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#1 | Link |
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AVS Special Member
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AVS HD 709 - Blu-ray, HD DVD, & MP4 Calibration
![]() INTRODUCTION This project aims to provide a free set of calibration patterns for high definition (HD) video players. You will find downloads here to create discs for Blu-ray and HD DVD players, a version with MP4 1080p video for computers or other compatible devices, and PDF manuals with basic information about the patterns. The Blu-ray and HD DVD discs can be burned to DVD media, but they are intended only for HD players. These calibration patterns are not intended for standard DVD players, and they are not expected to calibrate for Rec. 601 video used in commercial DVDs. The AVS HD 709 patterns are meant only to calibrate for Rec. 709 encoded HD video, such as commercial Blu-rays or HD DVDs. Our primary intent is to offer HD video patterns for calibrating digital displays (LCD, Plasma, DLP, D-ILA, SXRD). That means there are no audio portions or patterns specifically meant for analog TVs (CRT), which can be found on other sources such as Digital Video Essentials and Avia. The patterns provided here have simply been divided into sections for different tasks, and each section is made up of a number of video patterns. The Blu-ray and HD DVD discs allow you to select sections from the menus, and the video clips in each section can be navigated by chapter skipping. The Basic Settings and Miscellaneous Patterns sections are intended to be useful in setting user controls for your electronics with no test equipment, except possibly a color filter. The remaining sections are meant for taking measurements from the display, with a colorimeter or spectroradiometer, using software like ColorHCFR or CalMAN. The Related Links area of this post will take you to more information about measurements, and further details about using the patterns are covered in the attached PDF files. DOWNLOADS (July 26, 2009 - v1.3b Update Notes) AVCHD (.exe) or AVCHD (.7z) - AVCHD Patterns Manual (.pdf) Plays on: AVCHD compatible Blu-ray players, see Blu-ray Players List Burn to: DVD writable media with a DVD burner Includes: Interlaced menus for selecting video sections HDMV (.exe) or HDMV (.7z) - HDMV Patterns Manual (.pdf) Plays on: Majority of Blu-ray players, see Blu-ray Players List Burn to: BD-RE or BD-R media with a Blu-ray burner Includes: Progressive & pop-up menus for quicker navigation, and additional Miscellaneous Patterns from w6rz PATCHED (.exe) or PATCHED (.7z) - PATCHED Patterns Manual (.pdf) Plays on: Many Blu-ray players, see Blu-ray Players List Burn to: DVD writable media with a DVD burner Includes: Progressive & pop-up menus for quicker navigation, and additional Miscellaneous Patterns from w6rz HD DVD (.exe) or HD DVD (.7z) - HD DVD Patterns Manual (.pdf) Plays on: HD DVD players Burn to: DVD writable media with a DVD burner Includes: Progressive menu for selecting sections, and a limited number of patterns compared to other versions MP4 (.exe) or MP4 (.7z) - MP4 Patterns Manual (.pdf) Plays on: H.264/MPEG-4 video players, for example Xbox 360 after update Media: Depends on player, for example Xbox 360 can play files from DVD writable media Includes: Only video clips Logos and MD5 Hashes (.zip) AVS HD 709 logos are offered if you wish to create a disc sleeve or a disc label MD5 Hashes can be used to check the integrity of the .7z, .exe, or .iso files STEPS TO USE THE DOWNLOADS 1) Choose a version. Decide on either the AVCHD, HDMV, PATCHED, HD DVD, or MP4 version depending on what HD player you want to use. Your player must be able to play true high definition video, such as a Blu-ray or HD DVD player. None of the versions will work on standard DVD players, or upconverting DVD players, because those players are unable to play actual HD video. 2) Download a compressed file. Select either the .exe or .7z file to download, according to the computer operating system you are using. The .exe will work on Windows. The .7z is not system-specific, so it will work with Windows, Linux, or Mac. 3) Decompress the download. If you downloaded the .exe, Windows should decompress the file by double-clicking on it. There have been a few reports of the .exe failing to work, so if the .exe happens to fail on your Windows system you might instead try the .7z version. For the .7z, you will also need the free 7-zip software to decompress or extract the file. When you complete this step you should have an .iso file for the AVCHD, PATCHED, or HD DVD versions. The download files will decompress to video folders for HDMV, or video files for the MP4 version. 4) Burn a disc. The AVCHD, HDMV, PATCHED, and HD DVD versions require that you burn a disc after decompressing the downloaded file. This step does not necessarily apply to the MP4 version, but for the Xbox 360 you can simply burn the video files to a writable DVD.
