"High Definition Benchmark" BD Edition by Stacey Spears and Don Munsil - Page 7

Oh wow. I was reading the instruction manual for the disc and it stated to adjust the very same things in the NVIDIA control panel. So now I'm really lost. The pamphlet was pretty clear on how to adjust thing for some settings. But now I don't what I would adjust to get the picture right. What is a montage?

I would leave the graphics card controls alone. They are often too coarse.

The montage is a 3-minute demonstration clip.

So if it's suggested that I leave the graphics card controls alone, what should I be adjusting? I know my questions seem silly but I am on the fence about purchasing this disc. Part of me thinks that this may be a good way to help get the best PQ available from my laptop and my other tv's. The other thinks that maybe this disc is best left to the more highly experienced calibrator.

If you are connecting the laptop to a TV, then adjust the controls in the TV. They often have finer control.

If you are watching on the laptop itself, then adjust the controls on the laptop. Unless you are using an HP laptop with the Dream Color display built into the laptop, that has been calibrated, there is not much you can do with the laptop itself. Most of them have pretty out of what gamma for video. They are for viewing in bright enviroments.

Just a note to say that the S&M disc is the best I've used to date. I used the color filters from the HD DVE disc, and my VW60 has never looked better.

Having the help screens available during the test patterns makes even the most difficult ones easy to use.

Good job!

I have the HP HDX 18t, but how do you know if it's a dream color display? The screen is 1080p designed for watching HD video.

HP will list if your laptop includes the DreamColor display. They charge a premium for it. Here is an example http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en...9-3784202.html

I don't think this has been asked before, but would it be possible to buy a cut-down version of the tests on iTunes to calibrate an AppleTV? I have downloaded a few different SMTPE test patterns and displayed them in the picture viewer, but none of them seem accurate. It would be nice to have a reference PLUGE test and set of colour bars to calibrate to.

Just a thought.

That's a really interesting idea. We'll look into it.

Don

Then if you could get the major satellite and cable companies to play certain patterns on a channel we could calibrate our STBs and be all set. The S&M Channel....

Actually, my TivoHD can get things from my PC as well as Netflix and Amazon. Hmmmm...

larry

Very true - the HDNet test patterns aren't very useful.

Their brightness pattern isn't intuitive. You're more likely to set it wrong than right.

One thing I have noticed is that DishNetworks, a satellite provider, is more consistant from channel to channel than my local cable company.

I have found that the best contrast settings using the dual luma ramp pattern and the color box pattern were when I turned the contrast down to -4 on my BDP (BDP-83) with the display (Pioneer 5020) at 36.

This resulted in the dual luma ramp being very smooth with a thin white band. All the white boxes were visible. The color box pattern showed all the boxes in the red and green, most were clear in the white, but the blue had little detail.

If I leave the BDP at 0 contrast, then the display's contrast setting has little effect. The ramp has a wide white band and no detail shows in the color boxes.

I've looked for a technical solution on the Oppo thread, but I haven't found one. So my question is, by turning down the contrast in the BDP am I somehow cheating the test pattern?

The S&M disc is a mixed blessing. It is so easy to use anyone can find fault with what they thought was perfect. I'll be buying a copy to send to my dad for Father's Day. I love the disc and I love driving my father crazy.

I have a question. I have a Sony rear projection LCD tv that I calibrated years ago using DVE. I recently purchased the oppo bd83. I want to use this disc to tweak some of the video. Should I leave the settings on the tv the way they are and tweak on the BD83? Or should I set the tv back to default settings? Keep in mind that I use this video input for the xbox 360,ps3 and the oppo.

Just received my OPPO BDP-83. Using the disk I find my chroma does not work. I have the Sony 1080i 34XBR970 CRT. This TV has always looked dark as though looking thru a medium Neutral Density camera filter. Your white patterns are just white no adjustment seems to work. The brightness control works but my other TV adjustment is Picture not Contrast, I assume they are the same? Black Crush always come to mind when I turn this set on. PS I have tried all the user controls. Do I need a professional calibrator?

Based on what you're describing, I think the Pioneer is likely clipping off the codes above 235. First thing to check is that you aren't using RGB-PC levels output, because that's guaranteed to clip. If you are, switch to RGB-Video level, or 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 (in the HDMI menu on the Oppo).

