Consumer Level Disney World of Wonder (WOW) vs. DVE Blu Ray - Page 2

Thanks again for your comments. We understand the Monocle may take some getting used to.

3D is a great, fun new technology. I am looking at which one to purchase myself at the moment.

I have spent about 30 minutes with the disk and it seems very good. It seems to confirm the video settings I set up with AVSHD and Spears and Munsil. It is nice to have some additional patterns and demonstration clips. It also has audio settings if you need these.

One area where I am still confused is setting contrast. When I set contrast with AVSHD/Spears and Munsil I set it up so all so white levels were visible up to about 252/3. In fact to get the (color) clipping patterns to work correctly on Spears and Munsil I had to reduce contrast some more. However this disk seem to suggest setting ideal white to be the brightest - with whites above this level no longer visible. Not sure which is right.

My picture is still bright with plenty of pop (on a local dimming LG LED LCD).

Edit I would need to set my contrast to 100 so that whites above ideal white are the same as ideal white - that doesn't seem right.

Finally my TV allows me to set blue, red and green filters in the TV - what are the recommended adjustments when using red and green filters?

I just purchased this disc too. I have never tried to calibrate my TV like this before. I always felt it would be to difficult but when I saw the Disney name I felt like I would give it a try. I am very impressed with the package. Seems much more "consumer" oriented but with the "professional" ability to calibrate as you desire. After spending last night working with it I do have some questions. I did start with the beginner settings and then went into advanced.

1. Does backlight affect any settings? I have always been somewhat confused on where this should be set. I worked with it last night set where I normally have it set.
2. Contrast seems to be set at the highest setting. In fact I need to go past 100 to get it exactly right. I am very close though. Is this normal?
3. In the beginner settings my brightness ended up around 44 but with advanced it seems to be needed nearer 51 to match.
4. Seems like I have made my settings quite high. Is this typical? Should I now reduce my backlight to compensate?
5. Sharpness - I do not quite seem to understand. I really do not see much if any difference no matter where it is set. Based upon the information it would seem that this setting needs to be relatively low I moved it down to 25. But again I do not see much difference.

Any other suggestions would be nice. Again well worth the $30.00 to work and learn these things.

I have seen some of this before. Please make sure you turn off ALL of your "Automatic Enhancements" or other features that try to "Enhance" the image. You do not want your HDTV making any adjustments, changes, or decisions on your behalf. We recommend this ion the disc.

Recalibrate after you defeat all of these Auto Modes & Enhancements. Let us know how your results come out after you recalibrate with everything turned off. I think you will see a dramnatic difference, and improvemnt.

In theory, the back light setting on LCD panels is to compensate for room illumination levels. This is due to the eye/brain response in the human visual system to ambient illumination while watching the TV. A brighter ambient requires the higher back light settings. Dark room viewing requires the lower back light settings. Such adjustment affects the appearance of black and shadow details more than the brighter portions of the image.

Unfortunately, the subject of how ambient lighting, room surface colors, and human factors affect perceived picture quality are not discussed much, or at all, in recent programs. Here is a link to a thread that addresses this topic and contains links to additional sources of learning: 'How Viewing Environment Conditions Can Corrupt Or Enhance Your Calibration' . There are helpful details consistently presented in the 'Digital Video Essentials' series from Joe Kane Productions.

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
G. Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.
A Lion AV Consultants Affiliate

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

Thank you for your suggestions. I will give it another try this evening.

You seem to be seeing similar to me



Are you trying to set contrast so everything above "ideal white" is the same shade of white. My sense is this sets contrast too high. I ended up with contrast at 85 using Spears and Munsil Contrast and Clipping tests. On the WOW Advanced Contrast Test I can most the brighter than "ideal white" stars - as it says this shows the headroom of the display. As I said in my quote above with this setting my picture is still bright with plenty of pop (on a local dimming LG LED LCD).


Any suggestions on using the onboard red and green filters with WOW disk?