EXAMPLE FOR WINDOWS COMPUTERS The following procedure shows how to apply the prior steps for a computer running Windows that includes a DVD burner. This example can be followed to create an AVCHD, PATCHED, or HD DVD version disc. If you instead wish to create a HDMV disc, you will need a Blu-ray burner and Step 4 is different as described above. 1) Choosing a version: If you own a Blu-ray player you will want to refer to the Blu-ray Players List at the end of this post to find which version your player supports. For the example here we will show how to create a PATCHED version disc, but the basic steps are similar if you instead select AVCHD. 2) Downloading a compressed file: If your computer is running Windows, then you can likely use the .exe download. Clicking on the PATCHED (.exe) link above in the Downloads area will take you to the appropriate page to get the PATCHED executable file. ![]() 3) Decompressing the download: Once you have downloaded the file for the version you selected, just double-click on it and you will get a window asking where to extract the file. Choose a location by clicking on the "..." button at the right, or using the written path displayed in the window - such as C:\ in the image below. Once you have chosen a location, click the extract button. ![]() When the program is done decompressing you will have an .iso file in directory you chose to extract to. ![]() 4) Burning a disc: To burn we will use ImgBurn to create a disc. On opening the program select the write image file to disk option. ![]() Next under source, click on the left yellow folder, and then select the .iso file from step 3. ![]() Once you insert a writable DVD in your DVD burner, the program is ready to burn the disk. Click the button in the bottom left, and the program will burn the image to disc. ![]() 5) Downloading additional documentation: For further information on how to use the disc, please see the Patterns-HDMV-PATCHED.pdf attached to the end of this post. Some people may also want to download the Logos and MD5 Hashes file for the project logos or to verify the .exe download or .iso used to create the disc. NOTES ABOUT DOWNLOADS 1) If a disc would happen to be unable to play on an HD player that other people are able to use, our typical method of troubleshooting would be first to check that the player’s firmware is current, make sure you have selected an appropriate version for your player, and then to try to eliminate disc or computer problems. Common suggestions would be to try a different disc type or brand, burn at a slower speed, or try burning from a different computer. You might also want to check the MD5 hatch from the compressed download or the uncompressed .iso file. If none of this helps and you would like further feedback on playback problems, it would be worthwhile to list which version you downloaded, the software you are using for burning, and your HD player model. 2) Because of the UDF format used with the versions that decompress to .iso files, some computers will not be able to read a burned disc. Even if your computer cannot read a burned disc, all that matters is if a compatible HD player can read the disc. 3) The .7z compression is used instead of a more common format like .zip due to efficiency. In tests the download files have been around 12 to 15 times smaller by using 7-zip. KNOWN ISSUES The unresolved items we are aware of are listed here. 1) Through measurements it appears the luma values for this disc may be slightly different than those used in the Digital Video Essentials HD Basics Blu-ray - see these measurements for further information. In use it appears this item may change the second decimal point reported for gamma in measurements when compared to using Digital Video Essentials as a reference. 2) While the majority of Blu-ray players can play at least one version, not every Blu-ray player will be able to play the downloads. The only way to support all Blu-ray players would be to author to BD-ROM, and the fees are prohibitive for our purposes. 3) The menu system and interaction in the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions are not necessarily ideal, but any menu-related issues generally have to do with what is currently available from HD authoring software. For example the AVCHD top menu button returns to the previous menu, rather than the top menu, and this might be an unintentional bug in the authoring software. Our main intent is for the user to select a video section from the menu, chapter skip between patterns within that section, and then return to the menu to choose a different section. 