Assuming you are using one of the Video-level output formats, when you turn the contrast down on the Oppo, it's mapping the codes from 16-254 into the 16-235 range. If you're using normal (24-bit) color to the display, then that could cause some visual problems. If you're using 30-bit or 36-bit "deep color" then there's nothing really wrong with what you're doing. If your Pioneer accepts 30-bit or 36-bit, it's certainly worth turning it on.

If you are using normal bit depth, then you're squishing 248 levels into 219 codes. If I had to choose, I'd pick leaving the Oppo at contrast 0 and letting the above-reference material be clipped off. I'd definitely explore the Pioneer menus and see if there are any settings that look like they might expand the available range. I'd also see if changing the output color space does anything for you. Try 4:2:2, 4:4:4, and RGB-Video and see if one or another gets the Pioneer to start showing the above-reference stuff.

If you can't get the Pioneer to show the above-reference, it's not the end of the world. The nominal range for video is 16-235, so you should get a watchable picture limiting the video to that range. You might miss a few highlights, and some saturated colors might look slightly less saturated. Every once in a while you might find a disc with serious issues due to clipping the above-reference, but that's rare.

Let us know what your settings are and maybe we can suggest other approaches.

You don't need to reset the TV to the default settings. Just start with the current settings and go ahead and recalibrate using our disc. In theory, you should end up with the same settings as with DVE, but in practice you may end up with slightly different settings. You can also check the settings through the PS3. If you end up with radically different settings between the Oppo and the PS3, go through the settings on both players and make sure that both are using the same color space, that the PS3 has Super White turned on, etc.

If you calibrate color and tint (hue), be sure to read our article about using blue filters to calibrate. We still don't have the S&M blue filters described in the article, but the same theory applies to using the filters that come with DVE.

Here's a link to our article:

http://www.spearsandmunsil.com/artic...ionfilter.html

If the DVE filters won't work for your display (see the article for more), just don't set color and tint until you get your Spears & Munsil filter. They should be sent out automatically once Oppo gets them from the manufacturer. We've seen the samples; they're quite nice if I do say so myself.

I'm not sure what that means. No patterns have any color? Most of the early patterns on the disc are monochrome white, but the Chroma Zone Plate, Chroma Bursts, and Clipping all use color, among others.


The first thing is to set brightness and contrast. Start with the PLUGE Low pattern and set brightness, then use the Contrast pattern to set contrast.


Can you elaborate on that? Which adjustments are you trying? It's possible that the Sony locks out some controls when you connect via HDMI. If so, then it's unlikely you'd need to adjust those controls anyway. There's no real need for a color or tint control over an HDMI connection. They should just be correct out of the gate. And if they're not correct, it's going to require some fiddling in the service menu to correct it.


Yes, on some displays they have a "picture" control that is essentially contrast.


With a CRT set, there is a lot of room for a calibrator to do useful things. Whether you need a pro calibration is really a personal choice. You should be able to get a reasonably acceptable picture using the user controls, just by setting brightness, contrast (picture), color, tint, and sharpness using the disc. Beyond that, a calibrator can do more, like adjusting:

- Focus for all three colors
- Convergence
- Color temperature
- Gain and bias to improve gray tracking
- Gamma

I can't guarantee that a calibration will make a massive difference; your TV may already be in decent shape. The last CRT I owned was pretty good out of the gate, but after an ISF calibration it was amazing. But that was a Toshiba rear projection, and it had lots of room for improvement from the factory settings.

You should also run through the output options on the Oppo, most notably 4:2:2, 4:4:4, and RGB - Video levels. See if one of them gives you a better picture, or better control, than the others.

Thanks for helping me. I seem to have a contrast issue, (whites?) My (picture) adjustment on my Direct view HDTV Sony 34 crt in your clipping loop dont do anything when I adjust picture from minimum to maximum even after trying all the available color spaces as you suggested. In the dynamic high range the flashing vertical bars on the left do nothing for me if I adjust minimum to maximum. Nothing fades all 7 bars keep flashing. Is there someting wrong with my TV? My brightness controls look OK on your tests. But my Contrast has no effect that I can see.

Dave,

Does your display have various picture modes? e.g. Movie, Cinema, Vibrant, etc...? If so, try switching between those and see if they make a difference. On the Kuro, this made a noticable difference. The Panasonic plasma's we recently looked at had another menu option, I think it was called input level. You had to adjust this before adjusting contrast/picture. It was not even located in the same menu.

