100IRE white and Digital level 16 = black level 235 = white0 too, etc. Sony BDs have some test patterns, see the insiders thread for a few tips on how to use them.

[HDJK]

Thanks for the fast reply! I will look into the insiders thread.

But lets say I ever upgrade to a BD player next to the PS3, do I need calibration settings for every player? When reading the reviews of different players one would think that color and sharpness is not identical (even over HDMI). Is this correct?

[grahajd]

Is there a blue ray calibration disk yet? If not, is there some web site that has an waiting list??

[dobyblue]

I don't believe there is a Blu-ray calibration disc available yet.

Enter 7669 from the menu screen on any SONY disc and you'll get 5 calibration screens to choose from.

[DTMoney84]

It would figure with all my BD's I don't have any SONY discs to use for this.

[HDJK]

I wasn't really anxious to watch Talladega Nights that bundled with the PS3, but now it seems there is a good use for it after all

[Amon37]

Originally Posted by HDJK

I wasn't really anxious to watch Talladega Nights that bundled with the PS3, but now it seems there is a good use for it after all

I have a couple sony discs so I'm going to try this before I watch my next BD movie. (I rented Ant Bully.)

[vick vega]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

The Avia discs have test patterns and tones, so you can calibrate your display/home theater/sound system.

Besides the regular color bars you see on some DVDs and tv, it has much more advanced patterns and images.

You use it to set black level (brigthness), whitle level (contrast), saturation (color) adjust the sharpness settings, check for overscan (check if part of the image is missing and how much, on your display) and if you have instruments, set grey levels (color temperature) and other nifty stuff. If you follow the standards you'll get your display to look as close as possible to the way the displays are set where they do the film transfers.

Well at least that's the theory. I sometimes wonder where do they set their black level
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and what, you're supposed to make the white on the test pattern what you think the perfect white would be,black,red,green and so on? Is there an insert on which color you should set first as it would seem to me that by adjusting one color it would effect the others.

[Deciazulado]

mmm i'll do a basic run thru (i think i've posted this before but maybe not here) of what you can do w/o instruments (well you usually need a blue filter to get the colors in the ballpark if you don't trust your eyes). You can find these type of instructions elsewhere on the web even with more pictures and examples, although in many cases the values on the color bars jpegs on the net are wrong or not the standard so they only serve for illustrative purposes.

This one has correct colors levels for a computer monitor but the pluge in this sequence is 2.4% 0% 4.7% RGB, while NTSC bars with 5 IRE/7.5 IRE/10 IRE setup would have them at -2.7% 0% +2.7% RGB* (yeah I know theres no negative RGB on computer levels, I'm just telling you how 5/7.5/10 IRE should be )

Also have in mind that computer levels (0-255) are different than digital video levels (16-235) or analog USA NTSC video levels (7.5 IRE to 100 IRE) but they are meant to be watched the same: 0% black to 100% white brightness.



Well..


Auto settings should be off. Manual iris should be at maximum for best contrast.

The white.

On CRTs you adjust the white 100% patch till a point before it blooms (or 35 footLambers if you had a light-meter and your CRT didn't bloom above those levels.).

On a LCD and DLP, there's one white pattern (like the THX optimizer one), with a few patches below 100 too, (98,95 etc) the trick is to set the white as bright as it can be without making the lower % ones merge into the 100% whiteness. (This maximizes LCD contrast w/o losing tones) If you have a true backlight brightness control, then you can lower the overall brightness so the 100% white is 35 footLamberts if you like, or make the brightness to your taste if the LCD is too bright. If the display doesn't have a true light bulb brightness dimmer, and you lower the displays white by reducing the panel's values, you lose contrast.

The blacks part 1:

you have a CRT with 100% black level retention (one that doesn't float blacks depending on picture content) you put on a black screen, turn the lights off at night, turn the black controls till it looks the CRT is off.