4) No patterns are included for audio sync or noise reduction. Those items are currently considered outside the scope of the project, and they would likely require technical support to implement. If you would like to ask for patterns added or items changed, please include an explanation of how that would help you setup your HD player or display. Users are welcome to contribute items to the project that they consider possibly useful for future additions. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The AVS HD 709 patterns are offered free for personal use. The authors request any redistribution to retain the credits, which appear on the disc title menu or the text file with the MP4 video. This would not have been created without the input from dr1394 (Ron from w6rz.net), including the program used to convert images to YCbCr. We would like to thank dr1394, 3no, GetGray, Imatest.com, and WalVisions.com for allowing us to include their patterns. We appreciate ChokeManiac.net for providing the original logo design. Thanks to Hank315 (HC Encoder) for the help, including a special build that has been used for Mpeg-2 encoding. Also thanks to kchung for the original layout for the disc label. Additional people that come to mind for supplying free software used during the project would be the creators of 7-Zip, AVCHD-Patcher, AVIsynth, BDedit, H264info, ImgBurn, MD5summer, MeGUI, Paint.net, QuEnc, tsMuxer, and x264. The Perspective Sans and Cuprum fonts in the PDF and Carmella used for sub-menus were found with dafont.com. Hwjohn and myself would also like to thank the creators of ColorHCFR for the great free calibration program, the AVSforum for making this disc possible, and certainly the numerous other people we tried to learn from in the process. RELATED LINKS Greyscale & Colour Calibration For Dummies - kal's measurement guide Basic Guide to Color Calibration using a CMS - TomHuffman's guide ColorHCFR v2.0 Available... - Thread for the ColorHCFR software Excel Download - Can use Color Corrector with ColorHCFR to minimize difference in Y Color ColorHCFR Calibration Discussion (Post your calibration files here) CalMAN Evaluation Download - Includes calibration help files from Bear5k Calibration meter shootout - Comparison with i1pro, D2, S2, & DTP-94 BLU-RAY PLAYERS LIST Information specific to different Blu-ray player models will be listed here. If HDMV, PATCHED, or AVCHD is listed, then the version is expected to play on that model player. If HDMV?, PATCHED?, or AVCHD? is listed then the version might play on that player, but current information is speculative and unconfirmed (based on Link 1 or Link 2). If a version name does not appear for the model number, then that player does not support the version. If you test a Blu-ray player and have information to add to the table, like confirming if a player can play a question marked version (?), please reply so that the list can be updated for other users.
Last edited by alluringreality; 01-05-10 at 06:25 PM.. |
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#2 | Link |
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In a van
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Some quick comments to add to alluringreality's excellent post.
Although this disk is considered to still be in Beta, the test patterns have been thoroughly checked for accuracy. If you have questions about how they were verified, feel free to ask. The issues with QuEnc encoding should have no impact on the accuracy of the patterns. For those of you who may be interested in submitting patterns to be added to the disk, they must be submitted in 24 bit Targa (.tga) format, 1920x1080 pixels. All that is required to submit a stationary pattern, such as a sharpness pattern, is a single .tga image. Please follow the guidelines that alluringreality has set forth before posting any patterns to the thread. I hope that the AVS community will find this disc helpful. I know that these forums have helped me tremendously, so this is our attempt to give back. My sincere thanks goes out to everyone who helped us along the way. Last edited by hwjohn; 12-04-08 at 08:21 PM.. |
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#3 | Link | |
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iCurious
AVS GOLD CLUB MEMBER
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Quote:
![]() Bill (We will be moving domains before the end of the year, so some links will need to be updated in a few weeks for anything we do)
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Color accuracy evangelist and CalMAN insider |
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#4 | Link |
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This is one of my favorite forums because of the community participation. My hats off to you guys for your contributions in helping us grasp a basic understanding of the concepts of calibration and giving us the tools to fiddle with this stuff.