It is possible that there is a service level contrast control to enable this. If not, you may be stuck with above 235 being clipped.

Thanks for the responce and sorry for the delay.

I can "see" many of the white bars above 235 with the BDP-83's contrast set to 0 but they seem to be more of an artifact (maybe from dither). With these setting the ramp looks pretty bad. The white middle bar is very wide (actually looks like two white bars with gray inbetween).

I tried manually cycling through the video color space settings and this had no apparent effect on the contrast test ramp.

I am using 36bit but have tried 30 and Off with no apparent effect on the contrast test pattern.

The display (PDP-5020FD) is set to Movie mode for night and Game mode for day viewing and these are the modes I am using for the S&M disc.

Below are the best setting on the 5020FD with the BDP-83 set to contrast -3.

Movie mode:
Brightness 0
Contrast 36
Color 0
Tint 3

Game mode:
Brightness 3
Contrast 36
Color 0
Tint 3

I've tried adjusting the BDP-83's contrast during a still BD frame, but increasing the contrast on the BDP seems to wash out the image.

I'm very happy with the settings, but if something is obviously misadjusted I would love to know. Otherwise, I will leave it be.

Different topic, I ordered another copy of S&M from Oppo, and it shipped same day. When are the blue filters expected? Are Oppo BDP-83 buyers going to recieve a free pair? How different are the THX filters?

Thanks for the help.

Love the disc..

Gets 'theblands' Seal of Approval!

Well done.

If you're using 36-bit, then adjusting the contrast on the player is a perfectly fine thing to do, though obviously that calibration won't carry over to other devices attached to the same display.



The blue filters are expected soon. We've seen the samples. Our understanding is that Oppo will send them out when they have them in stock; if that changes we'll post here.

Our filters are different from the THX filters in that ours has a window with one layer of filter material, a window with two layers of filter material, and a score in the center so you can fold the filter over and get three layers of material. Each additional layer makes the filter more selective, so we've found that displays that can't be calibrated with the THX filters (or the DVE filters) can be calibrated with ours.

That said, there are probably displays that can't be calibrated even with three layers of filters. We're trying to come up with a recommendation for a reasonably-priced (< $10) alternative glass filter that should be about as good as you can get. But we still need to do more tests.

COMMENTS
I don't know a lot about display/video calibration. I have always tried to choose displays that have needed very little tweaking, including my Epson Powerlite Home Cinema 400 projector. Usually calibrating the brightness and contrast, results in a very nice picture for me. Using the S&M disc, I have calibrated the brightness and contrast on my projector with very good results... ultimately ending up with the exact factory default settings of what my display refers to as Theater Black 2 mode.

QUESTIONS
Once in posession of the proper filter, is there some type of linerary tutorial or itinerary to follow in calibrating my display?
All of the calibration discs, including the excellent S&M disc, seem to have the proper test patters to use. However there never seems to be any type of instructional procedure to follow in calibrating the display. Like... this is where you start, and this is where you end.

Also, my projector has options for lots of tweaking and calibration... having fine detail adjustment for horizonal, vertical, high band and low band sharpness. How do I go about calibrating this option?

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I'm curious as to why it's ok in 36-bit mode vs not. Doesn't changing the contrast on the player "subtract" something from all the video coming out? What happens when the "lower limit" of contrast is hit (assuming there is one) and it goes to "lower" the contrast?

Which I guess reminds me to ask a more basic question. If you change brightness or contrast in the player is the whole luma range
1-254 affected or just part? e.g. raising brightness only affects 1-120 and contrast some higher range. See what I'm getting at?

larry

Just a thought, why not include the AVS "audio test DVD" contents on a future release of this fine calibration disc?

What's an AVS audio test DVD?

larry

Um, well I dug it up around here somewhere. Maybe it's not an "official" item. I'll see if I can find it again.


Edit: Here it is: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9&page=1&pp=30

We are heading in that direction with our articles. It is going to take a while to get them all written up, but once done you should be able to walk through from start to finish.

Maybe you could do a first pass of very brief articles, then go back and add more detail later. The Brightness article is very thorough, but at that level of detail it'll take forever to finish them all.