Recently I tried to calibrate my brightness, contrast and color with the 3M Vikuini Disk on my Olevia and Sharp LCD's. All of the settings were way off!:confused: I have my Dual format players (LG BH200) on both TV's connected via HDMI. I had to redo all of my settings with Digital Essentials and pictures looked way better. Any suggestions?

Here is the link of the DVD that I used:
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/VikuitiBrand/ConsumerHome/Consumer/VikuitiExtras/LCD-TV-Setup-Guide-DVD/

Thank you.

Your post is not clear to me.
All of the settings were way off!
Before or after using the 3M disc?
I had to redo all of my settings with Digital Essentials and pictures looked way better.
Are you saying you had to redo previous settings arrived at by using 'DVE' before you got the 3M disc, or you had to redo the 3M settings by using 'DVE' to correct them?

Clarification:

Originally, I did a basic calibration using my DVE disk. Had these settings for a while. Picture looked good. I decided to try the Vikuiti calibration disk and it really messed up my initial settings. Most of the settings were way off after using the 3M disk.I had to pull out the DVE disk to set everything back to normal.

Is this an accurate calibration disk to use? They promote it by saying it will help an LCD display look its best.

Is this an accurate calibration disk to use?
I don't have any experience with it and this is the first notice I've seen of it.

Recently I tried to calibrate my brightness, contrast and color with the 3M Vikuini Disk on my Olevia and Sharp LCD's. All of the settings were way off!:confused: I have my Dual format players (LG BH200) on both TV's connected via HDMI. I had to redo all of my settings with Digital Essentials and pictures looked way better. Any suggestions?

Here is the link of the DVD that I used:
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/VikuitiBrand/ConsumerHome/Consumer/VikuitiExtras/LCD-TV-Setup-Guide-DVD/

Thank you.

Just a hunch here, but I think Joe Kane knows WAY MORE about making a setup disc that is accurate than 3M who is not in the display business.

Joe Kane actually MEASURES the masters of his DVE discs before they are put into production because even if he provides accurate data in his data file, the mastering houses have many ways to make the discs inaccurate. Only when he has completely measured the master will he green-light production of the disc. Avia is often cited as being a good disc to use, but even they have been screwed by mastering houses... the Avia DVD and the now-withdrawn Avia II disc both had luminance problems at the dark end of the luminace scale. I would say... throw away the 3M disc.

and the now-withdrawn Avia II disc
Doug,

I was surprised to read this, as I'm a dealer for this disc. So, I called Ovation Multimedia today to find out why I wasn't informed of this. They said they are unaware of any signal inaccuracies in the program and have not issued a recall. Where did you get your information?

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
G. Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

…than 3M who is not in the display business.

MMM is in the display business. The Vikuiti segment is all about display technology. If you've got an LCD, LCOS, DLP or CRT PJ the chances are good that you've got 3M material in it or uses technology that 3M (thinks it?) owns. Polarizers, analyzers, filters, and various films including the popular DBEF brightness enhancing films and wire-grid polarizers. They also inherited what was US precision lens who was one of the leaders in CRT and microdisplay projection lenses. They also purportedly own IP around the TIR prism and rod and tunnel integrators that are integral to many DLP engines. They filed suit against InFocus over this use of this IP. (and was also counter sued by Infocus...)
If you mean their name isn’t branded on the outside of a TV then OK. I think they are more in the ‘display industry’ than some that do have their logo on the outside of the set yet do next to zero engineering.

Dave

Guy Kuo admitted there were errors due to mastering and MPEG issues with AVIA specificaly in the grayscale. It is not off by much. The errors do not exist with AVIA Pro or the S&V HT tune up version. It won't effect user level adjustments.

You can search the archives it is in there somewhere. Also the original video essentials had slight geometry issues.

We have used Vikuiti screens by 3M for some outdoor commercial projects and have one coming up soon we will use. I have never seen their calibration disc.

Bob

It's widely known that 'Avia' had errors. 'Avia II' was the item in question.

Doug,

I was surprised to read this, as I'm a dealer for this disc. So, I called Ovation Multimedia today to find out why I wasn't informed of this. They said they are unaware of any signal inaccuracies in the program and have not issued a recall. Where did you get your information?

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
G. Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

I just measured the 10% and lower windows and compared the luminiance values to the signal generator... the Avia discs measure darker than the signal generator. It's not the end of the world, they can still be used for calibration, it just illustrates how hard it is to get everything right. The Avia disc measure darker (on the low end of the luminance scale) than the DVD of DVE in the same player and darker than the HD DVD and Blu-ray DVEs as well as being darker than the signal generator. But the Avia disc and Avia II measure the same at the dark end of the scale.