For a lot of us this is just a hobby, for others it's your bread and butter and this type of exposure leads to a greater appreciation for the layman. Hey, there's more to calibration than brightness and contrast settings and after puttzing around with our own cals, us hobbyists have a greater appreciation of the value of a full professional calibration being done for us. Many Thanks!
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#5 | Link | |
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In a van
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Quote:
Thanks a ton for the offer. About the only thing that is really geared toward HCFR is the order of the patterns. I haven't used CalMAN, but I know it is a great program as well and I think the disc would be useful for it as well, even if it isn't as easy to navigate. Right now alluringreality is working on some final things to get the upload going. I'm not 100% sure what his timeline is, but I think he should have something within a day or two. You just need a place to download the file, correct? Once the ISO is done, I can give you ftp access to the server that we use to go back and forth on, or you can download it from the "temporary" hosting that is provided in the link. Just let me know, and thanks again. |
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#6 | Link | |
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In a van
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Quote:
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#8 | Link | ||
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iCurious
AVS GOLD CLUB MEMBER
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Quote:
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Bill
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Color accuracy evangelist and CalMAN insider |
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#9 | Link | |
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AVS Special Member
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The HD DVD is up on Sendspace and a Filesend copy might follow.
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Honestly the easiest thing would be to make another disk for use with CalMAN. From my side it's not a huge issue but hwjohn would have to recode the two color sections with the different order, so it's his call. From my perspective a direct link would be worth supporting two same-format disks as long as they're mostly similar. This might be something that we put off until we get some feedback on if there are any problems with the disk. The top menu will have to surely be changed at some point and to me putting out another disk at that time wouldn't be much of an issue. I just didn't think it was worth redoing the image and ISO for the menu at this time. One of the things I found most frustrating about HCFR is that yellow seems out of order to most disks, so I think that's what you were intending. Because I'm familiar with HCFR is the only reson it's referenced. I thought I might try Calman if there was a v3 trial as I read might happen, but generally someone else would have to be very exact on what would work for a somewhat-logical layout. One of the issues with the way Media Factory works is that you cannot chapter-skip back to a previous title. |
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#10 | Link | |
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In a van
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Bill,
We will talk it over. I don't have a problem with it, I just want to discuss with alluringreality as to what is the best route to get it worked in. Take a look through the disk contents and the disk itself if you have a player, and let us know 1) what you think of it overall and 2) what would need to be changed in order to provide maximum compatibility with CalMan. |
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#12 | Link |
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AVS Special Member
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Download and burned the iso.
I just did a quick navigation through the patterns on my Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive and it works perfectly. Great job guys! EDIT: Holy cow was the banding on the greyscale ramps bad on my 360! Fixed now thanks to this disk. ![]() Last edited by jvincent; 12-02-07 at 04:33 PM.. |
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#15 | Link | |
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Advanced Member
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I downloaded the iso and burned it with DVD Decrypter. The disc works great using the 360 add on. I have a Sony 70" XBR2 SXRD and it turns out that I had to move my sub picture 2 notches because I was clipping white at 233. I haven't rechecked my grayscale with it yet, but I will because it's been a few hundred hours on the lamp and a cross country move since I did it last. I navigated the whole disc and it seems to be working great in that respect.
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#17 | Link |
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AVS Special Member
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Just gave it my first run through with Color HCFR. I love it! Previously used HD DVD and needed to jump to different menus and colors were out of order. Now everything I need is all consecutive patterns, perfect. Nice work and thanks for providing this!!!!
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#18 | Link |
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AVS Special Member
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After private discussion, currently we are going to put off making a decision on whether or not we might choose to directly support CalMAN at some point in the future. Due to the disk layout, most likely the request would require two versions, which would eventually turn into four versions. That’s a trend we would prefer to avoid. In order to retain our original goal of having a single disk for each HD format with an elegant layout for HCFR use, I suggest that alternately CalMAN might add an option within their software at some point to work with the disk. We welcome feedback on this issue for any other ideas, within the capabilities of what Movie Factory 6+ Power Pack offers, which might support both programs and remain easy to use.