On an LCD or DLP that never goes black you usually turn down the black screen till it becomes as dark as it will go. (this maximizes contrast)


the blacks part 2:

here's the tricky part. "The above black". That little PLUGE thing on the right of the color bars. Well supposedly you keep adjusting the blacks down till you stop seeing the above black, then you raise it back a little so it shows. Well guess what? with a gamma of 2.2, that little NTSC 10 IRE pluge above black should be 2800* times as dark as the maximum white. So I don't think you should see it!
Well you could. if there was no light in that sealed to light room at night and you waited like 20 minutes to adjust your vision. With a CRT. On an LCD, nope very few reach 500:1 or 1000:1 much less 5000:1. So mmm I'd lower it till you can't see it there too. Now, playing most discs with your usual ambient light set up, if they all look too dark, I'd slowly raise the black level a smidgen at a time, and keep watching with calm, and evaluate the pictures, and if needed raise it again a little till the picture looks right. (doesn't look dark, but doesn't look washed out.)

*(well it depends on the pluge on the pattern, some are 2% (5500:1), some are 2.4% (3700:1), some are 2.7% (2800:1) (NTSC 10 IRE), some are 4% (1200:1) some are 4.7% (800:1) and there's other value pluges, and that's if you're forcing 2.2 gamma as the native gamma of the device can be different, for examples CRTs are closer to 2.35 gamma soo you'd get 2% = 10,000:1, 2.4% = 6400:1, 2.7% = 5000:1, 4% = 2000:1, 4.7% = 1300:1, etc. The best course of action would be to have a light measuring instrument and measure the grey scale and adjust it to follow the gamma of your choice (2.2 is supposed to be the aim, but if you're in a dark room you might prefer a higher one!) Some people call NTSC never twice the same color, I call it never twice the same contrast.

If you have gamma control, instead of raising the black level you could also try changing the gamma to make the image lighter or darker.


Colors: well remember TV should first been set to the setting that gives neutral grey or D65 (6500ºK) with b/w images. (look at an overcast sky)

There's a blue filter that's used to adjust the color (and tint) in the color bars till the blue bars are equal through the filter. I actually prefer checking throughout red and green filters. And tweak it a little afterwards, as monitor's primary colors (LCD/DLP filters, CRT phosphors) are not always the standard SMPTE "C"/PAL-EBU/HDTV-sRGB ones (Blu-rays for now should be the HDTV ones) No filter? mmm get some deep blue (or red) school report cover gels and stack them up (takes alot of them) till when you look through them the other bar colors (for blue those would be the red green and yellow bars) look black.

At the end they should look something like this:



Still no filter? Well the usual look a skin tones and make them pleasing or normal looking, as always!

In any case the colors order of the bars should be light gray, yellow, cyan, green, magenta, red, blue, black. Should look similar to how that test pattern i posted looks in a computer, in the general sense.

Also, be aware that color decoding for HD is difefrent than for SD, so if you're decoding SD through a HD matrix, or HD through a SD matrix there will be errors in the color bars. (You have to check your hardware and how you have you SD/HD outputs connected too)


Sharpness:
lower the sharpness till the image looks blurry. (for example resolution stripe on THX looks grayish and faded on the high frequencies). Raise it back slowly till you start seeing the lines right side of resolution stripe be as bright (contrasty, black and white) as the thicker lower resolution lines on the left, but don't let them get brighter than the left ones (from your normal sitting/viewing position of course)
Now play a good looking BD, tweak sharpness if needed, or repeat the turning down then back up till the image looks sharp enough (comes into focus) (but don't keep trying to make it sharper, sharper, till you get cartoon edges with over enhanced lines!)



Always write down numbers at the start and end so you know where you are, and as you watch the following days, you make little tweak adjustments if you think you need to, or you get a soft movie you need to "help"

Now actually we should have started with the room light and wall colors but

[kurt vidal]

the thin vertical lines in the 2nd row above "IBA" are flickering on my calibration screen. Any ideas what adjustment I could make to my DLP to minimize this?

[Deciazulado]

The lines above the IBA letters are 1 horizontal pixel wide (one pixel light, one dark). So they are at the limits of resolution. About 70%, and 64%, contrast before gamma. Maybe there's some artifacting/interference with the DLP? Do they flicker in b/w or in color?

[WriteSimply]

Yo Deci, can you make some of these test screens for us in 1080p with instructions on how to use 'em?


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