Hello I am having trouble dialing in the contrast. Anybody have any good tips? Also is there away to see if RGB is clipping or is that not needed. Thanks

Well, I gave this another shot last night. With ALL enhancements off. The only real difference I found is in the sharpness. It needs to be almost to 0 if not 0. Contrast remained at 100 (and this does not quite get it), brightness remained at slightly above normal (51). I do like my picture but I am still confused a little.

Should ALL enhancements always remain off?
Auto Motion (AMP) I am sure is a whole other story. What would you recommend to someone? Leave it off?

Richard, thanks for responding and clarifying about your title. It certainly sounds promising.

However one thing that is available on the DVE disc and has not yet been reported on yours is a reference for 10% illumination, which is useful for setting up bias lighting. Could you confirm whether or not this feature is included on your disc?

Thanks.

I know the A/V Tools are dead on reference level accurate, so the inability to calibrate indicates that there is a problem with your TV Settings.

I had a similar problem with a friends LG TV. I had to hunt around in the menus until I found some black level enhancement on/off option. I can't recall what the actual name of it was, but I turned it off and the TV Calibrated beautifully. I had the same problem with a Sony TV at a friend's house...similar type of thing. There was some kind of enhancement settings that had to be turned off.

Sorry I can't tell you exactly what to look for, but there are too many TV's out there for me to know the menu structure of them ll.

I would love to know if you find out what the problem is and hope to hear back from you if you get it calbrated.

Richard:

I just purchased your disc and could not be happier; having used AVIA and DVE previously, I was thoroughly impressed with WOW's ease of navigation and array of tests.

Could you clarify something you stated in the above quote - do you consider backlighting to be an "Automatic Enhancement" and recommend it be turned down as much as possible prior to calibrating?

I would not call it an automatic enhancement ... it is more like another setting or control. I would set the backlighting for your room condition or viewing environment first and then calibrate your Monitor.

I experienced this when trying to calibrate several Monitors. It turned out to be some auto black level enhancement that is set as a default to ON from the factory. I found the setting in the menu
system, turned it off, and the Monitor calibrated beautifully.

Just got Disney wow today. Only played with it for 10 minutes, as calibrating on my hung sheets would be of little point. Screen is in route. The multiple lines of text that get smaller are great for focus tuning of my hd20 projector. Noticed some nice tools for screen alignment. So far I am happy with my projector, except outdoor scenes seem a bit dreary. Not sure if this is due to the light being lost through the cheap 200 thread count sheets or what. The wall behind the sheet illuminates a good deal so this is my guess.

Here is something I found very useful... On Disney's webpage for the WOW Blu-ray you can download the instruction book that goes with the Disk. As a Newb to home theater I found it very easy to follow and felt it was perfectly targeted at someone like me and will have enough features to let me get a good calibration...
PDF Link here
This manual is a great read for everyone who is not already a AV expert and is helpful even if you do not have the Disk. Ordered mine on Amazon and should be here Monday...

Neat to see the produce of this here on the forums providing insight and support....
That said I do have a couple of questions for Richard.. I am wondering if there is any way to create a test pattern that will allow someone like myself with red/green colorblindness to set the color so it looks correct to persons with normal color vision... One of my favorite websites is http://www.vischeck.com/ their website lets you upload any picture and see it how people with colorblindness see it... keep in mind that when I upload a pic. the original image and the colorblind version look identical obviously. they have a free Photoshop plugin too that will show a colorblind version of your original image and also have a program called Daltonize which will correct a normal image so all the colors will be displayed in a mode that I can see and differentiate all the colors in the image. I wonder if this Daltonize app could be used to create a Colorblind test pattern??? Just think that would be pretty cool to put in a future app and somewhat revolutionary too...