We were able to come up with one alternative that might better serve the interests of everyone involved. The idea was that we could open up to the idea of supporting the additional versions if CalMAN users or designers could be able to help us get to our goal of having a quality pattern for setting sharpness, observing overscan, and adjusting centering as described in the known issues of the original post. If CalMAN staff would have this capability exclusively, then I think we would be open to creating a second disk that might best serve their users in exchange for allowing us to include it on our current disk which is geared more toward general users and HCFR. If anyone has alternate ideas or disapproves you’re welcome to express your thoughts, but after discussion I do think that it’s beyond our original scope when we still have unfinished items remaining. Our current opinion is that either direct help on the disk or leaving it as a single version for each HD type is the best option. At this point we consider the disk to be a beta version that could certainly change, and we would appreciate any responses from anyone trying the disk, including CalMAN users. Our next goal would probably be to get a similar AVCHD disk put together, and so that will likely be my major focus until there’s more feedback on the HD DVD. Again we welcome any offers to help us add to the disk, but largely this has merely been a result of our wanting a disk of this type and simply opening it up to others for that same personal use.
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AVS HD 709 - Blu-ray, HD DVD, & MP4 Calibration |
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#21 | Link |
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AVS Special Member
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OK, so I spent a couple of hours this morning actually using the disc to calibrate my plasma. I'm very happy with the results.
Feeback as follows: The lack of backwards title navigation wasn't really an issue to since the menu system works pretty well. It took me a couple of minutes to get used to which title is selected. Highlighting the title box by surrounding it with orange in the same way the chapters are highlighted would be an improvement. Not sure how easy this is. As for the patterns themselves, there were more than enough for me. All the ones I needed were there plus a few extra ones that I played with. If I were to make one suggestion it would be to add dedicated full screen greyscale ramps and bars in addition to the one in Title 8, chap 1. Depending on how the displays menu system comes up having more of the screen dedicated to the ramp/bars would be helpful. Again, great work guys. |
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#22 | Link |
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AVS Special Member
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The menu system is from Media Factory. There are some things I don't like about it, but I like that option better than the other choices available. So the menu I will say is beyond our control.
As for the full screen bars and ramps, one pattern for each, I think that is a reasonable request that shouldn't be too much work to add. We are going to probably give it a couple weeks before considering revising the disk, but I think that's doable. I figure having maybe twice the number of patterns that are in the Misc section right now is reasonable. So we will certainly take the suggestion into consideration. Thanks for the feedback.
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AVS HD 709 - Blu-ray, HD DVD, & MP4 Calibration |
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#23 | Link |
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Senior Member
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great work. Thanks for all your hard work. This is extremely useful as I want to do something similar. I would like to see some other patterns to help with setting up the colors as I don't have a color meter. Excellent jobs guys. Thanks.
Al,
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"Always be yourself...Those that matter, don't mind... Those that mind, don't matter..." |
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#24 | Link |
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AVS Special Member
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The "Color decoder flashing pattern" is about the most that can be shown for color without a meter. The idea is similar to "DVE and colors" or page 33 here. The difference is that on the pattern with this disk the corresponding colors are grouped. When you look through the blue filter you'll be looking at the flashing blue bar, use the red filter to look at the red bar, and green filter with green bar.
