Digital Video Essentials - Worth getting?

[jcd29]

Getting an LCD soon, and I'm thinking about getting the DVE Blu-ray, but I'm not sure about it. Will it be worth it to someone with zero experience on this? Or shoudl I stick to online tutorials and whatnot.

I did hear the DVE doesn't even talk about some features modern HDTVs have.

[jwblu]

I thought it was a great calibration tool. If your still unsure you can do like I did and rent it from netflix and try it out before you buy. I'll let you know that it is pretty detailed in all the setups and you my have to go back to get your lcd looking just right. Hope I was some help to you.

[bhampton]

DVE is great.

I've seen it often under $20 too... it's a bargain.

Renting it isn't a bad idea really.

If you're not going to make changes to the default settings of you HDTV then rent it because it's still very informative.

If you are going to make changes remember that with modern TV's all the data is .... numbers. You can get a pad and jot down all the settings that are defaults in case your set's "reset" button doesn't reset them all.

My sets "reset" button resets nearly nothing. But it wasn't hard to find information online about default settings.

When you get your new set it may also be fun to try the recemmended settings of tweakmytv dot com.

-Brian

[dadkins]

Bought it, ran it from beginning to end - on my laptops and my HDTV.
As I suspected, they were all exactly where they should have been(laptops were darker but that's because I prefer them that way).

Color, contrast... everything was fine.
I have it lent out right now but adjustments are something that should rarely be needed and I can have it back within a day if I think it needs any adjustments.

[kpkelley]

I have this and the Spears and Munsil disk and prefer the latter.

If you can rent it from Netflix or Blockbuster Online that might be your best option.

[jcd29]

For a complete newbie like myself, would you recommend getting DVE, or just looking at professional settings and use them, then tweak them to my tastes?

[Steve]

Originally Posted by jcd29

For a complete newbie like myself, would you recommend getting DVE, or just looking at professional settings and use them, then tweak them to my tastes?

Use some kind of disk yourself. The professional settings are setup in a viewing environment that may be completely different from yours.

[mugupo]

just rent this

[MattDean]

My advice is to just tweak the usual settings until you are happy with them.

Be careful to make sure you turn all extra special settings, noise reduction, colour boosting and other such features, to OFF so you are getting a true picture from the source. I made the mistake of thinking these special tweaking features made the picture better and because of this I was very unhappy with the picture on my 52inch Sony! Anyway, once I had turned all the extra special settings OFF I was, and still am, very pleased!

I purchased the DVE bluray and was surprised (and pleased) to discover that I had set my TV up correctly - I didn't need to alter a thing! I'm no expert -I simply adjusted the settings until I was happy with what I saw. I ended up selling my DVE on ebay, a week later, for a profit!

Matt