MMM is in the display business. The Vikuiti segment is all about display technology. If you've got an LCD, LCOS, DLP or CRT PJ the chances are good that you've got 3M material in it or uses technology that 3M (thinks it?) owns. Polarizers, analyzers, filters, and various films including the popular DBEF brightness enhancing films and wire-grid polarizers. They also inherited what was US precision lens who was one of the leaders in CRT and microdisplay projection lenses. They also purportedly own IP around the TIR prism and rod and tunnel integrators that are integral to many DLP engines. They filed suit against InFocus over this use of this IP. (and was also counter sued by Infocus...)
If you mean their name isn’t branded on the outside of a TV then OK. I think they are more in the ‘display industry’ than some that do have their logo on the outside of the set yet do next to zero engineering.

Dave

Yet none of that insures 3M has any expertise whatsoever in having a test-setup disc created that's accurate. And based on this sample of 1... it sounds like they screwed it up... possibly by assuming that anything they sent out to be mastered and produced would be accurate. Joe Kane knows that's not the case.

Doug,

I was also very interested in where you heard about 'Avia II' being withdrawn from the market. Perhaps you will take the time to document the results of your findings and forward the details on to Ovation. They are still planning to produce the title on Blu-ray at least, and perhaps HD DVD as originally announced. It would be great if they can resolve any inaccuracies before releasing subsequent product. Thanks for checking back.

I just measured the 10% and lower windows and compared the luminiance values to the signal generator... the Avia discs measure darker than the signal generator. It's not the end of the world, they can still be used for calibration, it just illustrates how hard it is to get everything right. The Avia disc measure darker (on the low end of the luminance scale) than the DVD of DVE in the same player and darker than the HD DVD and Blu-ray DVEs as well as being darker than the signal generator. But the Avia disc and Avia II measure the same at the dark end of the scale.

Avia II is correct, however what is happening is a misinterpretation of Avia II's labeling method (and Avia's, which is the same).

It is unfortunate that Guy chose to label his discs this way, in my opinion, and use IRE units to label a digital disc. But it is what it is.

Avia and Avia II labels assume a 7.5IRE setup, which is why if you unknowingly measure a 10% pattern from a signal generator and a "10IRE" signal from from Avia or Avia II off of a newer DVD player which outputs black at 0mV without setup(a perfecly reasonable thing to do), the Avia patterns appear (and are)significantly darker especially near black. This is because 10IRE on Avia is not 10%, since it assumes 7.5IRE setup. To compare the "IRE" labels on Avia's patterns with a % label on other discs or with the % output of most signal generators, you must recalculate using this forumula:

actual IRE levels when setup is not present = (labeled IRE-7.5) * 100/92.5.

Using this, you see that a pattern labeled "10IRE" on Avia, Avia II, or Avia PRO is actually ~2.7%. That's why when you measure another test source that is outputting 10% as 10IRE, you find that Avia is significantly darker. This is simply because of confusion due to Avia's labels, which are rightly very confusing. So if you're looking at 10% off a signal generator and 10IRE off of Avia, the Avia pattern is 2.7%, obviously much darker than 10%. If you didn't know about Avia's, in my opinion, unfortunate labeling, then it'd look like it was way off. But now you know, and can calculate the % for the various Avia patterns and compare to other sources which are labeled in %, and do so correctly!

Now, if you had Avia in a DVD player that output analog with 7.5IRE setup(accurately, which isn't a safe assumption...), then the levels coming out of that DVD player would correspond to the labels on Avia. But 7.5IRE setup is not very common at all these days. I wish the disc were just labeled in % rather than IRE which is a label contingent not only on analog output, but a particular standard of analog output, or even more unambiguously labeled in digital levels. Alas.

But the patterns themselves are exactly correct once you properly interpret their unfortunate labeling system. It's just that part of it that often gets lost, with lots of people thinking that all the darker patterns on Avia are way off and too dark. They're not! They're just labeled stupidly, in my opinion.

I am not aware of any problems with the Avia II disc(except that some of the demo video looks bad), which use the same pattern set as Avia PRO which are correct. The levels on the original Avia disc are correct, however they are not neutrally grey. They are perfectly appropriate for gamma or other luminance measurements and adjustments, but are not perfectly accurate for greyscale measurements so Avia II or Avia PRO is preferred for that, or DVE etc. And I have not heard any information at all about Avia II being withdrawn, or even there being any errors on it. It's certainly possible, but this is the first claim to that effect that I've heard.

Avia II is correct, however what is happening is a misinterpretation of Avia II's labeling method (and Avia's, which is the same).

It is unfortunate that Guy chose to label his discs this way, in my opinion, and use IRE units to label a digital disc. But it is what it is.


Well, that explains it perfectly... with every other disc and signal generator using %, it never even occurred to me they would go with IRE. It would be nice if the whole industry would just give up on IRE at this point, we're beyond it. In fact, it's a huge confusion factor because people sometimes (often) use IRE when they mean % and you have to ask if they really mean IRE or if they mean %.

I was asked to review a preview copy of Avia II then told by the editor it was being withdrawn to correct some problems - this was 4 or 6 weeks before the release date. It's possible the problems never made it to the release version and only applied to the preview copies though I didn't notice any other issues - other than some of the video not looking very good as you pointed out.