Looking through the blue filter for example, ideally you would see no flashing on the blue bar. The idea is that in a perfect setup there will be the same amount of blue in the blue, gray, cyan, and magenta. If you look at the DVE pattern you'll see that the area they show being blue through the blue filter is blue, gray, cyan, magenta. The last three are the stripes which flash on top of the blue bar. The other bars are grouped similarly. For example the red bar has gray and the two secondary colors. Red, gray, yellow, magenta all contain red. Again in a perfect setup you wouldn't be able to see much flashing through the red filter when looking at the red bar because you would want the levels to match. Realistically you'll probably always see some bit of difference between the flashing colors on the bar you're looking at through the corresponding filter, because there's only so much that can be done with the user color and tint controls. The easiest control to watch work will probably be color. With color you'll almost certainly see the flashing gray change in relation to the bar. Basic Settings chapter 4 (Flashing color bars) explains how to use color so that blue matches gray. You can do the same for red and green, but each might have a little different color setting. I never figured out how to really set tint with the DVE pattern, but you should see that the flashing colors other than gray on each bar will change when you change the tint control. Most likely with only color and tint controls each filter will not be able to be set perfectly, so the idea is just to get the flashing stripes on each bar to most closely match the bar. Basically try to reduce the flashing and get them to as close a shade as possible. Last edited by alluringreality; 12-16-07 at 06:13 PM.. |
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#25 | Link | |
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Senior Member
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Quote:
Al,
__________________
"Always be yourself...Those that matter, don't mind... Those that mind, don't matter..." |
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#26 | Link |
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AVS Special Member
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Not related to this thread but a great measurement would be to use your patterns on set that has a good CMS, set color using some standard filters to get them all dialed-in and then measure with a good probe. I've always been interested in just how good/bad the filter method is. There are two main difficulties with the filter method, the first is that it has a subjective component in matching intensities but with experience this could be quite small. The second larger problem is that filter passbands do not match the CIE x-bar,y-bar,z-bar functions so you are not calibrating to the right standard, that's the component that will have the larger error. Given the complexity of the z-bar function I would suspect that red will be the largest offender, followed by blue, and then green.
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#27 | Link |
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AVS Special Member
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My plasma (NEC) has a CMS system and after dialing in the primaries/secondaries to pretty much dead on (except for green) the flashing bars when looking through the red/green filters is off. The blue filter is actually the best and where it does work well is for setting saturation.
I'm using a D2 with HCFR so the red problem may simply be due to the known issues with reds and plasmas although the NEC is supposed to have an extra red filter and the picture doesn't look too red after calibation either. |
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#28 | Link | |
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In a van
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Quote:
As far as the filters go... well, not much anyone can do about that. But if you don't have instrumentation, filters and a good pattern should get you a whole lot closer than eyeballing it.
__________________
AVS HD 709 - Free calibration disks The 2007 Patriots: 18 -1 Tom who? "...the small of napalm in the evening breeze, as I crouch behind a shopping cart in the parking lot..." - The Mall Ninja |
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#29 | Link | |
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In a van
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Quote:
Could you quantify how far off it is? That may at least give users an idea of how far off the filter based method is (I would guess it would also vary from filter to filter). If it is off less than 5% or so, I would call that pretty darn good.
__________________
AVS HD 709 - Free calibration disks The 2007 Patriots: 18 -1 Tom who? "...the small of napalm in the evening breeze, as I crouch behind a shopping cart in the parking lot..." - The Mall Ninja |
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#30 | Link | |
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AVS Special Member
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Zoyd,
In relation to our known issue #2 in the original post, do you think it would be beneficial to have a multiburst pattern? I'm just looking for some way that maybe the sharpness control could be set on a SXRD and also the negative effects of the 'enhancement' controls can be looked at. In my opinion both of those things seem to be able to be done with the 2nd pattern on the Sony Blu-rays (7669 enter at the menu) and I'm not sure that a multiburst would address all my concerns and offer an easy way for the average user to look at those controls. Not to mention, that I don't think our current system of going to video could be used. I think I can handle the overscan and centering image, but is there any chance you could offer any ideas in relation to creating a sharpness pattern? I know that a dots or focus pattern (a few white pixels on a black background) can show some differences when adjusting sharpness on my TV, but I don't know that it can be used exclusively to set the control. Anyway, anyone that could provide some technical feedback around creating a sharpness pattern would be appreciated. Any additional comments in relation to observing 'enhancement' controls would also be welcome. Here is basically how I was using the Sony pattern with SXRD http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...60#post9673160 |
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