Does the disk have subtitles or Closed Captions? yeah I am Deaf too, I have bi-lateral Cochlear Implants though so I can hear with them.. I am involved in a few research studies on bi-lateral implants as not a lot of people have 2 of them. One of the research studies is focusing on sound localization with bilateral implants so that was one reason i thought it would be fun to get the 7.1 surround sound system... Plus the Audyssey mic setup feature is really cool for someone like me. I am hoping once I get my home theater finished I can convince the research staff folks to come to my home and do some real world testing to create some good maps(programming) on the Implants for listening to surround sound. thus creating some guidelines they can recommend to the profession on how to best program for those types of environments. The variables and complexities of the CI programming strategies would amaze even the most dedicated Audiophile...
Look forward to your response
Thanks
DJ

PS, jus an FYI, I couldn't find the WOW disk on my wife's Disney movie club webpage or Netflix...

Thank you for supporting our efforts by opurchasing Disney WOW - World of Wonder.

I checked out that website you provided....and I sent them an e-mail. This is an interesting concept, but I do not know enough about Color Blindness to provide you with a definitive answer as to whether this would work or not. I will see what the folks at Visicheck have to say.

Regarding Captions / Subtitles. Currently, this is not a feature of this disc. Due to the sheer amount of content on the disc, there is a great deal of work involved. I am not sure I can get that to happen anytime soon.

However, should we decide to do a version in multiple languages down the road, we will surely include English as a subtitle. As of now, we are focused on launching and promoting the US version and have no plans for a multi-lingual version at present time. That said, things do change so we never say never.

I find your concepts interesting as I tend to gravitate towards doing what others do not believe can be done or do not care to try and do....like making a calibration disc that can work for beginner's, enthusiasts, and professionals alike...

A friend of mine wears hearing aid devices in both ears and can actually hear reasonably well. Obviouisly, he is not totally deaf but he cannot hear without these devices.

So, if implant allow someone to hear, the your idea regarding implants may not be as difficult as you might think.

You can currently use software that deals with Head Related Transfer Functions to simulate excellent Surround Sound with Dead-On Accurate Localization.

The best Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) I have ever heard...by far ... is made by Smyth Reserach. The brothers that own this company are the original founders of DTS.

I would think it would be fairly easy to tap in to hearing devices and play back a personalized HRTF using the Smyth Research box.

I know some people at Smyth Research and would be supportive of this testing.

Where are you located?

Best,

Rich

(Mods if this gets too far off topic, feel free to move it to a new thread)
Thanks for your reply. I am in the Colorado Springs, CO area. I go to Denver where Cochlear Americas HQ is for the research. we also spend a couple months each summer in Los Angeles as all our family is there... My wife is a teacher and I am Mr. Mom so I do have some time esp in the summer I would be interested in being involved if you decide to do anything along these lines..

Here is something else you may find interesting. Last summer my folks bought the kids the 3D Crayola sidewalk chalk set. I think there was about 10 different colors with some glasses you wear to make it look 3D. I did a little test making strips of each color on the concrete then had my wife and folks point out the order in which the colors appeared closest to furthest away. I think 3 or 4 of the colors we saw about the same location and the rest appeared much different spacial positions. such as one that was close for them was far away for me.
with the popularity of 3D this brings in some interesting considerations for 3D filming and presentation. Yes I can watch with active or old school Passive 3D glasses and see the image/video in 3D with no problem. But, now I wonder if I see it in a "alternate reality" for lack of a better word... I haven't watched much 3D stuff, but it seems "normal" to me, then again I haven't ever watched it from analytical perspective and compared notes with a person of normal color vision.
When we talk about 8% of the male population having some degree of color vision deficiency research on this could have significant implications.

I do remember my old TomTom GPS had a color setting for Red/Green color blindness for all its mapping and display... Thought that was cool...

As far as audio goes there is whats called an FM loop system that works with the Telecoil setting on Cochlear Impants (CI) and hearing aids(HA) this ties into the sound system and then the Telecoil mode turns off the mic on the CI or HA and then it just picks up the electromagnetic signals given off but the speakers.. The loop system basically is placed in the room and amplifies these signals which the telecoil picks up. as far as I am aware no one has done anything with telecoil and surround sound.

Just a little explanation on the CI. CI has an electrode array impanted in the cochlear that bypasses the entire normal hearing structure and send electrical pulses directly to the auditory nerve.... so getting 22 electrodes to do the work of 10-20,000 hair cells that normally produce the electrical signals sent to the auditory nerve in normal hearing is quite a feat in itself. The research I'm involved in focus on various methods to best accomplish this...

I will have to wait till next Friday or after to listen and use the WOW disk as I will be getting carpet installed in my man cave. right now there is too much echo and reverb from the concrete floors...

My folks visited this past weekend and helped me with the calibration using the WOW DVD. the Beginner setup is useless for me due to the color blind issue, but it turns out that using the blue lens in the advanced chroma and Hue setting works. both my parents with normal color vision and myself adjusted the display to the same settings on the test pattern or differ only by 1 on any of the settings. SO this is a good option for those who have any color vision deficiency.
We also selected the same results when setting the Brightness and contrast under the advanced mode. Didnt bother having them look at the other settings as they really did not deal with color specifically. I set two modes on my Epson 8350, one during the day with the blinds open and "living room" color mode. the second being blacked out using theater mode... the main difference was the color temp of 9300 and 7500 respectively. I disabled all the auto iris etc features before setting the color...
will look at the expert mode sometime down the road.

I ran the contrast setting on my 42" Sharp Aquos Edgelit LED and found that the 3 brightest bars of white on the right side of the pattern never show a distinction they are just one with the ideal white even when I turn the contrast all the way down so it looks grey all the way across... Any ideas why its not showing the 3 diff bars on the right? does backlight have anything to do with it?

Does the WOW DVD recommend a certain # of break in hours prior to calibration or will I be safe after say 100 hours?

Greetings

It's your disc ... use it at 1 minute out of the box ... use it at 10 hours ... 100 hours... 1 year ... when ever you want. The disc will not melt your TV.

Break in stuff matters more if you are hiring a pro.

a disc is not a pro.

regards

There are no specific recommendations like this on the Disney WOW World Of Wonder.

You will not do harm to any of your electronics calibrating your system. If anything, it will help by assuring you are not pushing your system in to clipping. Calibrate both your Audio & Video for starters.

I would also recommend you check your system after 200 hours of use and recalibrate if needed. After that, it is always a good idea to check you system once in a while to assure nothing has drifted.

I do know that my hi-end audio electronics, tube equipment, wires, CD Players, Source Compnoneents, DAC's, and Speakers all require at least 200 hours to break-in and sound their best.

I just want to contribute praise to the makers of the WOW Blu-ray disc. Did a calibration last night on my new (50 hours old) Epson 8350 and am frankly awed by how much better the picture has become in just over an hour of work. Thanks for making the disc so easy to use and for the clear instructions, though I'm still not certain how to adjust gamma, but that might be because the Epson's controls are somewhat confusing.

Glad to see it work for you... I am still trying to figure out the purpose of the color temperature settings myself. I haven't ventured into the expert settings of the dvd yet...

Thank you. We worked very hard to Produce this so your praise is greatly appreciated.

The explanation of Gamma at this link may help:

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/what-...0080511108.htm

Has anyone noticed that when doing the 7.1 audio calibration test the Surround Left and Surround Back left output simultaneously? same goes for the right side.
When the narrator says surround right it comes out of both SR/SBR. I did an audio test with my elite receiver and the speakers are fine so its a bug in the audio I assume.

I believe your receiver may be setup incorrectly somehow. We will check to be sure, but the disc went through the most rigorous QC possible before release.

I will let you know if we find a bug...but I am fairly confident it is not the disc.

i checked with avia ii as well as my receiver test tones and all is fine but when im running the speaker id,phase,etc i hear sound coming out of both surround left and back or right surround and back

i figured it out. the bd secondary audio has to be set to off in the panasonic setup menu. man this is confusing following the manuals instructions.
sorry for making you think there was a disc problem, now i can really enjoy this amazing disc.